The Megyn Kelly Show - Bridget Phetasy on Trauma and Recovery, Victimhood and Entitlement, and Marriage

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00:00:30.980 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:33.160 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:46.120 Today on the program, we've got Bridget Phetasy.

00:00:49.340 This woman is something.

00:00:52.580 I first found her by following her on Twitter.

00:00:56.280 And she, when I followed her, we could, we could correspond.

00:01:00.420 And she sent me a direct message that was so lovely and really personal and made me feel

00:01:09.020 so emotional that I've never forgot her for it.

00:01:12.280 And I've been following her on Twitter and enjoying her ever since.

00:01:14.680 But I'm going to share, I'm going to share the message with you a bit later.

00:01:18.360 She's become a star.

00:01:20.200 She's got a show on YouTube called Dumpster Fire, which is hilarious.

00:01:24.060 She's a comedian in addition to her other talents.

00:01:26.600 She's got a podcast called Walk-Ins Welcome.

00:01:29.140 And I think you're going to appreciate her worldview.

00:01:32.220 So we'll get to Bridget in one sec.

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00:03:00.060 I love being interviewed by women, I have to say.

00:03:03.040 Are we allowed to do that?

00:03:03.940 I'm so excited to talk to you.

00:03:07.120 Yes.

00:03:07.780 Well, let's just keep it rolling now.

00:03:09.640 That's a good beginning.

00:03:10.700 I honestly, so you and I have never spoken before, but we've corresponded on Twitter and

00:03:16.700 I am a big, big fan of yours.

00:03:20.140 I think you are one of the funniest people, but like most great comedians, one of the most

00:03:25.700 clever and smart.

00:03:26.940 It's a great combo and it's why comedians are so fun to spend time with, at least virtual

00:03:31.600 time in my case.

00:03:33.660 Do you know you're funny?

00:03:35.680 Like, do you know that about yourself?

00:03:36.560 Um, that's a great question.

00:03:39.220 Thank you for saying that.

00:03:40.420 That means a lot coming from you.

00:03:41.680 I really respect your work and your just work ethic and just your whole vibe, really.

00:03:50.800 And so I, I don't know that I, I grew up in an Irish Catholic, very big family.

00:03:58.660 And I always joke that my upbringing was like a roast battle.

00:04:02.580 You kind of had to be able to tell jokes and make fun of yourself in order to survive, or

00:04:08.280 you would just be demolished by, it was a huge family.

00:04:12.840 So I, I don't know that it was something that I ever thought I was as much as just a survival

00:04:20.280 mechanism growing up.

00:04:21.860 And then it became a coping mechanism as my life progressed.

00:04:26.960 Then there were some more challenging experiences.

00:04:30.340 I get definitely default to humor.

00:04:33.180 So then it just, it was, it, as far as standup goes, it was something I never considered I

00:04:38.920 could do.

00:04:39.600 It seemed like something that just really crazy, brilliant men could do.

00:04:45.380 So it's so funny because I'm noticing a theme.

00:04:47.860 Uh, you're now the third guest I've had on who is specifically cited her Irish Catholic

00:04:53.080 background as the reason, as the reason she's so outspoken and sort of out there first was

00:04:58.120 Piers Morgan.

00:04:59.040 Then there was Andrew Sullivan.

00:05:00.700 Now there's you.

00:05:01.840 I too am Irish Catholic.

00:05:03.540 So I don't know if there's like a theme emerging here, but, um, it bodes well for my little Irish

00:05:08.960 Catholic Presbyterian Scottish Dutch children, I guess, maybe I'm not sure which side wins out.

00:05:14.920 We were very, very feisty and raised to be very independent.

00:05:19.540 And one of the things it's, I was just, I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather and

00:05:23.840 grandmother on that, on my dad's side a lot.

00:05:26.340 And they were just so resilient and funny.

00:05:30.480 And my grandmother never really took anything too seriously.

00:05:34.180 They were just so optimistic.

00:05:35.740 And it was, it is that very Irish, you know, everybody's telling jokes around a funeral and

00:05:44.560 getting drunk at a wake.

00:05:45.720 It's just that very, that culture of, of laughing through your troubles.

00:05:51.140 And I'm very grateful that I was raised with that because I don't, I don't know how I would

00:05:56.500 have got through.

00:05:57.380 I remember I was the kind of class clown when I was in rehab for lack of a better word.

00:06:02.900 And I was just trying to keep everything light and uplifting because it was so heavy, obviously,

00:06:09.060 when I was in a treatment facility.

00:06:11.560 And that's really saved me that and being able to write, I think those, those two things,

00:06:17.220 but that, I think that Irish Catholic thing is definitely, I always said I was a recovering

00:06:22.400 Catholic in many ways.

00:06:24.080 I've reclaimed, claimed some of that, but it is that just funny.

00:06:28.740 Way to view the world in the worst calamities.

00:06:34.400 I, I was shown this, um, it was like one of those memes online that somebody forwarded

00:06:40.160 with the lucky charms box on the front of it.

00:06:42.740 And it said something like the Irish protest for the removal of the leprechaun, uh, because

00:06:47.500 it's offensive.

00:06:48.280 And the bottom says, just kidding.

00:06:50.020 The Irish aren't, aren't offended by jack shit.

00:06:52.340 And it's, we do the offending.

00:06:54.360 We're not the, we don't get offended.

00:06:55.980 That's been my experience at least.

00:06:57.760 And I prefer it that way.

00:06:59.100 I mean, I do think it's hard to offend an Irish person.

00:07:01.880 I think there's something in the, in the makeup that just makes them tougher, more like,

00:07:06.200 I don't really give a shit.

00:07:07.960 And I don't know, just quicker to resort to humor.

00:07:10.640 You're right.

00:07:11.100 As a coping mechanism or just a bridge out of a difficult situation.

00:07:14.520 I was raised to, to believe that feeling the need to be offended was really just a way

00:07:23.240 of feeling self-important.

00:07:25.160 And it was, uh, you know, constantly looking for ways to be offended.

00:07:29.500 It really, it drives home this idea that you're, you're thinking very highly of yourself or

00:07:36.000 your opinion.

00:07:36.500 And there is that whole, in my whole family, like, oh, come on, bridge.

00:07:40.220 What are you, what are you going to, what are you going to cry about it?

00:07:43.080 You know, there's that, there's that culture.

00:07:46.060 I've never considered that.

00:07:47.480 You're right.

00:07:47.980 It's more like, how many times have I told you that you're not special?

00:07:51.360 Yeah.

00:07:51.800 We've gone over this, Bridget.

00:07:53.480 Yeah.

00:07:54.500 There's a, that I, you know, it has a kind of, my, my grandmother came from a very,

00:08:00.460 she was that kind of came from the line of the stoic Irish women.

00:08:04.560 And my dad tells a story about being at his maternal grandmother's funeral.

00:08:09.340 And one of the legends in our family was just that my grandmother prided herself on

00:08:14.080 really only having cried twice in her life.

00:08:16.440 I don't know that this was, is necessarily a healthy thing, but it was just kind of the,

00:08:20.960 you know, you talk, we think a lot about the legends that were brought up within our own

00:08:25.660 family story, those stories that get passed down.

00:08:28.100 And, and she, my dad was sitting next to her in the funeral and he was pretty young and

00:08:33.860 he started tearing up and she squeezed his hand so hard that it hurt.

00:08:37.800 And he said, no, and she said, no tears.

00:08:40.340 We don't cry.

00:08:41.560 And that was very much there is.

00:08:44.280 And there is just that kind of East coast.

00:08:46.340 I was raised in, um, every summer going to Rhode Island, very blue collar family.

00:08:50.960 Like, oh, you're going to cry about it.

00:08:52.480 It was, oh, you're going to cry about it.

00:08:54.380 My dad's one of 10.

00:08:55.380 And it was, you couldn't, it was very hard to be a sensitive empath.

00:08:59.860 And in our family, you were, you were mocked mercilessly.

00:09:03.880 I always give my mom a hard time.

00:09:05.520 She's Italian.

00:09:06.440 So it's, that's also a feisty side.

00:09:08.540 And, uh, she's saying that was the seventies, but she used to say, stop crying or I'll give

00:09:12.820 you something to cry about.

00:09:15.880 But it was a different time too.

00:09:17.760 I mean, it is in part generational.

00:09:19.360 I think, you know, that these kids today, the really youngins there, I don't know, they're

00:09:24.060 so quick to be offended.

00:09:25.280 And I think, I think back to, you know, my own upbringing where we laughed at everything.

00:09:30.360 I can't remember a time when anybody got offended.

00:09:32.820 We mocked each other mercilessly.

00:09:34.760 It was a form of affection.

00:09:36.860 And it's not that I loved every piece of it, but it does give you a, a, as you said, a coping

00:09:42.480 mechanism for when bad things happen to you in life.

00:09:46.180 If humor is a go-to, it really can be a soothing balm.

00:09:49.920 Mm-hmm.

00:09:50.940 And I do think that this idea I was raised with, which seems to have gone out of fashion,

00:09:56.280 that life isn't fair.

00:09:58.180 That was just, I'm the oldest of five.

00:10:00.360 So there was constantly bickering amongst the siblings and, and fighting over this or

00:10:05.780 that.

00:10:06.120 And the refrain growing up was, yeah, well, life isn't fair.

00:10:09.820 And as much as I couldn't stand that, it was, it's, I'm again, glad that that was kind

00:10:15.600 of drilled into me.

00:10:16.280 My mother too is Italian and she's very feisty in that way.

00:10:21.860 And, and it was, my grandmother used to say, go play in traffic.

00:10:24.980 You know, we were being bad.

00:10:27.380 She'd be like, go play in traffic.

00:10:29.340 And this is a woman who lived through the depression and lived through war and had 10

00:10:34.100 children.

00:10:34.920 And then all of them miraculously made it through their childhood.

00:10:39.280 She lost one of her twins.

00:10:40.960 I think that was one of the only times she cried and, and childbirth.

00:10:44.420 And she was just.

00:10:46.280 Even at her funeral, she had very specific instructions and she said, do not cry.

00:10:51.300 I've lived an amazing life.

00:10:53.320 It was, you know, even, even from beyond the grave, she's telling us not to cry.

00:10:57.740 She, she wanted it to be a celebration and of her life.

00:11:01.040 And she was always so grounded in optimism and gratitude.

00:11:05.040 And I am, I, as I get older, appreciate that more and more because life, they just, even

00:11:12.300 reading my grandfather's letter, he said he was 21 years old and he had this perspective

00:11:17.060 of, well, this is life.

00:11:19.020 Humanity's always been this way.

00:11:20.780 Maybe it's my time.

00:11:22.140 Perhaps I'll get through.

00:11:23.180 We have to, it's all, it's, life is weird, but it's also great and fun.

00:11:27.020 And just having that perspective at such a young age is, it's invaluable.

00:11:32.480 It's, I don't, my biggest issue with the culture and where I feel the most disconnected

00:11:36.760 is where does a lot of the, you know, there's this idea in recovery of playing the tape forward.

00:11:44.300 Where does the kind of victimhood mentality of assuming to always be offended, assuming

00:11:50.700 that you're a victim, where does that get you ultimately?

00:11:55.440 The pride, the pride in claiming it.

00:11:58.980 Right.

00:11:59.780 I mean, they do it, they do it even when it's not true because they think there's a social

00:12:04.180 status attached to victimhood and they're right, sadly, with a, with a certain contingent.

00:12:09.600 So of course, and that is true, except on, I guess, a more philosophical or spiritual level

00:12:19.000 or just an internal level, it would be the same as saying, oh, money's going to fix your

00:12:24.240 problems or money will fix your depression or go, if you, you know, any kind of outward

00:12:31.140 searching for status, I feel leaves us empty on the inside.

00:12:35.880 Ultimately, this is, and this is, I can only speak for myself, but this has been my experience,

00:12:40.940 whether I'm reaching for a substance or a person or a status of being perpetually offended

00:12:50.200 or a victim, it's still not grounded in self-esteem, resilience, knowing that I'm capable of taking

00:12:57.900 care of myself.

00:12:58.880 Those have been some getting out of entitlement.

00:13:01.720 These have been lessons that I've had to learn very, very much the hard way.

00:13:06.660 And I just don't see where telling people that they're victims or telling people that

00:13:11.400 this is a place where you can get status.

00:13:13.660 Ultimately, they'll probably end up in the same places if you were going to tell them

00:13:17.580 that they are, you know, finding wealth will be the answer to all their problems.

00:13:22.960 Right.

00:13:23.560 And it really just makes you an annoying whiner.

00:13:25.680 I mean, that's nine times out of ten what happens.

00:13:27.660 Like no one gives a damn.

00:13:29.100 We all have problems.

00:13:30.100 We could all paint ourselves as victims if we wanted to.

00:13:33.040 Some of us, even despite massive life challenges, have picked ourselves up, moved ourselves

00:13:37.440 along, and things have been fine.

00:13:39.220 Look at Oprah, right?

00:13:40.880 The number of childhood sexual abuse incidents that she suffered, among other issues.

00:13:45.900 Very, very poor.

00:13:47.280 Black in the South at a time when that was not a great status to have.

00:13:51.340 There were open discrimination on the streets.

00:13:53.400 It wound up okay for her.

00:13:54.920 She had a can-do attitude.

00:13:56.540 Even if you don't like Oprah, you got to love that about her.

00:13:59.160 I love Oprah.

00:14:00.120 And, you know, I want to talk about Oprah because I have some thoughts.

00:14:02.300 But I was just watching, first we watched The King's Speech with our oldest child.

00:14:08.880 And then we parlayed that into the one about Winston Churchill, Our Darkest Hour.

00:14:14.780 Darkest Hour.

00:14:15.500 So it had World War II in the brain.

00:14:17.180 And I wound up those two films thinking, we really need more conflict in our lives.

00:14:26.800 We need more real conflict.

00:14:29.540 Like, there's a speech with Winston Churchill, like, would you want to fight or would you

00:14:34.380 want to surrender to Churchill or to Hitler?

00:14:36.920 And the people are like, I'd rather die on the streets.

00:14:39.700 And he's out there like, we will die choking on our own blood in the streets before we surrender

00:14:44.620 to this man.

00:14:45.420 And like, now we're like, a microaggression.

00:14:48.860 I need it.

00:14:49.400 I need to save space to discuss it.

00:14:51.160 Like, stop it up for the love of God and focus on something other than yourself.

00:14:57.040 Yeah, it does feel very self-absorbed.

00:14:59.940 I'm reading.

00:15:00.600 Have you ever read Alone in Berlin?

00:15:02.980 No.

00:15:03.180 It's a novel written by Hans Filata, and he wrote it in 1947 and died short.

00:15:10.780 He didn't even live to see it published.

00:15:12.500 But it takes place in 1940 in Berlin, and it's about the working class in Berlin who weren't

00:15:20.040 on board with the party and they were trying to...

00:15:22.760 It's based on a true story of this couple who were putting postcards all over Berlin and

00:15:29.380 basically resisting Hitler in whatever way they could.

00:15:31.800 And there's this insane line in the novel where the wife is talking to the husband when he's

00:15:36.600 telling her about this idea.

00:15:38.080 And she says, isn't this so small?

00:15:40.040 Isn't this enough?

00:15:41.100 And he said, whether it's small or large, it will still cost us our life if anyone finds

00:15:47.420 out.

00:15:47.960 And it was just so moving to me to think about what it was like to live in this time and

00:15:54.860 under Nazi Germany.

00:15:56.860 And, you know, I recently wrote a piece of satire after the election.

00:16:02.820 It was the weekend after.

00:16:04.100 And I was reading through Twitter, which is never a great.

00:16:07.760 But, you know, I spent the weekend reading my grandfather's letters and then also reading

00:16:12.900 Twitter.

00:16:13.160 And people were literally acting like they just got back from the beaches of Normandy.

00:16:18.280 I'm like, you guys, what what are you talking?

00:16:20.940 The disconnect is so crazy.

00:16:23.000 I can't.

00:16:24.040 It was just it's mind boggling to me.

00:16:27.800 And then even reading this novel to think that people really think now that they're living

00:16:34.220 in those same conditions where people were disappearing, where you could not speak out

00:16:40.600 against the the Nazi party.

00:16:42.760 You could not say anything.

00:16:44.420 It would you would be disappeared that to think that people think that this is what they're

00:16:50.120 living in right now.

00:16:51.540 We've done such a massively horrible job educating our children.

00:16:57.000 I don't know what.

00:16:58.500 I've got to I've I've read it when you when you published it and I I pulled it for today

00:17:04.580 because I wanted to bring it up.

00:17:06.300 And just so the audience understands, OK, here's your satire about, you know, those who made it

00:17:11.420 through the Trump era.

00:17:13.460 Here's an excerpt.

00:17:15.100 It's not enough to be racist, mom and dad.

00:17:17.420 You have to be anti-racist and anti-racist means hating white people.

00:17:22.180 Not a single day has gone by since the bad orange man brutally ripped our safe spaces away

00:17:26.120 from us that I haven't looked in the mirror and hated myself.

00:17:29.320 So I've spent the last four years being the best ally I can be posting truth bombs on Twitter,

00:17:35.620 making resistance stories on Instagram, screenshotting people's tweets for Commander AOC.

00:17:41.420 And then here's the last part.

00:17:43.080 Not everyone made it.

00:17:45.040 The PTSD was too much.

00:17:46.540 They'd jump at the sight of red hats, constantly bombarded by violent speech like only women

00:17:52.100 get periods and symbols of colonial oppression like the American flag and math.

00:17:58.160 It's just so smart, Bridget.

00:18:01.260 You do a great reading of that, actually.

00:18:03.620 It's really that's my interpretation.

00:18:05.220 You read it in the tone that it was very much in my head when I was writing it.

00:18:09.660 I feel like another person takes over when I when I write those like the it's the the

00:18:15.320 parody of the people I imagine.

00:18:17.760 But we did see that we saw it with journalists and with people on the left who are like,

00:18:22.380 I'm so exhausted from my battle.

00:18:25.280 Yeah.

00:18:25.900 Yeah.

00:18:26.460 For you, I saw some tweets and it was like after I after I smoked this cigar, my wife

00:18:31.840 had one more thing for me to do.

00:18:33.600 And then it's a picture of them hanging up, you know, hanging the American flag.

00:18:37.500 I was like, you guys are you are a parody of yourselves.

00:18:40.860 I can't.

00:18:41.520 How am I supposed to take this seriously?

00:18:44.300 And I just it's been a it's been a really revealing five years for me.

00:18:51.140 Somebody who by all accounts is has become an accidental pundit.

00:18:56.860 It's not something I ever aspired to be.

00:18:58.960 I find this space to be horrible.

00:19:01.680 I don't know how any of you have done this as long as you have and not aspirational at

00:19:07.800 all.

00:19:08.520 It seems it seems cynical and toxic to me.

00:19:12.380 Some most day on good days.

00:19:14.380 I'm like how people managed in this space.

00:19:16.920 It's so hard.

00:19:17.780 Um, and and I somehow kind of tweeted my way into the crossfire of the culture wars and

00:19:27.340 it's been no matter what, I'm grateful for all that I've learned about myself in the process.

00:19:36.820 I've really been forced to ask myself, what are my values, which is always a huge opportunity.

00:19:44.080 That's true.

00:19:44.800 If you spend time in the political arena or this weird social media arena, which is pretty

00:19:49.000 much one in the same, you are forced to think about that.

00:19:53.020 And I mean, it's no mystery to me why you've found yourself succeeding here and you found

00:19:58.220 yourself gravitating toward it because you you are smart, you're funny and you're fearless.

00:20:04.800 And that's the other requirement.

00:20:07.080 You know, it may not be inspirational every day like the figures who are in this battle.

00:20:11.700 Most of them are not some of them are, but I, but I feel like people who are out there

00:20:16.660 like you and I, I, I would like to believe like me have our armor on, we got our armor

00:20:21.500 on and we got our swords out and we're fighting, you know, we're doing it like we're trying to

00:20:25.640 do something to fight back.

00:20:27.240 And, and that in and of itself is worth something in these crazy culture wars.

00:20:33.520 But I mean, maybe I'm the hypocrite because I feel like fighting for the first amendment,

00:20:38.080 fighting for the rights that are embodied in our bill of rights is worth something.

00:20:42.640 And that's not the same as I got somebody fired for a tweet today.

00:20:47.820 Yay me.

00:20:48.600 I just, I don't see the two things as equivalent at all.

00:20:51.760 You know, they're in this fake moral battle to save us all from the bad people we are so

00:20:59.460 that they can emerge victorious on top and righteous.

00:21:03.520 And I feel like then there are those of us down here who are like, we're all good.

00:21:06.500 We're all bad.

00:21:07.240 We all have the right to say and believe what we want.

00:21:09.860 Get off of our backs.

00:21:12.820 It's, it's, it's a very, this is what I've pushed back against on the left.

00:21:17.720 And it always, you know, I, it winds, I, I hear the, but Trump, but we don't hear you

00:21:23.340 pushing back.

00:21:23.960 First of all, I came from the left.

00:21:26.140 So it's almost like I see it as my family more than I, I was not raised in a conservative

00:21:32.400 household at all.

00:21:33.580 In many ways, I was part of the liberal bubble.

00:21:36.540 I didn't even, I think the best example of me realizing what a bubble I was in.

00:21:42.240 And I joke about this a lot is when I went on Glenn Beck's podcast and he was interviewing

00:21:46.940 me and I was sitting there like, did you know that the left has double standards?

00:21:52.040 And Glenn's looking at me like, yeah, I've heard, I'm aware of Bridget.

00:21:57.280 Oh, that's cute.

00:21:58.260 Exactly.

00:21:59.000 It's like an adorable, naive person who got stumped, who it really, I am the kind of that

00:22:06.700 classic person on the left who really just repeated what I heard from CNN for all, I mean,

00:22:14.000 there's really not a great word for it, but I would say I was a quintessential libtard

00:22:19.300 and I definitely didn't really do any research.

00:22:24.460 I just parroted what I heard and thought I was, because it is so much, uh, Michael Malice

00:22:33.200 does a great job of kind of explaining this idea of the cathedral, which isn't even his

00:22:37.180 concept.

00:22:38.000 I always forget whose concept it is of the media, academia, entertainment, and me being

00:22:44.180 so lost in this or, or, or kind of it's the water that I swam and I didn't really even

00:22:50.480 realize that it existed and coming out of that being, I guess for all lack of a great

00:22:58.400 term here, either that it's being called red pill to a certain extent for me, it was just

00:23:03.380 being exposed to the whole entire spectrum of media and seeing how much I didn't know

00:23:14.200 about anything that was, that's been the most humbling part of the last five years.

00:23:19.740 And it started really when I was a playboy and I was tweeting about, um, something about

00:23:25.560 there was a mass shooting and I was tweeting about guns and then I was getting pushback from

00:23:29.240 my audience and some of the critique was fair and accurate because I sat back and realized

00:23:34.900 I know nothing about guns.

00:23:36.560 I don't even know how to shoot a gun.

00:23:38.240 I don't know anything about the gun laws in California.

00:23:40.620 And I'm 100% just reacting emotionally to this, which fair enough, it's a horrible tragedy,

00:23:46.280 tragedy, but I don't know.

00:23:48.380 And I don't know what I'm talking about.

00:23:50.120 And so I had, I solicited emails from my audience to tell me what they thought about what this gun

00:23:56.440 debate is and what should be done.

00:23:58.300 And, and I got so many interesting, thoughtful essays from people all over America.

00:24:04.340 And I sat back and it really was a big moment for me of recognizing my limitations in the

00:24:11.720 space, recognizing how little I know about mostly everything.

00:24:16.340 And from there, I really just started.

00:24:18.800 It was a completely new learning experience for me.

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00:25:37.540 You mentioned writing for Playboy, not necessarily being red-pilled, but maybe purple-pilled.

00:25:46.620 You sat back, you thought about it, you read, you started educating yourself, and then you

00:25:50.900 came to the very fun, if somewhat puzzling realization, and I quote, that boobs could save

00:25:57.900 the world.

00:26:00.720 I really do think they can.

00:26:03.020 Help me.

00:26:03.440 I really do.

00:26:04.260 They're just, they're the universal, they're, it's funny, if you say boobs in a diner, men

00:26:10.600 will pop up like meerkats.

00:26:12.360 It's just like, you can just say the word anywhere, and men's heads will just pop up.

00:26:18.380 I think that it's, there's something just a softening about it, and I've been joking

00:26:22.220 about this, is I, I was very provocative and very much an exhibitionist.

00:26:28.420 Some of this, I'm, again, I've been on just a very public learning about myself journey.

00:26:35.540 Some, some of this has come about because I got sober in 2013, and then stumbled into

00:26:41.260 this space.

00:26:42.060 And now looking back, I'm even looking at how I, uh, just how so much of my trauma played

00:26:52.820 out publicly, really, without me even realizing it.

00:26:57.300 Things that I totally buried have come up and things.

00:27:01.260 Um, so I think that reclaiming my sexuality, reclaiming my body, and, you know, this is a

00:27:11.700 conversation that I don't even really know how to get into.

00:27:16.900 I've been trying to write about this for years, but there, there has been this awareness of

00:27:22.500 how I feel that I regret being a slut, which I don't necessarily like saying because I, I

00:27:29.100 really don't like slut shaming, but I also think that I was kind of lied to, and I'm not

00:27:37.380 saying this as some victim, just that the culture was very much that if you use your sexuality,

00:27:44.120 it is empowering.

00:27:46.480 And I have found that to be the opposite.

00:27:49.760 And it's been a long road of healing and self-esteem and in some cases abstinence and lots of dirt

00:27:58.980 bags in my life before I came to realize that I really had no self-esteem.

00:28:07.100 And if, if you're coming from that place and weaponizing or using your sexuality, and again,

00:28:12.500 it's kind of like trying to find status or fill that hole, um, stop it.

00:28:18.980 Yeah.

00:28:19.720 Sorry.

00:28:21.220 No pun intended.

00:28:22.680 Um, with something else, you're talking about the men popping up in diners at boobs.

00:28:26.860 And now you're talking about filling the hole slash.

00:28:29.460 This is a good thing.

00:28:30.780 We had the explicit warning on this podcast.

00:28:33.100 Everyone I go on always gets the explicit.

00:28:35.660 Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely been a journey for me to, to really,

00:28:42.500 see the, those, uh, that's, that's the weird thing is reclaiming my power as a woman, but

00:28:51.340 actually coming from a place of self-esteem and confidence and not coming from a place

00:28:56.900 of desperation or, um, no, I know exactly what you mean.

00:29:02.000 You get, sometimes women will look at other women's, uh, behavior, you know, if it's promiscuous

00:29:07.440 behavior and they go from man to man and you, you, as a woman can see there's an issue there,

00:29:12.340 like not in every case, but in a particular case, you can see a woman's looking for love

00:29:16.460 in all the wrong places, right?

00:29:17.580 Like she thinks it's going to be fulfilling and you can say like, I don't, I don't like

00:29:21.360 it.

00:29:21.660 I, I wish you would make a different choice.

00:29:23.620 And the response to that cannot be your slut shaming.

00:29:27.400 No, it isn't.

00:29:28.320 It like, I'm trying to figure out why she's doing that and whether it's well motivated.

00:29:32.220 If you're just somebody who loves sex and you love multiple partners and you go in and

00:29:36.400 out of it with a clear head right on that, that's none of anybody's business, but I like

00:29:41.660 you have seen a lot of girls, younger women in particular, late teens, early twenties play

00:29:48.240 this game where they mistake physical affection for love.

00:29:52.760 It's somehow in the moment, an ego booster.

00:29:55.580 And then after the fact, anything, but, and like a drug, they keep doing it over and over

00:30:01.900 and expecting a different result, you know, like a drug and a crazy person.

00:30:04.920 All right.

00:30:05.500 If you go to the old definition and it's damaging, it's unhealthy.

00:30:11.040 That's not judgment.

00:30:12.160 That's keeping it real.

00:30:13.540 Like, yeah, that's not a good choice.

00:30:15.280 It's certainly not a choice I want to see my daughter make.

00:30:17.900 Yeah.

00:30:18.300 And it's definitely, there's so many mixed messages that you get.

00:30:22.820 And I, it's interesting just seeing the, you know, the numbers now with the kids, it seems

00:30:28.640 like there is less sex than ever before.

00:30:31.200 So we've weirdly, I feel like there was an overcorrection and then there now seems to be

00:30:38.820 another strange pivot where there's, um, uh, again, it seems there's a moral, um, it seems

00:30:51.640 strange, but it's, it's strangely coming from the left.

00:30:54.220 There's a lot of weirdness around sex, which is something I wouldn't have necessarily expected.

00:31:00.700 And wait, but what I don't follow, cause I don't, I don't read the playboy magazine that,

00:31:05.960 and nor do I, I don't have my finger on the pulse here.

00:31:08.760 What, what is the weirdness coming from the left?

00:31:10.780 There, there seems to be a lot of, I think it's more of the confusion around sexuality and

00:31:19.120 gender and, and the, the conversations around this are so confusing.

00:31:25.620 And I think because of the me too movement, which is absolutely something that we needed

00:31:30.960 there again, feels like there's an overcorrection.

00:31:35.340 And now we're having, um, just having to walk through every step of, for instance, a sexual

00:31:43.360 interaction and getting affirmation every step of the way and having these, what are normally

00:31:51.420 awkward situations that we all have to go through and navigate.

00:31:55.520 I feel like we're trying to hack our way out of it.

00:31:58.800 And there's no way to avoid that awkwardness in sexuality.

00:32:04.080 You will have to go through that, whether you go through it when you're 13 or 14, or whether

00:32:08.480 you go through it when you're in your twenties, there's no way around that awkward learning

00:32:13.540 about yourself.

00:32:14.640 And I feel like now it's, it, there, there is this very strange, um, kind of trying to

00:32:25.260 micromanage this process and it's not possible.

00:32:29.620 It just seems like now kids are, are not having sex at all.

00:32:33.720 You know, the numbers are, I think it's the first time in a generation that the generation

00:32:39.360 below Gen X, millennials, and then Gen Z are having less sex than ever before.

00:32:45.220 I would attribute a lot of this to just being kind of addicted to their phones and perhaps

00:32:49.340 they're doing it in a more virtual way with sexting and whatever other ways they might be

00:32:56.260 getting that fixed.

00:32:57.080 But it still seems like there's less in real life interactions happening.

00:33:02.440 Well, it's interesting.

00:33:04.000 So it's virtual and not virtuous.

00:33:05.980 Um, Abigail Schreier was saying something along these lines.

00:33:09.760 She wasn't like, yeah, let's get all of our kids sexually active.

00:33:12.460 But she was saying, um, that one of the things you want to do in a young girl who, you know,

00:33:19.940 her, her theory based on a lot of research is that there's what's happening with our young

00:33:25.920 teenage girls right now is a social contagion of transgender issues.

00:33:29.820 And, and so in talking about, well, how can we prevent that in our daughters?

00:33:33.860 She was saying, you should encourage your daughter to explore her own body, to be comfortable

00:33:40.500 with her own body.

00:33:41.840 And she, again, she wasn't saying like, yeah, have her lose her virginity at age 15.

00:33:45.680 But she was just saying, like, watch the shaming and things like that.

00:33:50.240 It's, it's normal for you to be curious about your body for you.

00:33:53.220 So most, most women are straight, most men are straight to be attracted to the person

00:33:57.340 of the opposite sex and to want to like, figure that out a bit.

00:34:00.540 And if you have too puritanical an approach, it can backfire in severe ways.

00:34:06.520 And so you got to figure out how to thread that needle.

00:34:08.760 So your kid treats themselves with respect, but doesn't get a complex.

00:34:15.140 Yeah.

00:34:15.260 So I, I can't imagine being a parent right now, teens or young, even young kids coming

00:34:20.840 up.

00:34:21.320 There's so, there seems to be so much confusion.

00:34:24.880 And even just from the younger generation, the kids that I'm talking to, it just seems

00:34:30.100 like there's a lot of fear, you know, they're an abnormal amount of fear.

00:34:36.380 And I remember, I remember my, we all remember our, our first kiss.

00:34:41.640 I hope most of us have the benefit of that first kiss where I remember mine, it was at

00:34:48.020 a dare dance.

00:34:49.140 And I remember going to the anti-drug thing.

00:34:53.400 Yeah.

00:34:55.140 You found another vice.

00:34:57.060 Yeah.

00:34:57.600 Right.

00:34:57.940 Right.

00:34:58.220 Um, I mean, it's ironic.

00:34:59.820 And they, then I remember going to second base and I didn't lose my virginity until I

00:35:07.660 was 17, which was actually pretty late for most of the girls in my high school had serious

00:35:13.400 boyfriends and were already sexually active just with one partner.

00:35:17.540 And so it was pretty, I was kind of, I'm 40.

00:35:21.160 I just turned 42.

00:35:22.580 Okay.

00:35:23.220 Okay.

00:35:23.460 Keep going.

00:35:24.300 Yeah.

00:35:24.600 So I, I was of that, um, younger, I guess I'm my X annual technically.

00:35:32.800 I'm like the younger end of Gen X and, but I feel much more aligned with Gen X and I just

00:35:42.020 remember all of the awkwardness.

00:35:44.160 And I wonder, this is why I'm not too judgmental of any of the kids in these positions is if

00:35:50.300 I was a teenage girl, I hated being a woman.

00:35:54.980 I hated it.

00:35:55.960 I've had the worst penis envy my whole life.

00:35:58.420 My, so much of my life has been defined by this, this just feeling like men had it easier

00:36:04.360 writing for playboy was eyeopening, really hearing men's struggles around things like

00:36:10.540 erectile dysfunction, balding, being short.

00:36:13.680 I had no idea men suffered as much as women did.

00:36:17.260 It was eyeopening for me because I always thought they just had it easier period.

00:36:21.120 And, and so that was just, um, I don't know if I lived in a culture where I could just

00:36:29.020 all of a sudden decide that I could be another gender or not any gender when I was feeling

00:36:35.360 awkward and my boobs were coming in and, and I was just the awkwardness of puberty.

00:36:41.900 If I could have found some way to short circuit that or to, to change, I, I might've been all

00:36:48.780 for it.

00:36:49.380 But yeah, yeah, I created a whole host of, of new problems in your life.

00:36:54.580 Yeah.

00:36:55.500 No, but I, I think you have a, a, a great point.

00:36:59.080 And, and also, you know, the number of layers now that we want to put between young men and

00:37:04.340 women about to have sex for the first time, thanks to, you know, all of the awful incidents

00:37:10.260 of assault and misunderstanding and actual rape and date rape and all of it.

00:37:15.540 Um, it's scary, you know, and I, in addition to having a girl, I have to be a

00:37:19.360 two boys and the last thing I want is for them to find themselves in a situation where

00:37:23.960 they've had what they fully believe is a consensual sexual encounter only to find out the next

00:37:29.580 day, the woman feels or, or is claiming she feels like she did not consent.

00:37:34.520 And now they're being looked at as criminals.

00:37:36.600 And that's why you have things like sign this piece of paper before I get on top of you.

00:37:41.760 Yeah.

00:37:42.080 It's like insane.

00:37:43.180 But on the other hand, you're like, shit, it's a really litigious society.

00:37:47.000 We are seeing women have what we used to call Sunday morning regrets, you know, which is

00:37:50.620 not the withdrawal of consent.

00:37:52.560 It's just, you're sorry you did it.

00:37:54.040 Now you want to blame somebody and, um, it terrifies me, you know, I mean, back in my

00:37:59.660 day bridge and I'm, you know, I'm 50 now we like my first experiences.

00:38:05.960 I remember being like, no, no, no.

00:38:08.260 But I did mean yes.

00:38:09.380 And my no actually did mean yes.

00:38:11.140 And I mean, I'm sorry.

00:38:12.120 I'm not saying it does in every case, but like, I was just trying to be a good Catholic

00:38:15.660 girl and protest when I didn't really protest.

00:38:18.280 And now everything's on top.

00:38:19.820 The world's on top, you know, it's upside down.

00:38:21.780 Uh, it's, it's something I've really learned a lot from the younger women that I, when

00:38:27.480 I was writing particularly about relationships and I, I definitely understand, you know,

00:38:34.440 I was waiting tables up to three years ago and I worked with a lot of younger women and

00:38:39.720 they were so funny with the men who would, you know, touch their butt or all the guys

00:38:44.660 who were in the restaurant industry.

00:38:46.000 It's like, if I fought every one of those battles, I would, I would be fighting all day

00:38:49.700 long.

00:38:50.140 But these girls were like, don't touch me.

00:38:52.440 Don't touch my calf.

00:38:53.420 Don't do that.

00:38:54.060 They had language for it and they would stick up for themselves.

00:38:57.500 And I was so impressed with them.

00:38:58.900 And they, and I was like, wow, I never even thought to push back.

00:39:02.840 I just kind of took it.

00:39:03.980 And they're like, well, just because you old ladies took it doesn't mean we need to.

00:39:07.360 And they're not completely wrong about that.

00:39:09.600 That's awesome.

00:39:10.220 They're, they definitely grew up in a, in a, I'm happy for the younger women that they

00:39:15.800 grew up in a culture where they, it wasn't, it's not acceptable that their manager is cruelly

00:39:21.940 touching their leg when he's holding her while she's standing on a crate to get some coffee

00:39:27.380 down.

00:39:27.740 Like the, the little, those little things that happen happen all the time.

00:39:31.440 And it was great seeing these 19, 20 year old women being like, don't touch my calf.

00:39:35.720 You're making me uncomfortable.

00:39:36.680 Yeah, no, that's, that's the good part of the meat.

00:39:42.320 That's the good stuff that came out.

00:39:44.140 Yeah.

00:39:44.320 There's so much.

00:39:45.380 And this is, I've written a lot about this because I don't want to throw the baby out

00:39:49.300 with the bathwater.

00:39:50.060 And, and then there's the other side where I, I just, they're just questions I have where

00:39:56.660 I don't understand why too, if you're at college, you go get drunk, you both sleep

00:40:02.900 together.

00:40:03.240 Now men are reporting women and I don't have any numbers on this.

00:40:07.180 I've just read a couple of stories about how there's a race to almost report because the

00:40:13.760 first person who reports is it's the victim.

00:40:19.160 Exactly.

00:40:19.980 And so there, there's this fear.

00:40:22.880 And generally I don't understand why if a man and a woman are both intoxicated and they're,

00:40:27.120 they're the same level of intoxication, you know, not a man who's slightly buzzed and a

00:40:31.960 woman who's completely blacked out, why a woman, why she is kind of automatically deemed

00:40:38.640 the victim in that situation.

00:40:39.800 No, she shouldn't be.

00:40:41.000 She shouldn't be.

00:40:41.640 That's, I mean, true equality means no, she doesn't get some special consideration just

00:40:46.740 because she happens to be female and you can have female harassers and you actually can

00:40:51.520 have female rapists.

00:40:52.780 Um, and I don't, I, if I were a man who thought a woman who was going to do that to me unfairly,

00:40:57.560 I'd have, I'd have to seriously consider that too, because some women do use it and that,

00:41:02.200 and that undermines all the real victims.

00:41:04.720 It does.

00:41:05.140 And, and this was kind of my, I'm, I say this as a woman, just so your audience isn't thinking I'm

00:41:12.420 this, you know, heartless person.

00:41:14.560 I say this as a woman who is, who is drugged and raped when I was 18.

00:41:19.840 So I had, and this was a situation where it was, I was clearly the victim in a situation like this.

00:41:26.880 And, and it's a lot of, you know, me too, all of this stuff that's come up, all of the Kavanaugh

00:41:34.920 hearings were really hard.

00:41:36.200 It, all of this is, has forced me to do a lot of work around that trauma that happened to me,

00:41:45.000 but then seeing, I'm a woman who believes in, in due process.

00:41:49.700 And even if a bunch of women came forward, I would, about the person who did it to me,

00:41:57.320 because I never said anything because I was so young and I felt bad and I felt ashamed and I

00:42:01.700 felt like it was my fault and all this other crap that wasn't true.

00:42:05.360 Um, I, and I thought that he was, you know, I had, I really had an interesting realization.

00:42:11.640 This was the summer of Monica Lewinsky.

00:42:13.980 And I remembered being, I remembered looking at what was happening with her or around the

00:42:21.020 same time as Monica Lewinsky's stuff was going, you know, very public.

00:42:26.300 And I obviously thought I didn't stand a chance.

00:42:30.140 I was looking at this poor woman who is 21 years old and seeing what, what was happening

00:42:34.860 to her on a public level.

00:42:36.220 I'm like, yeah, I'm not saying anything.

00:42:37.920 And I wonder how many women who came around that era kind of was looking at this and feeling

00:42:43.600 very similarly.

00:42:45.300 So I just decided not to say anything.

00:42:48.080 And, and, um, if somebody came forward now and accused him, I would definitely be right

00:42:55.760 behind them.

00:42:56.540 But I would also feel like he deserves his day in court.

00:43:00.860 You know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be like, Hey, let's go to Twitter and ruin his life.

00:43:04.220 I would want to have him go through the process that everybody deserves.

00:43:13.320 Well, so, so yes, the, the, the me too movement was largely good, largely good just because

00:43:21.060 it wound up, I think dying as a political movement.

00:43:24.700 It got hijacked by political people and used as a weapon, um, which was always like Kavanaugh.

00:43:30.960 Yeah.

00:43:31.320 Yeah.

00:43:31.680 And so that's, that's when I said, you know, I, I don't want to associate with that term

00:43:37.080 or these people, Alyssa Milano.

00:43:39.840 No, she doesn't.

00:43:41.300 She and I have nothing to do with one another.

00:43:44.100 Um, I believe in the noble effort to protect women in the workplace and women who are sexual

00:43:48.360 assault victims and women who are placed in these impossible situations from the really

00:43:53.340 severe to the one you mentioned of the waitresses.

00:43:55.380 That's, it's not okay.

00:43:56.720 And it's right for women to stand up against it.

00:43:59.360 Something not just when you were younger, we'd never been doing.

00:44:03.880 We've really, as a, as a gender had never been doing.

00:44:07.480 I too was raised to think you just got to suck it up.

00:44:10.600 And it's only very recently that I think women in this country have started to think, no, I

00:44:16.440 don't actually, I don't.

00:44:18.360 But to round back on the, your larger point, um, it's interesting to hear you say, if, if

00:44:24.360 someone came forward against your rapist, you would stand and say me too, but is this

00:44:32.120 somebody you've never named?

00:44:34.460 Was there never any accountability even after those Monica Lewinsky years?

00:44:39.520 Yeah, no, but I, what made me think about this was the whole Bill Cosby thing.

00:44:43.860 And I wrote an essay, um, just on medium Bill Cosby rate me kind of it.

00:44:49.060 It's a, obviously not true, but it was me reacting to all of these women coming forward.

00:44:55.540 And my initial reaction was, Oh, isn't it a little late ladies, don't you think?

00:45:01.180 And I was shocked at my own reaction to it because what happened to these women once I

00:45:06.760 actually read about it is pretty much exactly what happened to me almost identically.

00:45:12.700 And I really had to look at how much of the internalized shame still lived in me because

00:45:18.860 I asked myself if a bunch of women from the, that, that time and place came forward and

00:45:25.140 they said, this, this happened to this, to me with this person, um, I would, I would

00:45:31.340 definitely back them up.

00:45:33.160 You know, I would definitely, um,

00:45:35.840 But what would you go first?

00:45:37.060 Um, that's a great question.

00:45:45.540 I guess because it's been so long, I, and I, that's a good question.

00:45:52.980 I, I never even thought to, I never, even until this moment, you know, I've told men and

00:46:00.620 they're like, I'll go kill him.

00:46:02.000 And then you end up kind of taking care of them emotionally when you're telling them

00:46:05.140 this horrible thing, guys, don't do this.

00:46:07.780 Um, and, and so I guess there's been moments, but it's never really even occurred to me.

00:46:13.960 I think it just seems like, um, something that I don't want to put myself through just

00:46:25.560 because I've done, I respect that I respect just because I've done so much.

00:46:30.220 Yeah.

00:46:30.700 I mean, maybe I don't know that it's happened to anybody else.

00:46:33.680 You know, I don't, I don't, I only know that it happened to me and I feel that

00:46:41.380 I guess it never even occurred to me to do that because I've, I've done so much work around

00:46:48.660 it myself.

00:46:49.340 And I just feel like it was something, God, it was like over 20 years ago now.

00:46:55.380 It's like, do what I want to relive that all over again for, I don't think so.

00:47:02.160 I don't, I don't.

00:47:03.240 That's, that's a very valid concern.

00:47:05.760 I, I in no way think you are obligated to do anything there.

00:47:10.800 I think you're obligated to do what's right for you.

00:47:12.640 And that's why I hate when women who find themselves victim number nine, um, somehow

00:47:20.060 feel the need in the press.

00:47:21.840 It's never victims one through eight, um, or rather victims 10 through whatever the

00:47:27.780 ones who came after don't blame them.

00:47:29.440 But the press is constantly asking questions like, well, why didn't you, you know, like

00:47:34.220 as if it's your fault, anything happened after you.

00:47:37.980 Yeah.

00:47:38.500 And that's bullshit.

00:47:39.440 You, every person has to do what's right for her.

00:47:42.800 And this is not an, an area in which every woman is, wants to be Joan of Arc and totally

00:47:50.520 understandable.

00:47:51.140 These are deep wounds that are deeply affecting, especially when you're 18 Bridget.

00:47:57.340 It changed my life.

00:47:58.340 I, Oh God.

00:48:00.480 I mean, I, uh, yeah, I wish I could go back and, and give that woman or girl, I felt so

00:48:13.580 old.

00:48:13.920 Like there, there had been so much stuff in my own family life that I already felt so old,

00:48:18.920 but I wish that I could have given her the kind of compassion and, and just, I don't know.

00:48:32.120 I didn't, I didn't have the support that I think you should give somebody in those circumstances.

00:48:37.940 And it ended up, it changed the way I felt about, I mean, I felt dirty for years, years and dated

00:48:47.220 men who didn't deserve me.

00:48:48.620 And, um, yeah, I was in rehab for a heroin addiction a year later.

00:48:56.400 It was not, you know, my drug use escalated drastically there.

00:49:00.500 If there are moments in my life that are pivotal, where you can put markers down as to my behavior

00:49:07.320 going from one way to another, one would be my parents' divorce.

00:49:11.340 The other would be this.

00:49:13.240 It was like, I was, I was kind of already slipping.

00:49:17.240 I had been doing drinking and smoking pot all through high school.

00:49:20.780 And then everything just escalated.

00:49:23.340 I could not get out of my brain fast enough.

00:49:27.920 And then you put yourself in situations doing that, that, that pile onto that shame and pile

00:49:34.500 onto the feelings you're already feeling, which is why I think if you're a woman who's struggling

00:49:39.820 with any of this, or has had any abuse or, um, any assault in their background, and then

00:49:45.520 they're like, Oh, I'm just going to try and sleep my way through this, which I really did

00:49:50.340 try to do.

00:49:51.040 Like if I'm, I'll just try and weaponize sexuality and use, use it as a powerful tool.

00:49:59.040 Um, it was like a lie.

00:50:00.740 I told myself for a really, a really long time, like a very, a very, very, very long time.

00:50:08.260 And it didn't really start healing until I got sober.

00:50:12.060 And I mean, for the past seven years, it's just been weeding through so much of all of

00:50:17.600 that, uh, confusion and self-loathing and shame.

00:50:22.080 And, and so, yeah, I guess it just never even occurred to me because I was really on just

00:50:27.100 like a 20 year bender afterwards.

00:50:28.860 And, and also just, um, you know, your character, again, I, I refer back to what I saw even someone

00:50:38.480 like poor Monica go through your character just gets so assassinated.

00:50:42.140 Even if you, even if I went on trial now for something like that, do I, I asked myself,

00:50:47.120 do I want to put myself through what their lawyers are going to put me through?

00:50:51.140 Here's everything we know about this girl from the past 20 years.

00:50:54.460 And knowing my, my reaction to, um, you know, I was basically rehab right after that.

00:51:02.440 So I, you'd get dragged through the mud, even if you didn't go criminally file, even if you

00:51:07.980 just came out publicly, uh, there's very little question you'd get, you get attacked as well.

00:51:13.060 It's, that's why it's like, it's totally personal and it's not uncommon at all to, after a sexual

00:51:20.860 assault or a rape go from man to man, looking for a different result, looking to feel empowered,

00:51:27.700 you know, looking aimlessly for just something, something better than what, what came.

00:51:34.760 I see your reminders when you, when you reach your anniversary, your sobriety anniversary

00:51:39.580 on Twitter, and you're, you never make them about yourself.

00:51:42.680 You always make them about all the people who are out there struggling and how you're thinking

00:51:46.620 about them and how you know how hard it is.

00:51:48.440 And just hearing you sort of fill out the story makes it more meaningful and also selfless

00:51:57.040 of you.

00:51:57.460 I mean, I knew that you'd been addicted to drugs, um, including heroin.

00:52:02.720 I mean, not that it's great to be addicted to cocaine, but heroin is so special.

00:52:07.540 It's a special lane.

00:52:09.580 Um, but you're very, you're very giving to, to others, even in this form in which you're

00:52:15.560 bullied mercilessly, right?

00:52:16.920 In which people are nasty.

00:52:18.260 I know you've called Twitter the high school.

00:52:20.660 It's like a public high school again for adults.

00:52:22.980 It really is.

00:52:24.040 Um, so is that scary for you to be on there talking about things as deeply personal as

00:52:29.140 this, uh, in a place that really is not safe, um, and not necessarily rooting for you?

00:52:36.240 Um, it's another great question.

00:52:41.160 I, I think I have to take breaks and make sure that I'm okay.

00:52:49.320 And that, um, I really, you know, I had a great experience.

00:52:55.340 Um, there's this kind of idea that in recovery, no matter how far down the scale you've gone,

00:53:01.820 and you'll see that your experience can benefit others.

00:53:05.260 And I never really understood how this can apply to all things.

00:53:10.240 And I was in, um, a meeting one day and a girl walked in, this was pre-lockdown and she

00:53:18.400 was really young and she had this look on her face and I, I knew it right away.

00:53:22.820 I was like, she looked like she'd been crying.

00:53:25.260 And I was like, this girl is traumatized.

00:53:27.960 This is not like I'm having a bad day in sobriety.

00:53:30.460 Something happened.

00:53:31.780 So I just sat next to her because I didn't want some like, you know, there's often like

00:53:36.860 weird, creepy guys in those rooms and whatever.

00:53:39.140 Um, they're, they're just weird or like a busy body.

00:53:42.480 They're, they're just all kinds of personalities and, and I love them all.

00:53:47.220 But I, I've been around long enough to know that, you know, I, I felt protective of her

00:53:52.000 immediately and she couldn't really stay, uh, present.

00:53:56.920 And she, I was like, do you want to go outside and talk?

00:53:58.980 And she went outside and her, she just kind of started confessing to me about what happened

00:54:05.040 to her the night before.

00:54:06.180 And it was exactly my story with variations, but very similar thing.

00:54:12.000 Um, and, um, I looked at her, she was the same age as me as when it happened to me, 18, 19.

00:54:21.100 And I looked at her and I said, the same thing happened to me.

00:54:24.220 And I'll never forget her looking at me and being like, really?

00:54:27.060 Like that relief that somebody kind of understood.

00:54:31.100 And she said, what do I do?

00:54:32.440 And I said, I, I don't know what to do, but I know what not to do.

00:54:36.740 And it's everything I did.

00:54:39.080 And so I said, you know, let's go to, uh, uh, like a, a rape sent, you know, one of the,

00:54:45.680 there's so many great resources in California in particular.

00:54:49.020 And so we went, we did everything I didn't do.

00:54:51.880 I, I, we went, she got a kid that she had counseling.

00:54:55.960 They were amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing.

00:54:59.380 I would donate all my money to the work that these people do.

00:55:02.480 It is unbelievable just the way they treated her and they gave her so many resources.

00:55:08.480 And, you know, she ended up, um, she was scared to tell her family.

00:55:13.260 She ended up telling her mom things that I just didn't do.

00:55:16.100 And now it's like amazing.

00:55:18.460 She's, she's, you know, been sober.

00:55:22.220 I, it was just like, if I went through that to be it for that one moment in my life, it

00:55:28.780 was worth it.

00:55:29.540 It was 100% worth it.

00:55:32.400 And I think that's kind of how to answer your larger question.

00:55:35.620 I think that's how I look at, um, the, the dealing with the kind of being open and then

00:55:44.120 dealing with the Thunderdome and the negativity to me, if I can reach through the darkness

00:55:50.680 and reach out to one person who's depressed or anxious or has been sexually assaulted or

00:55:57.380 feels crazy because they feel like they're politically homeless and no, you know, I hear

00:56:01.120 this all the time is like, thank you.

00:56:02.740 I just don't feel crazy.

00:56:05.240 Any, any of those, that connection is worth it to me ultimately, because what else is all

00:56:12.120 the crap that I went through for, if not to try and lift other people up?

00:56:16.620 It just, um, I don't feel like a, you know, you said earlier that it's fearless and I don't,

00:56:23.700 I don't feel like I'm fearless.

00:56:25.540 That's one area where I might feel like I'm funny, but I don't feel like I'm fearless.

00:56:30.620 That's something I feel like I'm just speaking.

00:56:33.940 Um, it seems like pretty unremarkable kind of common sense things.

00:56:41.740 I don't feel like I'm saying anything that's like radically, but knowing what's going to

00:56:47.220 come your way.

00:56:47.940 I mean, like that's, that is what you do, but then you're very well aware of what's,

00:56:52.780 what's going to come back.

00:56:53.620 I know you've talked about, you know, the messages back to you, aren't you?

00:56:57.100 You're wrong.

00:56:58.000 You're stupid.

00:56:58.580 It's, you're a hack.

00:57:00.260 You're worthless.

00:57:01.040 You're garbage.

00:57:02.220 I mean, it's like the worst, the worst shit on there.

00:57:05.520 I mean, Twitter is vitriolic and toxic.

00:57:08.520 And so it is brave to be out there fighting on nonetheless, trying to create a soft landing

00:57:13.880 space for people who are also hurting.

00:57:16.160 And I just, I, I do have to tell the audience, I hope you don't mind.

00:57:21.000 Um, that's how you and I first connected.

00:57:23.900 I was, I was seeing you get retweeted by people I knew, and then I followed you and it was

00:57:33.820 literally, I mean, gosh, it was like almost to the day, um, I think three months after

00:57:40.860 I left NBC and I was still reeling and in a rough place mentally, just upset and sad and

00:57:50.460 very teary and not totally understanding what had just happened to me.

00:57:54.860 And you DM'd me, you direct messaged me on Twitter.

00:57:59.300 And I, I hope you don't mind.

00:58:00.900 I'm going to read what you wrote.

00:58:02.860 You wrote, I wanted to say, I wanted to say, I love you.

00:58:09.420 I'm so sorry what happened to you.

00:58:11.660 And I know you'll land on your feet because you're strong and brilliant.

00:58:15.120 You inspire me.

00:58:18.600 And I wrote back, thank you so much.

00:58:21.820 You are so sweet.

00:58:23.460 Just when I occasionally start to veer toward the place of, do people get it?

00:58:27.820 Do they see the truth?

00:58:29.280 I get a message like yours and it shores me up.

00:58:32.180 I'm doing well, enjoying some time with my family and deeply grateful for people like you.

00:58:37.660 Oh, I, it's funny.

00:58:39.420 I, you know, I think I underestimate how much something like that can mean from even just

00:58:44.980 somebody, a random person.

00:58:47.400 And I know now, but from my perspective, just seeing, you know, you're in a different position,

00:58:54.720 completely much more public, uh, obviously a household name.

00:58:59.060 It's a, it's like what I go through times a million.

00:59:02.760 And so on days when I'm getting it, I, I do look to people like you or Oprah or people who are,

00:59:10.320 who have kind of carved their way.

00:59:12.780 And I guess I felt really compelled to reach out because it had happened to me, but I don't,

00:59:19.440 I guess I didn't think it was something that would even mean anything, you know,

00:59:24.760 like tons of people around her.

00:59:27.740 It meant so much to me and I do have people around me, but I, I, the fact that we didn't

00:59:34.800 know each other made it all the more meaningful in a way, you know, that you had no reason to try

00:59:40.400 to shore me up.

00:59:41.260 You had no reason to say what you said.

00:59:43.180 My good opinion of you wasn't relevant in your life.

00:59:47.400 So it's, it was sincere.

00:59:50.080 That's how it felt.

00:59:50.780 And it was just like one of those thank God moments, because when you're getting attacked

00:59:55.860 and that the mob is coming for you, one of the things you do wonder is, can I still be seen?

01:00:02.200 Can, is the real me still, still visible?

01:00:06.240 Yeah.

01:00:06.540 You know, I know who I am, but I'm, I don't know if they've succeeded in just painting

01:00:12.660 me as this vile person and whether I can still be seen and messages like that, or I don't

01:00:18.160 know, you know, I'll be sitting on the streets of New York and somebody will come over and

01:00:21.280 say something lovely and, you know, like, yeah, good for you for standing strong, you know,

01:00:26.040 this bullshit or that stuff.

01:00:28.480 That's amazing.

01:00:29.460 Right.

01:00:29.720 And, and you, I know you're a big writer about grit, resilience for better, for worse.

01:00:36.680 That's the kind of stuff that gives you grit and resilience.

01:00:39.500 If you don't fall down into a puddle and knock it back up, you emerge from those kinds of

01:00:43.680 experiences, grittier and more resilient and, and better able to fight the next one.

01:00:49.440 It's though.

01:00:50.340 And it is those random things that I can't tell you how every time I felt like giving up or just,

01:00:56.780 I'm not even giving up, just ask myself, why am I doing this?

01:01:00.800 Why am I, that feels masochistic at this point.

01:01:03.980 Why am I putting myself out there?

01:01:05.660 And every single time I've had that thought, I've received an email or a DM or a random

01:01:12.980 message from someone just out of the blue saying, I just want to thank you.

01:01:18.740 And, you know, Glenn Beck gave me great advice.

01:01:21.020 He said, keep all of those things in a file for the days that you feel like when you're

01:01:27.880 asking yourself, why am I doing this?

01:01:29.940 I want to disappear because that's where I go to is I just want to disappear into the

01:01:35.500 woods and have no wifi and become a writer or something, you know, or like a, or a Unabomber.

01:01:43.620 I don't know.

01:01:44.060 I don't know what would happen to me alone with my thoughts.

01:01:47.240 Tomato, tomato.

01:01:48.780 Yeah.

01:01:49.880 He wanted to be a writer.

01:01:51.460 I feel like that's really what we're wrong.

01:01:55.900 I think we figured it out.

01:01:58.420 More with Bridget in just one second.

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01:03:26.220 Uh, and now before we get back to Bridget, I want to bring to you a feature we call real

01:03:31.000 talk here on the Megan Kelly program, where we just talk about something in the news or

01:03:34.600 something on my mind, or, you know, something interesting and relevant and it being almost

01:03:38.000 the new year, I want to just take a minute and talk about 2020 and the coming end to 2020.

01:03:47.280 What a year, right?

01:03:49.180 I do not agree that it was the worst year ever.

01:03:51.260 Um, you know, I think, I think some folks who lived during the great depression or during

01:03:55.720 world war II, um, or some other terrible times in our country's history, like slavery, um,

01:04:02.000 might, might disagree that this was the worst year ever, but it, it wasn't a great one in

01:04:06.820 many ways either.

01:04:08.020 Just looking back and I hate to ever mention names because you, uh, you always invariably leave

01:04:14.420 one out, but some, some people who we loved very much in the public eye died the year began.

01:04:20.880 Don't forget with the death of Kobe Bryant.

01:04:22.600 It seems like so long ago, the country's been through so much that was so painful for everyone.

01:04:29.320 And then we lost some greats like Chadwick Boseman, Herman Cain died.

01:04:33.920 That was personally sad.

01:04:36.120 Regis Philbin, Alex Trebek, people who have brought a lot of joy into a lot of homes.

01:04:40.600 Um, and of course, COVID-19, COVID-19, that is what this year is going to be remembered

01:04:47.300 for and the hell that it unleashed on the world, you know, the number of deaths, not

01:04:55.980 just in our country, but in so many countries and the pain, the financial pain caused by the

01:05:01.860 pandemic and the quarantine and the shutdowns, the anger caused to business owners who just

01:05:07.880 wanted a chance to make ends meet.

01:05:09.500 And we're told no, the death of George Floyd, the black lives matter protests in the street,

01:05:14.900 the anger we saw, the craziness in places like Seattle, where all hell seemed to be breaking

01:05:20.200 loose.

01:05:20.600 The divisions that were sown in our country, both on cultural issues and political as the

01:05:27.020 election geared up, Joe Biden emerged as the victor over Bernie over Bloomberg, um, to

01:05:33.160 take on Donald Trump, the doubts Trump sowed about the election results and the ongoing anger

01:05:40.020 over whether he got a fair shake.

01:05:42.380 You know, the country suffered the wildfires out in California.

01:05:47.000 We're still not healed from all of it.

01:05:49.740 Definitely not healed, but we will be, we'll be okay.

01:05:53.340 That's just the nature of America and Americans.

01:05:56.980 You know, I saw one of those, um, little memes online that had the, the number 13 saying I'm

01:06:03.140 the worst number and the number six, six, six saying, no, I'm the worst number.

01:06:07.000 And the number 2020 saying bitches, please made me laugh.

01:06:12.800 I don't know.

01:06:14.220 It's not all bad.

01:06:15.420 It wasn't all bad.

01:06:17.320 I don't know about you, but I had time with my kids.

01:06:19.920 I never dreamed I'd have, you know, and, and part of it was stressful for sure.

01:06:25.320 Distance learning and all of it.

01:06:27.440 Part of it was totally magical.

01:06:29.860 Part of it was magical.

01:06:31.520 And as I held my son, whose teacher died, Mr. Sorrell, who we all loved, I didn't know

01:06:38.240 him, but I loved him through Yeats.

01:06:40.380 I loved him through my son who loved him so much and talked about him all the time.

01:06:43.960 And he got COVID-19 and died too young.

01:06:47.580 But in the midst of all that, I was with him.

01:06:50.640 I was there to hold him.

01:06:52.220 Um, we were together as a family and we had stolen moments that just otherwise wouldn't

01:06:57.860 have come.

01:06:58.520 One of those videos that was shared, um, there were so many funny ones, weren't there during

01:07:02.920 COVID?

01:07:03.320 My, my favorite was of the woman, the blonde woman drinking the huge glass of wine outside

01:07:07.180 going, you okay?

01:07:09.100 You all right?

01:07:09.860 You need help?

01:07:11.000 You're running.

01:07:12.260 Oh, you're, you're running by choice, right?

01:07:14.360 She's like, anyway, it was great.

01:07:16.640 And she was seven in the morning.

01:07:18.840 What are you doing?

01:07:19.680 She does it better than I did it, but it was a great one, but there were really good

01:07:23.660 ones that helped bring us together too.

01:07:26.940 There was one that talked about sort of the, a bedtime story being read to children about

01:07:32.000 COVID-19 and the quarantine.

01:07:34.020 And it was about how, despite all the awfulness, all the lives lost and the pain people felt

01:07:41.480 real tears fallen, there were these moments of togetherness and reevaluation and new perspective

01:07:49.680 where the earth had a chance to heal in some ways.

01:07:54.740 We gave it a break, you know, we let it breathe where overworked parents got some time to take

01:08:01.240 a breath as well, where kids who normally are run from one activity to another and then

01:08:06.500 to a sport and then to a challenge after school or a club instead had to sit at

01:08:11.460 home with family and talk, right?

01:08:16.360 You can't spend every hour of the day on electronics.

01:08:19.920 You know, there was more talking.

01:08:21.220 There was more eating together as families or as partners.

01:08:25.300 And when you saw your friends, it was so joyful, right?

01:08:28.620 It was so joyful when you got to see your friends, you got to see your mom for the first

01:08:31.540 time in a long time.

01:08:32.860 My friends and I did a beer pong, you know, flip cup via Zoom, which was hilarious.

01:08:39.560 I'm like, things like that.

01:08:40.440 That's what I'll remember.

01:08:41.180 And then reuniting with them after so long and the way it made me feel, right?

01:08:45.780 The way we're starting to feel now, we're not out of it, but we're almost out of it.

01:08:50.480 The vaccines are coming.

01:08:52.260 They're being distributed.

01:08:53.340 They're being taken.

01:08:55.040 And we're right around the corner, right around it from normalcy.

01:08:59.500 One final piece of advice and thinking as we go into the new year.

01:09:03.220 Whenever I start the new year, I try to say, before I say happy new year, the one word or

01:09:07.580 motivation that I want to channel this year, 99% of the time it's love.

01:09:13.780 And I just make that my own first word privately that I say just as soon as the clock turns

01:09:18.160 to the next year.

01:09:19.940 But it's something to consider doing.

01:09:24.480 And after that, I actually think there's much more value in just taking it day by day, just

01:09:30.660 taking it day by day and looking for little things to be grateful for in a day by day basis.

01:09:35.420 As you know, I'm not big into the meditation, though.

01:09:37.800 If it helps you, I'm all for it.

01:09:39.500 I kind of do live my life in the moment.

01:09:41.740 And I think it's the key to health and well-being.

01:09:44.720 Just look around you and figure out what makes you happy.

01:09:47.920 Put some flowers up.

01:09:49.660 You know, look out the window.

01:09:50.840 If you don't like your view, try to improve it.

01:09:53.220 Call a friend.

01:09:54.320 Do something small.

01:09:55.860 You don't have to go for the home run, right?

01:09:57.900 Just go for the single on a day-to-day basis, though, and see how it makes you feel.

01:10:03.280 But try to choose wellness.

01:10:04.460 That's for sure.

01:10:05.160 Try to choose wellness.

01:10:06.000 You know, the things that aren't good for you and little steps like that will get us

01:10:10.820 out of 2020 into 2021, hopefully a little happier and a little wiser for the wear.

01:10:20.040 Now back to our guest.

01:10:24.380 I really loved what you said about do people see me?

01:10:28.860 Because we all, you know, there are parts of me there.

01:10:31.260 We all become a little bit of a two-dimensional version of ourselves, particularly.

01:10:36.000 And then the world tends to kind of flatten the personality down to our worst moments or

01:10:45.480 the worst tweets we've had in those moments when you might be going viral.

01:10:50.040 And it is.

01:10:51.220 I'm not even kidding when I say some of my favorite moments are when I'm cleaning up my dog's poop

01:10:57.460 in my backyard alone because I'm like, okay, you're Bridget.

01:11:02.600 You're cleaning up your dog's poop.

01:11:04.540 You know, you're just a little human trying to get through just like everyone else.

01:11:10.040 There's lots of other people cleaning up their dog's poop right now.

01:11:13.240 You're connected to them.

01:11:14.500 And you're in the, it's just that grounding.

01:11:18.940 I need to, I need to be grounded.

01:11:20.600 And a lot of the people who reach out, and I will say this to the people who have, who

01:11:26.140 listen to people and have fans and, and I consider them less fans and more just friends.

01:11:33.280 Reach, you never know, reach out, reach out to those people that you see.

01:11:36.900 And also just like people in your life who are, who are going through it, because you

01:11:43.060 don't know when that is the right timed, exactly right timed message that somebody needed.

01:11:48.540 You know, I'm getting more and more to the place in my life where I think, I was just

01:11:53.600 saying this to Abby the other day that, that where I think that that's my assistant and like

01:11:58.180 my little sister.

01:11:58.800 Um, I, I think when tough times come, I'm putting more and more value into getting yourself

01:12:07.400 out of that place mentally, even when it's happening.

01:12:09.720 Like it's cognitive behavioral therapy, but I used to be much more like, you've got to

01:12:14.300 feel the pain in order to get through the pain.

01:12:16.860 Otherwise it'll all be bottled up inside of you and then it'll spill out in some negative

01:12:20.280 way.

01:12:21.200 I'm not sure I believe that anymore.

01:12:23.440 I, having been through quite a few of these, you know, public things that are painful personally,

01:12:27.900 I really kind of think, do what you need to do to keep your mind off of the awfulness

01:12:33.540 as it's happening.

01:12:34.700 And then when your mind eventually does have to go back to the awfulness, hopefully it's

01:12:38.960 not so bad.

01:12:39.720 That's, that's kind of been my experience for me.

01:12:41.900 Can I tell you the things that I did that, that like really helped me over the past couple

01:12:46.500 of years?

01:12:47.460 Um, number one, crossword puzzles.

01:12:50.660 The New York times crossword puzzle is a son of a bitch.

01:12:54.060 Monday's wonderful.

01:12:55.600 Tuesday's great.

01:12:56.860 Wednesday's still doable.

01:12:58.400 Thursday's an M effort.

01:13:00.160 Friday is okay.

01:13:01.600 Saturday.

01:13:01.980 I don't want to talk about, um, anyway, it, it really does keep your mind off of problems

01:13:06.940 because you must think it's not even just mindless work, almost like a crossword puzzle.

01:13:11.640 I mean, uh, an actual puzzle, you know, where you could still think as you're looking for

01:13:15.300 the piece crossword puzzle, you have to be thinking using your head.

01:13:18.020 So I really recommend that.

01:13:19.380 Um, I'm going to confess that my other vice that really helped keep my mind off of my

01:13:24.100 troubles was dateline podcasts.

01:13:28.420 It's all about murder.

01:13:29.700 They could be a real soothing bomb.

01:13:31.940 Um, yeah, women, women and their murder, their murder there.

01:13:36.800 I get it.

01:13:37.620 It's funny.

01:13:38.700 I get it now.

01:13:39.520 I, I used to think we were just sick for me.

01:13:42.260 It really takes your mind off of it.

01:13:43.820 I think most women are obsessed with crime because let's face it.

01:13:46.340 We're usually the murder victims.

01:13:47.760 Yeah.

01:13:48.360 Yeah.

01:13:49.180 And we grow up knowing that we get exposed to the news.

01:13:51.640 And I do think most women have terrible, not fantasies, but like nightmares about nightmares.

01:13:56.940 Yeah.

01:13:57.440 Being killed.

01:13:57.940 Yeah.

01:13:58.060 It's my worst nightmare.

01:13:59.540 Yeah.

01:14:00.060 In a way it's taking an awful thing and turning it into a slight positive for yourself mentally

01:14:05.180 only that not that you're reveling in somebody's murder, but it just gets your mind off of

01:14:09.880 things.

01:14:10.260 These are compelling, intriguing stories that you fear one day may have personal relevance,

01:14:15.160 but you know, logically, likely will not.

01:14:17.920 And it's just, it's, it's jarring enough to get your mind off of it.

01:14:21.800 Like if it were something like, I'm going to watch an old episode of Little House on the

01:14:24.800 Prairie, your mind would wander back.

01:14:27.060 But you're talking about like a serious crime.

01:14:28.800 No, it works.

01:14:29.340 And the third thing I will confess, because I've never been a big, well, I used to teach

01:14:34.080 aerobics, but since I became a lawyer and like kind of gave up all things to working

01:14:39.480 at the office, including working out, I haven't been a big exerciser, but I got into exercise.

01:14:44.980 I started taking this thing called the class here in New York city.

01:14:47.940 And it really helped, really helped getting in shape physically and group exercise with

01:14:53.440 other people's before COVID.

01:14:55.400 I loved it.

01:14:56.720 And just for what it's worth for people who are out there struggling, I think some sort

01:15:00.620 of group exercise where it's not like a personal trainer.

01:15:02.560 It's not like something where you could think, but stuff where you can't think.

01:15:05.280 And before you know it, you're across the bridge and the water's less stormy.

01:15:09.600 It's so true.

01:15:10.540 We started doing these in my little community that I have in lockdown.

01:15:14.900 I definitely need to sweat in order to stay sane.

01:15:19.320 That's just been a huge part of even sobriety for me.

01:15:22.400 But also just, I know that a 20 minute sweat can completely shift my brain chemistry and my

01:15:28.680 entire perspective and mood.

01:15:30.300 And then I started doing just these group workouts where I would stream the workout on

01:15:36.260 zoom with, um, people in my fantasy.com community, the women.

01:15:40.340 And it's been amazing.

01:15:41.720 It kept me so grounded.

01:15:43.340 We were accountable to each other.

01:15:45.160 It's been something to just take our minds off being, um, a lot of this stuff going, it's

01:15:50.400 a half an hour, 45 minutes where we just get to focus on sweating.

01:15:54.220 And, and there's a really big feeling of sisterhood.

01:15:57.680 I definitely have to lean into that.

01:16:00.720 I love the, the crossword puzzles is a good idea.

01:16:03.620 I, I think that meditation has been life-changing for me just from, uh, looking at noticing my

01:16:13.200 thoughts instead of identifying with every single one that has been just so helpful to me.

01:16:19.400 I love pretty much any and all meditation apps, but I, I do, I do listen to Sam Harris's a lot

01:16:26.920 because his is a lot more, um, you know, science, scientific in many ways.

01:16:32.040 And see, I can't do meditation.

01:16:34.500 I, when I sit there, it's same as me getting a massage where I'm like, ah, I'm drifting my

01:16:38.920 problems, problems, problems, problems.

01:16:40.840 That's why I need it though.

01:16:42.100 That's why I need it.

01:16:43.840 I'm out, but I can't, it's still there.

01:16:46.280 The problem.

01:16:46.900 Yeah.

01:16:47.180 I'm like, that's why I need something more demanding.

01:16:50.300 I started with three minutes and now I can, now it's now I, it's just, but it's, it's been

01:16:55.880 the, it's a challenge.

01:16:57.100 There are days.

01:16:57.900 It's absolutely a practice.

01:16:59.440 Just noticing my mind and how different it is and where it's at every single day is

01:17:05.960 fascinating.

01:17:06.800 It's just fascinating.

01:17:07.380 How about massage?

01:17:08.460 Are you, when you get a massage, can you quiet your mind?

01:17:11.740 I mean, it's tough.

01:17:12.820 I'm pretty chatty a lot of the time, but I, I'm like the girl that gets a massage and

01:17:17.980 just wants to know everything about the masseuse the entire time.

01:17:21.100 So you're the one who ruins it for the rest of us.

01:17:24.780 I try to relax.

01:17:26.440 Yes.

01:17:26.920 I try to relax.

01:17:28.380 And it's, I do think that massage body work in general, acupuncture, there's something

01:17:34.620 about acupuncture where you put that needle right between my eyes and I, my brain is like,

01:17:40.240 like, it just goes flat, like it's silent.

01:17:44.500 It's just, there's something about acupuncture that is, has been helpful.

01:17:48.500 I've, I've joked that it takes a village to keep me sober being the other thing that really

01:17:53.540 helped me is, um, being of service.

01:17:56.540 I will say there's a difference.

01:17:58.260 I think too, between, I mean, I don't know, maybe not, I think because one of the things

01:18:04.660 I've noticed is grief behaves in a very different way than, you know, I think what you and I

01:18:09.600 are talking about challenges in our life or, or picking ourself back up or overcoming hardship.

01:18:15.340 And then there's grief, which is like a completely other animal where you'll be standing in the

01:18:21.000 grocery store and you'll start, you'll be fine cruising along and then you'll be crying.

01:18:25.840 Grief is weird.

01:18:28.180 I completely agree.

01:18:30.080 Although I will say I was recently looking for this quote, um, by Ethel Kennedy, you know,

01:18:35.340 the, the matriarch of the Kennedy family, who's obviously she had two sons assassinated.

01:18:39.820 There was so much tragedy in that family and I could, I couldn't find the quote.

01:18:44.900 I'm going to have to look it up, but it was, somebody was asking her, how did you deal with

01:18:48.700 all of this?

01:18:49.340 You know, good God, how could you possibly, and her eldest son was killed in like world

01:18:53.800 war two and a plane crash.

01:18:55.180 And how did you hand, and she, her answer was essentially, I just got through it.

01:19:01.100 I just like, she didn't, she tried not to stay wallowed in it.

01:19:05.660 You know, she was like onto the next thing and that's so much easier said than done.

01:19:09.180 I know.

01:19:09.520 I wish I had gotten to ask her those questions because I would have been like, well, but

01:19:12.540 how, but what exactly?

01:19:14.120 Like, what about when your mind got overwhelmed with sadness?

01:19:17.000 Then, you know, how did you avoid that?

01:19:19.180 If you did, or, you know, there's so much more to know because you're right.

01:19:22.260 Grief is in a special category, but when you mentioned it, when, when you mentioned the

01:19:27.500 word, I go right to the loss of my father.

01:19:31.420 When you talk about grief, what, what are you going to?

01:19:35.360 Um, I lost a lot of friends young.

01:19:39.760 So I, I mean, by the time I was 21 years old, there were just, I had been to so many

01:19:44.880 young people's funerals that I was like, I cannot ever watch a parent bury their kid

01:19:51.020 again.

01:19:51.340 I, I just, it was ridiculous.

01:19:53.780 And I don't know if it was because I moved a lot.

01:19:56.440 So I had a lot of different friends all over the place because I ran with them more.

01:20:00.340 Um, it was a lot of just young teenagers drunk, getting killed by drivers, driving, um, really

01:20:08.220 tragic, amazing lights.

01:20:11.000 And, um, I think about them still, still, still to this day.

01:20:16.620 And so my mind goes to there and then my grandparents were really hard.

01:20:24.140 Um, I feel like there's just been a lot of loss and a lot, a lot of loss around me, but

01:20:31.560 I agree that there is something to be said for just, I also recommend therapy.

01:20:37.340 You know, my therapist has a great technique where when I'm in that kind of, if it's grief

01:20:42.700 or even if I'm feeling sorry for myself, you know, she says self-pity is totally normal.

01:20:48.260 It's not something you, you indulge in, but give yourself, if you're feeling, um, grief

01:20:55.520 or, or loss, or you're feeling sorry for yourself, give yourself a time.

01:21:00.200 She's like, close the blinds for two hours, feel sorry for yourself.

01:21:03.420 Or maybe it's a day if it's something really bad and eat your ice cream and cry.

01:21:08.460 But then you open the blinds and you, you basically put, you know, guardrails around it.

01:21:14.020 Like, here's the time you're allowing yourself to feel this and allow yourself to feel all

01:21:19.080 those feelings.

01:21:19.920 Don't judge them, let them come and then open the blinds and start your day again.

01:21:24.320 And I, I like that.

01:21:25.800 That is how I used to, I see it.

01:21:27.300 By the way, I was talking about Rose Kennedy, not Ethel, but, um, that is how I used to see

01:21:31.400 it.

01:21:32.100 But I am telling you, I morphed away from that.

01:21:34.920 I'm not sure you even need the couple of days.

01:21:38.040 I, I might be becoming a true Irish woman and advising.

01:21:43.620 Yeah, I'm with you because I'm definitely the tough, I, I'm not the friend people.

01:21:52.500 They're like, Oh, you're my friend.

01:21:53.860 I come to when I need my butt kicked.

01:21:55.420 So I'm definitely not the, the friend that's going to coddle you.

01:21:59.800 I'm the tough love friend.

01:22:01.360 I mean, I'm just like bury that shit deep, like the greatest generation and get back out

01:22:07.060 there.

01:22:08.420 I think we're onto something.

01:22:09.920 I think there's a reason they handled as much as they did without whining.

01:22:13.100 You know, like my Nana, my Nana, she died in 2000, um, 2016 and right after president

01:22:20.780 Trump, right before president Trump was elected, she, she died, but she was born in 1915.

01:22:24.980 So she was 101 when she died.

01:22:27.160 And, uh, this is a woman who, you know, she went through the great depression.

01:22:31.180 She went through world war.

01:22:33.160 She went through the civil rights movement.

01:22:34.560 She went through like all the stuff that she saw, the Vietnam war.

01:22:37.540 And she had to drop out of high school to help support her family.

01:22:40.440 And then the money was tight.

01:22:41.580 They had no dough, blah, blah, blah.

01:22:43.440 She never complained about that stuff.

01:22:44.880 She complained about like, she, she wanted to make sure she got the right table at the

01:22:49.760 diner.

01:22:50.280 She wanted her free bread.

01:22:52.020 She wanted her senior citizens discount.

01:22:54.060 It was that shit.

01:22:54.900 You know, it was like, dude, you don't worry about all this other nonsense.

01:22:58.060 But wait, so I want to, I want to, I want to back up to a couple of things.

01:23:01.060 Uh, number one, let's not, let's not move on without spending a minute on Oprah because

01:23:05.500 I've had evolving feelings on Oprah.

01:23:08.080 And I, I heard you, you said you loved her.

01:23:10.060 I used to be obsessed with Oprah, obsessed.

01:23:12.640 I wanted to be just like her.

01:23:14.240 I, I loved her show.

01:23:15.680 I want to tell my Oprah episode.

01:23:18.200 She was so helpful to me, you know, just, I didn't know her.

01:23:21.900 I just mean her show.

01:23:22.820 I, I found it so inspirational.

01:23:25.700 Um, she was just in my head, like her advice over the years, whether it was about physical

01:23:30.900 safety or mental wellbeing or it's dealing with tragedy, blah, blah, blah.

01:23:35.460 But I didn't like it when she got political, even though I'm an independent, you know,

01:23:40.080 it wasn't like, Oh, how could she support Barack Obama?

01:23:42.420 I was like, okay.

01:23:43.400 Then she seemed to get more and more political.

01:23:45.660 And I, I started to feel a distance from her, which is why they say you shouldn't go

01:23:49.980 political.

01:23:50.360 Cause you're going to create a distance between you and at least half your audience.

01:23:53.600 I felt that.

01:23:55.380 And then she started, started to sign on to some of the victimization talk that we're

01:24:00.220 hearing now, which she had never, ever done before.

01:24:02.820 I mean, this is a country that's made her a billionaire a couple of times over.

01:24:05.420 She literally lives in a ranch called the promised land.

01:24:07.840 I don't think a lot of people want to hear about how hard she's had it as a black woman

01:24:12.580 in America.

01:24:13.180 I really don't.

01:24:13.880 I think it's like Meghan Markle, like you married a prince, live in a castle, boo fucking

01:24:18.700 who knowing no one feels sorry for you.

01:24:21.040 Uh, and so she started to lose me cause she just started to sound more leftist in her narrative

01:24:27.260 and less inclusive.

01:24:29.980 And I, I just sort of felt myself like separating from her, like in the long hallway in the

01:24:34.620 movie theater where you get pulled up, pulled apart and you're reaching out for the other

01:24:38.240 person.

01:24:38.720 Of course she wasn't reaching out for me at all, but I was reaching out for her.

01:24:41.400 And then before I knew it, I could no longer see her.

01:24:44.340 Here's, here's my theory on this.

01:24:46.120 And it's based on a tweet.

01:24:47.380 Um, I was tweeting about somebody who was going off on billionaires and they were talking,

01:24:53.240 I think it was when, um, the Howard, whatever, the guy who started a Starbucks, what's his

01:24:59.840 name?

01:25:00.220 Schwartz.

01:25:00.700 Is that his name?

01:25:02.140 Um, Schultz.

01:25:03.560 Thank you.

01:25:04.520 He, when he was running for president, they're all like, Oh, a billionaire, blah, blah, blah.

01:25:09.280 And I was like, Oh, so you guys are going to be mad if Oprah ran for president.

01:25:13.860 And I was schooled by all of the blue check leftists who thought, Oh, you thought you were

01:25:20.280 funny and dunking.

01:25:21.300 And they were like, yeah, we would, this is, we do think that she's, that it would be bad

01:25:25.980 and that it's bad that she's a billionaire because a billionaire is a failed policy.

01:25:29.540 This is like that, that kind of rhetoric.

01:25:32.160 And I was shocked.

01:25:33.480 I was, I was really surprised to hear this because I hear here to me, Oprah is the epitome

01:25:39.820 of the American dream.

01:25:42.000 Somebody who picked herself up, overcame her own internal demons, started an empire, helped

01:25:49.700 millions and billions of people and made her own way and made billions of dollars.

01:25:56.780 You would think this is somebody that they would say, Hey, look, this is my theory is that

01:26:02.240 Oprah sees that, that this is actually a class war and that there is some resentment towards

01:26:08.480 her because she's a billionaire.

01:26:10.340 And so she's pivoting into that place that you are talking about to try and maintain,

01:26:19.180 um, a connection to who she thinks is her audience.

01:26:23.860 This is only my theory.

01:26:25.660 Now I went to the taping of Ellen and Oprah that happened recently in the past couple of

01:26:31.300 years.

01:26:32.060 Say what you will about Oprah or Ellen.

01:26:34.420 They were dancing with this woman who I came to find out was, had a couple of months.

01:26:39.800 Her husband was sitting there crying.

01:26:41.600 I'm like, these people, they move people, you know, they, Oprah has been in people's lives

01:26:47.180 and hearts and minds.

01:26:48.940 But then they sat down and had the most unrelatable conversation that I've ever heard in my life

01:26:56.900 because here you have a lesbian woman and a black woman who are basically, I mean, billionaires.

01:27:02.700 I don't know that Ellen is yet, but I'm sure she's on her way.

01:27:05.940 And they're talking about, joking about how they wanted to buy all the property.

01:27:10.160 I don't know if this ever aired.

01:27:11.200 I hope I don't get in trouble for telling you the story.

01:27:13.660 I think, I don't know.

01:27:15.280 So they're talking about how they were joking about how they were, were neighbors at one

01:27:19.180 point and then they weren't.

01:27:20.300 And then they're like, we should just buy all the property in between our new houses.

01:27:24.640 And I was laughing, but I'm like, this is probably not the most relatable story to be

01:27:28.880 telling.

01:27:29.100 Well, that's, that's one of the problems.

01:27:30.980 I mean, listen, I, I hate wealth shaming because it's part of the American dream.

01:27:35.660 But it definitely, I, I think for Oprah to sort of pretend, pretend that she's still a

01:27:40.180 woman of the people while she's out there every other weekend on David Geffen's yacht.

01:27:44.980 Maybe it's time to admit that's been like about 50 years since you really understood how

01:27:49.660 anybody lives in America.

01:27:51.560 And that'd be fine.

01:27:52.620 You know, like you've got to own that.

01:27:53.860 But Ellen does have something like, I don't even know how many houses, dozens and dozens

01:27:57.920 of houses.

01:27:58.460 And yet she's supposed to be America's sweetheart.

01:28:01.000 And then all these reports come out about how nasty she is.

01:28:04.280 People do do that to you when you're well known.

01:28:06.500 But I will say in the case of Ellen, I know somebody whose sister worked for her who just

01:28:10.940 had the most awful things to say.

01:28:14.260 So I've heard the opposite though, from people who have worked for her who say she's lovely.

01:28:18.820 So it's, I mean, that's all, that seems to me like it, I don't necessarily want to litigate

01:28:25.260 whether Ellen is a horrible person or not.

01:28:27.520 I do.

01:28:28.020 I just don't.

01:28:29.040 It's funny to me that I feel like so much of the divide that's happening in America is

01:28:34.980 a class war.

01:28:35.880 It's much easier to keep us divided by race.

01:28:38.740 This is something I've been talking a lot about and by victimhood and by this oppression

01:28:43.320 Olympics and dividing us all up into groups, then because the American working class, if

01:28:49.120 we were all not divided like we are, we'd be an enormously powerful block of people.

01:28:56.460 And it's much, I just think that these, there is a lack of, this is the funny thing about

01:29:04.680 once you are wealthy, you do just lose touch.

01:29:09.680 You saw this, we saw this recently with Cardi B tweeting about her $88,000 person, whether

01:29:14.380 or not she should buy it.

01:29:15.920 And her audience came for her.

01:29:18.400 And, you know, this is, and I was joking on Twitter, like, this is a woman who promoted

01:29:22.320 Bernie and like, you fed this beast.

01:29:25.600 You fed, there is absolutely a resentment towards wealth.

01:29:30.620 And I would say that Ellen and Oprah for all of their personal flaws, like whatever they

01:29:36.080 might be, they have touched millions of people and they've brought joy into the hearts of

01:29:42.160 millions of people and help people get through struggles.

01:29:45.560 And they are massive because that's what they've done.

01:29:49.660 You know, that they built their empires on truly connecting to people.

01:29:54.860 And that is, but I don't begrudge them any of that money.

01:29:59.220 But don't you see it?

01:30:00.080 Like, I don't begrudge them at any one ounce of their success.

01:30:02.860 It's all earned, but the problem is in both cases, really, they got very political.

01:30:08.160 I mean, Oprah got very political and alienated half of her base.

01:30:11.920 You know, I mean, I, I don't know a lot of Republicans who still love Oprah and same with

01:30:16.140 Ellen who said, you know, she would never let Trump come on her show.

01:30:19.360 She got shamed after that picture with George W. Bush.

01:30:22.260 And then it was just like coming for it.

01:30:25.040 That's a hundred percent when they started coming from her.

01:30:26.980 And instead of, you know, that being like a moment of kumbaya, it was a moment of Ellen sucks.

01:30:31.120 I mean, that's our country right now.

01:30:32.820 But I do think if you're, if you want that universal love and you want to be that transformative

01:30:36.660 figure, you've got to stay a political as hard as it may be.

01:30:40.960 You got to do it.

01:30:41.960 You got to be a Dolly Parton, you know, or a Betty White who never touches it.

01:30:46.360 Cause it's just, yeah, as you well know, when you get political, people get angry.

01:30:51.820 They get angry with you.

01:30:52.980 So how do you think they do that though?

01:30:56.020 In so a, I would never, I, if they feel that it's there, this is where it's, I feel really

01:31:03.940 conflicted about these things because if somebody has that kind of platform and wealth, I feel

01:31:09.800 like it's well within their rights to say whatever they want to say.

01:31:12.740 And if they feel like they need to get political at the risk of alienating their audience, I think

01:31:16.980 JK Rowling is a perfect example of someone who might be doing exactly this.

01:31:20.960 Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

01:31:22.840 I just think be prepared, be prepared for what's coming because you will, like Ellen's

01:31:27.820 learning, you will no longer be America's sweetheart, you know, and like you can't hold

01:31:33.440 both roles.

01:31:35.020 I do.

01:31:35.440 I do because I think most public people need that affirmation.

01:31:38.800 I do.

01:31:39.060 I think it's a life.

01:31:39.840 Interesting.

01:31:40.620 I mean, I wonder, that's, what's so interesting is that you become kind of disconnected.

01:31:45.740 I think by, by the sake, I dated a very wealthy man who's in that level of wealth and it was,

01:31:52.840 I call it the zoo of the 0.01%.

01:31:54.840 I'm like, this is another league entirely when you're that wealthy.

01:31:59.160 It's, oh, so, so to finish my Oprah story, I was, she's, after she does her whole little

01:32:05.940 talk, she's standing kind of right in front of me and the crowd is, is waving.

01:32:11.420 And she basically puts her hand up like a queen and is just letting people kind of touch

01:32:18.780 her hand.

01:32:19.560 Like she's royalty.

01:32:22.000 You hated yourself for wanting to do it, didn't you?

01:32:24.220 She wouldn't even, oh no, I absolutely, it was funny because I was like, I'm touching her

01:32:28.660 hand.

01:32:29.060 And I was like, I hope I get Oprah's pneumonia because she just talked about how she had

01:32:32.780 pneumonia.

01:32:33.200 And it was just a funny, it was a really, it was really interesting because I have, I

01:32:39.820 think there's what we view these people as, then you see them as people.

01:32:44.320 But like I said, hers, I mean, I was at a show at Coachella and VIP once and Beyonce and

01:32:50.300 Jay-Z, I felt them walking towards me from behind before I turned around.

01:32:56.220 You could feel their, their star power is just that level of star power is so crazy.

01:33:03.200 Rihanna, I was at a restaurant once and Rihanna came in and their level of star power is, it's

01:33:09.400 like something I've never seen in my life.

01:33:13.000 And that has got to alter you, like your brain chemistry.

01:33:17.220 When you have everyone around you, I don't even know how you, how can you possibly stay

01:33:22.660 normal in those conditions?

01:33:24.080 Yeah, that's like Rosie O'Donnell when she used to be A, nice and B, famous.

01:33:30.880 She, she openly, I used to love her too.

01:33:34.220 Boy, oh boy, did she change.

01:33:35.440 But she talked openly about how when she got really famous, you know, she had that talk

01:33:42.240 show by herself as long before the view and she was a famous actress and she had a magazine

01:33:47.460 just like Oprah's, like Rosie.

01:33:48.800 Um, she literally started to believe that the laws and the rules did not apply to her.

01:33:54.600 Like she talked about how she thought she could go through the red light without, you

01:33:59.080 know, like that she was entitled.

01:34:00.780 So it can be, you see this with celebrities like Tom Cruise or whatever, they morph into

01:34:05.940 otherness because that, that level of fame and money, I don't think it's good.

01:34:11.080 I definitely don't aspire to it so long.

01:34:14.260 I mean, and this is the question, do you, so do you aspire to be not political?

01:34:23.780 No, I don't.

01:34:25.040 I have no aspirations.

01:34:26.720 I don't, I don't, I want to be a good mom.

01:34:30.400 Uh, and I am, you know, it's like I, I wasn't.

01:34:32.880 And then, and then I changed my life and now I am.

01:34:35.080 I wasn't like a bad mom.

01:34:36.140 I just wasn't a present mom, um, but honestly, other than that, I want to do right by others

01:34:42.080 while I'm here.

01:34:42.680 I don't care.

01:34:43.660 I never, even now.

01:34:44.980 Okay.

01:34:45.140 Now I have dough in the bank and I am well known, but I don't really give a damn.

01:34:50.040 And it wasn't, that was never the goal.

01:34:51.660 My, my goal was always to do well.

01:34:53.160 I love to be excellent at something, but it wasn't even to be relevant.

01:34:57.380 It certainly wasn't to have power.

01:34:59.880 It was just the, the, the joy of a job well done.

01:35:03.160 Um, that is a pleasure and I'd like to continue having that feeling.

01:35:07.780 And I, you know, I can, I, one of the things I love about journalism is each day, you know,

01:35:12.740 it's, it's a show and you have the chance of doing, if not the perfect show, then close

01:35:17.380 to it, you know, close to it.

01:35:18.880 And if you don't, tomorrow's another day, you could try it again.

01:35:22.720 Whereas like the law was incredibly frustrating because it never went away.

01:35:27.020 It was just this mountain of paper that continued to build increasing acrimony, nuclear war

01:35:31.600 style, you know, fighting.

01:35:34.000 And you could, you could say hand in the perfect brief, but there'd just be no time to sit

01:35:38.260 and enjoy the spiking of the ball.

01:35:39.660 It was on to the next battle and the never ending fight.

01:35:42.060 So I don't know that that's one of the few things I can say that's positive about journalism.

01:35:47.420 Is it, is it just, is it just that you, I guess my question is what I, I'm not surprised

01:35:55.300 by Oprah's kind of pivot to where she pivoted.

01:35:58.660 I, I don't necessarily agree with everything she's saying.

01:36:03.500 And I guess I haven't really, um, yeah, I guess I haven't listened to her as much.

01:36:10.400 You know, I, I, I really don't, I, I think I understand what you're saying and that it does

01:36:20.020 cause a disconnect because I, but I, I don't know if that disconnect is because she's just

01:36:25.940 not, she just hasn't really been connected to the common person.

01:36:29.400 And now she's trying to reconnect through politics.

01:36:33.160 And, oh, so my other question is, do you think that they feel pressured?

01:36:37.940 You know, there's an enormous amount of pressure for people all the time, which I think is crazy.

01:36:44.060 And I'm always saying this people during running up to the election, when I was saying I wasn't

01:36:47.700 voting for anyone, people were like, this is just shameful.

01:36:51.480 You, it's your, you need to speak out.

01:36:54.100 You, people were bullying me basically into being a bully.

01:36:57.600 They want me, everyone, everyone who has a platform is supposed to speak their opinion

01:37:02.160 and tell people, other people what to do.

01:37:04.400 And I'm, I'm not even, I feel no, I'm not really, um, it's not my place to tell people

01:37:12.560 what to do.

01:37:13.240 It's, I have no desire to do that.

01:37:15.560 That's not what I'm here to do.

01:37:17.300 And I, who am I to tell anybody what to do?

01:37:19.180 I don't know anything.

01:37:19.800 I know a little bit about my life and even that is questionable.

01:37:24.260 And I think people with like Oprah and Ellen, you know, this whole idea of like silence is

01:37:30.220 violence.

01:37:30.640 That's kind of taken over our culture is what are they supposed to do if they, if they're

01:37:38.540 silent?

01:37:39.180 Sadly, sadly, all the people who were telling you, you had to speak out, you had a responsibility

01:37:42.880 work in the straight news roles at CNN, totally misunderstood what their role is as well.

01:37:49.180 But no, I, um, I, you know, look, I'm a news person, so I don't really have any obligation

01:37:54.360 to tell people my opinion on, you know, how they should vote.

01:37:57.160 And I, I wouldn't, you know, I can help them understand the issues and I can certainly try

01:38:01.100 to separate nonsense from fact, but I've never been somebody who tells you who to vote for.

01:38:05.580 And I've never revealed who I voted for ever.

01:38:07.380 And I, and I wouldn't, it's just, I agree for me, it's not, it's not my place.

01:38:11.040 And I know you're not a sort of straight news journalist, you're a commentator, but you

01:38:14.900 don't have to take that on as bull just somebody else putting their shit onto you.

01:38:17.820 You don't need to take that.

01:38:19.120 Everybody else can figure it out.

01:38:20.600 And I think the big thing with Oprah was she was looking at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

01:38:25.480 and here Oprah is the most famous black woman in America and her audience was mostly

01:38:31.620 women.

01:38:32.240 And I think people were wondering if it was somehow a betrayal, you know, that she went with

01:38:36.480 the guy, yes, he's a black man, but she went with the guy instead of the woman.

01:38:40.460 And, uh, you know, there, she sort of had a choice to make and she, some of her audience

01:38:45.160 felt abandoned.

01:38:46.000 Some Republicans felt abandoned.

01:38:47.420 Some women who wanted Hillary felt abandoned.

01:38:49.920 It's once you go political, it's fraught.

01:38:53.460 All right.

01:38:54.060 Let me take a step back with you, uh, because we did jump.

01:38:57.600 We started at the end.

01:38:58.960 Well, not the end of your story.

01:39:00.160 Let's certainly hope that's not the case.

01:39:01.380 We started at the current day.

01:39:03.680 It might be after this podcast, Megan.

01:39:05.680 And, um, only if Ellen and Oprah are listening, um, I love them, but we have to go back to

01:39:16.380 not the very beginning, but, um, I did in reading your story, gosh, I, I felt for you because

01:39:24.200 you talked about how all of your middle school report cards said extremely bright, that you

01:39:31.120 were a model of discipline.

01:39:32.340 You bet your cousin, you were going to get into an Ivy league college and all the while

01:39:37.620 you had no idea what was coming chaos and a life that would be upended very shortly.

01:39:45.680 When I, when I learned that it was because of your parents divorce that I didn't understand

01:39:51.320 since so many kids get divorced and it's hard, but it doesn't normally lead to as much

01:39:57.040 awfulness that came into your life.

01:39:59.220 So what, what specifically do you think changed your life?

01:40:04.760 Hmm.

01:40:05.740 Well, we moved away from my dad and my kind of whole family support system.

01:40:11.080 So that was one thing.

01:40:13.240 Um, I would also say, oh gosh, it's so hard because I don't really love talking about like

01:40:25.120 other people in my family story.

01:40:28.440 It feels like airing dirty laundry, but my, my, um,

01:40:32.640 my stepdad was kind of fraught with a lot of challenges.

01:40:39.060 Uh, the, I don't know that my mom was aware of when they got together.

01:40:42.860 Although I mean, even as a 13 year old, I pretty much could have seen that the writing

01:40:47.380 on the wall was not great.

01:40:49.520 Um, and it, he kind of dominated her attention from thereafter and it caused a lot.

01:40:59.700 It was, um, very, very, very dysfunctional and chaotic.

01:41:05.400 And, um, we never really knew what to expect.

01:41:09.440 My younger brother moved out pretty, pretty early back to live with my dad.

01:41:15.760 And then there were, uh, four girls in my family.

01:41:19.720 So we were there and it was, it was just, uh, a lot of mental illness and, um, kind of

01:41:27.540 in and out of mental words and uncertainty and, and, uh, yeah, that I think that just the,

01:41:37.600 that chaos and trying to cope with that and then just being isolated, those two things combined

01:41:44.260 really after a while.

01:41:47.140 And this is why I have so much compassion for even let's, you know, seeing these lockdowns

01:41:52.820 and what's happening with the schools and I'll see people and they'll say, Oh, the schools

01:41:57.240 need to be locked down.

01:41:58.040 I'm like, well, you must come from a great family because for me, school was, even though

01:42:03.560 I didn't want to necessarily be in school, it was, I never knew what I was coming home to.

01:42:08.140 It was an escape from a lot of the chaos.

01:42:10.960 And at a certain point, it becomes very hard to care about your grades.

01:42:17.440 If your mom is in a ball on the floor and your stepdad, you don't know where he is and

01:42:22.220 if he's even dead or alive.

01:42:24.400 Like those, those things become grades start seeming very adorable and simple.

01:42:29.880 And, and it just, all of a sudden you're taking on grownup problems and you're around very

01:42:36.920 serious things.

01:42:38.340 And I think that I just really lost my way.

01:42:41.060 I, I, I feel like I've lost myself many times in life and that was the beginning of a long

01:42:47.040 loss of myself and who I was and, and, and potential.

01:42:53.620 I don't know if that answers.

01:42:54.300 Could you not go to live with your dad when things got like that?

01:42:57.600 I could, and I did my senior year.

01:43:00.380 So I, I went, um, after my junior year, I went and lived with him for half of a year,

01:43:05.620 but then my little sisters were calling and crying.

01:43:08.000 And I mean, my mom and I were very connected and I felt like I was her kind of best friend

01:43:13.600 in many respects and her confidant, which I do not recommend if you're a child mother out

01:43:19.500 there.

01:43:19.720 Um, and you know, we, I just, I couldn't live with myself.

01:43:26.320 I felt like I was abandoning my younger siblings, whether or not any of this was true, any of

01:43:31.320 it, obviously looking back, none of this was my responsibility.

01:43:35.240 None of this fell on my shoulders.

01:43:37.240 I couldn't have saved my mom.

01:43:38.720 I didn't go to college where I wanted to go because I thought I needed to be near my mom

01:43:42.320 and my stepdad.

01:43:43.360 One of the biggest mistakes of my life when I did go to half of a year of college, uh, was

01:43:48.640 doing that and being still so close.

01:43:52.440 It was a very dysfunctional codependent, you know, we protected her.

01:43:56.760 My dad really didn't even know my aunts and uncles have, have since come out and said, but

01:44:03.660 like, we had no idea what was going on in the house.

01:44:06.660 And again, if you looked at our behavior, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out something's

01:44:12.220 going on.

01:44:13.020 These kids are acting out.

01:44:14.540 These were really well-behaved kids.

01:44:16.020 And now they're partying and doing all kinds of, of nonsensical things.

01:44:22.140 But, uh, there, there wasn't much, my dad was kind of, I think, just wrapped up in his

01:44:28.120 new relationship.

01:44:28.920 And, um, we, I just always joke my, my siblings and I always joke, you know, we did a really

01:44:36.420 horrible job raising our parents.

01:44:38.080 No, but you're right.

01:44:41.320 Like I, I remember when I was a teenager, I was saying something to my mom about, you

01:44:45.280 know, being friends and, and it was a kind, lighthearted moment.

01:44:49.560 It wasn't something profound between the two of us, but she stopped me right then and there

01:44:53.040 and said, I'm not your friend, Megan.

01:44:54.980 I have enough friends.

01:44:56.160 So do you.

01:44:56.880 I'm your mother.

01:44:58.420 That's good.

01:44:59.120 I mean, at the time I was wounded at the time I was like, wow, harsh.

01:45:02.720 Um, but now I look back and I'm like, you know what?

01:45:06.360 She was exactly right.

01:45:07.440 And she was creating a boundary that was important.

01:45:10.760 That's an important boundary, a healthy boundary.

01:45:13.000 Yeah.

01:45:13.220 And I, I really, again, I have, I, I will, I will say that my mom and I didn't talk for

01:45:21.560 maybe six or seven years at certain points in my life.

01:45:25.000 And we've been through hell and back together.

01:45:29.020 And we have a loving, compassionate relationship now where I feel it's, we're building more

01:45:38.700 and there's a lot of forgiveness on both of our ends and, and just healing.

01:45:44.940 Um, and she's, I can't walk a mile in her shoe.

01:45:53.860 She had five kids under the age of basically seven.

01:45:57.560 We were all like a year and a half apart.

01:45:59.740 Yeah.

01:46:00.060 All in diapers.

01:46:01.340 We moved every year and a half when we were with my dad.

01:46:03.940 So she was, we weren't wealthy.

01:46:05.640 So she was unpacking boxes, getting us in different schools, getting us different piano teachers,

01:46:10.740 doctors.

01:46:11.500 I mean, you know what goes into having kids.

01:46:14.140 And she was doing that with five of us every single year and a half.

01:46:18.440 And I don't know.

01:46:19.100 I don't know.

01:46:19.940 I don't know how she stayed sane.

01:46:21.620 It's not, it's not, it's not, she, I don't know how she did it.

01:46:27.300 And no, I look at women who are doing that.

01:46:30.340 I mean, then and now, and I'm not saying anything about your mom, but a lot of them

01:46:34.320 develop substance abuse problems and other ways of coping because it's really hard when

01:46:41.780 you're, when you have no help like that, especially no, no help from the father.

01:46:45.600 Right.

01:46:46.080 It's like, start there.

01:46:47.600 I mean, just having a partner makes all the difference.

01:46:49.340 And then if you don't have that, you don't have help.

01:46:51.600 You don't have a babysitter, a nanny, or you're like a close family friend is going to help

01:46:54.600 you and you have to put bread on the table.

01:46:56.580 Like that would drive most people to drink.

01:47:00.540 I mean, it's.

01:47:01.140 Yeah.

01:47:01.300 And she wasn't like a substance abuser.

01:47:04.100 No, I haven't gleaned that.

01:47:05.700 I haven't gleaned that from what you, you, you took on that role.

01:47:09.640 Yeah, no, she, she was really kind of against all that stuff, which was, it's my, there's

01:47:15.740 a lot more of that on my father's side, just being Irish Catholic.

01:47:19.260 And, you know, just to kind of circle back and, and make one point I wanted to make earlier

01:47:24.060 to say, we, I jokingly say, you know, bury it like the greatest generation, but I also

01:47:28.900 did see the effect that that had on my grandfather who was in war and never spoke about it and

01:47:34.960 buried a deep and it manifested and all kinds of, you know, substance abuse issues that,

01:47:40.700 that, uh, had a big effect on things and his life later.

01:47:44.660 So I, I do think there's a balance that we have to find in our lives.

01:47:50.180 Uh, I'm a big proponent of, you know, dealing with that stuff and talking about it, even if

01:47:55.020 it's with a professional so that you aren't necessarily self-medicating through some of that,

01:48:01.160 uh, pain that the greatest generation buried, but.

01:48:05.400 But you can't do the New York times and listen to Dateline 24 seven.

01:48:08.800 At some point you're going to have to reflect and hopefully learn.

01:48:12.680 And, but yeah.

01:48:13.920 But so, so what happened with you?

01:48:15.240 Cause you, so you started like, like a lot of kids with drinking and then pot.

01:48:21.400 I mean, I, I knew a lot.

01:48:22.580 I, do you believe I've never tried pot?

01:48:25.320 Um, I, I think a lot of.

01:48:27.580 I can see that.

01:48:28.320 You can see that.

01:48:29.580 I mean, I, I've been drinking sadly since my teenage years, but I've never, I'm, I've just

01:48:34.020 never gravitated toward it.

01:48:36.080 I don't know.

01:48:36.540 My, my mother really did stigmatize it in my head.

01:48:39.420 And I was like, at my school, it was like something out of a movie.

01:48:42.060 There were clicks.

01:48:42.940 There were like, they call them the swelts, the dirties, the creamies, the jocks.

01:48:48.120 It truly was like a, like one of those movies.

01:48:50.480 Like Greece.

01:48:51.040 And the dirties were the ones who, who did drugs and pot was a drug.

01:48:55.180 And I was like, well, I'm not a dirty.

01:48:56.480 So I'm not going to, you know, like I was a swelter.

01:48:59.000 The swelts drank.

01:49:00.020 So I drank, which I wish I hadn't.

01:49:02.300 I really, if I could go back into my high school years, I really wish I hadn't started

01:49:06.460 drinking.

01:49:06.840 I wish I had kept sort of that young, healthy body healthy for longer, you know, but I,

01:49:14.060 I keep, I always joke to Doug.

01:49:15.440 Now, my husband, I'm like, we have like two more years.

01:49:18.560 My, our oldest is 11.

01:49:19.720 I mean, we had two more years and then we have to convert to Mormonism.

01:49:21.720 I really, I want, like, I love how like the Mormons, they don't drink and they don't do

01:49:27.680 drugs and they always stay a tight knit family.

01:49:30.140 I'm like, this Catholicism and Presbyterian thing, it doesn't work out.

01:49:33.340 People do drink and they leave their mommies.

01:49:35.160 And I don't, anyway, I digress.

01:49:37.540 But so you start by a little drinking and, and some pot and then how, how does it take the

01:49:43.660 next step?

01:49:45.120 I mean, pot was my true love actually.

01:49:47.180 And I just, I still, that if I was to say I miss anything in sobriety, I, I still have

01:49:54.360 moments of missing pot.

01:49:57.120 It, it was from the minute I smoked it.

01:50:00.520 I was just, I, a daily smoker basically.

01:50:03.860 And that was when I was 14 or 15, I started drinking.

01:50:07.100 I loved the oblivion that drinking brought me.

01:50:10.500 I never drank to like fit in, or maybe I, I drank to fit in and that it's easy to move

01:50:15.980 schools and find the party crew anywhere you go.

01:50:20.260 It's much easier than having to just be myself.

01:50:23.680 And, but I didn't necessarily drink to be more social.

01:50:28.580 I'm pretty chatty and social anyway, but I really loved the just oblivion that came with

01:50:33.960 drinking and my mind kind of shutting off, which is why I inevitably think I found heroin to

01:50:43.440 be in my life.

01:50:45.940 And then I did, you know, some psychedelics in high school.

01:50:50.020 It was pretty norm, not normal.

01:50:51.700 Looking back, I was a fully functioning alcoholic probably by the time I was 16.

01:50:55.820 And I think I knew it and pothead.

01:50:59.220 And then I started doing harder drugs when that first, right after that summer.

01:51:05.360 And then that first year in college, um, I think the first real.

01:51:12.800 Like white powder I ever did was speed, which I hated.

01:51:17.980 I hated it.

01:51:18.980 I hated it.

01:51:20.480 I couldn't.

01:51:20.900 All right.

01:51:21.060 This is a dumb question from somebody who's never done a drug.

01:51:24.040 Um, is speed the same thing as cocaine?

01:51:27.600 No.

01:51:28.200 So this is more what we would think of like crystal meth.

01:51:31.520 Now, I guess we call it speed back then, but now I think it's pretty much just crystal

01:51:35.780 meth.

01:51:36.860 And so it was very, it just made your brain race.

01:51:41.760 And no cocaine is, I, I had many years of that too.

01:51:45.600 Uh, that went hand in hand with the restaurant industry and drinking and just the entire restaurant

01:51:52.300 that, that rut that I was in, in a resort town.

01:51:56.740 Those things are all, um, just part, part and parcel of the whole kind of lifestyle that

01:52:04.720 you live.

01:52:05.800 And, um, so that's after this, I was later after rehab.

01:52:09.880 So then I started, um, then I got introduced, then I started doing, I think I tried cocaine

01:52:17.360 around that time.

01:52:19.040 Um, I dabbled in things and then I ended up getting together with a guy who was, uh, he

01:52:31.560 had access to a lot of these other drugs and then started doing that.

01:52:35.100 But it was, it was a very quick bottom for me.

01:52:39.280 I was pretty much in rehab a year after I started doing heavy drugs, any of them, like

01:52:47.340 I started doing, sorry, go on.

01:52:51.120 He's the one who introduced heroin to you.

01:52:53.920 Yes.

01:52:54.600 And other drugs.

01:52:55.720 I mean, we were doing all kinds of drugs, cocaine.

01:52:59.380 Um, I think crack, there was some crack in there.

01:53:03.800 Uh, that was a, that was a very, uh, God, that, that it seems like another person.

01:53:10.380 I, I, when I think of that girl and that time in my life, I was so, and then going to rehab

01:53:17.100 for seven months, I was in a halfway house.

01:53:19.320 I, I was just, and then getting out of rehab and what followed, which was even crazier, um,

01:53:26.060 just in personal stuff.

01:53:29.360 It was, and then I ended up moving here when I was 20, I moved to LA and then I was back,

01:53:36.320 um, doing drugs again.

01:53:38.760 And, uh, then I would kind of rescue myself and pull myself back from the brink and stop

01:53:45.840 doing hard drugs and only smoke weed or stop drinking for a while.

01:53:49.520 And then I moved back east to try and repair things with my family.

01:53:52.660 And I was only going to stay there, but then I ended up marrying a Belorussian and I joked

01:53:58.220 that I married him in a year long blackout.

01:54:00.300 It's not entirely false.

01:54:02.600 And we were together for a while and both in the restaurant industry.

01:54:06.340 And so, yeah, it really, it really started that year right out of high school, the, the

01:54:13.280 harder drugs.

01:54:14.020 And then it just escalated.

01:54:16.800 Cause I do wonder if, even though you've taken drugs before, is there a moment before

01:54:22.340 you, you take heroin that you stop even in that state and say, well, this is an escalation.

01:54:30.940 I remember I smoked it the first time.

01:54:34.160 And I remember vividly knowing I was crossing an invisible line that I had put down in the

01:54:41.960 state, you know, it's like, uh, even doing math, which I hated.

01:54:46.540 I have a journal where I was always writing and I, I have a journal where I was just trying

01:54:51.100 basically to write myself down from the high, because I was, I felt like I was losing my

01:54:56.560 mind.

01:54:57.300 Your mind just races.

01:54:58.500 And I, I knew that that was an escalation.

01:55:01.680 I remember vividly the first time because you kind of chase that emptiness forever and

01:55:09.600 things just got, I was just so, I don't know why no one noticed.

01:55:21.820 I don't, that's, what's so crazy to me.

01:55:24.440 I was so clearly, I was 89 pounds, Megan, like ribs.

01:55:30.940 I had a horrible cough because I primarily smoked it and, um, snorted it.

01:55:36.240 And I had a whole, but because I was chasing the dragon, you put like tar on a piece of

01:55:41.760 tinfoil and it's, uh, um, the whole process is very ritualized.

01:55:47.060 Like all drug use ends up being, but it was, it, it just destroys your lungs.

01:55:52.940 I mean, you're inhaling chemicals from the tinfoil you're inhaling and inhaling horrible

01:55:57.360 black tar.

01:55:58.120 So I had bronchitis and this was one of, you know, there's a lot of shameful moments in

01:56:03.880 my life and my grandmother, who was, um, the greatest generation Irish Stoic woman.

01:56:10.280 She, one day we were driving, she was driving me somewhere and she had this pickup truck.

01:56:15.740 She was just such a character.

01:56:17.020 And she said, you need to watch out Bridget because you have the gene.

01:56:21.040 And she was kind of referring the gene that my grandfather had.

01:56:24.580 And she, she just saw it in me.

01:56:26.680 She was probably the first and only person who really saw it.

01:56:29.980 And she said, you have to be careful.

01:56:31.540 And I was like, whatever, maim.

01:56:33.060 I don't know.

01:56:33.540 Okay.

01:56:34.220 And I was, uh, I was on heroin at her funeral.

01:56:38.620 I was, I was, um, she died when I was like in the middle.

01:56:43.580 Oh, that time of my life was so dark.

01:56:52.360 It was like, as I just remember feeling so alone and feeling so lost.

01:56:59.480 And then she went into the hospital and it was like, maim was invincible.

01:57:05.840 She was like the person I thought she'd still be alive.

01:57:09.180 I never thought she'd die.

01:57:11.040 I certainly didn't think she would die before my grandfather who almost died in my childhood.

01:57:16.040 They gave him his last rights.

01:57:17.160 They still have no idea how he even survived that.

01:57:19.760 Um, he's now passed away as well.

01:57:22.400 But, um, we all thought grandpa would go before her.

01:57:26.380 He had so many health problems and, um, she just went into the hospital with this lung thing

01:57:35.940 and died.

01:57:37.240 Like it just happened.

01:57:38.460 It was a rare lung disease.

01:57:40.220 I can't remember the name of it.

01:57:41.840 And I was kind of in the midst of it.

01:57:44.320 And I really, I had just been home visiting and I was so sick.

01:57:47.480 I had bronchitis and, um, I came back and then she died like two days later.

01:57:53.040 And then I had to fly back East.

01:57:54.660 I was in Minnesota at the time.

01:57:56.620 And, um, I had to speak at her funeral.

01:58:00.720 And I remember being high and like having to write this eulogy and being so ashamed that

01:58:08.020 she was a, the last time I saw her, I was just so messed up and B that she was, um, right.

01:58:15.800 I knew she was right.

01:58:17.020 I knew while I was standing there at her funeral.

01:58:19.200 And I, I mean, I don't know how the, I think everyone around me was just so shocked and grief

01:58:24.480 stricken that they didn't notice that I was, you know, on the roof smoking heroin.

01:58:30.340 Before I was going to her funeral.

01:58:32.900 And it was like, I, I, I, I don't, I don't think I've ever even talked about this publicly.

01:58:38.760 I, it took me three months to even talk about it and, and rehab because I felt like the guilt

01:58:45.840 that I felt.

01:58:46.960 And then I ended up really, I mean, that was another thing that I just spiraled out.

01:58:53.460 And I think the week before I went into my, my, the only rehab I'd been in was that rehab

01:58:58.520 then, although that's not when I got sober fine forever.

01:59:02.420 And finally, but I, I just, I would jump in and ask you something about that.

01:59:06.220 Why, why did you feel guilty about that?

01:59:09.780 Uh, I felt guilty that I was on drugs at her funeral.

01:59:13.340 Like I just felt horrible.

01:59:15.160 This is, and she warned me that I was, that I had that gene and I just felt guilty.

01:59:20.980 Like it felt disrespectful to her to be in that state.

01:59:26.740 It still feels disrespectful to her.

01:59:29.000 I still feel like I, you know, I think part of the thing that keeps me sober, I have, I'm

01:59:34.840 looking at a picture of her right now on her wedding day.

01:59:37.440 Um, I stay sober for her, you know, part of, part of the, the living amends that I make

01:59:46.360 and there are many, but one of the biggest ones is to her, to, to just live every day

01:59:53.400 sober in her honor because she was right.

01:59:57.960 And I have to remember that.

01:59:59.400 And I have to remember that, um, on those days when I'm like, I don't want to be sober

02:00:03.880 anymore.

02:00:04.300 I don't want to be in my head that, that it would, it's a way of honoring her life and

02:00:10.280 honoring everything that she so selflessly gave to all of us.

02:00:15.020 She was just so giving and amazing by staying sober.

02:00:18.740 And that guilt, I mean, I lived in, in the shadow of that guilt for a long, long time.

02:00:24.660 It's still upsetting to me.

02:00:26.280 It's still, it's.

02:00:29.000 But it's so, when you think about it, but when you think about it, it's, it is, it's so

02:00:33.260 crazy, right?

02:00:34.020 Because she loved you and she saw, and she tried to throw you a lifeline, which you caught,

02:00:42.680 you know, and you didn't use it immediately, but you did catch it and you got yourself out.

02:00:47.100 She, she wouldn't give a shit that you were high at her funeral.

02:00:50.580 She wouldn't have cared about that.

02:00:52.340 You know, that in your head, right?

02:00:54.500 Like she would have wanted what was best for you.

02:00:57.980 She would have wanted you to just get well.

02:01:01.080 And not only have you gotten, gotten well, you, you, you're living a well life.

02:01:06.320 Yeah, I try.

02:01:07.180 I mean, she's, I miss, I miss both of them every day.

02:01:11.620 I mean, they're, they were both just so they really did take care of us when we would, because

02:01:17.120 after my parents got divorced, we would go, we were with my, we barely saw my dad, but we

02:01:22.140 would go spend summers with him sometimes and they would end up taking care of us basically.

02:01:27.720 And we were like these feral children who had no parents.

02:01:31.620 We would be, you know, my aunts and uncles joke, like we were these dirt, like grimy little

02:01:37.440 teens who are totally underweight.

02:01:40.280 And we'd be eating, you know, raw spaghetti, drinking pickle juice.

02:01:44.420 And this was in Rhode Island, which is where my grandparents were.

02:01:50.320 So, and we moved to Minnesota.

02:01:53.000 I was born in New York city and then moved every year and a half.

02:01:55.840 We were in Connecticut.

02:01:56.400 We were in Minnesota.

02:01:57.540 We were kind of all over the United States.

02:01:59.920 And then, but my family's from Rhode Island.

02:02:03.960 And so that was really just the home base.

02:02:06.580 And it's where my dad ended up going back to after he, after my parents split up.

02:02:10.680 And now most of my family is in the Northeast, but that was really the only real stability

02:02:17.480 I had in my life was them, was my grandparents.

02:02:21.820 That can make all the difference.

02:02:23.520 You know, I've, I know a lot of people who have parents who are not that great and, uh,

02:02:29.060 but who have great grandparents that who step up and that, and a grandparent can save you.

02:02:34.520 Yeah.

02:02:34.960 I mean, I think they tried and, and my, I really do, I did, they did.

02:02:41.000 And I do believe that my parents did.

02:02:44.640 I do believe that crap that people are doing the best that they can, even though I've had

02:02:49.740 a hilarious conversations with people.

02:02:52.300 I once had an Uber driver and he was talking about his brother and how he was on cocaine.

02:02:56.320 And I'm like, well, just try and remember he's doing the best he can with what he has.

02:03:00.140 And he's like, no, he's not.

02:03:01.880 Oh my God.

02:03:03.200 And I'll never forget that because I was like, okay, fair enough.

02:03:06.160 He's like, he's being lazy.

02:03:07.180 How did you get that deep into conversation with an Uber driver?

02:03:10.500 Was it a very, very long ride?

02:03:12.780 No, it's just, I mean, that's just me.

02:03:15.320 I like.

02:03:16.180 You're the one who talks to the massage therapist.

02:03:17.740 What am I saying?

02:03:19.560 Again, the one who ruins it for all of us.

02:03:22.320 I don't mean to.

02:03:23.200 Do not want to chit chat while you were rubbing my behind.

02:03:26.300 I'm the girl on the plane that will be like, tell me your whole life story.

02:03:30.280 Oh my God.

02:03:30.780 You're my worst nightmare.

02:03:32.020 I'm like, lady, can't you see I have headphones on?

02:03:34.040 That's a universal sign for I don't want to talk.

02:03:35.960 I'll leave people with headphones alone.

02:03:38.000 But I have met some amazing people on planes that I'm still friends with.

02:03:42.640 Oh, you are.

02:03:44.920 Oh, okay.

02:03:45.720 Now, wait, this is a great transition.

02:03:48.900 I was on a plane, I don't know, 15 years ago.

02:03:52.620 Not even happened to be seated next to the man who had just bought Penthouse out of bankruptcy

02:04:02.380 from Bob Guccione.

02:04:04.460 And it was a fascinating plane ride.

02:04:07.040 I did not have the headphones on on that ride.

02:04:09.140 And he was a great conversationalist.

02:04:12.020 He was telling me his wife was a fan.

02:04:13.520 So we wound up chatting.

02:04:14.960 He asked me if I would talk to his wife before we took off.

02:04:17.180 I said, sure.

02:04:17.540 He called her, blah, blah, blah.

02:04:18.780 So he he's telling me all about he was a real estate guy from Ohio who wound up, you

02:04:24.520 know, owning this pornography magazine.

02:04:27.480 And next thing and they also owned properties that, you know, had actual porn on them, you

02:04:33.100 know, like live porn, I guess you should say porn on video, whatever.

02:04:37.760 And he would go to the porn Oscars every year, you know, where like you'd win like best

02:04:42.800 anal.

02:04:43.720 And oh, yeah, yeah.

02:04:45.240 The AVN.

02:04:45.820 And the girls would be like, yeah, you know, I won.

02:04:49.340 And I was thinking, oh, it's confusing.

02:04:52.500 Anyway, we had a great airplane ride together and listening to his world was really interesting.

02:04:57.560 So I get back to Fox sitting in my office and the mailman comes in with this box that is

02:05:06.700 like two feet by two and a half feet and all over the box.

02:05:11.180 I mean, every square inch of the box reads penhouse, penhouse, penhouse, penhouse, penhouse,

02:05:16.200 penhouse.

02:05:17.860 And of course, the mailman's got eyes as big as silver dollars.

02:05:21.060 He's like, whoa, what's this?

02:05:22.960 I'm like, oh, boy.

02:05:24.080 I open it up and it is a huge book that is a retrospective to 30 years of penhouse covers.

02:05:34.820 And it's on the on the cover of the book is a very ungroomed circa 1972 picture of Madonna,

02:05:43.180 the singer Madonna in full, you know, full regga.

02:05:46.640 So and then I open it up.

02:05:47.900 It's all penhouse's greatest centerfolds.

02:05:49.640 I'm thinking, oh, my God, like, what, where am I going to put this?

02:05:53.540 Where does this go in somebody's house?

02:05:55.460 And as it turns out, it's actually right next to Doug's side of the bed, which is not there

02:06:02.260 for the reasons you think.

02:06:03.280 But it makes a great conversation piece whenever we tour somebody through the house.

02:06:07.400 But all of this is a long, long winded wind up to you weren't with penhouse, but you were

02:06:12.940 with Playboy writing.

02:06:14.640 You're like the one girl who could both be in in Playboy and write for Playboy.

02:06:18.820 I mean, like, that's not the only one.

02:06:21.260 I don't mean to diminish the others, but I'm just saying it's rare to have both a rock and

02:06:24.540 body like you do and the smarts to write an article that could appear in there.

02:06:28.780 And maybe Deborah So, too.

02:06:30.880 She's writing for them.

02:06:31.580 She's also gorgeous.

02:06:33.040 But anyway, so I know you're a writer and I get writing for Playboy, but let's just rounding

02:06:39.880 back to the naked Bridget.

02:06:42.200 Like, what do you get out of that?

02:06:44.100 Because I know you don't go like full frontal, but you definitely post naked top pictures

02:06:48.300 of yourself a lot.

02:06:49.800 And I know you like it.

02:06:51.540 Like, you're getting something out of it.

02:06:53.240 What are you getting out of it?

02:06:55.460 Well, I mean, I don't do it as much anymore.

02:06:59.240 Um, uh, because I'm married, which no one knows.

02:07:07.460 And I was going to say you right now.

02:07:09.740 What?

02:07:10.500 Yeah.

02:07:10.900 No, I just got married on November 10th.

02:07:14.500 Bridget.

02:07:15.260 I know.

02:07:15.880 Best wishes.

02:07:16.760 I know.

02:07:17.240 Thank you.

02:07:18.240 Thank you.

02:07:18.640 Who'd you marry?

02:07:19.120 Oh, I hope it was the rich guy.

02:07:21.020 No, no.

02:07:22.000 Uh, he's the opposite of a rich guy.

02:07:24.860 Um, no, he's a, we met in recovery and, um, he is a therapist and also works at a nautical

02:07:37.000 themed grocery store.

02:07:38.300 And, um, yeah, we, we met, it's a, it's a crazy story.

02:07:44.140 We met in recovery like a couple of years ago and had a whirlwind romance, but he was

02:07:49.980 pretty new in, in recovery.

02:07:52.100 And I never felt okay.

02:07:53.520 I was like, I'm robbing you of this first year.

02:07:55.720 That's so important because I know what it's like to get sober.

02:07:58.420 And I know you need that year to really just be with yourself.

02:08:00.980 And I could never get good with it and broke his heart.

02:08:04.760 And then 15 months later we got coffee and then, um, God, we've been through a lot actually

02:08:12.720 in the last year, even then, um, and so, yeah, that's, I'm sure people have kind of noticed

02:08:19.780 that it's dialed back, but that's pretty much why no, no, I haven't announced it or anything

02:08:25.720 yet because, because I feel my private life has always been really mine.

02:08:30.980 You know, there's so, I put so much out there and I've just, I've always, this is the most,

02:08:37.360 um, public I've been about really anything.

02:08:41.820 I don't really like to talk about stuff that's happened with my family other than in a kind

02:08:46.440 of writing controlled environment, just because it feels like it's not my, only my story and

02:08:51.160 other people are involved.

02:08:52.400 And I try to do right by everybody.

02:08:54.860 I think everybody, you know, I don't consider myself a victim.

02:08:58.060 I think that, that, um, my mom and my stepdad and all the people involved, my dad, uh, did,

02:09:05.380 they did do the best I could at that time.

02:09:07.380 Um, and I'm sure they live with their own regrets.

02:09:11.160 And I know that, um, we still, you know, things are, I would say great now between me

02:09:17.340 and everybody.

02:09:17.940 And so I try, I just have always been kind of fiercely protective of the people in my life.

02:09:25.740 They didn't ask for me to be out here publicly talking about things and also just protective

02:09:31.660 of, of my private life because it feels like one of the only things that's mine, but now

02:09:37.480 it's bordering on the point of feeling like I'm not lying, but it's hiding.

02:09:43.940 Yeah.

02:09:44.500 Hiding.

02:09:45.020 Yeah.

02:09:45.520 Now it's bordering on the point of, okay.

02:09:48.780 Um, it's a secret and yeah, I don't want it to be a secret.

02:09:52.740 I'm proud of, I love him.

02:09:55.140 I'm happy for you.

02:09:56.500 What's his name?

02:09:57.300 Cause what's his first name?

02:09:58.300 Um, uh, Jaren.

02:10:02.020 Oh, I like that.

02:10:03.820 Yeah.

02:10:04.460 Uh, so.

02:10:05.540 Well, that's awesome.

02:10:06.400 I'm so happy for you.

02:10:07.960 I feel like a good relationship is such a good deposit into one's emotional bank.

02:10:14.820 Like I didn't know this, Megan.

02:10:17.480 I didn't know.

02:10:18.440 I mean, it's been so crazily.

02:10:22.480 I really, you know, talk about, talk about the stories that we tell ourselves.

02:10:27.380 So much of my life has been, um, losing myself and finding myself over and over again and

02:10:34.560 hitting 15 different rock bottoms and kind of bouncing back up.

02:10:38.640 And, and I really thought of myself as that girl that was single forever and that I didn't

02:10:45.900 need a man.

02:10:46.660 And I had so many, so much kind of damage and trauma around those relationships and, and

02:10:53.620 being in what I feel is it's a very healthy, loving, just, I didn't know how much of a

02:11:04.460 difference it makes.

02:11:06.480 I didn't, I underestimated it because I didn't have very many models of it in my life.

02:11:12.400 So I just was very jaded and cynical about relationships.

02:11:16.100 And when we first started dating the first time I cried every day, I had no idea how to deal with

02:11:24.340 intimacy.

02:11:24.980 I ran from it.

02:11:26.580 I did, I just did not know.

02:11:29.180 I didn't know how to give it.

02:11:31.920 I didn't know how to receive it.

02:11:33.420 I didn't know.

02:11:34.760 I didn't trust it.

02:11:36.340 I, and then we took that break and he did a lot of, you know, his own work and time.

02:11:43.540 And it really did come down to timing.

02:11:46.500 And when, then when we got back together, it was really, we were just never apart again.

02:11:52.280 And, um, yeah, I mean, it's been, it's been, um, uh, uh, kind of a miracle really.

02:12:01.060 I, I didn't, weirdly, one of the ways reasons that I trusted so much is because it's so not

02:12:09.480 something I feel like I'm manipulating in my, in my past, in many relationships, I felt like

02:12:16.440 there was always this power dynamic and I was trying to manipulate the situation or

02:12:20.200 manipulate the man or it, it felt very insidious and kind of squirrely.

02:12:26.140 You know, I felt, I, I don't know how to describe it.

02:12:28.840 It's, I've never talked about any of this stuff publicly ever.

02:12:31.500 Um, I've talked about feeling like I, I was manipulative as a woman, but I just, with him,

02:12:40.200 it feels so pure.

02:12:41.480 There's just no sketchiness.

02:12:43.940 You know, it's, I want, I want it to, I value that, um, that, that core of our relationship.

02:12:52.320 Well, I really feel like now this is when everything, everything grows because like,

02:12:58.120 I, I do think that having a healthy love relationship in your life, especially with

02:13:03.140 a partner, but it could be with a friend.

02:13:05.280 It could be, you know, somebody else, but especially with a, with a sexual romantic and

02:13:10.520 life partner that just, it's like the rocket ship, you know, that it's like, I won't say

02:13:17.920 that it's not, it's that no one can hurt you because you can still be hurt, but man, they

02:13:22.340 can hurt you a lot less.

02:13:23.900 It takes a lot more, a lot more to really ding you up, you know, is it's like, I, I remember

02:13:29.940 after many low moments over the past few years, looking around and saying, you know, if, if

02:13:34.280 this is my floor or my ceiling, right?

02:13:37.700 Like that I'm with Doug and I've got these three kids.

02:13:41.120 Good.

02:13:41.740 I'm good.

02:13:42.600 That's just fine by me.

02:13:43.940 And I felt that for years.

02:13:45.220 I do think we put too little time into nurturing relationships without, because we, we fail to

02:13:50.340 realize how important they are to overall happiness.

02:13:53.520 So I'm thrilled for you, but he doesn't like the nudes, I guess is that he wants you to just

02:13:57.860 stick with what you put out there.

02:13:58.940 No, it had nothing to do with him.

02:14:00.580 He actually didn't, he actually never said anything about it.

02:14:04.580 He, it was all me just feeling like I was evolving and changing and no, he never, he

02:14:12.560 was, he was never, um, I'm sure he had his own feel like this is the beauty of marrying

02:14:18.200 a licensed marriage and family therapist is that he knows how to do his own work.

02:14:24.520 And he definitely, um, he just were very much about allowing us to grow individually.

02:14:36.000 And he never, I felt like I was kind of already pulling away from it because it just felt like

02:14:41.680 it served this time.

02:14:43.660 And, and, and I just didn't, it wasn't like I ever needed to do it.

02:14:48.220 I wanted to do it.

02:14:49.360 And then I just stopped wanting to do it, you know, and, and that, that was really it.

02:14:55.380 I've, I've always done what I wanted to do.

02:14:58.680 I never wanted to feel like I had to do, like had to post nudies or had to, I always, it

02:15:04.980 was always on my own terms.

02:15:06.520 A lot of it was just taking, like I said, I wrote a whole piece about it in Playboy that

02:15:10.780 I actually think is still up.

02:15:12.180 And it's all the, what I learned from being, you know, sharing nudes online and being part

02:15:19.680 of it was also just taking control.

02:15:21.640 I was very, this was at the dawn of being able to send a man a nudie.

02:15:26.160 And I knew that I wanted to be a writer.

02:15:28.500 I didn't have any clue how this would all play out, but I just wanted to take control

02:15:33.760 of that.

02:15:34.120 I didn't want anyone to be able to post nudies that I didn't, I didn't want to live in fear

02:15:39.700 of that.

02:15:40.040 So part of me was like, I'm just going to take control of this.

02:15:42.800 Have at it.

02:15:43.260 Yeah.

02:15:43.840 Yeah.

02:15:44.200 And I also just, it was, it's a lie.

02:15:46.660 I mean, there's like 15 different pieces.

02:15:48.540 I could talk to you for two hours just about what I learned about myself, what I reclaimed,

02:15:53.860 what, um, all of it.

02:15:56.780 And, and then just really, I think being in a loving, intimate relationship has, I feel

02:16:05.360 again, it's like going on, going back and saying, Oh, I didn't know that there were double

02:16:09.240 standards.

02:16:09.880 This is like me be coming to this very naive realization of, Oh, a loving and intimate

02:16:16.700 relationship can give you, I can be very uplifting and stabilizing.

02:16:24.180 I'm obviously very hesitant about all of this.

02:16:27.000 And the fact that I'm even talking about it is actually really good.

02:16:30.640 But he, I think that again, I, I default to this is not about us.

02:16:37.900 He has been through so much on his own.

02:16:40.500 He has grown and lifted it, uplifted himself out of stuff.

02:16:46.480 And we are both very late bloomers.

02:16:49.540 And I think one of them, the lies that I've told myself and all of my rock bottoms is that

02:16:55.420 I was too old, whether I was 20 or 25 to really make something of myself.

02:17:01.820 And if anything, I think that he's just a really necessary voice for young men, just having

02:17:09.000 somebody who's kind of a rational, just pretty common sense.

02:17:12.300 And he has a lot of streets smarts too.

02:17:14.920 I don't know.

02:17:15.740 I just, I feel my personal and very biased opinion is that, um, the world could use his

02:17:23.200 voice out there too.

02:17:24.260 So, um, listen, here's to late bloomers and second chances and great partnerships.

02:17:32.400 Good, good luck to both of you.

02:17:34.200 It's gosh, it's been a pleasure getting to know you.

02:17:36.380 This is the first of many.

02:17:37.600 I hope Bridget.

02:17:38.540 I hope so too.

02:17:39.640 Thank you.

02:17:40.240 Yeah.

02:17:41.040 Yeah.

02:17:42.140 This was really fun.

02:17:43.380 And I, I really appreciate, I, I don't know, there's something about, uh, you're an amazing

02:17:49.260 interviewer just in general.

02:17:50.740 You're just amazing at what you do, but there's something to, just as a woman, I'm so often

02:17:56.420 interviewed by men that I do.

02:17:59.160 I mean, I cried twice and I never cry when I'm being interviewed.

02:18:02.180 So I, it, that's a testament to you allowing me to feel, um, safe and being kind of, there

02:18:10.620 is something about just that, you know, female bond, I think.

02:18:15.060 Thank you for saying that it means a lot to me.

02:18:17.760 And if I, if I did provide that space for you, it's, it's minuscule in comparison to

02:18:22.560 the feeling you gave me that day and, and have ever since, I really love reading you

02:18:27.480 and I love watching you and she's well worth the Twitter follow, especially, uh, notwithstanding

02:18:33.440 the breaks she takes for Lent now and then like for the love of God, she gave up too many

02:18:38.960 vices that she doesn't have to give up Twitter too.

02:18:40.820 But anyway, thanks for all the laughs and, uh, to be continued today's episode is brought

02:18:48.220 to you in part by black rifle coffee roasted by veterans.

02:18:51.900 Black rifle coffee is the freshest brew in America.

02:18:54.980 Go to black rifle, coffee.com slash MK to get yours now do it.

02:18:59.660 You're going to love it.

02:19:00.540 Uh, before we go, I want to tell you, please take a minute to subscribe to the show and

02:19:03.440 download it, rate it and review it.

02:19:05.540 Please review it.

02:19:06.280 Tell me what your new year's resolutions are and what you're hoping for, for 2021.

02:19:10.660 We'd love to hear it.

02:19:11.820 Uh, any guests you'd like to hear on our program too, by the way, we have some surprises coming

02:19:15.680 your way in the new year too.

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02:19:19.560 You will see and hear about it very soon.

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02:19:23.780 Um, but I want to tell you that on our next episode, we've got Mike Rowe.

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02:19:31.240 he is on.

02:19:32.180 He is great.

02:19:32.860 He's got the best voice in broadcasting.

02:19:35.200 First of all, and this is a guy who's going to talk to us about the value of hard work,

02:19:40.240 work ethic in America, the worth in getting your hands dirty and what you learn by doing

02:19:46.140 the so-called dirty jobs, right?

02:19:48.480 The elitism in America against these folks and how fast backwards it is.

02:19:54.140 Um, he's sage and has been through it and knows these guys and gals doing these jobs and

02:20:01.660 understands what really makes America, America.

02:20:05.260 And he'll also have some thoughts on that.

02:20:06.800 Plus a great, great Donald Trump story and a story about charitable giving that he's told

02:20:13.680 before, but it's been updated in a way that will make your jaw drop.

02:20:17.100 Let's just say this country is full of good people, really good people, better, better than

02:20:22.180 you, better than me.

02:20:23.160 Um, but they'll stand up and make, they'll make you want to stand up and cheer.

02:20:27.640 You're going to enjoy it.

02:20:28.420 Mike Rowe is a great interview and, uh, it's coming at you next show.

02:20:32.420 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

02:20:34.540 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:20:38.900 The Megan Kelly show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

02:20:43.280 We'll see you next time on another episode.

02:21:00.960 We'll see you next time on another episode.

02:21:10.260 Bye.

02:21:12.740 Bye.

02:21:13.020 Bye.

02:21:13.080 Bye.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 30, 2020

Bridget Phetasy on Trauma and Recovery, Victimhood and Entitlement, and Marriage ｜ Ep. 44

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