The Megyn Kelly Show - August 13, 2026


Ariana Grande Is Being FAILED by Those Around Her, Meghan Markle ESCALATES Feud with Martha Stewart, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1379


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 40 minutes

Words per minute

168.63

Word count

16,982

Sentence count

955

Harmful content

Toxicity

51

sentences flagged

Hate speech

19

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:27.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:39.080 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Thursday.
00:00:43.120 So many stories in the news this week that are perfect for my guest today.
00:00:46.560 There's Meghan Markle, reportedly snubbed by yet another celebrity, and now apparently at war with Martha Stewart.
00:00:54.080 When will she get the message?
00:00:55.700 Plus, Oprah is shutting down her school in South Africa and appearing with Stedman for
00:01:00.860 the first time in almost seven years, as all close relationships, you know, do.
00:01:07.360 Eventually, you will be seen together after seven years.
00:01:11.620 It'll happen.
00:01:12.580 Here with me for the full show to comment on those stories and many others is Maureen
00:01:17.360 Callahan.
00:01:17.920 She is host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan.
00:01:20.360 That's on the MK Media Podcast Network.
00:01:22.180 You can subscribe on YouTube and on all podcast platforms. Just go in there and type in The Nerve
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00:02:48.080 Maureen, so good to see you, my friend.
00:02:49.880 It's so good to see you, Megan.
00:02:51.360 I wish I was there with you in person.
00:02:53.580 I'm so sorry.
00:02:54.960 This like summer bronchitis has got me down.
00:02:58.500 Yeah, you've been battling it.
00:02:59.920 I've been listening to it on the nerve
00:03:01.200 as you've been going kind of steadily downhill
00:03:02.940 and your loyal listeners have been telling you to take some time.
00:03:07.260 So I wasn't even sure if you're going to make it today.
00:03:09.000 Thank you for doing the duty.
00:03:10.100 Oh my God, I'm so glad.
00:03:11.440 I was just saying to Allison, one of your book, your booker, I had this stress dream yesterday.
00:03:17.080 I took a nap and I thought I was going to go down for like 30 minutes. It was two hours. And I woke
00:03:21.120 up completely disoriented. I didn't know what day it was. I didn't know how I got on the couch.
00:03:26.840 And then I was like, did I sleep through Megan? Did I sleep through going on Megan? It was awful.
00:03:33.880 That is the worst. So we have to start with Oprah. I think she dragged Stedman out for you.
00:03:39.640 i think teddy van halen was on the case that's maureen's dog who she's been on she has sicked
00:03:46.000 him on the case of finding he runs homicide and i think this is a huge victory uh it's a huge
00:03:50.700 victory for him i i listen megan i would i'm gonna be a little bit more conservative in this
00:03:55.500 appearance uh it's steadman like it's a still photo we have no actual video or audio of him
00:04:05.420 speaking i you know i was discussing this with teddy yesterday and we both agree we need a proof
00:04:10.700 of life video with like you know a newspaper day and date um because this is this is too convenient
00:04:18.480 for me i i i just i love it though i love it this was right after we did our mini on why
00:04:26.900 wondering openly why oprah's closing her uh oprah winfrey leadership academy for girls in south
00:04:32.680 Africa. And, uh, one or two days later we were dragging them out. Yeah. I know. She's like,
00:04:39.960 don't pay any attention to my girl's school closing. Well, here's Stedman. This ought to
00:04:44.700 satisfy Maureen Callahan. There is a tiny bit of video of Stedman here in SOT6. Let's blink and
00:04:52.100 you'll miss it. So stay, stay wide-eyed here as we roll it. The meeting in Harpo Studios and the
00:04:57.620 studios right now. I can't even believe that as of next month, September 8th, it will be 40 years
00:05:07.940 since we first launched the Oprah Winfrey show. Thank you for being the greatest team ever.
00:05:27.620 See what the end will be.
00:05:30.240 Leave our work on.
00:05:31.760 Marks fried chicken.
00:05:35.220 I see laughing and crying and laughing and knowing what life is worth.
00:05:42.060 Did we hear him speak though?
00:05:45.020 No.
00:05:45.640 See, I'm highly suspicious of this.
00:05:48.060 Also, my favorite part of that, Megan, she's running the audio track.
00:05:53.020 Do you remember?
00:05:53.820 This was when Oprah, we all knew, truly lost her mind.
00:05:56.680 she came back one season and she was singing her own theme song to the oprah winfrey show
00:06:01.300 that's what that is no i didn't know that i didn't know that that happened that did sound
00:06:07.360 like her that that's oprah singing about herself and her greatness we're all gonna run on like yeah
00:06:13.660 wait a minute i like they're celebrating that the oprah winfrey show which has been off the air for
00:06:20.480 more than a decade was launched 40 years ago i mean like i don't understand the whole purpose
00:06:24.900 of this. Like Oprah had its day. A lot of us watched that when we were, you know, coming of
00:06:29.760 age in the 1990s. It's 2026, Maureen. Like, what are we doing here? I think, Megan, what we're
00:06:36.980 doing here is attempting to distract from closing the school. She's been making a lot of the rounds.
00:06:44.800 She's been doing a lot of press. She doesn't have anything in particular to promote. She really
00:06:50.360 doesn't the the canary in the coal mine for me was you know she sat for that vanity fair video
00:06:56.560 series where she's reviewing like iconic moments from her career and then expounding upon them
00:07:03.500 and she chose to revisit the harry and megan interview why would she choose to revisit that
00:07:10.100 which is one of like the biggest stains on her on her image brand legacy what have you
00:07:16.360 why res why exhume that i think it was to get people talking she did glamour magazine she in
00:07:24.920 the middle of it all she issued a very anodyne statement to people magazine about how she's
00:07:30.920 closing her school in order to reach more girls through scholarships ridiculous that the spin
00:07:37.940 that is in her statement is so absurd and all the media is running with it like yeah the whole point
00:07:42.780 is to help even more girls now.
00:07:44.880 And this was always going to be contemplated
00:07:46.760 that she was going to give the school back
00:07:49.020 to the local town.
00:07:51.180 But meanwhile, every girl there is getting kicked out.
00:07:53.900 Like they're actually,
00:07:54.620 it's not like somebody's taking over management of the school.
00:07:57.100 The school is closing,
00:07:58.300 which is obviously it didn't work out.
00:08:00.600 I mean, she had a good run.
00:08:01.860 I guess it was there for 20 years or so,
00:08:05.120 but let's not pretend that closure is not closure.
00:08:09.420 Well, the thing about this too
00:08:10.520 is that it's not just any school, right?
00:08:12.780 Oprah launched this school almost 20 years ago with Nelson Mandela by her side, right? No greater
00:08:21.020 moral beacon of South Africa. And she was using brand Mandela to elevate herself from a mere
00:08:27.260 talk show host into a philanthropist nonpareil. She said the school would be her greatest legacy.
00:08:34.400 These girls were the daughters she would never have. They were her greatest joy,
00:08:38.640 greatest purpose. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic. These are all things she said.
00:08:42.780 And within nine months of that school opening or 10, nine girls came forward with claims of sexual assault or abuse against a dormitory matron.
00:08:52.760 And from there, the school has suffered major, major scandal, including a 17-year-old student who gave birth on that campus.
00:09:02.260 So she was walking around this boarding school for months, visibly pregnant, gave birth on that campus.
00:09:09.440 the baby was discovered dead in one of her bags and you know it's barely a blip in the american
00:09:16.860 media they went to oprah for comment oprah said or her people said she won't be commenting because
00:09:22.560 a minor is involved yeah a minor is involved it's a boarding school for girls you know i think she's
00:09:28.260 trying to get ahead of something this isn't just any school it's a school that was meant to be a
00:09:32.940 refuge and a safe haven for these young girls who are at extremely high risk for sex trafficking
00:09:39.280 On The Nerve, we aired a fairly recent news report from a South African-owned and operated
00:09:47.100 news station reporting that sex trafficking rings have only gotten stronger and more well-organized.
00:09:54.300 So girls are at higher risk than ever.
00:09:56.380 So my question to Oprah is, what are you doing?
00:09:58.840 Why are you closing your school?
00:10:01.520 Yeah, why is she?
00:10:03.180 We don't know the answer.
00:10:04.120 Other than maybe she's lost interest.
00:10:06.360 She wanted the good PR.
00:10:08.100 She wanted to look like this big philanthropist, and now she's living her best life out in Montecito, and she's skinny now, so she's feeling good about herself.
00:10:17.560 But I don't get this.
00:10:18.800 Like, David Letterman, he could be out there doing the, oh, it was 40 years ago we launched the show and be having a self-celebratory party that he's got to put all over the airwaves as, remember me during my heyday?
00:10:30.100 Remember me?
00:10:31.220 It's like she can't stand being out of the spotlight for two minutes.
00:10:34.200 We've got to go back to her glory days and try to celebrate her again.
00:10:38.100 her magazine where she's on the cover every month celebrating herself. It's just like her whole life
00:10:44.900 is so self-celebratory. It's kind of the opposite of how I think most people are raised, which is to
00:10:51.140 say I less, me less, but it's her bread and butter. My favorite announcement about Oprah
00:10:59.540 closing her school, which you can find online, is it's on Oprah daily, like an Oprah part of
00:11:06.860 the Oprah magazine. And it's got the Oprah logo. And then the headline is Oprah on closing her
00:11:13.520 school by Oprah Winfrey with a side photo of Oprah. So it's Oprah. We get it. We get it. Okay.
00:11:21.620 But number two, to your point, let's say she lost interest, which has been posited to me as an
00:11:26.620 active theory. That's fine. But I think when you take on a responsibility like that, and you use
00:11:34.380 an icon such as Nelson Mandela, and you've had problematic, very close friends in your life,
00:11:42.620 such as Harvey Weinstein and Sean Combs, I think what you maybe do is you assemble a highly trusted
00:11:49.780 consortium of people. Much like, you know, Valerie Jarrett is really running probably the
00:11:54.660 day-to-day at the Obama Library, right? Why can't she just install a trusted board to oversee it
00:12:01.860 and make sure again, if this is her legacy play, if she wants what the Oprah Winfrey Leadership
00:12:07.500 Academy for Girls has been doing to be the first line of her obituary, I would think she'd be way
00:12:14.900 more invested in this. And again, she is a stated self-professed survivor of childhood sexual
00:12:24.000 assault. I mean, I just would think that this would be so close to her that she would never
00:12:29.720 consider abandoning it. And yet, I don't know. I think she's lost interest. She's got to move
00:12:37.340 on to her new vanity projects, which will not include another sit down with Meghan Markle.
00:12:43.080 I heard you and Rob Shooter discussing on The Nerve how Meghan and Harry would reportedly love
00:12:49.400 to have another sit down with Oprah. She's not into it. She knows that she stepped in quicksand
00:12:55.340 on that first ridiculous sit down with those two it really was the low point of oprah's 0.92
00:13:02.720 more recent career at least and she doesn't want another round of humiliation with these two 0.98
00:13:08.900 grifters no you know there's this um there's a new verb in the lexicon called markled like you 0.65
00:13:16.680 got markled and it it it means if you get if you get in any kind of business with megan markle
00:13:25.180 if you have any proximity to her, her stink is going to be left all over you. And we can see
00:13:32.240 all the Hollywood power players like have slowly, slowly backed away. And you know,
00:13:39.260 Oprah's just as bad. Like, I really do think this like self, I agree with you, like,
00:13:44.540 why is she celebrating the absence of her talk show, which when she was retiring that thing,
00:13:51.820 do you remember this Megan it was a year of a goodbye yes it was never ending it was like just
00:13:59.940 please go it went on and on it was like Stephen Colbert just did the same thing she yes they
00:14:06.460 treat themselves like they're some sort of a queen or king stepping down from a rain it's like it's
00:14:12.240 television okay I hate to break it to you it's tv you appeared in the little box and you had little
00:14:18.280 conversations and they were entertaining while you did it. But none of us should take ourselves
00:14:21.940 so seriously as to think like we can't be easily replaced or forgotten. Certainly Colbert. And yes,
00:14:29.060 Oprah too. I mean, it's fine. People like you and I who were of the right age when she was at her
00:14:33.860 pinnacle will remember Oprah. My daughter has no idea who Oprah Winfrey is. She doesn't care
00:14:37.960 about Oprah Winfrey at all. She has no idea that she is. No, she's totally irrelevant to the next
00:14:43.920 Jen, which I think is why she's so insistent on celebrating herself, like, and not anything she's
00:14:49.860 done lately, but like, let's go back to my long since defunct talk show and celebrate when it
00:14:56.280 launched 40 years ago, 40 years, Maureen. I mean, even I was what I think a freshman in high school,
00:15:03.820 uh, maybe a sophomore, whatever. It's just, she, she is a narcissist. Oprah Winfrey is a raging 0.82
00:15:11.080 narcissist. We have proof of it every day. Okay. I want to get to Megan Markle because there was 0.99
00:15:16.600 an extraordinary thing that happened that relates. Hello to our parody of the absurd with love Megan
00:15:24.560 Netflix show. You and I got together and we did it much better if I do say so myself than the
00:15:29.620 original making fun of that absurd atrocity that Netflix foisted upon us. And what we discovered
00:15:36.200 you and I, while we were making one pot chicken from Meghan Markle's stupid Netflix show is that 0.99
00:15:42.700 she stole it from Martha Stewart. The recipe was identical with like maybe one sprig of something 0.99
00:15:49.540 that was different, but it was all but identical to Martha Stewart's one pot pasta. We made it.
00:15:56.100 Wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. And I think it wasn't bad because it came from Martha Stewart.
00:16:01.080 Exactly. Somebody who actually knows what she's doing in the kitchen. So Meghan Markle
00:16:05.040 And Martha Stewart met. They met recently. And in a people interview dated August 3rd, Martha Stewart said she overheard Meghan Markle at a dinner party recently talking about a private family reunion she had with King Charles with Harry when they went over there.
00:16:27.540 And Martha said she talked about it.
00:16:29.740 She like she just gotten back and she talked about it.
00:16:32.500 And that's the comment in which she said it's very hard to transition from a princess into a homemaking professional.
00:16:38.640 OK, like not everybody can do it. 0.99
00:16:41.640 And Martha doesn't she doesn't spew shit like she she gives it straight. 0.99
00:16:44.960 And so then the Duchess of Duplicity couldn't stand it. 0.99
00:16:49.760 She was so pissed that Martha had taken a shot at her and told everybody that Megan was mouthing off about her visit with the king.
00:16:56.940 that she had her people, somebody contact, well, it was in the Daily Mail and yes, and report that
00:17:09.320 Martha must have been confused because Megan was not seated anywhere near Martha. And then the
00:17:18.880 Daily Beast reported on this saying, Megan did something incredibly stupid here. She seems to 1.00
00:17:26.940 have gotten the host of the party to call up People magazine and say that Martha's account
00:17:32.580 was simply untrue and that Megan did not talk about her European vacation other than to say
00:17:37.760 the family had a great time. Worse, they called Martha confused, implying that Martha 85 is a
00:17:45.360 dotty old lady. And the position here is that this is incredibly stupid, writes Tom Sykes of 1.00
00:17:52.400 the Daily Beast, because Martha's not going to take well to that. And though she may be 85, 0.99
00:17:57.560 she's sharp as a tack. And this is not the way. But Megan can't have anything written about her
00:18:05.120 without filing a lawsuit, threatening a lawsuit, having her people call, issuing some nasty bar
00:18:11.860 back, even if it's an 85-year-old who said something very innocuous about her. She can't
00:18:16.680 stand it. She is her own worst enemy. I completely believe Martha Stewart's version of events,
00:18:24.820 because her version of events, Martha wasn't, she made pains to say, listen, I don't know Megan.
00:18:32.100 I didn't even really speak to her. We weren't seated near each other, but this is what I heard.
00:18:37.680 And this is in direct contravention of the King's edict about that meeting. And it also kind of is this nice distraction. This is a controversy I feel Meghan wants, because she wants us to forget things that are very recent and much more of an obscenity, such as taking a photo of Harry and the children on what looks like their
00:19:07.680 way to visit diana's grave disgusting 100 disgusting it did that's what it was i know
00:19:14.440 i know somebody who's got an inside connection there and that person confirmed for me that's
00:19:19.200 exactly where they were if they were like this is them on their way to diana's grave the one thing
00:19:24.780 that the owner of the estate diana's brother did not want them to do do not publicize anything 0.58
00:19:30.320 around the grave but she's a disaster tourist who couldn't help herself she's such a ghoul 0.70
00:19:35.880 Megan she's such a ghoul and she's a child it with Megan Markle don't say the thing you don't
00:19:43.740 want her to do don't give her ideas because she will do it she will and by the way we've all 0.89
00:19:50.080 dropped what was a major talking point mere months ago hey go talk to your father okay who's lost
00:19:57.040 half of his leg it was amputated and he was begging from his hospital bed I would just love
00:20:03.020 my daughter to call me. She's got ice in her veins. She's a reptile. Yeah. She's not going
00:20:08.400 to go see anybody's father unless he has a crown on his head. That's the father she's willing to
00:20:13.200 spend time with. Not somebody with half a leg. Ew. Meghan Markle's not going to be seen with
00:20:17.920 that. Gross. It doesn't elevate my status. Not like being with the king, which is something I
00:20:23.500 can package and photograph for Netflix. Meghan, she won't even bother to open a store-bought bag
00:20:31.060 of pretzels decant it into another plastic bag of pretzels and send it to her father as a get well
00:20:38.120 gift she cannot be bothered no she's and and what i love too is this report now that um
00:20:43.620 harry and megan are openly discussing issuing a formal apology to the king and um what they may
00:20:52.420 take uh responsibility for and what they may not and you know again why the mainstream media won't
00:20:59.040 just draw the direct correlation. Those two seem to be out of money. Harry's on the hook
00:21:06.940 for a $63 million lawsuit. He launched and lost. He launched it against all best advice,
00:21:13.540 and he lost. And I also think this is why we're seeing more sniping through the likes of People
00:21:19.700 Magazine and the Daily Beast rather than the threats of lawsuits. They simply can't afford
00:21:24.060 it anymore. So now they really want back in and they're willing to play nice just when they need
00:21:32.220 millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to survive.
00:21:37.620 It's very sad to me, though, because I think the king is going to allow it.
00:21:41.200 I think he's going to let him back in because he's a dad. You know, he's a dad before he's a king.
00:21:46.740 and you know i've seen it time and time again where the parents are softer when it comes to
00:21:54.100 their children it's it's a sweet thing really if you think about it you know the parents they love
00:21:59.120 their kids they want to be connected to their kids they want to be connected to their grandkids
00:22:02.100 the siblings less so they see the abuse that one sibling has foisted on the whole family
00:22:08.860 And in particular, an aging, not well father, in this case, the king of England, and they're less forgiving. And I think that's why Prince William is a hard no on letting these two back in. But I think the king is going to allow it. And right now he's in charge. And it's just going to be incredible to see them try to go back over there and re-ingratiate themselves as royals in a country they called racist, right?
00:22:36.020 How are they going to spin this magical turnaround where the family is racist, they said, the country is racist, and they were so nasty that they actually were telegraphing they might not love their children if they were too dark.
00:22:51.140 And on top of that, when Meghan Markle was allegedly suicidal, they didn't want to get her any help.
00:22:56.240 Like, how do you walk back in and be like, just kidding.
00:22:59.180 We're fine.
00:22:59.760 We're good.
00:23:00.140 I love them.
00:23:02.120 It's really, it's like truly unbelievable.
00:23:05.000 It's truly incredible. Charles is, I think, you know, I think Diana had it right all those years ago in that panorama interview with Martin Bashir, which was problematic for many reasons. I mean, we now know she was duped into it, but she's, I think she told the truth when she said Charles was not up to the top job.
00:23:25.860 And at the time it was written off as a woman scorned trying to knife her ex-husband who left
00:23:35.480 her for another woman. But I think she knew him and I think she knew exactly right. He did not 1.00
00:23:41.140 have the strength or the spine. Harry and Meghan have done nothing short of attempt to bring down
00:23:48.280 the British monarchy. That's what they were trying to do. They were trying to destroy it.
00:23:52.940 Those two stew and marinate in rage and resentment. And I completely think William is in the right here. I think William also knows the resentment and the jealousy that Meghan harbors towards Catherine, Princess of Wales. Every time Catherine does something, wears something, issues a photograph, Meghan single white females her. It's beyond creepy.
00:24:18.940 Yes. So the latest incident with this pair is they went to this charity event. It was on August
00:24:28.540 7th to support their longtime friend, David Foster, and celebrate his foundation's 40th
00:24:34.640 anniversary. This is up in Canada. They help children who have life-saving, who need life-saving
00:24:40.020 organ transplants. So they showed up at the gala and there is video. This guy, Foster, is married
00:24:47.660 to Catherine McPhee, formerly of American Idol, right?
00:24:51.500 I'm pretty sure that that's his wife.
00:24:53.900 And the video shows that Meghan gets basically snubbed by David Foster on the red carpet.
00:25:02.920 Here it is.
00:25:03.420 Let's watch video one.
00:25:05.900 Okay, there she and Harry.
00:25:07.960 And he walks right by right past her.
00:25:10.460 She tries to reach her arm out and he does not want to do the hug.
00:25:15.420 He just keeps going.
00:25:16.520 Then they go back.
00:25:17.140 They have the photo. No, it's a no. There's not going to be any hugging. Now, the Daily Mail's
00:25:25.940 reporting. They reached out to him and know that it wasn't a snub. They didn't mean that somebody
00:25:33.440 on his team said, oh, they're very close and they would they would never snub anybody associated
00:25:38.120 with Meghan and Harry. But it certainly looks like a bit of a snub to me, Maureen. And I do think
00:25:42.680 Hollywood and the people who are in this stratosphere, whether it's a billionaire or
00:25:48.340 it's big celebs have gotten the memo. You don't, you don't want to be in a hug with this girl.
00:25:53.440 You don't want the one-on-one photograph. You don't want anything about this pair rubbing off
00:25:58.080 on you because their box office poison and their brand poison. What's doubly fascinating about this
00:26:05.360 is Harry, when he and Megan made their freedom flight on Tyler Perry's private jet, uh,
00:26:12.680 to Montecito, Harry said that David Foster was his American father, his American father figure.
00:26:21.260 So for David Foster to just blank Meghan like that, just ice her out is so brutal. And the
00:26:29.320 statement is like celebrity 101. Now, of course, everything that we have all seen with our own
00:26:35.240 eyes, and I've watched that thing in slow motion like a million times, it's hilarious.
00:26:39.420 um we he sees her he claims he didn't see her you can you can see his eyes look at her
00:26:45.660 because later he's like oh i didn't see her we see you david we see you icing her out we see you
00:26:52.360 talking to harry literally behind her back like he he reaches back rather than forward to avoid
00:26:58.760 any even eye contact with megan and then he said he said um or his people said absolutely not a
00:27:06.080 snob. He would never do that. He loves them. He loves them. But he also was a great admirer of
00:27:11.900 Princess Diana. Again, we loop back to just like a mere two weeks ago, Diana's grave,
00:27:18.400 attempting to commercialize that visit, attempting to attach herself to the remains of a woman who
00:27:24.600 is buried on a private island. Her burial site is a literal symbol of giving her the dignity
00:27:33.500 and solitude that she was not afforded in life. And that's what this ghoul does. I think for so 0.54
00:27:40.040 many people, that was it. It was worse than the reclining while crossing our ankles in the limo
00:27:47.180 while driving by Diana's death tunnel in Paris. Nothing was worse than Uvalde. Oh my God. I 0.95
00:27:52.980 forgot about that. You're right. No, that's, I mean, I, I, that for me was a before and after
00:28:00.160 moment on this woman. I could not believe she showed up to Uvalde and made sure she was
00:28:07.980 photographed laying flowers and on camera. Everybody knows there are a lot of celebrities
00:28:14.500 who helped. I'm pretty sure that's Matthew McConaughey's hometown. He and his wife, I think,
00:28:19.900 were very involved there. You don't see them on camera. No one felt the need to make it about
00:28:26.700 themselves except for her. I just want to be clear. Foster didn't say he didn't see her,
00:28:32.200 but that was the speculation when the video hit. Here's what he said. Sources close to Foster,
00:28:37.720 speaking with the Daily Mail, said Foster wanted Meghan and Harry there, that David genuinely just
00:28:44.280 didn't see Meghan. So it was like his sources close to him said he just genuinely didn't see
00:28:49.220 her. They had already said hi before the photo moment. There were lots of hugs and David introduced
00:28:54.000 the two of them to his other family there. He's always been a big fan of Diana. He would never
00:28:58.920 snub either of them. We report you decide, audience. He looks right at her as he is
00:29:08.440 walking by. He clearly could have leaned in for the hug on camera, which is not the same as the
00:29:14.500 hug behind the scenes. He didn't. It was a perfunctory. Okay, stand here on the red carpet
00:29:19.420 it and be photographed. They know he's not an idiot. They all know. All right. I want to keep 0.99
00:29:24.140 going. This is a quick one, but it flows. So I'm putting it here. Megan, of course, tried her hand
00:29:32.560 at podcasting and failed. She did that ridiculous archetypes podcast, all about female empowerment 0.97
00:29:39.400 as if she knows anything about it. Truly. She wants us to behave, to behave like she's Marie 0.96
00:29:45.320 curate. Like you've done nothing. You were deal or no deal. And then suits girl. It's fine. There's
00:29:50.500 nothing wrong with being an actress and a model, but stop pretending like you were Queen Elizabeth
00:29:55.260 because you weren't, you've done nothing. But anyway, she tried her hand at podcasting and
00:30:00.920 failed. And now, you know, who's trying his hand at podcasting is Barack Obama. I, this is why you
00:30:11.240 shouldn't become president too early. This is why it's better to do it the way Trump did it.
00:30:16.260 Live a big life. Accomplish a lot in the world and in business. Put your name on things in a way
00:30:23.880 that people remember. And then if you want to make the presidency your crowning professional
00:30:29.800 achievement when you really don't have anything to lose, I think that's great. That works well
00:30:34.680 because you're really kind of like your give a shit meter changes when you're at that point in 0.99
00:30:38.780 career. But Barack Obama didn't in his young forties. And now he's, he wants a job you and I 0.98
00:30:43.940 have more. It's fine. Our job is good. We like our job, but like, it kind of hope like you'd be doing
00:30:51.200 more if you were the president, he's launching a podcast. And to be specific, it's more like he
00:30:59.320 wants the job. My husband, Doug Brunt has, because it's going to be, it's called a great book with
00:31:05.260 Barack Obama. And he's going to talk about books on this thing. But weirdly, it seems like not just
00:31:12.020 like books that are coming out. The report via radar is that it will focus on influential books
00:31:17.340 that have impacted him. And it's old books like by Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, books that had
00:31:25.200 an impact on Barack becoming Barack. So they're going to discuss that. And the way the tagline,
00:31:32.280 I guess is I invited some friends to explore why these books resonate, how they can shape
00:31:37.260 our understanding of ourselves and each other and why literature matters. Okay. I hope you'll
00:31:43.700 check it out. I'm a, I'm a board already. If you want a good podcast on books, you should listen
00:31:50.260 to dedicated with Doug Brunt, which actually talks with authors about their process and their books.
00:31:54.920 And it's fun. You get a drink, but I, I, what do you make a Barack Obama now officially saying
00:32:00.880 what he really wants to do is podcast. Barack Obama, it's such a disappointment. There's so
00:32:10.020 much he could be doing with his post-presidential life and legacy, and all he wants is to just be a
00:32:16.000 celebrity. It was never more clear to me than, I think he was celebrating his 60th birthday on
00:32:24.660 Martha's Vineyard. It was the height of lockdown, but Barack was still going to have his big 60th
00:32:30.640 bash. The rest of us had to stay inside, but he was going to have a major party. And Martha's
00:32:36.740 Vineyard, where they are beloved, even the residents there were like, this is too far.
00:32:41.940 The catering staff was like, this isn't safe. So he agreed to then call his list, right? He was
00:32:49.640 going to call his guest list just to his nearest and dearest. You know who got the shaft? You know
00:32:54.400 who was told you were invited but no longer we cannot accommodate you david axelrod the guy who
00:33:01.120 got barack obama elected as the first black president of the united states who built brand
00:33:07.060 barack got tossed over so he could have the likes of like i don't know like you know the celebrities 0.87
00:33:14.580 there were like ridiculous celebs that's what he's obsessed with he's obsessed with he loves
00:33:19.360 the celebs he's have you seen i caught this just randomly you know larry david has done this new
00:33:24.900 comedy series for hbo about like the founding fathers or whatever there's this huge bit he
00:33:30.940 does with barack obama at i think like the the new obama library and and barack is very wooden
00:33:38.380 and he can't really act and he's just being barack and it's like his library yeah you know it's just
00:33:43.200 like what are we doing here your wife is busy also just wanting to be famous being a celebrity
00:33:49.120 being adored. She has a podcast. And aggrieved. And her podcast is unlistenable. And nobody's
00:33:56.280 going to go listen to Barack's sizzling podcast. There's only six episodes, too, which tells us a
00:34:02.020 lot. I don't think Audible really thinks- Just the books that matter to him. Not current books,
00:34:07.160 just books that have impacted me over my life. My God, again, how narcissistic. I know you all
00:34:12.020 love me so much. Let me show you how I got this way and the books that I read 30 years ago that
00:34:18.840 had like who honestly who would listen to that maureen i just like those two yeah her podcast
00:34:25.340 is not a hit it hasn't been a hit and by the way um what did we say aggrieved and what was the thing
00:34:32.080 you said about aggrieved and adored something like that that would be a great that'd be a better name
00:34:35.860 that'd be a better name for her podcast than whatever it is now um one other note on the
00:34:42.500 subject of doug brunt the audience knows that doug has a book out right now it's called the
00:34:47.400 lost empire of emmanuel nobel it's a thriller and it's about emmanuel nobel who is the most
00:34:54.180 successful but least famous member of the nobel family prize family and um he built the russian
00:35:01.200 oil fortune that's still funding vladimir putin's russia to this day and the reason you don't know
00:35:06.760 his name is because when he was coming up a little boy named joseph stalin was coming up at the same
00:35:11.040 time and the clash of those two titans is really what this book is about and and how a fortune was
00:35:16.620 stolen, basically. Um, that book just got reviewed by the wall street journal. And I want to show
00:35:25.620 you what they, what they found. They said the lost empire of Emmanuel Nobel. They said it is
00:35:31.520 enthralling accessible. And they called Doug a skillful storyteller. They recommended it to all
00:35:39.340 of their readers. Doug's been getting tons of great feedback on the book. It did of course hit
00:35:44.200 the bestseller list and is still doing really well. So for those of you who have not yet read
00:35:48.720 it, highly recommend. It's very fun. It's a thriller, but it's also historical. So you learn
00:35:54.340 something. And unlike Barack Obama and his book interest, it's authentic. It's well-researched
00:36:00.960 and it's interesting. So yay, Doug. Congrats to Doug. Oh my God. It's incredible. He came on the
00:36:07.320 nerve. We had such a great conversation with him for the book. Yeah. You know, it's hard to get
00:36:11.580 those long reviews where you get a major paper to sit down with your book and really do a deep dive
00:36:17.540 on it. They, they just, it's like, they don't do that many of those anymore. And so he was thrilled
00:36:22.500 it. He had nothing to do with it. The wall street journal and it muted. I obviously, um, not on the
00:36:27.540 best terms with Fox, uh, but they, they decided to do it and it was a great, it was a rave. So
00:36:33.240 thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. Thank you very much to them for such a lovely takeaway on, on the book.
00:36:38.300 Okay, I want to keep going. Ariana Grande, we've been talking about it here. You've been talking
00:36:43.360 about it on the nerve. She's dangerously thin. She is disturbingly thin. And the outrage is that
00:36:51.920 her team doesn't seem to care. They seem to want her to keep going. They seem much more focused on
00:36:59.300 making money off of her than actually checking her into a facility, which is very clearly,
00:37:03.840 in my opinion, where she belongs. Now she's becoming fodder for these late night so-called
00:37:10.580 comics like Bill Maher, who he's right on brand. He doesn't give a shit about any woman, 0.99
00:37:15.840 much less Ariana Grande. And here he is the other night on her. Sat 10. 0.99
00:37:20.100 The administration this week, just a few days ago, maybe yesterday, they unleashed a new trove
00:37:25.160 of UFO files. Interesting things in their triangular craft, weird lights over an army base,
00:37:31.840 a stick-like figure with large
00:37:34.100 eyes. That was just an Ariana Grande
00:37:36.480 video.
00:37:36.940 That was...
00:37:38.940 That was...
00:37:40.940 We can't...
00:37:43.240 We can't...
00:37:45.040 We want her to... Maybe that joke
00:37:47.080 will make her eat something. So it's...
00:37:49.000 I'm doing my... I'm saying
00:37:51.120 maybe it'll help. 1.00
00:37:54.040 Fuck him. 1.00
00:37:54.840 It's really not funny. Fuck him. 1.00
00:37:56.680 You know, I spoke about 1.00
00:37:58.280 on the Nerve the other day when we were covering
00:38:00.760 Ariana, my own experience with an eating disorder and how painful it is and how treatment resistant
00:38:09.100 it is. And I look at her and I think she should be in a hospital. She is probably at the point
00:38:15.540 where she can't physically eat at a certain point in your stomach. It certainly happened to me. It
00:38:21.480 shrinks to the point where you can't take food in, like your body doesn't want it. Somebody wrote in
00:38:28.920 with another. Look at that picture, Maureen. Look at that picture. I mean, she is skeletal.
00:38:36.640 And, you know, I put a lot of blame on the mainstream entertainment media as well,
00:38:41.840 which does the kind of whistles right past this stuff, or they turn the conversation
00:38:46.540 into some meta impersonal debate about, should we be talking about women's bodies?
00:38:52.920 Should we be body shape? That's not this conversation. It's not. And the question I
00:38:57.740 now really do have is, you know, there's a, there's a thing that happens and we saw it with
00:39:03.280 Michael Jackson, who was, I believe near bankruptcy when he died. Elvis Presley, same thing in a lot
00:39:09.860 of trouble when he died. The artist's value tends to go up when they die and the younger they die
00:39:18.440 and the more tragic the circumstances, the more the interest in the music and the catalog grows
00:39:23.780 and grows and grows. So I look at this poor young woman and I think she is surrounded by nobody
00:39:29.900 who truly has her wellbeing at the top of the list. She is a cash cow. She makes money for
00:39:39.060 people. That is it. She's been famous since the time she was very young. She came up in the child
00:39:44.660 star. I believe it was Nickelodeon. We all know. Yes, the sick, sick Nickelodeon. We all know how
00:39:51.940 dark that is. And I'm also sure that what she's being told by her team, who is allowed, I think,
00:39:58.500 listen, I just saw this report the other day and I thought this is the right thing.
00:40:03.040 Rod Stewart had to cancel his tour because he underwent emergency heart surgery. They canceled
00:40:08.400 the tour. You can cancel a tour. They're making Ariana Grande finish out this tour that she's on.
00:40:15.360 finish it out are you really going to tell me she's not being given drugs to finish this out
00:40:22.360 because this is the kind of skinny where you can't even climb a flight of stairs on your own
00:40:26.760 that's right that's absolutely right she's like beyond the point where she should be walking
00:40:32.180 around amongst us somebody i mean where are her parents what like what where are they to say
00:40:38.120 honey we love you you have enough money your team around you has made enough money
00:40:44.540 you need to take a step away it's or you're going to wind up like britney spears just today before
00:40:50.420 we came to air there was another britney video online of her inappropriately twerking she always
00:40:56.140 looks like you know she just like got out of bed with somebody like with the mascara running down
00:41:00.740 her face the weird twerking it it works i guess if you're 20 and you're young and fit and super
00:41:08.060 youthful it doesn't work for britney like the same little sad dance routine she keeps doing and 0.66
00:41:13.620 putting online, trying to sex pot her way back into our, you know, feeds. That's where Ariana's
00:41:20.520 heading. If she keeps going at this rate, if it's just a life full of self abuse and churning out
00:41:26.980 content for other people's pockets, she has more money than she could ever spend in 20 lifetimes.
00:41:33.400 This is like, where are the people who love her? You know, there's no spouse. I don't know about
00:41:38.980 the parents. Where's the manager? Where's the talent agent, the agent, right? Who should be
00:41:43.640 able to say, Ariana, you're going inpatient. Instead, they, we, they released the video of
00:41:48.900 this pedal, which we aired on our show last week and our audience responded. It couldn't believe
00:41:52.900 their eyes. Um, that appears to be like highlighting her bones protruding here in video
00:41:59.140 four. Like the collarbone is like, I'm trying to make mine do it. Like shoving my, look at this.
00:42:07.420 they want us to see look at this look at the chest cavity it's all bone that right there
00:42:16.380 is someone who needs help and that video to me she's she's telling us something whether she's
00:42:22.940 dialed into it or not you know that this is the cost of being her i i actually don't think that
00:42:29.240 ariana if she continues this way will wind up like britney i just don't think she will live
00:42:33.460 much longer. I think she's clearly on the Karen Carpenter trajectory where that eating disorder
00:42:40.020 does so much damage to your internal organs. Your heart can no longer take it. We talked about
00:42:45.980 Karen the other day, and right before her death, she was admitted to the ICU, I think at Lenox
00:42:53.480 Hospital in New York City, and they put her on an IV drip because she had done so much damage
00:42:59.620 to her digestive organs that she could not take physical food. I mean, I know Ariana Grande,
00:43:08.520 her mother's in the picture. Her brother Frankie Grande is in the picture. But I mean, these people
00:43:13.920 will all have blood on their hands if something happens to her, which again, as someone who
00:43:21.040 suffered from this, it's beyond clear. There's no debate. She's a very, very, very sick young
00:43:28.000 woman. She's very sick. She needs immediate help. This is our opinion. We need to make clear. It is 1.00
00:43:32.980 our opinion. We don't have any confirmation. She's got a, yeah, allegedly reportedly, but we don't
00:43:37.380 know that she's got anorexia, but I mean, our eyes would certainly suggest she does or some sort of
00:43:42.460 eating disorder. And you're right to raise Karen Carpenter because one of the most disturbing
00:43:47.740 things about Karen Carpenter's case for the listing audience, for the young audience who
00:43:52.200 doesn't remember her, you know, rainy days and Sundays always let me down. Something like that.
00:43:57.500 I can't remember the words, but something like that. And a voice as smooth as velvet. I mean,
00:44:01.560 just one of the most beautiful voices we've ever had in American songmaking. And she died at age
00:44:08.000 32 after she'd gotten help. She was on the way back to wellness. If memory, it's been a while,
00:44:16.840 but if memory serves, but it was too late, Maureen, she'd already done so much damage
00:44:22.400 by the deprivation in calories.
00:44:25.940 And she looked 70, even though she was 32,
00:44:30.400 you know, Karen Carpenter.
00:44:31.740 And that's what's going to happen to Ariana too.
00:44:35.180 There's only so much all the silicon and Botox
00:44:39.020 and plastic surgeons can do
00:44:40.420 with somebody who insists on making themselves
00:44:43.140 look like a corpse.
00:44:44.720 My mom is in the mental health field.
00:44:46.300 She spent her life at the Albany VA helping veterans,
00:44:48.980 but she also had a private practice when she was younger
00:44:51.100 uh with mental health and she said this is one of the hardest things to cure
00:44:55.340 in eating disorder like it is just so hard to break somebody of it and then you add all the
00:45:01.300 pressures that us that a huge celebrity like ariana would have if she has this and it would
00:45:07.080 be 10 times harder even more part of what also makes it so treatment resistant is you know a
00:45:15.440 suffer. And again, I'm not saying she is, but you can get to the point where either you're in real
00:45:21.900 denial. Like you think people around you are overreacting and you are just fine and you really
00:45:27.120 like the way you look or the extreme weight loss, it becomes like a high. It's like a dopamine hit.
00:45:34.900 Like how much control can I exert over my body, over this primal need? Like you have to eat to
00:45:42.120 survive. Right. But if you can control that and then couple that with the era of Ozempic that
00:45:48.740 we're in, you know, this kind of stick thin look, we see celebrities on the red carpet all the time. 0.89
00:45:55.080 We're being told by the media, they look great. They look like death. They look like death to me
00:46:01.100 more. Charlize Theron is way too thin. Margot Robbie. She's gotten so thin. Margot Robbie and
00:46:09.160 That other girl, who's the name?
00:46:11.140 What's the name?
00:46:11.620 Olivia Wilde.
00:46:12.420 Olivia Wilde.
00:46:12.940 Who also, I said, looked like a corpse.
00:46:14.880 Now she came out and she's attacking me.
00:46:16.400 I'm sorry.
00:46:17.040 Look, I'm sad that you've let this happen to you.
00:46:19.300 I used to be a big, you're a big fan when you were on House.
00:46:22.200 But she looks skeletal now.
00:46:23.940 She was, oh, it's the camera angle.
00:46:25.360 Okay, it wasn't the camera angle.
00:46:26.660 A camera angle doesn't make bones protrude when they're not actually protruding.
00:46:30.340 It doesn't make your eyes completely sunken in your head like we see in a skeleton when
00:46:35.540 they're not.
00:46:36.100 I mean, we all know the difference between thin, even very thin and skeletal, like it's
00:46:43.440 plain as the nose on your face and they can, they are the ones who don't see it.
00:46:47.760 They are the ones who don't see it and think they look good in this very corrupt industry
00:46:52.720 that will just continue exploiting them.
00:46:55.480 So I really hope she does get the help she needs.
00:46:59.680 Brad Pitt is also in the news and I, I'm worried about him too.
00:47:04.560 So Brad Pitt is drinking again. There was an in-depth profile on Brad Pitt by, who did it?
00:47:14.420 Who did the original? Esquire did the original. And the guy did a great job reporting on it,
00:47:19.500 but he exposed, he broke the news that Brad Pitt is drinking again after having been on the wagon
00:47:27.700 for many years, seven years. And now he offered this guy a glass of wine and the reporter was
00:47:34.540 like, is it just, just for the guests? And Brad's like, no, I'm drinking again and admitted and,
00:47:40.720 and is talking about how he, he can have the reporter said, Oh, just a glass. You can have
00:47:45.600 just a glass. And he's like, no, I can have, you know, more than just a glass, like a few glasses,
00:47:48.720 but I can't have too much. Like, okay. If you're an alcoholic, I'm pretty sure this is not how it
00:47:54.900 works, Maureen. And I think once again, there's probably not a lot of people in Brad Pitt's life
00:48:01.240 who can sit him down and say, Brad, no, for an alcoholic, what is it? One drink is too many
00:48:06.740 and 1,000 won't be enough. So I think this story is fascinating on multiple levels.
00:48:13.160 So Brad Pitt designed that tableau in order to get this story out, right? He was the one who
00:48:21.000 brought out the wine and served it to the journalist and that was the prompt. Like,
00:48:26.340 oh, is it okay for me to drink in front of you? Like, are you sure? Like you are on the record.
00:48:31.240 as being an alcoholic in recovery. And Brad says, oh, well, I'm drinking again.
00:48:34.680 It's a cover story in Esquire. He knows it's going to make headlines, right?
00:48:38.480 So why? Why is he telling us this? My question is, are we trying to get ahead of something?
00:48:45.580 Because back when Angie deplaned with those children, fled in a limousine,
00:48:52.820 2016, and the next day filed for a divorce, which was shocking and made worldwide headlines.
00:48:59.920 I'll never forget. I was working at the New York Post. I got an emergency call to come in early.
00:49:05.780 And then I looked on the Daily Mail website, and I remember the font size about the Brad and Angie
00:49:10.940 split. It was like the font size you would reserve for World War III breaking out. It was an enormous
00:49:17.460 story, right? And then Brad, a couple of months later, does a cover story for GQ in which he says,
00:49:25.880 hey, I'm an alcoholic and I'm an AA now. And I really had to get my stuff together. And I
00:49:31.060 remember saying to this guy who was one of the top reporters on page six, what is the play here?
00:49:37.280 Why is Brad Pitt doing this? He doesn't have to. There are plenty of people in recovery in
00:49:41.900 Hollywood that we don't know about. So why is he being so public about this? Brad Pitt,
00:49:47.220 Hollywood's wholesome golden boy. The way he spun that split from Jen Aniston, it was like,
00:49:53.240 He just wants babies. What else can he do? He has no choice. He has no choice. You know, so why is he doing this? And Ian said to me, I think he's trying to get ahead of something. And lo and behold, we later learned what went down on that plane. He was on a drunken rampage.
00:50:10.600 he poured beer over Angie and one of the kids hiding under a blanket by Angie's report to the
00:50:16.840 FBI. He assaulted her in a, in a bathroom on that plane. It was a bad, bad scene. And so when Brad
00:50:24.360 Pitt, who has been famous for like the bulk of his adult life, who knows how the machine works,
00:50:31.740 does this, like I raise an eyebrow. I like it. I think you're probably right now that I think it
00:50:37.900 through because it doesn't make sense. Everybody knows if you're an alcoholic and he's been in AA,
00:50:45.080 you can't drink. You can't drink one. You can't have two. You can't have three. Those days have
00:50:50.380 passed you because you have this thing that compels you to drink more than one, two, or three
00:50:55.680 if you pick up the bottle. I mean, maybe there's the rare case. I'm sure there are who are able to
00:51:00.080 do it, but it's the exception, not the rule. So why would he be publicizing it? That's a very good
00:51:04.680 question. Well, we will see if there's another shoe to drop on that one. Put a pin in that.
00:51:10.580 When we come back, an update. Maureen mentioned Michael Jackson. An update on a lawsuit against
00:51:16.740 the Michael Jackson estate, a setback for the plaintiffs, and Chris Watts, a family annihilator,
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00:52:40.820 Updates for you now on a few legal matters that we've been covering, including
00:52:44.860 including the Nick Reiner case, the Chris Watts case, and a massive case brought by alleged
00:52:53.440 child molestation victims against the Michael Jackson estate. Maureen Callahan is my guest
00:52:59.080 today. She is host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, which you can find on all podcast
00:53:03.360 platforms and YouTube. Go and subscribe now so you don't miss a moment of Maureen. You're a loss if
00:53:08.680 you do. Trust me, if you haven't sampled The Nerve or The Nerve at night, you're missing out.
00:53:14.260 Okay. Um, this Chris Watts case, like I'm, I've just been thinking weirdly about family
00:53:20.940 annihilators because we've been doing this MK confidential series at night. And we have been
00:53:26.700 this week, tonight's the fifth of the five episodes doing John list, who was a family
00:53:31.680 annihilator who killed his whole family in 1971. If I do say so myself, it's a riveting series.
00:53:37.200 Please go and check it out. It's on the Megan Kelly podcast feed. You don't have to look hard
00:53:41.120 for it. But anyway, Chris Watts was kind of on my mind because he is one of the most notorious,
00:53:49.280 infamous, awful family annihilators in American history. And he's still a relatively young man
00:53:55.060 serving time for his crime. I'll get to the update in one second, but just to set the stage
00:54:00.980 for people who don't remember this case, it happened in Denver, Colorado, and on August 13th
00:54:09.700 of 2018, Watts would strangle his wife, Shanon, to death and kill their two daughters, Bella
00:54:16.920 Four and Celeste Three, and then dispose of the children's bodies in the most detestable, 0.54
00:54:23.420 horrific way possible.
00:54:25.160 I'm just going to start by showing you a little bit from the Netflix documentary on Watts,
00:54:30.180 where you will see Shanon and the girls and Chris in their so-called happy phase, which
00:54:35.960 was not long before he murdered them all, Sat 39.
00:54:39.700 Hey guys, my name is Shanann. I just want you to know a little bit of my story. I went
00:54:46.480 through one of the darkest times of my life, and then I met Chris. And he's the best thing
00:54:53.160 that has ever happened to me. I've done everything in my heart to make my family's life better.
00:55:01.920 Don't eat turtle. Don't eat turtle. I think about like, did I cause this?
00:55:07.520 did I cause this? That was his confession to his dad when in custody, which of course, I mean,
00:55:13.160 it's so passive voice and it's such a pathetic confession. Cause it, you did it. You did it 0.98
00:55:17.980 affirmatively. Um, one more when, after he killed Shanann and the girls, he pretended like they,
00:55:25.920 they disappeared. Like she just took the girls and he didn't know where she took the girls.
00:55:30.200 Meanwhile, like her purse was still there. Her medication was still there. It was like,
00:55:34.860 oh, she just, she just walked off without any like kid supplies. Um, and I believe her car
00:55:41.420 was still there. Like she's literally, she just walked away without her purse. Okay, sure. But
00:55:46.280 anyway, he gave an interview to a Denver, um, news outlet at the time and pretended like he had no
00:55:55.840 idea what happened to her. I'll show you part of the interview. This is him knowing that he
00:55:59.640 strangled her um shortly before and that he killed his daughters as well in sat 37 i'll let i left
00:56:06.520 work for work early that morning like 5 15 5 30 so like she barely let me she barely got barely
00:56:13.220 gotten into bed pretty much now this might be a tough question but did you guys get into an
00:56:20.020 argument before it wasn't it wasn't like an argument we had emotional conversation but i'll
00:56:24.740 leave it at that but it's I just want them back I just I just want them to come back and if if
00:56:34.440 they're not safe right now that's what's that's what's tearing me apart because if they are safe
00:56:38.920 they're coming back but if they're not this this this has got to stop like somebody has to come
00:56:43.480 forward Shanann, Bella, Celeste if you're out there just just come back like if somebody has
00:56:51.060 sir. Just please bring her back. I need to see everybody. I need to see everybody again. This
00:56:56.480 house is not complete with without anybody here. It's chilling to look at that, knowing what we
00:57:08.120 know. He knew very well that Shanann would not be coming back because he looked her in the face and
00:57:12.820 strangled her to death night before the nights before that interview, not to mention what he
00:57:18.520 did to his young daughters. This is, this is so graphic of a viewer warning. This is him in a
00:57:24.640 Denver interview from prison, March of 2019. And again, he's here, he's going to detail how he
00:57:31.400 killed his two young children. Very disturbing, but it's relevant to what we're about to discuss.
00:57:37.920 SOT 38.
00:57:39.320 Cease is first, okay.
00:57:43.060 Cease is first.
00:57:43.860 Where exactly was she going to have?
00:57:44.980 In the back seat.
00:57:46.260 Okay, was she just right next to Bella?
00:57:47.620 Mm-hmm.
00:57:48.040 Okay.
00:57:48.520 So once again, was it a hand over her face?
00:57:55.520 It was a blanket over my hand.
00:57:58.520 And it went down to Bella. Tell me what happened there.
00:58:03.520 She said what happened to Cece.
00:58:07.520 Or she asked if it was the same thing, the exact same thing that happened to me as Cece.
00:58:13.520 Did she ask you that?
00:58:16.520 So Bella's pretty smart.
00:58:20.520 How does she sound when she has to wear a dress?
00:58:23.520 She has that soft voice she always has.
00:58:28.520 And what exactly did she say?
00:58:31.520 She has exactly the same thing that happened to me at CC.
00:58:35.520 I don't even remember what I said.
00:58:39.520 I don't know if I just said yes like a horrible person,
00:58:42.520 Or if I just put that blanket over her, too, and did the same thing?
00:58:49.800 It's so awful.
00:58:51.320 This four-year-old girl, Bella, knew what was going to happen to her
00:58:53.760 because she watched him do it to her little sister, Celeste, who was three.
00:58:57.420 And then he put their bodies in an oil tank at a field where he was employed
00:59:05.120 and left them there.
00:59:08.840 He left Shanon not far from there, not in an oil tanker,
00:59:12.300 but not far from there. This man would ultimately confess his father extracted a bit of that
00:59:20.160 confession from him, which we showed in part. He was sentenced to life in prison and he is in prison
00:59:26.380 right now. He is in Wisconsin. He was relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin and Maureen,
00:59:36.540 he's going to get married again. There is a young woman whom the Daily Mail found and an
00:59:46.080 exclusive got an interview with her. Her name is Lizzie Henderson. She is a realtor. She's at
00:59:53.760 least a licensed realtor and was, we believe it, for a time working as a realtor. She's got a
00:59:59.240 license to do it in Wisconsin, but they report is currently working at a local supermarket.
01:00:06.540 She has somehow fallen within this guy's crosshairs, and he's 41, she's 39.
01:00:15.600 She moved to be near him, and I'm sorry, she's the one who relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin
01:00:22.980 to be closer to his cell, and she has applied to marry him within the prison system.
01:00:28.620 Um, she has reportedly also, uh, submitted for a name change on September 12th, 2025.
01:00:37.280 She is wearing his name already.
01:00:39.420 She's going by Lizzie Watts.
01:00:41.500 They've been seen making out at the prison, um, saying that they love each other to one
01:00:47.820 another and, um, have, have become quote, increasingly physical, right?
01:00:53.380 It's the Daily Mail.
01:00:53.860 You can't have a conjugal visit in his prison, but they're doing what they can, shall we
01:00:59.920 say.
01:01:00.240 When the Daily Mail spoke to her, they said she spoke in a scattered manner, that her
01:01:03.880 responses were often disjointed.
01:01:06.600 And when they asked her about what she's doing, she said she knew it could be perceived as
01:01:11.480 weird.
01:01:12.320 She would not get specific about how they met.
01:01:15.400 They asked, what do you think about his crime?
01:01:17.720 She said, how I feel about it.
01:01:19.060 He knows.
01:01:19.720 He knows how I feel.
01:01:20.720 and then she described the killings as quote something harsh for anyone to experience
01:01:25.480 the Daily Mail concluded she was seeming to downplay his the extraordinary brutality 0.99
01:01:31.660 of these crimes she visited him 20 times last year I I'm so fascinated by women who do this
01:01:38.780 Maureen like I and not just any criminal it's fascinating enough you're going to get married
01:01:43.800 or date a criminal, a prisoner, but a family annihilator, someone who would do that, what
01:01:50.820 we heard in that soundbite to a four and a three-year-old. And you're out there selling
01:01:56.740 groceries and selling real estate and like functioning in this world as a semi-normal
01:02:00.640 human being and interacting with people that the levels of unwellness here are like off the charts.
01:02:08.280 there's so much to discuss here first of all i saw you were doing john list on your on your new
01:02:15.840 show and john list i was i knew about that case from a very young too early because um that
01:02:23.320 happened in westfield new jersey and my dad was raised in westfield new jersey and that crime
01:02:30.760 shocked westfield new jersey really lovely bedroom community um it was it was i think it was one of
01:02:38.380 the first cases where the american public had learned of like a family annihilator now we know
01:02:45.860 about them you know number two i i didn't know any of those details because with these cases 0.50
01:02:51.400 the clancy one that's going on right now that kind of grievous harm murder leveled against
01:02:59.640 children by their parents like i it's it's too much to take like like listening to that was awful 0.81
01:03:05.640 thirdly how i'll bet you i know how they met i'll bet you she doesn't want to admit it because she
01:03:12.740 wrote love letters to him he's the woman for him she's gonna fix this bad boy number four how is it
01:03:22.940 that family annihilators aren't ripped to shreds in prison? How is this guy still walking around
01:03:30.960 a prison? I'm surprised. Very good question. I'm surprised. Number five, how is it that family
01:03:38.360 annihilators are allowed to date, get engaged, and get married? How? Can't we just come up with
01:03:46.720 a law in the books that you have to suffer if they're not going to put you down like the 1.00
01:03:50.640 rabid animal you are you are not a human you are a rabid fucking animal if we're not going to put 1.00
01:03:56.600 you down and there are just people who need killing on this earth brian koburger is one 1.00
01:04:02.520 you know the menendez brothers were hot pieces they were hot tickets you know they're both
01:04:07.360 married yeah minute one of the menendez we just look that up uh the one brother eric the younger
01:04:13.260 one has been married for 27 years lyle was married i think for 23 and just got a divorce but he for
01:04:19.220 20 for the marriage held for more than two decades in prison keep going you want to know why lyle got
01:04:23.620 a divorce he had another woman on the side he's with her now what yes yes you know what i mean
01:04:33.600 it's like i i don't know if the thinking is like just keep them as happy as you can like i don't
01:04:40.760 get it like i don't get why a chris watts isn't in a federal supermax why he's not in solitary for
01:04:47.100 23 hours a day, let alone able to get married. And I guarantee you this crazy woman, this really 0.66
01:04:54.080 fucked up individual has lost her job selling real estate. And that's why she's bagging groceries 1.00
01:04:59.820 now at the local stop and shop. This can't be a well person. There's just no way with all the
01:05:05.000 respect to her. I'm sure she's going through something because why else would you ever do
01:05:08.760 something like this? Here's my team tells me that there's, there's been a lot of notorious
01:05:13.580 like serial killers who have gotten married um of course charles manson presided over a
01:05:18.700 a group of shaved head groupies and he got four fan letters a day he sought a marriage license
01:05:24.440 in 2014 to wed afton elaine burton a 26 year old admirer who'd been visiting him for years
01:05:30.980 ted bundy you're the one who turned me on to that amazing book oh right won't yeah that was crazy
01:05:39.060 wound it wasn't even that book it was so good stranger beside me
01:05:42.780 yes yes she was his friend and she was his friend they were working when he was really young we're
01:05:48.480 working a suicide hotline together talking people out of killing themselves i was reading that this
01:05:55.200 time last year i was listening to the audio and i was taking these long walks and um no one knows
01:06:00.360 you're listening to a story about ted bundy i bumped into somebody the grocery store it was a
01:06:04.360 kid it was like hi mrs kelly i remember you telling me that i remember you telling me that
01:06:09.380 it's crazy and the and the that was a great book such a great book and i'm so i knew you would love
01:06:14.100 it because one of the most amazing details of that book to me you know she was a ann rule was
01:06:18.700 a single mother she had young children she was volunteering at the suicide hotline and every
01:06:24.680 night she worked with ted he would walk her out to her car because he was like i want to make sure
01:06:30.660 you're safe she was one person who he seemed to actually enjoy and experience as a friend
01:06:39.260 It's so bizarre.
01:06:40.360 One of our most notorious serial killers,
01:06:42.780 but she did have some weird friendship with Ted Bundy.
01:06:47.080 So he wound up married.
01:06:49.960 He became a father after committing at least 30 murders
01:06:53.860 despite being locked up for three decades.
01:06:55.980 Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker,
01:06:57.540 he tied the knot with a reporter
01:06:58.880 who saw his mugshot on TV.
01:07:00.980 So I looked this up.
01:07:02.780 This is sent to me by Debbie Murphy.
01:07:04.720 Dr. Fred Berlin,
01:07:05.940 director of the Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic.
01:07:08.920 why do women fall for imprisoned men? There tends to be this trait of intense mothering
01:07:14.240 in prison wives. I think these women tend to be very nurturing. They have a sense of wanting to
01:07:19.000 be caring for someone else and men in prison for obvious reasons are quite needy. Now I pulled up
01:07:24.780 some interesting facts on this, okay, which I want to run by you. I actually think this is just
01:07:30.020 fascinating. Okay. One, one possible reason they get married to prisoners. Um, the, that in a prison
01:07:38.900 marriage, the partner on the outside holds most of the power. They decide when to visit, whether
01:07:44.180 to accept phone calls, how much money to send, which can appeal to individuals who have felt
01:07:48.740 powerless in past trauma or in relationships. Okay. I like this as a theory, like you dated
01:07:56.060 an abusive asshole. And so you marry some other abusive asshole, but now it's on your terms. 1.00
01:08:03.060 They can't hurt you and you're in control and you're in the power position, whether this is, 0.99
01:08:08.860 you know, this I think would not be an on the nose thing. This would be a subconscious
01:08:12.000 motivator for you. Then there's the savior or project complex. Some women are drawn to the
01:08:18.020 idea of reforming or fixing an inmate, seeking emotional fulfillment from engineering a redemption
01:08:23.300 arc. I like it. Yes. Then there's something, get this, called hybristophilia, a specific
01:08:32.140 psychological condition or paraphilia where a person feels sexual or romantic arousal and
01:08:38.880 attraction specifically because their partner has committed a notorious crime, violent act,
01:08:45.640 or murder it turns you on to know that they've murdered someone that's got to be related to like
01:08:56.600 i'm the one who's going to tame the lion you know like he's dangerous but not with me yeah i don't
01:09:03.560 i like right there's got to be that dynamic at play at some level i'm special right i'm the one
01:09:10.040 it's like every woman who's ever gone after a bad boy like this notion that like you're the one to
01:09:14.480 fix them. You are somehow differentiated in that way. It's never true. And I also think there's
01:09:20.040 something to it about, I mean, I like all of those theories. I think they're great. I also
01:09:25.180 think there's something to it where it's like, it's a way of having a marriage without having
01:09:31.020 a real marriage. You're not in it in the day to day. Like you're not grinding it out, paying the
01:09:36.520 bills, raising the kid, like, whatever. Like, it's that person can remain a fixed idea
01:09:43.020 somewhere in another location that is difficult to reach. You may or may not, like, why would
01:09:50.640 you marry Megan, as this woman is going to do, a man with whom you cannot have conjugal visits?
01:09:58.420 Like, what, like, there's something going, was she abused as a young person? You know,
01:10:03.660 is this is this a weird weird morbid kind of safety to her i i i don't understand i mean i'm
01:10:11.580 sure this isn't completely understudied phenomenon i personally would love to see female academics
01:10:16.800 and research in this phenomenon i think you need women in this field for sure you know it's
01:10:22.580 interesting to me that they they're saying possibly you had trauma in a prior relationship
01:10:26.920 that would make you choose somebody like this, not just a prisoner, but like a murderous
01:10:33.260 prisoner, somebody who murdered his wife and family and two beautiful, innocent daughters
01:10:38.100 in the single digits, um, that maybe you had trauma in your past relationship.
01:10:43.160 And so you're looking for a redemption arc, or you're looking for, to be in a more powerful
01:10:47.580 position vis-a-vis the man in your life, because Shanann Watts, his wife, she, in that Netflix
01:10:56.620 documentary talks about how she was in a very bad relationship prior to chris watts she she
01:11:05.460 something very bad happened to her in her first relationship and she found chris watts and chris
01:11:10.960 watts was heavy he was like obese when they got together he wasn't like i he's a it's hard to say
01:11:20.380 this about such a monster, but objectively he was, he turned into a decent looking guy
01:11:26.080 at the time of the murder. Now he looks like a prisoner who's let himself go and disgusting. 0.98
01:11:30.960 But my point is simply, did she intentionally, did she repeat a pattern, you know, consciously
01:11:37.960 or subconsciously? I think a lot of women worry about this with themselves, not on the level of
01:11:42.480 like, I'm going to get murdered, but they repeat patterns, whether it's consciously or subconsciously.
01:11:50.380 And so it's almost like if you've been with somebody who's abused you or really hurt you
01:11:55.300 like intentionally, who's a bad person, you have to actively do something in your life
01:12:00.720 to make sure you don't invite that back to you, whether it's on the nose or not.
01:12:05.980 Like there might be something in you that is attracting something very dark and dangerous.
01:12:11.580 Like that's why I always say when you have a relationship blow up, the number one goal
01:12:16.000 is to work on yourself, to work on yourself. Even if you think it was all his fault and he was the
01:12:22.000 douchebag and all that, still the goal remains the same. Work on yourself, improve yourself,
01:12:27.880 make yourself better in every way that you can so that you will attract something better.
01:12:34.260 You know, I know exactly what you're talking about. The thing though, with the Chris Watts thing,
01:12:39.140 you know he is a psychopath okay he is a stone cold psychopath the way in which he relates what 0.96
01:12:48.220 he did to those girls he is and the passive language the refusal to take you know narcissist 1.00
01:12:54.380 malignant narcissism psychopathy all of it but um guys like that look for women like shenan
01:13:01.860 you know and i think in the uh in the world of those real those of us megan who are like
01:13:08.480 emotionally regulated and like fairly you know i hate to use the word like normal but like you
01:13:15.660 have a relationship blow up and yes you go okay like what in me was attracted to that guy what in
01:13:20.820 me allowed myself to overlook the following red flags that wound up hurting me right that's the
01:13:26.960 goal. But this is another level where, you know, you can sense when a guy is a bad guy. You can
01:13:38.060 sense it. I don't know if you've ever met like a male psychopath in your life. I have. And to me, 0.63
01:13:44.840 I can see all the signs. I can see them. And I see other women going, oh, he's really something,
01:13:51.860 right really good looking like it's i i i don't i think that these guys prey on broken women like
01:14:02.700 profoundly broken women because you know again as another um fan and student of the gavin de becker
01:14:09.400 book the gift of fear so good chris chris watts that doesn't just explode out of nowhere i i and
01:14:17.740 i am in no way blaming shenan in no way no of course but there were definitely warning signs
01:14:24.440 there was definitely violence in that house there were definitely moments where i am sure she thought
01:14:30.100 should i pick up the girls and leave and i am sure as a psychopath he was charming and manipulative
01:14:36.940 and knew how to breadcrumb and withhold and give and withhold until you know it it ended in the way
01:14:44.620 it was probably just going to um i mean i did think it was very interesting um the day she
01:14:51.860 went missing so she got home from a work trip with her girlfriends um you know with whom she worked
01:14:56.880 and she got into the house and overnight like at the one o'clock hour i think and they were trying
01:15:02.720 to call her the next morning and she wasn't picking up of course she'd been killed and uh
01:15:06.880 they knew those women god bless them they were over there in two minutes they were like where's
01:15:13.060 Shanann. And they were the ones dealing with 911. Like she should be here. This is her medication.
01:15:18.160 Why is her medication still here? And he was like sheepishly standing there guilty. I mean,
01:15:24.340 you saw that news interview. He looked, he looked like he knew he'd been caught. He wasn't caught
01:15:30.200 yet, but he would be all right. I want to keep going because there's another legal update in
01:15:34.800 another case that we've talked about before. And that is the Michael Jackson case. Now this family,
01:15:41.920 the casios they've been defending michael jackson from the start they michael jackson went and
01:15:52.560 stayed with them for three months after 9-11 it's the craziest story the the dad worked i think at
01:16:02.680 the p at the palace oh yeah as like chief bellman or you know some sort of middle level management
01:16:09.680 but was dealing with hotel guests. Michael Jackson lived in a modest home in New Jersey,
01:16:16.240 but he had a bunch of kids. Four or five. It remains unclear to me which one. I think he had
01:16:21.540 just the four. Whatever. I can't remember, but it's irrelevant. So Michael Jackson starts coming
01:16:28.600 back to his house. I mean, this is not a good, no normal parent would be like, sure, and come sleep
01:16:33.640 over in my kids' rooms. It's just not a good idea, obviously, but it's what happened.
01:16:39.680 He came with his little chimpanzee and stink.
01:16:44.240 Oh, bubbles. 0.93
01:16:44.960 I just think about it, Maureen. 0.87
01:16:47.040 Like you're, if you're the wife
01:16:48.920 and your husband works at the palace
01:16:50.440 and he comes to, he's like, I met Michael Jackson.
01:16:51.760 Oh, cool.
01:16:52.340 The next thing you know,
01:16:52.980 Michael Jackson has moved in with his chimpanzee.
01:16:55.940 He's literally the biggest star on the planet
01:16:57.860 and he's on your little foldout couch.
01:17:01.020 So that happened.
01:17:02.000 That's a real thing.
01:17:03.100 They got very close, the Cascios and Michael.
01:17:06.100 And he brought all the children on tour with him.
01:17:09.080 he made them feel like special favorites which they clearly were in all the years they've
01:17:14.860 defended michael jackson never laid a hand on us three boys and a girl never once these are lies
01:17:20.320 stop it about michael jackson then we find out that allegedly when they saw the leaving never
01:17:29.120 leaving neverland documentary which was not a documentary i've got a lot of issues with how
01:17:34.300 that was done i know a lot about in particular that wade robson that i've told the audience about
01:17:38.580 in part serious credibility problems by at least the one accuser none of which were raised doesn't
01:17:44.340 mean he's lying about michael jackson but as an as a filmmaker doing what you call a documentary
01:17:49.080 you have an obligation to tell the audience anyway they said that that triggered something for them
01:17:54.840 that it quote deprogrammed them and that now they've realized they were abuse victims and did
01:18:01.320 they go out to the cameras to just say this happened to us and we want to set the record no
01:18:05.200 they, they put their hands out. They went to the Michael Jackson estate and they got a payout
01:18:11.140 multimillion dollar payout reportedly. And then in 2026 after, or just as the MJ mega movie
01:18:22.440 was coming out, they went back to the till reportedly wanting more. And now, and they
01:18:31.440 wanted the lawsuit to be heard in court because that's where you can get big bucks. Everyone's
01:18:36.680 thinking if I can just get in front of a jury, I'm going to win because I'm just going to tell
01:18:42.040 a sob story about something terrible that happened to me. Here's a little flavor of the Casios
01:18:47.020 and them alleging the abuse by Michael Jackson in a piece they did in May of 2026. This is just a
01:18:54.120 months ago for 60 Minutes Australia. For Aldo, the family's youngest, at times the fear was
01:19:02.780 overwhelming. Did you find his appearance scary as a kid? Yeah. Yeah, especially when you're in
01:19:13.480 bed with him at night and he turns into the zombie and you don't love me. You don't love
01:19:21.920 You know, his eyes were like this.
01:19:23.960 Learning there were other victims meant this was no longer just his secret to keep.
01:19:30.400 And I was like, oh my God, he did this to other kids.
01:19:34.640 That was enough for my courage to just blossom.
01:19:38.280 I was like, no, no, no, no.
01:19:39.880 This isn't made up.
01:19:41.400 This is real.
01:19:44.380 Aldo decided to tell his family of the abuse he'd endured.
01:19:48.660 unaware he would also be opening the lid
01:19:50.920 on the suffering of each and every one of his siblings.
01:19:55.280 I called everyone to meet at my mom and dad's home
01:19:58.960 and I said, I just want you guys to know
01:20:02.140 that everything that they're saying is true
01:20:05.580 because it happened to me too.
01:20:08.320 Aldo's courageous admission led to all his siblings
01:20:11.520 finally sharing what they say Jackson had done to them.
01:20:15.240 It was the hardest thing for me to do was to admit it
01:20:18.020 oh yeah i can't describe the feeling the range of emotions that i was feeling at the time and coming
01:20:24.160 out okay so they've tried now to crack open this settlement they entered into in 2019 with the
01:20:33.400 jackson estate and they filed a lawsuit in california federal court trying to get their
01:20:39.780 day in front of a jury and the california court just tossed the lawsuit wow saying you signed
01:20:45.760 you signed a deal to arbitrate all claims. That's where you're going to have to resolve this. If at
01:20:51.860 all, you're going in front of an arbitrator as you agreed to do by contract back in 2019,
01:20:57.000 which is a very, very good ruling for the Michael Jackson estate. They'd much rather be in front of
01:21:02.820 an arbitrator who will be a somber, serious, probably retired judge who will now find whether
01:21:10.960 this settlement agreement they've reached can be voided. I guess that's what they're asking for
01:21:15.780 because they want more money or what. But this, I tell you, Maureen, I don't know about the Casio
01:21:21.780 family. I got real questions about them and this belated attempt to cash in on Michael Jackson's
01:21:29.480 renewed fame and success. They had no money in the estate for a long, long time. Now they do,
01:21:35.160 and they're back again this is this one is so interesting i i watched that 60 minutes piece
01:21:41.920 when it aired uh i do i am of the belief that michael jackson was a pedophile i think that
01:21:50.280 you know as you as you were like laying out in the in the very beginning of this
01:21:53.800 the father comes home with like michael jackson and bubbles and it's like he's going to be living
01:21:59.760 here indefinitely and like and it is weird but it's like it he's he's a lowly he's he may be the
01:22:07.220 head of the bellhops but like he's a lowly guy compared to michael jackson and now michael jackson
01:22:14.280 thinks i'm special me with my like two-car garage you know like okay um and you know and and that
01:22:23.580 that that was sort of the the thing with michael right it was like he had to be around children
01:22:28.420 But it was always said that it's just because he didn't have a childhood, you know, and I went back and watched that Oprah special with him as well, where he's like touring her around Neverland.
01:22:39.200 And it really does to me.
01:22:41.200 It did look like a pedophile's lair.
01:22:43.680 Now, the thing about the Casio story that raises questions for me is that the girl, the sister, the lone sister says he did it to me, too.
01:22:54.300 and all the allegations the history of this has been that if if you do believe michael jackson
01:23:02.660 was a pedophile he was inclined to little boys not little girls for what it's worth the last
01:23:09.980 reporting i read on this said that paris jackson had been in conversation with the cassio family
01:23:17.340 and does believe them and i think this has caused a significant estrangement between
01:23:23.060 Paris and her brothers? I think that's right, but she couldn't know. To be honest, I'm sure
01:23:33.480 she's got a better informed opinion than most of us because she's had access to the estate and she
01:23:37.220 knows all the players and so on. But I mean, she was too little, in other words, to actually have
01:23:42.240 seen much that would have shown her whether he was or he wasn't. Of course, his entire family
01:23:48.440 says absolutely not. His family has stood by him, except for Latoya, who for a brief time said she
01:23:55.780 believed these allegations, but then recanted that and said her abusive husband kind of made her say
01:24:00.900 it. But I think this is a very good ruling for the Michael Jackson estate because they signed a deal.
01:24:07.560 They were trying to get out of it. They wanted to get it in front of a jury, which most plaintiffs
01:24:11.300 think they'll do better in front of. And this judge did the right thing by saying nobody forced
01:24:16.080 you to sign an arbitration agreement for any future claims that's you signed it and honestly
01:24:21.400 like to me maureen if they had just come forward to say this happened we want to set the record
01:24:28.360 straight it happened it it would have been a game changer in the whole narratives around michael
01:24:33.420 jackson because there's so much he said she said or he said he said there's so many credibility
01:24:38.580 problems with his accusers that you could really like i can see why people are like absolutely not
01:24:42.760 i don't believe them and every plaintiff has had their handout i want to get paid including these
01:24:48.180 four and in in this 60 minutes australia piece like that that they seem very affected the one
01:24:54.340 aldo who we showed was like oh and he was like there was no tears it was like yes that was my
01:25:00.500 problem with that i'm not sure i buy this that was my problem with that too it was it was very
01:25:04.380 affected uh you know the but i will say this if i say my claim and and let's say i'm coming at this
01:25:14.120 and it absolutely happened to me right i was serially abused by this guy who was like the
01:25:19.940 biggest pop star on the planet and there was an entire infrastructure around it that allowed it
01:25:24.640 to happen um i i would want money i would i think that this is i think that this is also kind of
01:25:31.880 like the Pandora's box that the Michael Jackson biopic opened, right? That movie has grossed over
01:25:36.960 $1 billion. And that movie was a definite legacy play. And it was restoring Michael Jackson into
01:25:45.420 the pantheon as just an unbelievable artist of one of a kind. The problem now is that that movie
01:25:51.900 is so successful, they have to make a sequel. They can't leave money on the table. But where do you
01:25:59.400 go with this story when we all know what chapter two is i have an idea tell me i have an idea
01:26:05.600 because the in the original they did reportedly cover the abuse allegations obviously it would
01:26:12.100 have been in a way that was favorable to michael um and they had to take it out because somebody
01:26:18.720 at the last minute realized that they had signed deals with these accusers who they were featuring
01:26:23.720 in the movie that required them to never speak of these people again. So the estate is bound by
01:26:31.020 those agreements signed by Michael. And therefore they couldn't do like some hit piece on the early
01:26:37.220 accusers in movie form. They would have gotten sued. They would have lost every dollar of that
01:26:42.400 billion. So they lobbed off that portion of the movie and they left it at just like, look at the
01:26:47.640 singing and the dancing, but I think they will do something like fictional. They, they will say
01:26:56.100 something like, you know, some of these allegations have been fictionalized or these people have been
01:26:59.740 fictionalized and they'll portray the scandal in a way that's very favorable to him and show that,
01:27:07.080 oh, these are all grifters who try to make money off of Michael, et cetera, et cetera,
01:27:10.520 in a way that they think is exonerating, but doesn't violate the agreement. They'll find some
01:27:15.380 clever way of like getting around the actual named plaintiffs and their actual stories i think so
01:27:22.940 because i i my information is they're in the process right now of making part two so this is
01:27:27.080 so fascinating when this movie dropped and the casio piece on 60 minutes dropped i went and found
01:27:33.180 there are two celebrity memoirs that are like out of print very hard to get and they go for like
01:27:38.640 hundreds of bucks one was uh latoya's memoir which i got and the other was katherine jackson's
01:27:45.360 memoir which i got and i need to go through them because in katherine jackson's memoir she's the
01:27:50.860 matriarch apparently she does write about joe the patriarch as a very very very abusive guy
01:27:57.060 um and it that book is like out of print you would think these books would be coming back
01:28:02.600 into print with the renewed interest um yeah the other thing that struck me as very telling
01:28:08.860 the second most famous jackson is janet jackson who is beloved like you and i have a similar
01:28:15.680 vintage right janet of good times right like yes sweet little janet jackson everybody loves janet
01:28:23.620 she was nowhere to be seen during this major media rollout for this movie about her brother's
01:28:30.400 life starring her nephew spoken to it
01:28:32.600 the younger audience may not realize like janet was almost as famous as michael yeah i mean she
01:28:38.620 was huge in her music career the the beginning of the end of it was that super bowl stunt
01:28:45.400 which she says she paid for with her career and justin timberlake suffered no consequences i agree
01:28:51.780 with her where he he ripped down like a patch over her and exposed her naked breast yeah no it was 1.00
01:28:58.340 total bullshit. But yet I don't think she's ever said anything about any of it. So you're right. 0.99
01:29:04.500 She's the big sort of the white whale of this whole thing. Like what does Janet Jackson think?
01:29:09.080 But you're right. She wasn't anywhere near the movie apparatus. Okay. Got to take a break. We
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01:31:44.840 It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.
01:31:56.720 Maureen Callahan is back with me. She's the host of The Nerve. Go and subscribe now.
01:32:01.580 Maureen, a Los Angeles grand jury has now officially indicted Nick Reiner, 32, for allegedly murdering his parents,
01:32:09.800 director Rob Reiner and producer Michelle Singer Reiner in their Brentwood home on December 14th,
01:32:15.620 2025. The July 20th indictment was unsealed yesterday. He's pleaded not guilty. He does
01:32:22.760 remain jailed without bail, but here's what's interesting about it. The prosecutors are now
01:32:27.740 alleging, we know, just learned, that Nick intentionally killed his parents by means of
01:32:34.320 lying in wait. He was lying in wait, apparently in their home, waiting for them to get home.
01:32:43.060 We believe from that Conan O'Brien Christmas party, right? Wasn't that where they were earlier
01:32:48.640 that evening where they said that he had been behaving erratically and that there was an
01:32:53.640 argument? The indictment also alleges multiple murders, use of a knife, and acts demonstrating
01:32:59.860 a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness.
01:33:03.860 Lying in wait is an enhancement to the charge.
01:33:08.200 He could potentially face life without parole
01:33:10.660 or the death penalty, realistically.
01:33:13.500 They're not doing the death penalty in California,
01:33:15.520 but it is a death-eligible crime
01:33:18.040 with this special circumstance added to it, I believe.
01:33:22.560 The prosecutors have not yet decided
01:33:24.380 whether, in fact, to seek the death penalty,
01:33:27.080 but wow, I mean, wow.
01:33:28.720 And now the DA, Nathan Hockman, has said this, quote, this is a profound betrayal by someone who is loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing.
01:33:38.740 That is pretty remarkable.
01:33:40.320 I mean, if they are, there's, I just feel like there's only one reason why they would even introduce this, that he was lying in wait, this enhancement into the case.
01:33:48.660 To me, it suggests they may indeed be considering going for the death penalty against this guy.
01:33:53.460 I just, it seems hard to believe.
01:33:55.560 I don't know why I guess just because he seems so drug addled but anything's possible what do
01:34:02.680 you make of it when I heard this yesterday I was so I mean is gratified the right word
01:34:10.260 it just felt I was like okay like the the DA is going for what what seemed to be clear from what
01:34:18.200 we learned in the aftermath of this horrific double homicide. He, I believe, if I recall
01:34:25.760 correctly, left the party before the parents. Did he? Yes. Okay. Well, he was asked to and he
01:34:34.440 wouldn't at first, but I think he did. Because then he had a fight with Rob. And the reporting
01:34:38.720 also out of that was that there was an admonition to the catering staff that night to hide the
01:34:44.680 knives. Once Rob asked Conan if he could bring his very troubled, drug-addicted son.
01:34:52.700 So that alone, him leaving before they got home, you're premeditating this. You're premeditating
01:35:00.920 this. Then, based on what we know of the crime scene, it seems that he, like the coward he is, 0.98
01:35:07.660 waited for them to go to sleep, because it's much easier to commit. He's one guy trying to 0.94
01:35:15.660 commit double homicide, and Rob Reiner's a substantial guy. So you wait for them to go
01:35:20.260 to sleep so you can get this done. The reporting is also that the mother's body was found,
01:35:26.940 I believe, in the bathroom, which seems to indicate that she tried to flee and lock herself
01:35:32.120 in. And he went after her. So he absolutely was lying in wait. And what I also love about this
01:35:38.600 is it completely dismantles what we all know this guy is going to go for. Mental illness, 0.79
01:35:44.600 a drug-addled brain. It shows malice aforethought. And if they don't go for the death penalty, 1.00
01:35:52.040 I'm sure some nice woman somewhere will be waiting to marry him.
01:35:54.900 ah sadly you're right but it's just so dark to think about him lying in wait for his parents
01:36:03.900 in their home they come in they're getting changed they're probably talking about him
01:36:10.300 because he caused a scene at conan o'brien's house earlier that evening which i'm sure they
01:36:15.580 were embarrassed by and i'm sure they were angry and concerned about him and so he could be for
01:36:22.380 all we know, what? Sitting in the closet. Where was he? Where on the property was he waiting for
01:36:27.680 his parents to get into their bed so that he could slice their throats? I mean, this guy is beyond 0.99
01:36:34.960 sick and he's got two other siblings who are still alive who will probably be consulted on what the
01:36:42.640 DA seeks and whether we turn this into a death penalty case. I mean, that's further updates to
01:36:48.620 follow. Okay. Ending it on a somewhat lighter note, big news out of Washington yesterday,
01:36:54.580 as we learned that Caroline Levitt is stepping down as white house press secretary. She served
01:37:00.820 honorably. She did her duty spectacularly. I mean, better than anybody in recent history,
01:37:06.040 in my view. And, um, of course she has been, and the resignation is fodder for the late night,
01:37:13.940 hosts, including the normally nice guy, Jimmy Fallon. This is how he handled it.
01:37:21.060 Some more big news today. Trump announced that
01:37:23.160 Caroline Levitt is resigning as White House press secretary.
01:37:33.280 That story again, Caroline Levitt was definitely one of the staffers left on Air Force One.
01:37:38.480 Oh, really? You didn't take me?
01:37:39.860 Yeah. Apparently she's moving on to an easier job working as the press secretary for Taylor
01:37:44.300 Farms Lettuce. Oh, OK, it's fine. It's not great. I just feel like Caroline Levitt has taken
01:37:52.960 a beating by the left wing press who really thinks she's like a handmaiden to the devil.
01:37:58.540 And all she really is, is a 28 year old, extremely talented young Republican who did her patriotic
01:38:06.280 duty and served a president she loved, managed the very difficult dual role of mother to two
01:38:13.020 babies while doing one of the most difficult jobs in the world. And this is totally foreseeable.
01:38:17.980 I don't think there's anything about, oh, she had to leave the, she's mad that she was one of the 0.92
01:38:22.240 decoys on Air Force One or any of the other bullshit I'm reading about her online by the 0.97
01:38:26.800 left-wing rags that can't stand her. I think she genuinely wants to be at home with her baby 0.99
01:38:31.400 daughter and her son, who's only now about two and good for her. I, we were in her debt.
01:38:37.740 Well, I have to say, I read the daily mail coverage of this yesterday too. And I was like,
01:38:43.080 oh my God, did he leave her on air force one when he was getting wheeled out and that catering thing,
01:38:49.040 like Taylor Swift and the air store, like to avoid an Iranian hit. Like I quit too. 0.56
01:38:54.380 That's kind of like, you can't come back from that. You can't come back from it. Like I'm
01:38:57.780 wait, I await the memoir. Uh, I don't think that was it. I really don't. I, it was kind of funny
01:39:03.320 for the listening audience. If you don't know Trump, when he was ushered off of air force one
01:39:09.160 onto another plane, um, coming back from the middle East, we now know that it was, there was
01:39:14.340 a whole switcheroo that he did because he'd been told by Israel that the Iranians were allegedly
01:39:19.600 going to take a shot at him in the air. Our own intelligence services said, don't, don't believe
01:39:25.340 that. That's not true. We're really not convinced that that's real, but the secret service,
01:39:30.420 it's their job to assume everything's real. And they got him off and they left the press corps
01:39:34.560 and some of his admin officials on the original air force one. And, and there, some of the press
01:39:39.280 in particular has been like, what the F we were, we sitting ducks. You left us there, but clearly
01:39:44.040 they didn't, there was reason to discount the Intel that had been given to us. So, uh, in any
01:39:49.180 event, I wish her well, Maureen, it's very hard to do that kind of a job. Very hard. She was nimble,
01:39:53.840 professional smart pugilistic but likable that's a very difficult combo especially in a young woman
01:40:01.420 um and she just did it with finesse so god bless godspeed and i really hope she looks forward to
01:40:07.200 those beautiful babes and i look forward to seeing her in her show on fox news which is inevitably
01:40:12.300 where this will go great to see you feel better my friend oh thank you megan again i'm so sorry
01:40:19.460 I'm not there with you in person, but you don't want anything to do with this right now. I can't
01:40:24.380 wait to see you in the fall. The next time. Exactly. We'll do it, uh, 30 days or so from
01:40:29.320 now and, uh, face to face and maybe with some liquor. I'd love it. And I hope all of you have
01:40:36.100 a great weekend. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.