Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - June 27, 2025


Ep 5： Hollywood’s Golden Men — and the Wreckage They Leave Behind


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

169.11136

Word Count

3,428

Sentence Count

301

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

In this episode, I talk about the 4 most powerful movie stars in Hollywood: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Johnny Depp. They all have a lot in common: they are in their 50s, they re in their 60s, and they re a mess.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This January on Paramount Plus, it began on the shores of New Jersey.
00:00:04.900 Now, a new pack emerges in the great white north.
00:00:09.260 Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount Plus.
00:00:19.780 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk, the podcast.
00:00:24.060 Every Friday, I post these episodes on YouTube and on Spotify, Apple, iHeart and Amazon,
00:00:30.860 where I talk about other things that I usually talk about on my YouTube channel,
00:00:34.700 which is the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni Legal Feud.
00:00:38.200 So if you're very interested in that, go to my YouTube channel.
00:00:41.240 I post about that every single day.
00:00:43.220 But here on this podcast, I talk about other things that I find interesting about Hollywood.
00:00:47.800 And this episode is dedicated to the male movie stars.
00:00:53.740 I realized the other day, I was watching a video with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
00:00:59.780 The two of them hugging it out on the red carpet.
00:01:02.660 And everyone was like, oh my God, look at them.
00:01:04.860 They're together.
00:01:05.760 They're the biggest movie stars in the world.
00:01:07.740 And I was thinking, what do these guys have in common?
00:01:11.360 Except that they're big movie stars.
00:01:13.580 Their personal lives are a big mess.
00:01:15.620 And then I started realizing, when you look at all the biggest movie stars we have today,
00:01:20.260 of the male movie stars, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp.
00:01:27.420 What do they all have in common?
00:01:29.260 They're in their 50s.
00:01:30.540 They're in their 60s.
00:01:32.300 And they're a mess.
00:01:34.740 I mean, we love them.
00:01:36.300 We admire them.
00:01:38.000 They're super famous.
00:01:39.260 They have so much power.
00:01:40.980 They have so much charisma.
00:01:42.880 Now, I've met all of these guys and I have to say, I've been swooned by all of them.
00:01:48.440 They all know how to charm someone.
00:01:50.940 They all know how to show the best sides of themselves when they're in the press.
00:01:55.760 They all have this star power that you can feel when you're around them.
00:02:00.600 Tom Cruise is in his 60s.
00:02:03.040 He can hang from a plane mid-flight, but he hasn't seen his daughter in 11 years.
00:02:08.420 Brad Pitt reportedly does not have contact with any of his six kids.
00:02:14.420 Johnny Depp's addiction battles have been played out in court.
00:02:18.940 It was devastating to watch what his life was really like with Amber Heard and also Leonardo DiCaprio.
00:02:25.860 He can't date a woman that's over 25 years old and all he cares about is partying on yachts or playing Candy Crush.
00:02:33.520 So why are these men the most powerful movie stars that we have today?
00:02:39.660 These four men, I think, are the four names that can actually still kind of sell a movie just by their names.
00:02:49.380 In the old days, you know, we used to go to the movie theaters to watch the newest Leonardo DiCaprio movie
00:02:55.560 or the newest Tom Hanks film or the newest Will Smith movie.
00:02:59.000 We didn't even refer to the movie's names.
00:03:01.620 We were just saying, have you seen the last Brad Pitt movie?
00:03:04.580 Have you seen the last Tom Cruise movie?
00:03:06.300 Very few people in Hollywood can do that.
00:03:09.320 This is what Hollywood calls bankable, a bankable name.
00:03:13.520 Not many names are bankable anymore.
00:03:16.100 But these guys would draw audiences just by their names.
00:03:20.580 Here's the thing.
00:03:21.480 I think it's so easy to just fall for their charm.
00:03:24.920 They have, all of them have played characters that we fell in love with.
00:03:28.460 Tom Cruise has this massive aura when he enters a room.
00:03:32.200 I've met him a few times.
00:03:33.680 I have showed on my YouTube channel when I met him on the red carpet and I hugged him or I asked him if he was a good hugger.
00:03:41.320 He hugged me.
00:03:42.080 There was a moment there which, you know, I was super excited about because I was like, wow, I got a hug from the biggest movie star in the world.
00:03:49.680 And then it's really easy to forget that Tom Cruise is a member of Scientology Church, which is a cult that hurt a lot of people.
00:03:59.680 And we all remember what happened with Katie Holmes.
00:04:02.360 If I remember right, I think she planned for months her exit out of her relationship or her marriage with Tom Cruise.
00:04:09.840 She wanted, of course, to bring her daughter Suri with her.
00:04:12.920 And it was really an escape plan to get out of the cult and to get out of the grip of Tom Cruise.
00:04:18.880 And Tom Cruise has not seen his daughter in 11 years.
00:04:22.500 But still, we love him.
00:04:24.940 We go to watch his movies.
00:04:26.420 And all he says in every interview, if you watch interviews with Tom Cruise, this is what you're going to hear.
00:04:32.140 He would say, I love storytelling.
00:04:35.440 I love making movies.
00:04:38.100 All I ever wanted to do was to make movies.
00:04:41.320 I want to make the audience happy.
00:04:44.460 I do this for the audience.
00:04:46.760 He's like a repeat robot in every single interview.
00:04:50.620 He said the exact same things when I met him on the red carpet.
00:04:54.380 That's why I wanted to ask him something different to get some kind of reaction from him.
00:04:58.280 So he would snap out of his robot mode.
00:05:00.420 And, of course, he talks about his stunts, which is his whole gig.
00:05:04.940 He is doing his own stunts.
00:05:06.660 And that's become his trademark.
00:05:08.280 And that's why a lot of people chose to go and watch his movies.
00:05:11.380 His latest Mission Impossible movie wasn't that successful, though.
00:05:15.980 But still, Tom Cruise is a major, major movie star.
00:05:21.720 And as I said, when he met Brad Pitt on the red carpet the other day,
00:05:25.620 everyone went crazy.
00:05:27.360 And they're like, look at them.
00:05:28.840 And, of course, people were excited about this because they hadn't seen them together for 30 years
00:05:33.860 since The Vampire Diaries.
00:05:36.980 And apparently there was a feud between them.
00:05:39.580 Brad Pitt didn't like working with Tom Cruise.
00:05:41.820 He thought he was controlling.
00:05:43.320 And he didn't like the way he was acting on set.
00:05:47.180 So he said that he never wanted to work with him again.
00:05:49.900 Anyways, when they were back together now, everyone was like,
00:05:52.660 oh, wow, this is a big moment in history to see them together.
00:05:56.680 So, yeah, let's talk about Brad Pitt.
00:05:59.000 I mean, who didn't fall in love with him in Legends of the Fall?
00:06:03.300 I watched that movie, I think, seven times.
00:06:06.000 He plays a character called Tristan.
00:06:08.380 And he's, I mean, he's this troubled soul that a lot of women, we recognize it and we see it.
00:06:15.000 And we're like, oh, I want him and I want to fix him.
00:06:18.080 Fight Club, the coolest guy ever.
00:06:20.880 Seven, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
00:06:22.480 There's so many good Brad Pitt movies.
00:06:24.520 And interestingly enough, when he left Jennifer Anderson, who he's married to, for Angelina Jolie,
00:06:32.320 Brad Pitt got out of that without being harmed really much.
00:06:36.500 It was all about how Angelina Jolie was the homewrecker.
00:06:39.960 No one put the blame on Brad Pitt.
00:06:41.980 He was actually the one that was cheating and leaving his wife for someone else.
00:06:46.980 Still, Angelina Jolie was the bad one.
00:06:51.060 Then, fast forward, when his marriage to Angelina Jolie started falling apart,
00:06:56.260 there was this incident that we all heard about on the plane.
00:06:59.560 And Brad Pitt admitted that he was drunk on this plane.
00:07:02.840 But he didn't admit to anything else than that, that he wasn't violent towards his kids or anything like that.
00:07:08.500 But then there was an FBI report coming out that leaked to the press that said otherwise that he had been pushing Angelina.
00:07:17.980 He had poured red wine on her.
00:07:19.940 He had poured beer on his kids.
00:07:21.900 He'd been slapping.
00:07:23.300 I think it was Maddox.
00:07:24.940 Angelina Jolie had to hid in the bathroom for a while.
00:07:28.180 She was one of her kids tried to pull him away from Angelina.
00:07:32.360 It was a big mess.
00:07:34.380 And to me, when I read about that, I was like, I don't want to believe this.
00:07:37.420 I really don't want Brad Pitt to be that kind of person.
00:07:41.120 And the thing is, we don't know what happened on that plane.
00:07:44.360 But I feel like Angelina Jolie wouldn't make all those things up.
00:07:48.140 I also have to admit that I have a soft spot for Angelina Jolie.
00:07:51.480 She's one of those people.
00:07:52.480 I've met her many times.
00:07:54.680 And she has this warmth and intelligence and presence about her that makes me just like really like her.
00:08:02.180 But I don't know anything about these people in their personal lives.
00:08:05.760 So I can't say that she's a good person.
00:08:08.300 He's a bad person.
00:08:09.360 All I can base my things on are my experience meeting them and what I read about them in the press.
00:08:15.580 Still, we forgave Brad Pitt.
00:08:19.000 Again, after all of this, he said that, oh, he went to rehab.
00:08:23.320 He changed.
00:08:24.120 He did.
00:08:24.520 I think it was in GQ.
00:08:25.860 He gave this big interview where he talked about all his regrets.
00:08:28.620 And he was a changed man.
00:08:30.040 And everyone was like, yay, Brad Pitt.
00:08:32.120 He did something smart.
00:08:33.720 He went away for a little while.
00:08:35.400 And then he came back and he said that, you know, I have worked on myself.
00:08:41.120 You know, kind of what Will Smith did back in the day after he slapped Chris Rock.
00:08:46.380 Yeah.
00:08:46.840 And the times that I've sat down and interviewed Brad Pitt, you know, he has this thing about it.
00:08:52.000 He has this boyish charm about him.
00:08:54.420 And, of course, he's a very good looking man.
00:08:58.040 He still is.
00:08:59.500 And as a woman, I feel like, I don't know, I just love watching him on screen as well.
00:09:06.060 Then there's Johnny Depp.
00:09:07.980 I mean, for all of you guys who watched him during the trial with Amber Heard, he seems like such a broken soul.
00:09:16.660 And he's such a vulnerable man.
00:09:19.660 And he's kind of, he was portrayed as the victim in that.
00:09:23.900 And as I said so many times, my experiences with Johnny Depp when I met him, when I've interviewed him, has always been so lovely.
00:09:33.320 He is one of those few people who gets out of his chair to greet people when they enter the room to interview him.
00:09:39.720 He's one of those few people who gives people hugs, even though you don't know him.
00:09:43.180 I just really have a soft spot for Johnny Depp.
00:09:46.100 But I don't know what happened between those walls when him and Amber Heard were having those big fights.
00:09:53.980 I mean, of course, we got to learn a lot about how messy everything was.
00:09:58.100 And, of course, we all got to see how he struggles with addiction and where it comes from, his childhood and all those things.
00:10:05.620 That makes us even feel more for him.
00:10:08.300 And I saw this interview, I don't know if you saw the interview he did in Sunday Times last Sunday, where he talked about his childhood a little bit.
00:10:17.660 He talked about Amber Heard and how it all affected him and how he didn't regret any of this.
00:10:24.220 And during that interview, he also was pouring alcohol to the journalist.
00:10:28.300 He was the journalist was describing all the different drinks that Johnny Depp served him.
00:10:34.220 So he obviously hasn't worked on that part of his problem yet.
00:10:38.600 But I am still so forgiving towards Johnny Depp.
00:10:41.780 And I do believe that Amber Heard was lying in court.
00:10:45.080 I'm not going to say anything else than that.
00:10:46.780 But I also do believe that Johnny Depp has some serious issues that he should be working on.
00:10:51.420 Now, there's talk that he's having a big comeback, and I really applaud that.
00:10:57.320 I think he deserves it.
00:10:58.900 He also talked about how disappointed he was in people who didn't stand up for him, which I completely understand.
00:11:05.640 It was a really heartfelt interview.
00:11:07.640 And if you haven't read it, I would suggest go and read that in Sunday Times.
00:11:11.560 And then, of course, we have Leonardo DiCaprio, who is very he's controlled his image pretty well.
00:11:18.700 I don't know what it is with him, but he cannot have a relationship with a woman that's over 25 years old and usually tall, blonde model.
00:11:28.060 And he seems like he has this real big issue with actually becoming a grown-up.
00:11:35.120 And maybe that's why he keeps dating younger and younger girls.
00:11:38.560 One of my neighbors in L.A., she told me she knows one of his ex-girlfriends.
00:11:42.340 And she said that all he wanted to do was basically go party and play Candy Crush all day long.
00:11:50.100 So here's the big question.
00:11:51.820 Why are we excusing their behavior all the time?
00:11:55.700 Or worse, why are we admiring it?
00:11:58.320 As a woman, I think maybe if I'm talking from my perspective, I've kind of always loved a broken man.
00:12:05.160 I think it's in our instinct that when we see a broken man, we're like, oh, maybe I can fix him.
00:12:10.660 And that's why a lot of women end up with the bad guys until they realize that the bad guys are not good to live with.
00:12:18.060 You need to find a man that's really kind to you.
00:12:20.620 I still fall for the bad guys in movies, but luckily I don't do that in real life anymore.
00:12:25.680 Hollywood knows this and they're selling us this fantasy as well.
00:12:30.200 This fantasy of redemption and the fantasy that all these broken men just needs to find the right woman to save them.
00:12:37.960 But most of the time, these men, especially these four, don't change, but they do get forgiveness.
00:12:46.300 As I said, I'm guilty myself of being starstruck by all these men.
00:12:50.840 And maybe that's also why I would always kind of defend them.
00:12:54.600 When I see something bad about them in the press, I'm like, oh, but you know, he's a troubled soul.
00:13:00.300 Oh, but you know, he's had a bad childhood.
00:13:03.020 Oh, you know, he's gone through a horrible time and, you know, all these things.
00:13:08.200 And I kind of root for them.
00:13:10.360 Anyways, before I talk more about that, I just wanted to share a quick message from the sponsor of this video, BetterHelp.
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00:14:49.440 Okay, so let's talk more about why we love these guys so much and why we keep forgiving them.
00:14:54.680 It's not only women who admire and look up to and adore these men.
00:15:00.380 Men do as well.
00:15:02.160 Because some men admire these things.
00:15:04.140 They admire the fame, the wealth, the access to women, the global respect that these guys have.
00:15:10.400 And that they can act without really having any consequences.
00:15:14.420 Even when they screw up, they bounce back.
00:15:16.920 There's some kind of wishful fantasy around that.
00:15:20.260 To watch someone who gets to live without apology.
00:15:22.980 Like Tom Cruise, he stands for control, discipline, dominance.
00:15:27.840 Brad Pitt, he's cool, wounded, hyper-sexualized, rebel.
00:15:32.000 DiCaprio, eternal youth, intellectual power, detachment.
00:15:36.280 Johnny Depp, outsider, artist, tortured, genius.
00:15:40.140 They each tap into different male fantasy archetypes.
00:15:43.260 And for many men, that is compelling.
00:15:45.320 They're like living avatars of what society tells men that they should want to be.
00:15:50.460 Men admire winners.
00:15:51.720 These guys don't only win Oscars, they have billion dollar franchises, massive fanbases.
00:16:00.040 They have cultural relevances over decades.
00:16:03.340 They date younger women, which a lot of men like to do.
00:16:06.700 They walk away from family responsibilities without even getting judged for it.
00:16:11.940 They live in mansions and they never apologize.
00:16:15.060 They're reckless, but they're still adored.
00:16:17.720 For some men, that isn't even problematic.
00:16:20.720 It's aspirational.
00:16:22.380 In a culture where many men kind of feel silenced and disempowered,
00:16:26.560 this becomes strangely heroic.
00:16:29.780 So why is this type of masculinity celebrated?
00:16:32.900 I think Hollywood loves the idea of a troubled genius.
00:16:36.900 The man who's so brilliant but broken.
00:16:39.420 tortured but talented, wounded but worth it.
00:16:43.520 Hollywood rewards men who show strength on screen but collapse in private.
00:16:50.060 Because we really don't want vulnerability.
00:16:53.320 We just want the illusion of it.
00:16:55.540 Brad Pitt can play the wounded father.
00:16:58.000 Tom Cruise can save the world.
00:16:59.760 But when it comes to actually showing up for their kids, they vanish.
00:17:04.520 Meanwhile, the industry protects them.
00:17:07.340 Publicists clean up their mess.
00:17:09.560 Fans defend them.
00:17:11.280 And women like Angelina Jolie and Katie Holmes are often left to pick up the pieces while being
00:17:16.520 labeled difficult.
00:17:17.740 It's kind of ironic when you think about it.
00:17:19.960 The very drive that makes someone a movie star.
00:17:23.100 The obsession, the ego, the hunger is often what destroys their ability to maintain a personal
00:17:30.580 life.
00:17:31.120 Tom Cruise hasn't seen his kids in 11 years.
00:17:34.040 Brad Pitt allegedly doesn't have much relationship with his kids.
00:17:38.760 Some of them refuse to see him.
00:17:41.620 Leonardo DiCaprio, who doesn't even have kids.
00:17:44.080 Johnny Depp, on the other hand, does seem to have a good relationship with his kids.
00:17:48.360 But his personal life is pretty unhinged.
00:17:51.180 So why do we rush to the movie theaters to see these guys?
00:17:54.780 Why do we still admire them?
00:17:56.740 Is this the biggest lie that Hollywood is telling us?
00:17:59.480 We're saying, he's a great actor, though.
00:18:02.180 He's just complicated.
00:18:03.700 Don't judge his personal life.
00:18:05.740 You have to separate the artists from their personal life.
00:18:08.780 Maybe we should judge a little bit.
00:18:10.500 Or maybe we should just stop pretending that it doesn't matter.
00:18:13.720 Maybe we keep forgiving this man because we need to believe that greatness excuses damage.
00:18:19.240 That power justifies absence.
00:18:21.900 That success means sacrifice.
00:18:24.040 But if we're being honest, that says more about us than it says about them.
00:18:28.240 We're not just watching a performance on screen.
00:18:30.400 We are participating in one.
00:18:32.520 We call them movie stars, icons, legends.
00:18:36.180 But maybe the more accurate word is haunted.
00:18:39.500 Because these men, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio, have one thing in common.
00:18:47.280 They can't keep a relationship.
00:18:49.340 They can win Oscars.
00:18:50.340 They can hang off planes.
00:18:51.780 They can seduce the camera.
00:18:53.420 They can reinvent themselves on screen.
00:18:55.720 But off screen, they're alone.
00:18:58.240 What makes most people fulfilled in life isn't fame.
00:19:01.420 It isn't money.
00:19:02.420 It isn't attention.
00:19:03.820 It is a meaningful relationship.
00:19:06.800 It is family.
00:19:07.900 It is connection.
00:19:08.700 The people who see you without makeup, without lighting, without applause.
00:19:13.120 So maybe we need to ask this.
00:19:15.200 Did they sacrifice happiness to sell us an illusion?
00:19:18.520 An illusion that they're everything.
00:19:20.460 They're unstoppable.
00:19:21.580 They're untouchable.
00:19:22.660 Eternal.
00:19:23.380 But when the cameras stop rolling, what's left?
00:19:25.680 They've played a thousand characters, but they never figured out how to be themselves.
00:19:31.560 How to be a person that loves themselves.
00:19:34.080 And maybe, just maybe, the real cost of becoming a Hollywood star is forgetting how to be a human.
00:19:41.320 Thank you so much for listening, you guys.
00:19:44.500 I really appreciate that you stopped by my channel on YouTube or wherever you're listening on whatever platform.
00:19:50.300 Please send me feedback.
00:19:51.460 You can either email me, flawsometalk at gmail.com or go on Instagram at my Instagram, sashtifloh.
00:19:58.820 Or if you're on YouTube, you can leave a comment and I'll see you next Friday.
00:20:04.340 Or I'll see you on my YouTube channel where I post, as you know, every single day.
00:20:09.480 So, yeah, take care and subscribe and have a wonderful weekend.
00:20:15.520 Bye.