The Secret's Out - And It's getting UGLY !!
Episode Stats
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157.26952
Summary
TMZ's Brian Friedman confronts Harvey Levin and Mark Garagos about their false reporting on Justin Baldoni's appeal of his defamation case against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Also, Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour are best friends and all of a sudden they re best friends.
Transcript
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Then Ryan sucker-punches my friend in the face, which ended up breaking his nose.
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Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Kersti Flohr, journalist, Hollywood truth-teller,
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and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion. So many of you have sent me this
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podcast and I've been watching it a few times now and I have to say I'm both happy and pretty
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shocked at the same time. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, TMZ's big boss invited
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Brian Friedman onto his podcast and Justin Baldoni's attorney took the opportunity to confront Harvey
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about all the false reporting that they've been up to. Also a big thank you to everyone for supporting
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Rick Fedrick, the photographer that I had on my show yesterday. He told the mind-blowing story of
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what happened to him after Blake and Ryan decided to go after him. If you missed that,
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you really should go and watch that. And after watching that interview, someone DM'd me on
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Instagram and said, you know, I have a friend who also had a violent experience with Ryan Reynolds.
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You won't believe what happened to this person that ended up with a broken nose.
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Apparently Hollywood is in shock by Blake Lively's demand from last week. I did speak about that a few
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times. She's demanding $161 million in damages and on top of that, punity damages with ends up being
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$650 million. And people in Hollywood are like, does she think she is Beyonce? And we have to talk
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about this crazy GQ interview with Sydney Sweeney, the one that went viral for all the wrong reasons
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and the internet is going wild. And now we know the entire PR spin, the operation that happened behind
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the scenes of the premiere of Stranger Things last week. As you know, Millie Bobby Brown accused
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her co-star David Harbour of harassing and bullying her. And all of a sudden, they were best friends.
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Okay, so let's get into this TMZ podcast. As I said, Justin Baldoni's attorney, Brian Friedman,
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was invited to this podcast. And the podcast is called Two Angry Men. It is Harvey Levin,
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big boss over at TMZ, and this big ass attorney called Mark Garagos that you probably heard about.
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He was representing Michael Jackson, amongst others. So after listening to this podcast a
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couple of times now, my big takeaway is that the reason TMZ asked Brian Friedman to come on their
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show was to pretend that they're not biased. My number one favorite moment from this podcast is
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when Brian Friedman is putting Harvey Levin on the spot, asking him straight to his face,
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why did you report falsely last week about the deadline that was missed? He is referring to
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the breaking story on TMZ, where they said that Justin Baldoni accepted his loss after he missed a
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deadline to appeal. I spoke about it here on my channel, and this is how it went down in the podcast.
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That you think mainstream media, it sounds like what you're saying is they haven't given Baldoni a fair
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shake. I mean, I certainly know on our side, Blake is taking lots of lumps. Yeah, I don't, I haven't
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seen that. I really haven't seen that. What I've seen is things misconstrued, you know, for example,
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on TMZ itself. You saw, you know, you saw it on TMZ, you know, they said that deadlines were blown
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and Justin has walked away from the appeal. He's walked away from his case. He's fine with the
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fact that the case was dismissed. That was on TMZ. That was not true. We messed that up. I agree with
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you. Look, we're not going to say something that we know is not true because it's ultimately going
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to get corrected. We messed that up. Well, you're definitely not going to say that you knew that it
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was untrue and said it. That's for sure. So Harvey's trying to pretend that he's taking some
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kind of responsibility here, but he never responds to how they reported on this story. Did they actually
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read any court documents? Because if they did, they wouldn't have reported on it this way.
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How did you get the story wrong about the appeal? Well, I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus
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in my office. So I don't want names. Can I, can I, can I, I'm going to, well, no, I know. And here's
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the thing. I think it was analyzed wrong. We corrected it, right? There's no, it doesn't,
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it doesn't serve us to put a story up that we end up correcting. We screwed that up. And I, I just
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agree with you. I agree. You, you may, you, you may have screwed it up actually, because what you may
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have done is you may have read deadline. He also claims that they corrected it. They just changed
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the headline and the intro of the story. They didn't put anywhere that this is a correction of
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a previous article. And who's going to read that old article from 48 hours ago after it's been
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corrected? No one. Yes. And no good excuse there from Harvey. Also, he's saying that we haven't been
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biased in our reporting here, which is so ridiculous because I could count for the last,
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like two months. They've been reporting three times on fake stories. One was last week when they said
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that he missed a deadline, which wasn't true. Then they made a big story about this guy who jumped the
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fence over at Travis Kelsey's home at two o'clock in the morning and got arrested after trying to
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subpoena Taylor Swift. Also a lie. They never corrected that story. They even asked Justin Baldoni about the
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incident directly when they met him at the airport. And Justin said, that's just crazy rumors. They
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didn't even report on it. They didn't make a story about that. On top of that, they made a huge fuss
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about Travis Kelsey publishing a podcast talking about sisterhood of the traveling pants. And the article
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said it was a nod at Blake Lively. And they reported on it as if this podcast was just released.
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They did realize that the recording was old and it was just republished. And they did discuss that
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in their newsroom, which they streamed live on YouTube. So you could see that they realized,
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oh, we made a mistake. And how did that happen? And that's why I think it's so suspicious that they're
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being so sloppy with their reporting when they made so many mistakes already in this case.
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Brian Friedman also talks about in this podcast, how the media has twisted, how mainstream media
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has twisted so many things in this case, and how the reporting has not been fair at all. And then
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Harvey Levin is like, well, you know, publicists calls us all the time, and they're not always telling
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the truth. And he said that both parties have contacted us. I've been there on the receiving end
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of the publicists trying to plant stories with us. But there is a big difference here in Baldoni's
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team contacting TMZ and Blake Lively's team contacting TMZ. Because Blake's team has tried
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to plant fake stories about Baldoni. Baldoni on his side has tried to defend himself against these fake
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stories. He has not tried. As far as I know, I've never, ever seen anywhere that Baldoni's team
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has planted a fake story about Blake Lively. We are in the position where we get
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contacted by publicists all over the, you know, all over entertainment. And it's just been funny to me
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that each side has been saying, we're clean, the other side isn't. Both sides have been doing this
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stuff. And I know it because I've been the recipient of those phone calls.
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Yeah, you really should go and watch the entire podcast. It's really interesting when they also go
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into depth about how publicists work, how they're shopping around their stories. And Brian Friedman is
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asking Harvey, when a publicist is telling you something, what do you do to verify that story?
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And then also Harvey says that, you know, they're saying they have sources close to the person
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and they want us to report it on it anyway. And if we say no, they just go to someone else.
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Basically, he was trying to pretend that they're always checking their sources. So my question then
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would be, what sources did you check before you publish the story of that guy jumping the fence
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to subpoena Taylor Swift? Because as we know, the content creators were the ones who actually found out
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quickly that that story was not true. TMZ and all the other outlets just referred to the reporting
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in Star, which is not a very reputable media outlet. But they still reported on it. They didn't have
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any sources for that story. So I'm not buying any of these lame excuses from TMZ for reporting falsely
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on this story. Brian Friedman also mentions in this podcast, the power that Blake and Ryan has
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in the industry and amongst the players. And we already know that. And we also know that that is
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one of the reasons that the mainstream media have been reporting on this in a very biased way.
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Again, one more thing that Harvey said that really annoyed me. He was comparing this case to Johnny Depp
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versus Amber Heard. And he said, this is a he said, she said kind of situation, which I strongly
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disagree with. This is nothing like that case. First of all, we have to remember that the incidents
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here that Blake is referring to in her CRD complaint that happened on the set, allegedly that he was
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S-aging her. There were a lot of people who could have witnessed that. There were a lot of people on
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that set at all times. There were crew members, photographers, cameramen, makeup artists. There
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were people everywhere in the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard case. Things happened in their private
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life. This is not something that happened in someone's private life. Also, Harvey was trying to
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like reduce this to something like, oh, if the jury hears one side of this story and the other side of
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the story, it's going to be just like, well, he said this and she said this. And the jury is just
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going to be like, oh, you're just all guilty. You both were doing that case. You know, you end up
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getting the verdict because the jury just doesn't want to give money to anybody because both people
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were playing the game. Yeah, it's so fascinating to me that Harvey is an attorney and also an editor
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of this huge news site. And this is the way that he reads this lawsuit. Yeah, this entire podcast did
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not convince me that we can trust anything that we read or see on TMZ because this was just an
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attempt from TMZ to pretend that they're not biased because I think they've been receiving a lot of
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criticism. I see every time they post something on Instagram, a lot of people are jumping on
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criticizing them and they're losing their credibility. And this was a way for them to try
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and fix that. It did not work. But I'm so happy that Brian Friedman came on and set the record
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straight here. And he also ended this conversation by saying that he is really looking forward to the
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trial. And for the first time in over a year, we will actually hear Justin Baldoni's version of events
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that he's really looking forward to. And he said at this point, they haven't decided about the appeal yet.
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It all depends on how the trial goes, because most likely they will not have a chance to appeal until
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after this trial because they have to wait for the judge to rule on Blake Lively's attorney's fees
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before they do that. Yeah, if you have time, you should really go and watch that entire episode.
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It's really fascinating. Anyways, as I said in my intro, I did have someone contacting me and said that
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something happened to their friend involving Ryan Reynolds. So I'm going to read this DM that she
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sent me. I lived in Vancouver for 12 years before moving to Australia. In the fall of 1999,
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Ryan and his group of friends tried to gatecrash slash get into a function that was sold out along
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with being at max capacity for the number of people in the festival. Ryan started yelling at the doorman,
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swearing at him and saying, do you know who I am? I'm on the TV show Two Guys and a Girl.
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The doorman wouldn't let them come in. My friend went up to the door to help because most of the staff
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working there were from a rugby club. Anyhow, lots of pushing and shoving happening. Then Ryan
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sucker punches my friend in the face, which ended up breaking his nose. Ryan and his friends started to
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leave were laughing and saying, Ryan knows people around here and don't bother going to the cops.
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Also at the time, my friend had just lost his mom. Yeah, stories like these keep popping up about
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Ryan Reynolds. And this story also supports what Rick Fadig was emphasizing yesterday in my interview
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with him where he said that Ryan's brother is a policeman and that he had a lot of influence
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in how his whole case was treated by the police. Anyway, people in Hollywood are apparently not very
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impressed by Blake Lively saying that she lost 161 million in earnings after or over it ends with us
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the scandal. So the journalist, Rob Schroeder, is quoting some people from the industry saying here
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she's talented. Sure. Laughs one studio executive saying, but 161 million? Blake's not pulling Marvel
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money. Ryan's the brand, not her. And he continues here saying that insiders are not buying this.
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Even her biggest movie didn't gross that much, says one agent. This feels more like ego than economics.
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Industry chatter suggests the filing robbed Hollywood the wrong way. She's acting like a mogul when she's
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a mid-tier at best, says one producer. People are whispering. She thinks she's Beyonce? And then
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apparently a close friend of Blake Lively is saying that she's embarrassed. This is about pride. And then
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apparently one rival quipped, if Blake's really worth 161 million, then I'm the next Barbie.
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Yeah, let's face it. She's never, ever going to see any of that money. And as I said last week,
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this is just a small amount of what she's actually asking. These are the actual damages she's asking
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for. And on top of that, she's asking for triple punitive damages. So all of this ends up to be
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about 650 million dollars. It's such a joke. Okay, so we have to get into this Sidney Sweeney interview.
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For me as a journalist, when I watch things like this, maybe I cringe more than other people.
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But this interview, the setup of this interview is what really fascinated me. Because this journalist
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had a mission when she sat down with Sidney Sweeney. And that was to trap her into feeling
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guilty about that American Eagle jean commercial. And also to get her to admit that she's a Republican
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and that she supports Donald Trump. But she messed up big time. I'm not going to talk about the politics
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here. I stay away from all of that. But I do want to comment on this from a journalistic perspective
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here. When you look at the body language of this reporter, and her sneaky little smile all the time,
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and the way she never looks at Sidney while she's asking a question, that is just a recipe for disaster.
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Is there something that you want to say about the ad itself? The Sidney Sweeney has great genes. Do you
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have... The ad spoke for itself. You think the ad spoke for itself. Okay. And the criticism of the
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content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate, like white people
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shouldn't joke about genetic superiority. Like that was kind of like the criticism, broadly speaking.
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And since you are talking about this, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that
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specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.
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I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I wanted to give you an
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opportunity to talk about it. Like who are you? I am giving you this opportunity. Like Sidney Sweeney
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doesn't have an opportunity to talk about this whenever she wants to. She has her social media
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account. She can call any outlet and come out with some kind of comments on this. But the way she's
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trying to spin this is like, I'm doing you a favor by sitting here and asking you these questions.
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She's not. So it was so clear from the beginning of this GQ interview that the reporter felt like she
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was more noble and she was more politically correct than Sidney Sweeney. And she wanted to trap her into
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saying something that she could spin a headline from. The president tweeted about the jeans ad or
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truth socialed about the jeans ad. And that just seems to me like a very crazy moment for anyone.
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And I wondered what that was like. It was surreal. It was surreal. And it would be totally human.
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I would probably feel like thankful that somebody had my back in public, you know, and conveniently,
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some very powerful people had my back in public. And I wondered if if you felt that way.
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And then she's like, oh, the president supported you in a tweet. How did that make you feel?
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Yeah, it's terrible from a reporter to show your political views in an interview. You're not supposed
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to do that. You're supposed to be objective here. She can have all those opinions, but don't show it
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because that makes you really unprofessional. And I bet that after this interview, the reporter was
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like, yeah, I got her. Like, no, you didn't. You just made a big fool of yourself. And if you read the
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comments on that video, you can see everyone is like, wow, this was terrible. This reporter is awful.
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It looks like an HR meeting and not like an interview. Her smirky smile. She's a real Karen.
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You can put a politician on the spot like that where they had to defend their choices that they made
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on behalf of the public. But you can't put a celebrity on the spot like that and then think that you're
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actually going to get a good answer. That will never happen. But watching the tension in that interview
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between these two women, oh my God, if you need a cringe on a Sunday, go and watch that entire
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interview on GQ on YouTube. And there's some news in regards to this crazy, weird, strange,
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Stranger Things premiere that happened last week. Everyone was like, what is going on here?
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If you follow this a little bit, Billie Burbey Brown accused her co-star, David Harbour,
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And looking like the best friends ever. So according to Rob Shooter's newsletter,
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insiders say Netflix was running a full-blown crisis operation. It says here the premiere
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wasn't just a red carpet, it was a PR intervention. Brown and Harbour appeared side by side at the event
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as we saw laughing and hugging. A photo op, insiders said, was staged. They knew one smiling image
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could end weeks of bad headlines, says a publicist. Pre-approved talking points, we're family.
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Oh my God, I've heard that so many times. Oh, and they said we were just family and it felt so safe and
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blah, blah, blah. Have you heard that before? Yes. So that was the talking point they were told to say.
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And statements from the Duffer brothers about safe and happy. That were the words that were supposed to
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use in the interviews. The message was unity and closure, says the source. Netflix fears the scandal
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could overshadow the show's finale and derail future spin-offs. There's too much money on the line,
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says one executive. They had to bury it fast. Yeah, as always, money talks. Also, it says there that
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Millie Bobby Brown was consulted every step of the way. Nothing was done behind her back. Apparently,
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Netflix choreographed everything on that carpet, down to all the little details of the arrivals,
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the routes they were going to walk, the photo ops, to ensure comfort and calm. She's the face of the
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franchise, says the producer. Her voice mattered. Insider insists that there are no secret feuds,
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just boundaries, business and professionalism. Yeah, another great example of how the Hollywood
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machinery works, how the PR crisis management teams are working so hard behind the scenes
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to try and gaslight the public. Anyway, that's it from you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode
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and thanks for watching. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do hit the notification bell
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so you never miss an episode of Flawsome Talk. And I'll see you soon. Bye!
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