The Megyn Kelly Show - The Truth About Netflix's ＂Bad Vegan＂ and a Crime Week Con, with Sarma Melngailis ｜ Ep. 1221

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00:00:30.620 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.300 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:44.160 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and Happy New Year.

00:00:47.100 It's the final day of Crime Week here on the program,

00:00:49.960 though we do have fresh programming for you tomorrow as well.

00:00:52.860 This is the end of Crime Week because nothing says Christmas like true crime.

00:00:56.980 My guest today built one of the most successful vegan food empires in the Big Apple.

00:01:02.720 But her dramatic rise and fall would become the focus of the hit Netflix, quote,

00:01:08.460 documentary, or so they call it, Bad Vegan, a series she says got major parts of her story wrong.

00:01:16.140 By the way, this always happens on Netflix.

00:01:19.140 Sarma Melngilis has a new memoir.

00:01:22.860 It is called The Girl with the Duck Tattoo.

00:01:25.700 In it, she aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story behind the fame,

00:01:32.400 the manipulation, and the fallout of her unbelievable saga.

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00:02:39.140 Sarma, hi. Thanks for being here.

00:02:41.000 Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

00:02:44.040 Well, I'm sorry that you had an unfortunate experience with Netflix, but you are not alone.

00:02:48.980 We've covered so many of these cases on Netflix where they lure you in,

00:02:53.160 and they really do sell a documentary, and it's nothing of the kind.

00:02:57.460 It's a mockumentary. It's a docudrama.

00:03:01.780 It's something that is not committed to journalistic, fact-based reporting.

00:03:07.540 So I will give you that right off the top.

00:03:10.300 But I'm super interested to find out what is true.

00:03:13.180 To give a two-line encapsulation of your story to the audience, as I understand it,

00:03:22.020 you're very well-educated.

00:03:23.720 You went to Wharton.

00:03:24.940 You worked at Bear Stearns, Bain Capital.

00:03:27.700 Then you went to the French Culinary Institute.

00:03:29.700 You learned how to be a serious chef.

00:03:31.600 You open up this banger of a restaurant with raw food, pure food and wine.

00:03:38.140 Everyone in New York loved it.

00:03:39.200 It was going really well.

00:03:40.180 And then you met this man, this man who came into your life who was somewhat sketchy.

00:03:47.480 And notwithstanding your sophistication, bit by bit, he eroded your sense of self,

00:03:54.360 your understanding of what was real.

00:03:56.960 And before you knew it, you had lost everything.

00:04:01.660 Is that a fair summation of how this thing went down?

00:04:05.540 Yeah, that was an incredible summation.

00:04:07.520 That was better than I can do it in a concise way.

00:04:11.260 But yeah, that's what happened.

00:04:13.080 And what I've learned is that my story was an extreme version of something that happens

00:04:18.960 to people a lot more than people realize.

00:04:20.900 And I know this now from all the messages I've gotten in my DMs since the show came out

00:04:25.720 and since it became much more public, is that this type of manipulation can happen a lot

00:04:30.540 more than people realize.

00:04:32.200 And it also can happen to men and women alike.

00:04:37.500 And so part of my telling of the story is to, you know, is to really help educate people

00:04:44.780 how it happened.

00:04:45.900 And that was the most important part that the show on Netflix left out and that the filmmakers

00:04:51.220 left out is any explanation of how this happens, which is what would allow people to help protect

00:04:56.320 themselves.

00:04:57.540 And which is so unsatisfying because what's most interesting about the story to many of

00:05:03.580 us is how someone as sophisticated and well-educated and successful as you would fall for this guy's

00:05:10.740 lies.

00:05:12.020 That's what we all want to know, right?

00:05:13.880 Because in our heads, we want to say, oh, I would never.

00:05:17.180 But I mean, I have covered enough of these stories to know don't ever say that because nine times

00:05:22.340 out of 10, the person being targeted has a bio not unlike yours.

00:05:27.720 For some reason, these con men go for the sophisticated smart types.

00:05:34.140 Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:35.100 It's, you know, similar with cults.

00:05:37.140 You know, they actually need somebody who's got a certain level of intelligence because it's

00:05:42.640 almost like you can't train a, you know, you need somebody who's got a certain level of

00:05:48.500 intelligence to be able to pull off this long, slow manipulation.

00:05:53.500 And I mean, I've spoken to people who have PhDs in clinical psychology, attorneys even, who've

00:06:00.180 been, had their world turned upside down in a way that they never expected.

00:06:04.400 And so, again, that's what I write about in my book is really taking the reader along with me

00:06:10.900 through this sort of nightmarish journey about getting manipulated over time and really

00:06:18.360 trying to, you know, as honestly as I could, even in places where I felt it didn't reflect

00:06:25.260 well on me, to help people understand how this happens and also the psychology behind

00:06:31.460 it.

00:06:31.720 And that's really also what was left out of the show.

00:06:33.820 Have you ever heard the story of, I'm going to mess up, is it Anderson Benita is her first

00:06:40.800 name, NBC journalist who got lured in by this doctor who said he had figured out a way to

00:06:47.420 do prosthetic, uh, Benita Alexander, uh, to do prosthetic, uh, tracheas on people.

00:06:53.940 And long story short, he was a big fraud and he convinced her that they were going to go

00:06:58.680 and be married in Rome by the Pope, even though she was divorced.

00:07:04.260 And also she, she's a news woman.

00:07:06.940 You can't find more cynical mofos than news producers. 1.00

00:07:10.640 And she got lured in and, and what she said at the end, Sarma is something that you, of

00:07:16.480 our interview, you might relate to, which was, cause she's also very smart. 0.76

00:07:21.020 He needed her to be smart because that's where the Jones came from. 1.00

00:07:26.940 Like it wasn't going to be fun for him if she were too easy a mark.

00:07:32.640 Yes.

00:07:33.840 Yes.

00:07:34.500 I mean, part of what I think part of why this can happen is because certainly, you know,

00:07:40.860 whether it's my wiring or whatever it is, but I almost couldn't, it's like, I couldn't

00:07:45.000 fathom that somebody could be so diabolical and also his motivation.

00:07:49.820 It wasn't that clear because, you know, it's not like in the end of this, he walked away

00:07:54.580 with all of this money that he took from me.

00:07:56.180 He just, you know, spent it, gambled it away.

00:07:58.900 That wasn't the point for him.

00:08:00.060 And the point for him was the thrill that he and people like this get from the takedown,

00:08:06.100 you know, because again, I'm not a psychologist, but when you're wired a certain way and you

00:08:10.640 don't have empathy and you go around in this world, it's like life is a game.

00:08:16.020 And to manipulate people is, I think what gives people like this a rise.

00:08:21.520 And so, you know, again, the bigger, the takedown, the bigger, the high they get, I suppose.

00:08:26.020 And that's really the point of it is.

00:08:28.280 Well, and I want people to remember this.

00:08:29.360 I want people to remember Benita, again, a hard-nosed NBC journalist who was doing

00:08:35.000 journalism at the, you know, the toughest levels he can, who was convinced by this fraudster

00:08:40.680 that the Pope was going to marry them in the Vatican, notwithstanding the fact that she was

00:08:45.580 divorced and that Bill Clinton was going to go and Barack Obama was going to go. 1.00

00:08:50.080 And the only reason she found out it was all a lie is a friend at NBC was like, Benita,

00:08:54.420 Benita, we checked the president's schedule.

00:08:57.060 He's not going to, even the Pope's not even going to be in Rome on the date of your wedding.

00:09:01.260 Hello.

00:09:02.000 And the, and sort of the, the mask finally started coming off and she started realizing

00:09:06.240 she'd been totally manipulated.

00:09:07.340 So the point is simply while the lies may sound so obviously outrageous to those of us on the

00:09:12.720 outside, these fraudsters build slowly to gain your trust and control over you before they

00:09:21.440 really start with the huge whoppers to where, you know, you're really believing what looks

00:09:26.200 like to the outside world, obvious nonsense.

00:09:28.740 But when you're in it, you're so far removed from your original self, it's, it can happen.

00:09:34.140 So, okay, let's talk about how it happened to you.

00:09:36.520 So you're, you did the corporate stuff using your Wharton degree.

00:09:40.220 And then like everybody, you decided you hated that.

00:09:42.420 You go to a culinary school, you open up this raw restaurant and it's a hit.

00:09:49.140 It's like doing really well in Manhattan.

00:09:51.640 This is what the early aughts.

00:09:53.160 Yeah, it opened in 2004 and, um, it was a beautiful restaurant.

00:09:59.220 What I was so proud of is that it wasn't a restaurant for, you know, it was a raw vegan

00:10:04.800 restaurant.

00:10:05.240 It wasn't a restaurant for vegans.

00:10:06.820 It was a restaurant for everybody.

00:10:08.580 And, you know, the, the food that we made now, I realize kind of how ahead of its time it was

00:10:15.320 because this was 15 years ago and it really was about clean ingredients.

00:10:20.120 There were no fake meats.

00:10:21.620 There was no processed food whatsoever.

00:10:23.880 So, you know, and, and there were no, you know, 15 years ago, there were no seed oil.

00:10:28.920 So it was really about, uh, showing people how incredibly good, really, truly clean, nutritionally

00:10:35.980 dense food can be not just in the restaurant, but through the brand one lucky duck where

00:10:39.700 we had products that were sold through whole foods and kids love them, which meant a lot

00:10:44.040 to me.

00:10:44.520 So, um, you know, and, and this was my whole life's purpose.

00:10:48.980 It wasn't like, I just started a business and wanted to make money.

00:10:52.280 This was my life's purpose was hopefully being able to have a positive impact.

00:10:57.980 And, you know, it was a beloved restaurant because people came there and there was, you

00:11:02.820 know, it was very important to me that there was zero judgment.

00:11:05.340 We weren't dogmatic about anything.

00:11:07.200 So half the staff or more probably weren't vegan.

00:11:11.220 Most of our, you know, half our customers, it wasn't like that.

00:11:14.060 There was no, you know, we weren't like annoyingly dogmatic about it.

00:11:18.240 There was no judgment whatsoever.

00:11:19.460 It was just sort of showing people how good this can be.

00:11:22.540 And, you know, we were doing great with it.

00:11:24.800 And I had all these opportunities to expand and take it global and open in other locations,

00:11:29.760 but I was running it on my own in a way and very overwhelmed.

00:11:34.840 And I now understand more about my psychological wiring too, that, um, you know, I just, I always

00:11:42.200 needed a trusted partner to help me grow the business and I didn't have that.

00:11:46.960 And I was overwhelmed and then also went through a painful breakup and was at a particularly

00:11:53.360 vulnerable, vulnerable moment when this man slid into my DMs.

00:11:58.220 They can smell it.

00:11:58.840 They can smell vulnerability.

00:12:01.760 They know how to exploit women who are down and it can go the other way too, but it's in

00:12:06.920 this case, it's a man taking advantage of a woman.

00:12:08.600 All right.

00:12:08.840 So, right.

00:12:09.620 You're just out of a relationship that didn't work out.

00:12:11.900 You're growing your business, but that's tough.

00:12:13.900 It's challenging on any individual.

00:12:15.600 And, uh, but it's succeeding and there's a little bit of this.

00:12:19.140 I'm going to show some Netflix clips because it's just interesting how they documented some

00:12:23.060 of the, we can see the B-roll of the restaurant and so on.

00:12:25.680 Let's take a look at SOT 51, which is about the beginning of your career.

00:12:31.640 My undergrad major was economics and I feel like I got there by process of elimination.

00:12:38.080 So I went to UPenn, Wharton and Philadelphia.

00:12:41.320 I think what happened is when I was there, it was like, what is everybody else doing?

00:12:47.500 Everybody's gunning to go work in investment banking.

00:12:52.480 I got hired by Bear Stearns.

00:12:55.720 Somebody that I'd worked with said to me, do you really like this work?

00:12:59.180 I mean, is this what you really want to do?

00:13:00.540 And my first thought was, do you like it?

00:13:03.240 I don't, do people like it?

00:13:04.440 He sort of confronted me on that.

00:13:07.220 Nobody else had really done that.

00:13:09.120 He said, you seem to be interested in food.

00:13:12.520 People that I worked with had subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and I had a subscription

00:13:17.840 to Gourmet Magazine and Food and Wine.

00:13:20.380 That might have been a clue.

00:13:21.980 I wasn't going into the right field.

00:13:23.400 I left after a year and a half.

00:13:27.520 At that time, I wasn't under any pressure to get a job financially.

00:13:32.040 So I went to culinary school.

00:13:34.720 I finished at the French Culinary Institute in 99 and then focused on working in food.

00:13:41.480 Now, I understand you don't love this clip.

00:13:43.520 What is it about this that's off?

00:13:45.600 Um, well, that clip I didn't have any issues with.

00:13:49.920 It was the parts that I had issues with were mostly what they left out of the series,

00:13:55.620 including any explanation of the psychology of it.

00:13:59.180 And, uh, and then they misused a call at the end and they, they moved, they actually moved

00:14:05.000 my words around.

00:14:06.660 So the audience isn't ready for that yet, but we will definitely get there.

00:14:10.180 Okay.

00:14:10.500 So there you are, you're making the restaurant.

00:14:12.200 The documentary requires attention to the fact that Tom Brady, Giselle, uh, Alec Baldwin

00:14:18.540 came in and actually wound up hitting on you, but you weren't really in a place where you

00:14:22.280 thought you could do that.

00:14:23.940 This is before Hilaria, or at least was like, there was some sort of a vibe going there.

00:14:28.060 It was potentially an option, but it didn't happen.

00:14:31.020 I mean, he's got his own issues, but they're not quite as bad as the one you, the man you

00:14:35.340 wound up with.

00:14:36.080 Um, so then enters the guy who is kind of the other star.

00:14:42.200 Of the Netflix documentary who was going by Shane Fox, um, but actually has a different

00:14:50.840 name.

00:14:51.640 Anthony, is it Brugalis?

00:14:54.220 No, uh, his name, his name was Anthony Strangeless.

00:14:57.580 He's since changed.

00:14:58.220 Sorry, Strangeless.

00:14:59.080 Yeah.

00:14:59.660 He's changed it to Anthony Knight, which I always point out just because if anybody out there

00:15:04.040 comes across a dude that, a very large dude, uh, named Anthony Knight, he's, he legally

00:15:11.360 changed his name.

00:15:12.820 I think to try to hide further.

00:15:14.680 Yeah.

00:15:15.160 How did you meet him?

00:15:16.060 What was his name when you met him?

00:15:17.980 Uh, well, he said his name was Shane Fox and I met him through Alec Baldwin through our Twitter

00:15:23.620 conversations, which is part of why, you know, I write about Alec in my book and our relationship.

00:15:28.460 And then how, oddly enough, I met, it was just through DMs and Twitter.

00:15:33.700 Alec had just joined Twitter.

00:15:35.100 And I think that this guy just got lucky enough that he got there early.

00:15:39.840 And so Alec followed him back, which in a way gave him at least some kind of a credit

00:15:45.880 credibility that made him a little bit more, I don't know, legit.

00:15:50.740 So I wasn't quite as suspicious as I, as I might've been otherwise.

00:15:53.560 And that's something that people like this always look for is any kind of sort of validation

00:15:58.680 that they can get.

00:16:00.720 And how, how did he explain to you that his name wasn't Shane Fox?

00:16:04.460 Um, well that came out later, but you know, he crafted this whole sort of persona that he,

00:16:09.940 you know, worked in these clandestine operations, which of course is the perfect cover if somebody's

00:16:14.660 a con artist, because, you know, they have an immediate excuse to not explain anything.

00:16:18.900 Um, and so eventually I found out his real name, but when that happened, by the time that

00:16:23.780 happened, I was already ensnared.

00:16:26.580 And, uh, and, and also by that time it was as if, you know, well, of course that's not

00:16:32.460 my real name.

00:16:33.300 Of course I have to have, you know, different identities because of what I do or whatnot. 0.90

00:16:37.260 I mean, a load of crap, but at the time. 0.97

00:16:40.680 Now, Sarma, did he love bomb you? 0.99

00:16:42.460 Cause usually that's what these guys do.

00:16:44.240 Yes.

00:16:46.240 In my case, it wasn't so much love bombing as it was more like validation bombing because

00:16:52.840 what this man did, it wasn't that I was so in love with him or it was about some sort

00:16:58.700 of romantic delusion.

00:17:00.520 It was more that he knew he had clocked me as somebody where what meant the most to me

00:17:07.300 in the world was this business and what I wanted it to do for the world.

00:17:11.720 And, and then at the same time, he figured out what all of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities

00:17:16.820 were.

00:17:17.460 And so what, what people do like this, and I think cult leaders do this as well, is they,

00:17:22.180 they present to you your goals and ideals and, and the best version of you and what you

00:17:28.100 want to be ultimately.

00:17:29.440 And, and then somehow attach themselves to it as if the only way to get there is through

00:17:34.760 them.

00:17:35.440 So I would say in my case, it was more of like, I don't know, it was like a validation

00:17:40.000 bombing, like sort of overwhelming me with feeling like he recognized and understood

00:17:45.900 what I wanted to do and understood all of my hopes and dreams and my frustrations, and

00:17:50.660 that he would be able to remove all of those frustrations and enable me to grow my business

00:17:55.740 into the business that I wanted it to be without, you know, the influence of sort of unsavory

00:18:02.160 investors or, because I was in a position where a lot of people wanted to come help me expand

00:18:06.580 the business, but they were not the right people or they were predatory in one way or

00:18:12.100 another.

00:18:12.180 Well, the restaurant industry is, is notoriously sketchy and you don't know who to trust.

00:18:17.200 Yes.

00:18:17.400 So I can see how it would be difficult to understand, like, is this somebody whose money I want?

00:18:21.680 Is this somebody whose partnership I want?

00:18:23.700 Yeah.

00:18:23.800 Enters this guy who's charming.

00:18:26.280 You didn't then know about his criminal history or what he'd done to another woman.

00:18:32.320 So I get it.

00:18:33.420 You're, you know, kind of willfully blind to some of these things about him.

00:18:38.400 Many women go through this when they're, you know, first coupling with a man who may be

00:18:42.800 the answer to their problems.

00:18:45.060 But you married him, which was not a good decision.

00:18:49.940 The Netflix documentary covers that a bit.

00:18:52.720 Here's a little bit in Sot 52.

00:18:54.080 Anthony would tell me that that $2 million debt that I'd taken on to buy the restaurant,

00:19:01.540 that's like nothing.

00:19:02.360 He could just take care of that and make that go away.

00:19:05.340 So he would be there with me and help, you know, support me to do all the things that

00:19:09.760 I wanted to do.

00:19:11.640 You know, I would be protected, at least in one significant way, financially.

00:19:16.440 And I remember thinking that would be like some sort of dream come true.

00:19:23.560 I remember asking the accountant, would he be able to just give me that money or would

00:19:29.520 that be taxable?

00:19:31.180 And how could we do that?

00:19:33.140 And he sort of jokingly, but half seriously said, well, you should just marry him and then

00:19:39.860 he can give you the money without it being taxable in a taxable situation.

00:19:45.420 And very quickly, it was like the next day we went and got the license.

00:19:48.760 They have to wait 24 hours.

00:19:49.960 And it was like, boom, 24 hours.

00:19:51.460 We did it and got married.

00:19:53.700 We got married in November of 2012.

00:19:57.160 So it was close to a year that I had known him.

00:20:01.800 Oh, so you're married now.

00:20:04.880 And not only...

00:20:05.620 Yeah, and this was one of the parts where they edit it.

00:20:08.420 They, I mean, there was a whole, there was two totally different parts of the interview.

00:20:12.500 So it wasn't that the accountant said that, and then 24 hours later, we were married.

00:20:16.780 What I had said was that he had later subsequently really pressured me and badgered me to marry

00:20:24.520 him saying that I would be protected and it would make everything easier.

00:20:27.900 And it was a whole different part of the interview where I, and then I made the point that, so

00:20:32.600 I finally agreed, like, fine, I'll marry you.

00:20:35.560 And we went to City Hall to get the license, and then 24 hours later, we were married.

00:20:41.180 So this wasn't even one of the most egregious examples of where they changed the narrative.

00:20:46.620 But this was, it was just one that, in a way, it made me look a bit suspect to the audience

00:20:52.300 because it made it seem like I just married him for the money that I thought he had, when

00:20:56.980 in reality, it was later on and he really badgered me to marry him for other reasons.

00:21:03.140 What did you think he did for a living?

00:21:07.540 I mean, that's a good question.

00:21:09.480 I write about it in my, in the memoir, how, you know, what he did was always vague.

00:21:15.640 And anytime I asked him questions, I would always get vague answers.

00:21:20.240 And what he did was drop, you know, he would say things in a very word salad-y way.

00:21:25.580 So you get an answer, but it's not a real answer.

00:21:28.240 And you're almost left to connect the dots and figure it out on your own.

00:21:31.640 And so I know that sounds weird, but that's kind of how he addressed every question that

00:21:37.560 I had about everything.

00:21:39.320 So, you know, and again, later on, what he did was almost irrelevant because, you know,

00:21:45.140 he spun the delusion to such an extent that, you know, he kind of had me believing that

00:21:50.740 there's, you know, parallel realities and nothing is real anyway.

00:21:55.000 Um, so yeah, what he did was almost irrelevant.

00:21:59.960 Mm-hmm.

00:22:00.540 So he kind of spun a bunch of bull and, but like how long into the relationship did he

00:22:08.600 start asking you for money?

00:22:10.280 Because he definitely said he was very, very wealthy and that, you know, you were going

00:22:13.420 to be super wealthy too, but the money only ever went one way from you to him.

00:22:18.200 So how early on in the relationship did that start?

00:22:22.340 Um, it took a while before he ever asked me for money.

00:22:25.980 And the first time it was as if it was an emergency, like some last minute thing and there would

00:22:31.700 be dire consequences and he needed my help.

00:22:35.260 And I, so I, you know, again, I'm the type of person where if you need my help and I can

00:22:40.080 do it, I'll do it.

00:22:41.000 And in retrospect, it was a way of getting me tethered because then he never paid me

00:22:46.040 back.

00:22:46.580 And then, you know, he would, it was another way for him to get me, you know, what, what

00:22:52.960 the show didn't cover adequately too, is that this took a really long time and multiple times

00:22:59.400 after I first got to know him, I thought, all right, well, this is it, you know, something

00:23:03.880 feels off about this guy.

00:23:05.780 And my gut was telling me something feels off about this guy.

00:23:08.620 And so I'd tell myself I'm going to cut off communication or I won't see him again.

00:23:12.780 But once he'd borrowed that money, it was like a tether.

00:23:15.260 So then he would say, well, I'm going to pay you back.

00:23:18.700 So, you know, let me come back and see you this weekend because he didn't live in New

00:23:22.080 York.

00:23:22.480 So he always, when he came, he was coming from out of town.

00:23:25.280 Let me come back.

00:23:26.240 I'll pay you back.

00:23:27.040 And so I'd agree.

00:23:28.260 And then he'd do whatever, you know, mind sorcery he did that somehow by the end of the

00:23:33.900 weekend, I'd have loaned him more money.

00:23:36.320 Um, and, and over time I just got in deeper and deeper and, you know, he always had these

00:23:42.100 ever-changing stories about how he was, he had money, but he didn't have access to it

00:23:47.860 or he was going to have it.

00:23:49.520 And again, it just got deeper and deeper.

00:23:53.620 When you had given him, I mean, the final number is a lot bigger than this, but when

00:23:59.260 you realize you'd given him more than a million dollars, did the light bulb go off?

00:24:03.880 Like, was there any point when the numbers got huge that you were like, what am I doing?

00:24:08.720 The bigger the numbers got, the more terrifying the whole thing was.

00:24:13.220 And again, part of what these people do is they, they weaponize fear.

00:24:19.320 And so, you know, the deeper in the hole I am, the more I need him to get me out or the

00:24:26.460 way that he's promising he's going to get me out of it.

00:24:28.780 And so it's almost like, you know, it's a terrible analogy because I'm not a gambler,

00:24:34.160 but it's like, if you think that if you just keep going, it's all going to be absolved and

00:24:39.460 you'll get out of it.

00:24:41.360 If you just keep going, that's part of how they, you know, he got me trapped is I just,

00:24:47.820 I mean, how, and by that point I couldn't even explain what happened.

00:24:51.860 And so if I had walked away from him and gone and ran to somebody and said, look, I need

00:24:56.200 help.

00:24:56.580 I, you know, I'm in a bad situation.

00:24:58.640 And they said, well, what's going on?

00:25:00.320 What happened?

00:25:01.080 I wouldn't even know how to explain it.

00:25:03.020 And that's, that's the part that, you know, it, it takes, it almost takes having been

00:25:08.760 through something like this to really understand how it happens.

00:25:12.020 So again, that's, you know, why I'm writing, why I've written this book is to try to help

00:25:17.120 people understand so they can hopefully avoid it or potentially recognize if it's happening

00:25:22.680 to somebody that they care about or a loved one and, and be able to help them sooner because

00:25:27.380 people around me knew that something was wrong, but they didn't know what was wrong.

00:25:30.800 I'd love to believe that your book can do that and that this segment can do that.

00:25:35.680 I have my doubts.

00:25:36.660 I think people make their own mistakes for all sorts of deep psychological reasons.

00:25:41.540 They need to pursue this terrible pattern of choices.

00:25:46.120 And most people have to learn individually.

00:25:48.960 It's unfortunate, but maybe, you know, we have a shot.

00:25:51.540 Maybe we'll get one or two who are having to hear us and read the book and feel differently

00:25:56.300 when they get approached by a guy like this.

00:25:58.100 Can you just put some color on how he was reeling you in?

00:26:03.240 You know, like when I talked to Benita, she talked a lot about how this doctor was just

00:26:07.800 over the top with like the rose petals and the gifts.

00:26:12.380 And she had tape of him like, my love, my love.

00:26:15.260 And she thought he was this world-class doctor saving lives with this, you know, brand new breakthrough

00:26:20.780 technology.

00:26:21.420 You know, so you could kind of see how, you know, any young woman to be like, hmm, this 0.82

00:26:26.260 is a pretty good catch.

00:26:27.240 He's hanging out with the Clintons and the Obamas, allegedly.

00:26:30.900 But I remain somewhat mystified about what this guy had to recommend him, like how he mind

00:26:36.800 wormed into your psyche.

00:26:40.120 Well, a couple of things.

00:26:40.860 One is that because I met him through Twitter, now X, DMs, there was at least a month or more

00:26:49.460 before I saw him in person.

00:26:51.060 So he was able to sort of do a number on me before I even met him, which was smart on his

00:26:55.620 part.

00:26:55.920 Because if I had met him, a lot of things in my intuition might have told me that he

00:27:00.740 wasn't right.

00:27:01.360 But by that time, he'd gotten me sort of hooked on this fantasy.

00:27:06.700 And what he really did was weaponize my ambitions because I really believed in my business and

00:27:14.020 what we were doing for the world.

00:27:15.300 And he effectively love-bombed me with validation and knew what I wanted to hear and saying that

00:27:23.160 he believed in me and that, you know, that my business was so important to helping the

00:27:28.840 world and helping to heal people and helping to change the way people eat.

00:27:33.980 And that's really what got me and making me believe that he would help me be able to realize

00:27:41.180 those dreams.

00:27:43.300 Forgive me for the psychoanalysis, but when you look back at how you were when you were

00:27:47.640 a little girl, have you, in retrospect, been able to like explain your susceptibility to that

00:27:53.620 kind of, you know, your need for that kind of outside flattery and, I don't know, building

00:28:00.880 you up?

00:28:02.380 Yeah, absolutely.

00:28:03.440 I mean, I've done a lot of my own psychoanalysis to try to figure these things out.

00:28:07.760 And I always tell people the most important work that you can do is this deep self-reflection

00:28:13.100 and looking at your childhood and whatever your specific wounds are.

00:28:16.120 Because even if you grew up and had good parents who weren't, you know, abusive or cruel in any

00:28:22.260 way, shape or form, you know, perhaps they're, you know, emotionally unavailable in some way

00:28:27.600 or you're not getting the validation you want.

00:28:29.960 Or, you know, for whatever reason I grew up, you know, I might present a certain way, but

00:28:35.340 I really was also probably deeply insecure in a lot of ways and needed that sort of validation.

00:28:43.320 And then on the other side of the show, one of the things that happened on the other side

00:28:48.240 of this show coming out is that people bombarded me asking me if I'd ever had an autism diagnosis.

00:28:54.260 And I thought, like, that had never occurred to me.

00:28:57.400 And so I went and got an evaluation and ended up getting a diagnosis.

00:29:02.100 It used to be called Asperger's and now they call it Autism 1 for whatever reason.

00:29:07.220 But that's another thing that shed a lot of light on whatever it is about my particular

00:29:12.240 wiring that makes me, you know, that sort of allows for that paradox of being objectively

00:29:20.140 reasonably intelligent, yet also unable to see certain things that other people might

00:29:24.560 have seen.

00:29:26.120 Right.

00:29:26.740 It's almost like a social, I don't want to say handicap, but like a social struggle that

00:29:33.000 when you have Asperger's, social does not come easy to you.

00:29:36.820 Yeah, absolutely.

00:29:37.660 I mean, and I can, again, and women, I think, are better at masking, so people don't see 1.00

00:29:43.040 it as easily.

00:29:43.920 You know, I can go out there and talk to people and nobody would necessarily think, oh, she

00:29:47.920 has Asperger's.

00:29:49.400 But yet certain things, you know, certain things, I don't clock people's intentions as well

00:29:56.900 as other people might, or it takes me a little bit longer sometimes to process things.

00:30:01.400 And I just walk into interactions and have a default setting that I trust people and that

00:30:08.920 I assume that they would operate the way that I would, which is in good faith.

00:30:13.560 And so I just don't see, you know, there's a thing called betrayal blindness. 0.97

00:30:17.820 Very, very, very silly. 0.94

00:30:19.760 Trust no one. 0.98

00:30:20.920 No one's operating in good faith.

00:30:22.540 No, no.

00:30:22.940 I have the same deficiency in some way, so I can understand.

00:30:26.220 Yeah.

00:30:26.580 And I mean, I, it, this wasn't an isolated event.

00:30:29.320 This has happened to me.

00:30:30.360 There's like that saying, you know, fool me once, shame on you.

00:30:33.880 But for me, it's like, I have to take responsibility for the fact that this has happened to me over

00:30:40.160 and over and over again.

00:30:42.100 And so I really have had to do a lot of deep analysis on understanding the how and the why.

00:30:47.640 I mean, even what happened with the filmmakers, I blindly trusted that they would make an accurate

00:30:53.760 show and that they wouldn't have done something that was on the other side of it, such a betrayal.

00:31:00.360 But, you know.

00:31:01.280 I mean, they do it all the time over on Netflix, all the time.

00:31:06.800 Yeah.

00:31:07.080 I mean, in this case, the filmmakers made the show and then sold it to Netflix, but Netflix

00:31:11.800 Well, but Netflix has a responsibility.

00:31:13.660 They're the error of it.

00:31:14.740 Like that, they're the ones putting it out there.

00:31:16.560 Like, I'm sick of this because Netflix has done this to so many people.

00:31:19.460 I agree.

00:31:19.500 I know.

00:31:20.920 It's a pattern.

00:31:22.280 Do not believe the word documentary when Netflix slaps it on any film.

00:31:25.960 It's always going to be docudrama.

00:31:28.580 I will never believe them when they say documentary, ever, just given what I've seen.

00:31:33.240 But let me go back to the fraud.

00:31:36.220 Because, near as I can tell, he was taking all this money from you and he was telling

00:31:41.240 you, like, he needed it for an emergency and he talked about, like, there being kind of

00:31:45.300 like another side.

00:31:46.820 There's some sort of family that sounded more like an ethereal family, not like a mob family,

00:31:51.420 not like a family of origin, but like some, quote, family that was evaluating you and you

00:31:55.800 had to pass these tests.

00:31:57.160 And this was after he had ratcheted up the trust factor.

00:32:00.700 He didn't just drop that on you on email one.

00:32:03.160 But eventually, he got you believing that your sweet dog, Leon, a pit who you adopted, who

00:32:12.140 was absolutely beautiful and very sweet and who you were in love with, that he could somehow

00:32:19.380 provide immortality for Leon.

00:32:23.660 Here's Sot 54 from the Netflix show.

00:32:27.980 What eventually happens is that Anthony promises her that if she just followed along with the

00:32:34.100 program he was suggesting, kept going along with what was instructed, he is going to make

00:32:39.060 both Sarma and her dog immortal, just like Anthony is.

00:32:44.700 There was some magical force in play here.

00:32:49.760 And he's already in this special ethereal world because he's passed through the tests into

00:32:55.740 this new state of being.

00:32:58.760 It's like some fantastical, magical future where my dog is going to live forever.

00:33:05.720 And like this reality didn't really matter because it would all be reset to some sort

00:33:10.760 of utopia, his happily ever after that he always referred to.

00:33:18.120 Now, when people watching this say, oh, come on, right?

00:33:21.200 Like that would be a bridge too far.

00:33:22.840 Everyone knows there's no such thing as immortality.

00:33:25.120 How do you explain that?

00:33:26.300 Well, what I would say is that, you know, I think unless you've been through it, the effects

00:33:34.320 of things like cognitive dissonance and over time, a ratcheting up level of dissociation,

00:33:41.600 it's not that I believed things he told me necessarily, but they were things that you

00:33:48.340 can't disprove.

00:33:49.960 And so I didn't not believe him.

00:33:52.820 I just didn't know what to believe.

00:33:54.780 And again, he had gotten me in so deep that I didn't see a way out.

00:33:59.440 And so you start to cling to whatever solutions and fantasy that they operate you because by

00:34:04.880 this point you're desperate.

00:34:06.880 So again, it wasn't so overt that he said, you know, Leon's going to live forever, my dog.

00:34:13.300 But it was all things that he implied.

00:34:16.060 And I think that the more afraid I got, the more I dissociated and wanted to believe that

00:34:21.540 none of this was real because I was in so deep financially.

00:34:24.980 I mean, the most painful part is that this wasn't my money.

00:34:28.920 It's not like I had this money saved and he got it.

00:34:31.500 That would have been, you know, for me, comparatively, that would have been great if that was the

00:34:35.840 only consequence.

00:34:36.760 The most painful part is that this was money that came from the business, which ended up

00:34:41.700 destroying it.

00:34:43.040 And, you know, all of these other people that were hurt through me was the most painful,

00:34:48.680 grueling part of this whole situation.

00:34:50.540 Because you had investors, you had employees.

00:34:54.020 Yeah.

00:34:54.420 Yeah.

00:34:54.880 You were not the only one who would go down as a result of all this.

00:34:58.120 And as I understand it, the company closed twice, not one, but twice.

00:35:02.520 One time because of all the money he sold, then you reopened.

00:35:05.380 And then it happened a second time.

00:35:07.040 And that second time was the last time.

00:35:09.760 Yeah.

00:35:10.440 Yeah.

00:35:10.800 Well, and because he took me away.

00:35:12.640 So when he took me away from the city, I mean, when I was arrested a year, almost a year

00:35:18.680 later, nine months later, if you had told me that people had stepped in and the restaurant

00:35:22.580 was still running, I would have, I would have been relieved.

00:35:26.400 But the point is that the entire time that I was away, I never Googled what happened or

00:35:31.900 whether or not the restaurant had closed or what happened after I left.

00:35:37.820 And, you know, again, that's something I go into detail and in the book so people can

00:35:43.040 better understand how it happened.

00:35:44.480 Because eventually as, and by the way, we should cover this.

00:35:49.380 Do we believe that he was taking all those, you know, 10,000, 100,000, $14,000 checks you

00:35:54.640 were sending him and eventually your mom was sending him and just gambling it?

00:35:59.120 Um, I believe so again, because I think people like him, it's not about the money.

00:36:06.260 It would all make much more sense if he had been stashing the money somewhere and, you

00:36:12.220 know, and then had just dumped me and gotten on a plane and, you know, traveled, left the

00:36:16.600 country, but he didn't.

00:36:17.700 Um, I, again, I think the point was the takedown and in some ways it almost feels like the point

00:36:24.960 was to destroy me, to absolutely obliterate me and to, you know, beyond just the financial

00:36:31.920 side of it, but it's almost as if he wanted me to be so utterly humiliated and broken and

00:36:37.920 to have burned all of my bridges so that any chance for me to recover and come back and

00:36:42.760 rebuild would be, you know, as small as possible.

00:36:46.020 And I'm, I'm still trying to do that, but he made sure it would be as difficult as humanly

00:36:51.300 possible.

00:36:52.900 Because not only did he destroy your business, but he destroyed your reputation and no, no

00:36:58.440 investor, investor is going to give you money.

00:37:00.560 You say this in the documentary now and employees are going to have a, a care or two about taking

00:37:07.760 a job with you, given what happened with your employees.

00:37:10.240 I know you want to add something about, I guess, did you pay the employees back their, their

00:37:14.060 back pay?

00:37:14.500 Uh, yes.

00:37:16.480 So I, I agreed to participate in the show.

00:37:19.520 I, I said, I just wanted enough money to repay my employees.

00:37:22.880 So as a condition of participating, I got the amount of money that the employees were owed,

00:37:28.440 which was, uh, just about 75 grand.

00:37:30.940 And all of it went to them because that's the part that weighed on me the heaviest, because,

00:37:35.000 you know, of course that they're not getting paid is more significant than, you know, maybe

00:37:40.580 a wealthy investor being out some of their money.

00:37:42.740 I mean, that weighs on me as well, but what happened with my employees weighed the heaviest.

00:37:46.840 And, um, you know, all of those people that work there, the ones who are available want

00:37:52.140 to come back.

00:37:52.740 If I can reopen, you know, I'm, I'm in contact with all of them.

00:37:56.540 Um, yeah, cause they knew, I mean, the people that work there and the people who were long

00:38:01.480 time customers of the brand, they knew me, they knew that whatever happened, they knew

00:38:06.440 something really crazy happened, but they knew that I would never, ever, ever hurt that business

00:38:12.180 or the people who work there.

00:38:13.460 It's the other way around.

00:38:14.780 I would have sacrificed myself for them and for that business.

00:38:18.880 So they knew that it didn't make sense.

00:38:21.740 So then eventually this, this, I am still unclear.

00:38:27.920 Even having watched the show, this guy gets you to go kind of on, on the run with him.

00:38:33.980 Um, you leave New York for 10 months.

00:38:36.920 You guys are down in like Tennessee for some of it by Dollywood, you changed your name.

00:38:44.060 Well, not legally, but you started to go by Emma instead of Sarma.

00:38:48.220 And he went, he changed his name.

00:38:50.080 You covered up your tattoo that had the name of your secondary restaurant on it.

00:38:54.640 So what did you think during those times?

00:38:57.120 Did you think I'm on the lamb from the law?

00:38:59.480 No, I had no idea that I was, that, you know, I was being sought after.

00:39:06.580 And at the time I wouldn't have even, you know, of course the, what, what happened with

00:39:11.520 the money was incredibly unfortunate, but I would have thought it's more of a civil matter,

00:39:16.180 not criminal because, you know, again, you think that to, to be a criminal, you have to

00:39:21.900 have criminal intent.

00:39:22.900 And I had the opposite of criminal intent in this situation.

00:39:27.460 And so I didn't think that, you know, I, I wasn't aware of being sought after by, um,

00:39:35.500 by the police, but what I write about in my book and what really didn't come through is

00:39:40.060 that by the time he took me away, I was so broken that there's a scene where he drives

00:39:47.800 me away and I'm screaming in the car.

00:39:50.140 And by scene, I mean, I write about this part in the book because it's almost the last memory

00:39:54.540 I have is being in the car.

00:39:56.740 And when he tells me we're driving away, I was screaming my head off, which is very unlike

00:40:01.440 me, but like almost like a wild animal, just screaming.

00:40:05.500 And he just let me scream.

00:40:07.200 And then I wore myself out.

00:40:09.300 And it's as if that was the moment when I just slid into a deep, deep level of dissociation.

00:40:17.000 And from then on was in a sort of autopilot.

00:40:23.260 And so if you saw me during that time, I could function, I could, you know, talk to a barista

00:40:29.840 at Starbucks, but it's like, I wasn't there.

00:40:34.220 And, um, that's the part that, again, it's really hard to know how that might feel unless

00:40:39.540 you've been through it.

00:40:40.420 And so to answer the question, what I was, what was I thinking or what was I feeling?

00:40:43.840 I wasn't thinking and I wasn't feeling it's like, that's what dissociation is.

00:40:47.860 You're thinking and your feeling is detached.

00:40:50.300 So you're just like a, almost like a zombie on autopilot.

00:40:54.280 And then the really gut wrenching part is when I get, when I finally was arrested and

00:40:58.980 I write in my book that it took up getting arrested to set me free.

00:41:02.620 You know, I have warm, fuzzy feelings for the detective who arrested me, who's a lovely

00:41:06.760 person.

00:41:07.140 And I think he could see what was going on.

00:41:09.700 Um, the prosecutors in New York, different story, but the detective who arrested me,

00:41:13.800 he recognized the dynamics of what was going on.

00:41:16.320 And then once I was arrested, it was the slow process of waking back up into a level of

00:41:25.160 sanity and, and coming back into the real world.

00:41:28.900 To me, it's, it's like breaking a horse.

00:41:32.400 You know, it's like once the horse is broke, it does stop bucking.

00:41:36.480 It stops trying to get out of the carral.

00:41:38.200 Like it's, it's a different horse.

00:41:40.900 Yeah.

00:41:41.380 Or like the elephant that, you know, they don't realize that they've been set free.

00:41:45.920 They've just been so trained to walk in this one area that they don't, or they don't realize

00:41:49.740 that they could break away.

00:41:51.140 You know, it is, it is like breaking an animal in that way.

00:41:53.980 So what did, what was he getting out of having you in this condition and just with him during

00:42:02.020 these 10 months on the lam?

00:42:03.500 Because you were out of money.

00:42:05.660 Now I know your mom started to get, he started to hit her up for dough and she did it because

00:42:10.560 she was so worried about you.

00:42:11.500 But what was, why keep you?

00:42:13.600 In other words, once like you were kind of bankrupt and you know, there's nothing,

00:42:17.560 I have the same question.

00:42:18.880 Like you would think that by that point, he would have just, I mean, he could have just

00:42:24.320 dumped me somewhere and he could have gone on a plane and left the country and, and nobody

00:42:29.780 would have ever probably gone after him, but he didn't.

00:42:33.920 And so, you know, I don't, I don't know the answer to that question.

00:42:36.780 I do know that he was, you know, when he took me away, he then also took full control.

00:42:43.100 He had access before, but he took full control of my phone, my devices, my email.

00:42:47.500 So I was unaware of him using my phone to text people and using my email to reach out to

00:42:54.840 people and ask for money, which is incredibly humiliating when I eventually got back into

00:43:00.540 my email, you know, nine months later, however long it was.

00:43:05.160 So he was still able to get some money out of people through me.

00:43:08.900 And I think that in the end, he realized that somehow the game was over.

00:43:14.980 And I can't really explain this, but I think he, it's almost as if I think he might've gotten

00:43:21.020 us arrested intentionally, which I know seems like it doesn't make any sense.

00:43:24.780 But I, my gut tells me that that's what happened because he said to me either the day before

00:43:29.880 or even that morning, he said to me, there's going to be one more gut shot.

00:43:34.300 And I was terrified because I didn't know what he meant by that.

00:43:38.080 But he, it's as if he was telling me, you're going to have to endure one more really painful

00:43:42.960 thing, um, before this is over.

00:43:45.720 And then boom, you know, we were arrested and, you know, which reminds me of speaking

00:43:51.400 of things he made me endure.

00:43:52.720 There's a whole sexual abuse component of this story that they asked me about.

00:43:56.840 And I spoke about in my very long interviews for the, for the series, but they left it out,

00:44:02.980 which felt really strange to me.

00:44:05.500 I didn't understand it at first, but I think had they left it in, then the audience would

00:44:09.660 have sympathized me with, to the extent that they wouldn't have able to create sort of a

00:44:14.920 twisty ending and cast doubt on whether or not I was complicit.

00:44:19.400 What was the nature of the alleged abuse?

00:44:21.960 Um, well, I think that you might've spoken to people in the NXIVM cult in the past on your

00:44:30.500 show.

00:44:31.260 And so a similar thing happened with Keith Raynery and, you know, they create this dynamic

00:44:37.660 where it's almost as if they make you believe that the sexual stuff is necessary and something

00:44:43.780 that you have to endure for your own benefit.

00:44:46.120 It's really twisted and hard to explain, but I, I go into sort of grotesque detail in

00:44:51.660 a chapter in my book about, about what he did, because, you know, I was so repulsed by

00:44:57.780 this man.

00:44:58.420 This is another thing that people didn't understand.

00:45:00.820 And that didn't come through in the story is I was so repulsed by him. 0.99

00:45:04.040 The last thing in the world I want to do is have sex with this guy who, by the way, 0.93

00:45:08.020 which point, by what point were you repulsed by him? 0.90

00:45:11.180 Um, I mean, it happened over time, but it was reasonably at some, you know, certainly

00:45:18.020 when we got married, it wasn't like we were a married couple and having sex.

00:45:21.740 By that point, I'm sure I had stopped wanting to have sex with him.

00:45:25.360 And I don't, I think that happened pretty quickly, but he, you know, so eventually it was something 0.83

00:45:31.620 that he started to force me to do in a really disgusting, manipulative, cruel way.

00:45:37.760 And it was, um, you know, I mean, it was incredibly painful, but it's something that cult leaders

00:45:43.640 do as well.

00:45:44.840 And I think it's another, it's like another, forgive me, I haven't read the book.

00:45:49.580 I only saw the documentary, so I wasn't aware of that.

00:45:51.620 But what, can you provide any color on that?

00:45:54.300 Like what, what, what was so awful about, I mean, I accept that sexual abuse is awful,

00:45:58.620 but if you could just help us understand what you're talking about.

00:46:00.400 Yeah, well, um, you know, he basically told me that I had to do things.

00:46:08.120 I mean, there's a, there's a chapter in my book that goes into some gross detail about

00:46:12.560 this, where I come home, you know, I'm exhausted working my ass off, getting the restaurant reopened

00:46:19.340 after it closed because of, you know, the actions that he put me through.

00:46:22.700 And I miraculously raised money, got the restaurant reopened, I'm exhausted.

00:46:27.500 And I think that he felt me pulling away a bit where maybe I sensed at that point, I could

00:46:33.160 get away from him.

00:46:34.220 And so he needed a way to exert even more dominance over me.

00:46:38.540 And so, you know, there's, he told me to bring a bottle of wine home from the restaurant

00:46:43.760 one night.

00:46:44.260 And I didn't know why, because, um, he didn't drink a lot and he wanted me to drink because

00:46:50.460 he told me that he was going to have to force me to do stuff and it was for my own good.

00:46:55.460 And, you know, he had this whole long explanation, which I don't even necessarily recall.

00:47:00.140 But by that point, it was, you know, he had created this dynamic where I have to do what

00:47:05.780 he tells me to do.

00:47:06.780 Otherwise there's going to be horrible consequences.

00:47:09.860 You know, again, what, what, what, what didn't come through in the show and what people don't

00:47:14.700 understand about situations like this is fear.

00:47:16.860 There is so much fear that you feel like you have to do what these people tell you to do.

00:47:22.700 So it's as if he, it's as if somebody said, I'm going to have to, uh, you know, I don't

00:47:31.840 know.

00:47:32.100 I feel like sometimes if you use the, the R word, it's screws with the TV, but it's like 0.75

00:47:37.800 somebody says, I'm going to have to now sexually abuse you when you have to let you have to let 0.99

00:47:42.360 me. 0.94

00:47:42.760 And so that's, you know, that's what happened.

00:47:45.000 And that's what I described in the book.

00:47:47.340 Did you get a response to that allegation when you published the book from him?

00:47:52.460 Uh, I mean, I haven't gotten any response from, I can't even imagine he's, he's off doing

00:47:57.740 what he did to me to somebody else right now.

00:48:00.140 There was a show called toxic that was on discovery HBO, um, that I, I ended up, I didn't want to

00:48:06.160 participate at first, but I did participate once I learned that they were trying to track

00:48:09.700 him down and figure out where he is to potentially hold him accountable.

00:48:13.140 Because at that point we knew that he was doing this to other people.

00:48:17.300 And so they do track him down and he is doing what he did to me, to somebody else.

00:48:21.860 And he'll continue to do that.

00:48:23.440 He always post prison time.

00:48:24.560 I should make clear.

00:48:25.320 These are allegations.

00:48:26.300 We do not have the proof of that as an independent broadcaster, either of the sexual abuse or

00:48:30.800 that he's doing to somebody else.

00:48:31.960 But these are Sarma's allegations.

00:48:34.660 Let's be honest.

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00:50:10.880 Hey, everyone.

00:50:13.440 It's me, Megan Kelly.

00:50:14.500 I've got some exciting news.

00:50:16.720 I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM.

00:50:19.860 It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered,

00:50:23.660 with no agenda and no apologies.

00:50:26.020 Along with the Megan Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin,

00:50:29.380 Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.

00:50:34.960 It's bold, no BS news.

00:50:37.480 Only on the Megan Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

00:50:42.020 He's already been to prison, because at the end of this 9, 10-month stint in Tennessee,

00:50:50.360 you did get arrested.

00:50:51.860 It made headlines that it was after ordering Domino's.

00:50:56.220 I mean, the short form of this, as I recall, was like, she's not even a vegan.

00:51:01.420 They ordered chicken wings and a pizza from Domino's.

00:51:05.020 Like, the whole thing is a fraud. 0.99

00:51:06.880 She's a fraud. 1.00

00:51:07.480 That's where your critics went with it. 0.98

00:51:09.500 Do you want to speak to the Domino's?

00:51:11.480 Yeah, that was a tabloid narrative.

00:51:13.200 And I'll point out that even the lovely detectives who arrested me, who, again, I feel very warmly

00:51:18.560 towards, they pointed out to tabloids that were calling him that I was in a different

00:51:24.160 hotel room than him.

00:51:25.760 I didn't even know about the pizza.

00:51:27.640 I wasn't in the same room as the pizza.

00:51:30.260 And so, you know, even knowing that information, it's sort of too juicy a headline for tabloids to

00:51:35.560 claim that, you know, this New York City vegan was arrested because of a pizza.

00:51:41.260 Again, I didn't even know that a pizza existed until a girl in jail when I was in the holding 0.95

00:51:48.300 cell in Tennessee.

00:51:49.560 And she had seen me on a news program.

00:51:52.020 She came into the holding cell after me and said, ain't you that girl that was on TV? 0.99

00:51:56.760 You know, you got arrested because of the pizza.

00:51:58.600 And I was like, pizza?

00:52:00.680 I didn't know anything about it.

00:52:01.920 So, again, that was just a way that the tabloids want to make a story juicier for attention.

00:52:07.920 To diminish you.

00:52:09.180 Some of the abuse, not sexual but verbal, is captured in the Netflix film.

00:52:14.580 We have some of the language he used over the phone with you captured in the following

00:52:20.280 soundbite here, Sot 55. 0.99

00:52:21.900 You know what the fucking deal is here? 0.99

00:52:26.180 If I say to do something, do it. 0.99

00:52:28.780 No, no, no, no, no.

00:52:29.680 That's not how it works. 0.98

00:52:30.960 I already gave you the fucking hundred K on top of everything else. 0.97

00:52:35.040 I thought you were going along with everything. 0.99

00:52:37.300 Yeah.

00:52:37.700 You wanted it.

00:52:38.340 You wanted to happily ever after.

00:52:40.140 And now you're talking about this stuff. 0.98

00:52:41.700 It's fucking real. 0.98

00:52:43.180 This isn't real. 0.99

00:52:45.040 None of this is real. 1.00

00:52:47.320 Those wires are bullshit. 1.00

00:52:49.140 I took you in the fucking books. 1.00

00:52:50.680 I fucking told you what was going on. 1.00

00:52:52.900 I did all your fucking hate. 1.00

00:52:54.840 You're fucking falling apart. 1.00

00:52:56.460 You're fucking coming on. 1.00

00:52:57.460 Who's making all these fucking threats? 1.00

00:52:59.460 Telling me this and that. 1.00

00:53:00.480 And you're going to go do this.

00:53:01.460 And you're going to go do that? 1.00

00:53:02.680 Because now I fucking talk to you? 0.99

00:53:04.680 Who's threatening who? 0.99

00:53:07.320 Soma, I love you.

00:53:08.600 I'm threatening you. 0.99

00:53:10.420 If I tell you to take all your money out of the bank and light it on fire, do it. 0.99

00:53:18.440 Explain that. 0.91

00:53:19.080 I got chills.

00:53:21.500 I haven't listened to that in a long time.

00:53:23.680 So hearing his voice and yeah, I mean, I have like goosebumps right now.

00:53:30.080 I think these people have a certain power that's really hard to understand.

00:53:37.200 There's something about it where it's like they get you under a spell.

00:53:40.880 And in my case, another paradoxical element about this whole situation is that I kept pushing back on him.

00:53:48.560 And yet he'd end up dragging me in and overpowering me over and over again.

00:53:52.200 Yeah, he was not intimidated by your pushback at all.

00:53:55.240 And by the way, there's an ex-wife in the documentary or whatever we're calling it on Netflix who says he did this to her too, except she had a baby.

00:54:04.580 Yes.

00:54:05.580 And she claims in the film that he said to her, you know, if you give a baby salt, it will die and it won't be detectable in an autopsy.

00:54:15.660 And she said, I never let him be alone with the baby after that.

00:54:18.980 I mean, like, again, we don't know whether that is true.

00:54:21.900 It's an allegation by an ex.

00:54:23.500 But if so, then this guy's got a dangerous pattern here.

00:54:26.580 And one might argue you should consider yourself lucky to have just escaped with debt, the loss of your business, self-esteem, some anger from employers and investors and a short stint in prison.

00:54:40.440 I mean, honestly, this could be the lucky outcome.

00:54:43.000 Yeah.

00:54:43.160 I mean, you know, I say this in all seriousness, there were times where I wished that he had killed me because when I came out of the other side of this, the consequences and everything being destroyed, I just felt like, what is there left for me to live for?

00:55:00.260 And, yeah.

00:55:02.060 And he was never held accountable for what he did to me.

00:55:04.560 He spent a year in jail and I ended up having to go serve four months after he was released.

00:55:09.740 So he was out free, clean slate, and I had to go in and do four months.

00:55:14.780 How does he only get a year for all of this?

00:55:16.580 He stole $1.7 million minimum from you.

00:55:21.120 I saw, you know, the ultimate damages were higher than that.

00:55:23.460 But, like, how does he only get a year in jail for that?

00:55:26.700 That's a good question.

00:55:28.020 You know, I was prosecuted aggressively.

00:55:30.440 He was, it's almost like he was an afterthought because the prosecution focused on the business loss.

00:55:37.780 Mm-hmm.

00:55:39.160 But there was no, he was never charged for what he did to me or to my mother.

00:55:43.500 And this happened, you know, this was 2016.

00:55:47.020 So I would think that perhaps if it happened now, it might be different.

00:55:51.900 On the other side of, for example, Keith Raniere getting prosecuted for what he did and the way he was able to manipulate people, I think maybe now it would have been different.

00:56:00.720 Or had it been a different prosecutor or just different circumstances?

00:56:04.860 Did he plead guilty to something or was he found guilty of anything?

00:56:09.880 Well, he pled guilty.

00:56:11.960 We both pled guilty.

00:56:12.940 There was never any trial or anything like that.

00:56:15.660 I mean, you know, I think anybody who's been through the criminal justice system knows that pleading guilty is something that people do all the time because it's a better alternative than getting dragged through, you know, a trial that you can't afford or the prospect of the stress of a trial.

00:56:35.460 And, you know, perhaps things not being admitted into evidence and you end up with even more time and not to mention not being able to afford a trial.

00:56:44.440 So, you know, I ended up pleading guilty, which was really painful because however they made it look, I'm a deeply honest person.

00:56:52.860 And so to stand there in court and have to plead guilty to something that I had no intention of ever doing.

00:56:59.980 What did you plead guilty to?

00:57:01.020 To, I've almost like blacked it out, but, you know, the words fraud and grand larceny were involved.

00:57:10.300 And that's not me.

00:57:11.320 I mean, I'm like the goody two shoes who never got in trouble in school, you know, respects authority, does the right thing.

00:57:19.080 You know, we ran the restaurant.

00:57:21.360 I had an accountant once who I was talking to about doing our taxes.

00:57:25.500 And he said, well, how many of your employees are on versus off the books?

00:57:28.500 And I said, well, they're all on.

00:57:30.460 He said, no, no, really tell me how many are on.

00:57:32.900 I said, no, they're all on the books.

00:57:34.540 Like we did everything by the book.

00:57:36.560 That's kind of just the person that I am.

00:57:39.320 Well, the thing that's strange about it is normally if you're committing larceny, you take the money and then you get a gain with it.

00:57:46.780 You do something with the money.

00:57:48.540 I lost everything.

00:57:49.380 That will help your life or, you know, I don't know, help someone you love.

00:57:53.880 But what happened here was you were taking money that he was demanding and giving it to him, which he appears to have gambled away, which you do not appear to have benefited from at all.

00:58:04.420 In fact, it was at great cost to you and the things that you cared about.

00:58:08.860 Like they don't have some Rolex watch, right, that you got or some penthouse that you got.

00:58:16.920 You weren't taking this money and lining your own pocket with it.

00:58:20.520 You were giving it to him.

00:58:22.860 Yeah.

00:58:23.200 And even so, I mean, people know me, know that that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me.

00:58:27.200 What mattered to me was the business and wanting to protect it.

00:58:32.120 So, yeah, I mean, he's the only one who benefited.

00:58:36.240 I didn't.

00:58:36.680 That's a nightmare.

00:58:39.620 I mean, this is just a nightmare.

00:58:40.820 I very much feel for you.

00:58:42.740 I know some people are mad at you because they don't believe that you were mind manipulated.

00:58:47.000 But I believe you.

00:58:48.460 I've seen this happen with enough people.

00:58:50.440 I believe you.

00:58:51.500 Yeah, I really appreciate that.

00:58:53.420 And, you know, I at least was lucky enough to recover enough of my communications with him that I have all the backup.

00:59:01.400 You know, it's like I naively thought that with my prosecution, the more evidence they dug up and the more they were able to recover, that it would help me.

00:59:09.860 They recovered a journal of mine where I was writing about what was going on.

00:59:14.320 And when I was given a copy of it, I thought, oh, OK, finally, like this exonerates me because surely they wouldn't think that, you know, nothing logically made sense.

00:59:25.980 Why would I have torched my own life?

00:59:29.140 And he's got a history.

00:59:31.520 He can handle it.

00:59:32.440 Yeah.

00:59:32.640 He's got a long criminal record of impersonating police officers, like a very extensive criminal record.

00:59:38.740 And I was completely the opposite.

00:59:42.280 But I just got very unlucky with the prosecution in my case.

00:59:46.800 Mm hmm.

00:59:48.160 So sorry to bring this up, but is Leon still alive?

00:59:55.060 Oh, no.

00:59:55.900 He passed away a year and a half ago.

00:59:58.720 I was with him when it happened.

01:00:01.100 And, you know, he had a long life.

01:00:02.940 He was a pit bull and he was 14 and a half when he passed away.

01:00:08.360 But at least I got to be with him.

01:00:10.300 And, yeah, that's him.

01:00:12.860 He gave him a lot of love.

01:00:13.840 A lot of love.

01:00:14.640 Yeah.

01:00:15.060 But it was here in this apartment.

01:00:17.100 Yet another.

01:00:17.840 I mean, obviously, like the deluded version of you chose to believe that maybe he could save your beloved pet forever.

01:00:26.460 And, of course, it's yet another lie that he told you.

01:00:29.380 And so now where where are you and where is he?

01:00:33.320 You think he's still doing this to yet another person because he's out of prison.

01:00:36.580 I would imagine the Netflix film would make that a little tough for him.

01:00:40.680 But who knows?

01:00:41.440 Women do what they're going to do. 1.00

01:00:43.580 And and what about you?

01:00:45.340 What are you now?

01:00:46.540 What for you?

01:00:48.320 Um, good question.

01:00:49.680 I was moved back here to New York, which was, you know, where what I always felt was home to reopen the business in the same location.

01:00:57.240 And then what I said before about, you know, I have to take responsibility for somebody that unfortunately makes a good target and is able to be deceived by some dishonest people.

01:01:10.880 It's happened, sad to say, again.

01:01:13.780 And so I've been a bit reeling on how to move forward.

01:01:18.900 But I still have some things in the works.

01:01:20.660 And I, you know, one of the things that these people look for in a good target is somebody that won't give up and and will keep going.

01:01:29.920 And that is something about my personality is that I will keep getting up and I will keep going and keep trying and believing in what I wanted to build the first time around.

01:01:39.800 And so I may be able to pull it off for it to happen again.

01:01:43.460 Yeah, well, I mean, if you can earn, if you personally can earn enough money to fund yourself, no one can stop you.

01:01:53.360 I mean, that would be a great outcome here, even if you have to do catering, whatever, like do something to use your skills to earn enough money to open something up, even if it's not in Manhattan.

01:02:04.820 That could be a first step for you.

01:02:07.160 And I think, you know, another going forward now, my my mission always was around food and clean eating and healthy living.

01:02:15.720 But I think also on the other side of this, it's really meaningful to me to be to have my story be as useful as possible through my book and through speaking out about what happened and this type of manipulation that, again, a lot of people don't realize that it could happen to them.

01:02:30.640 And hopefully so that they might also recognize if it's happening to somebody, to a loved one or somebody that they care about and be able to intervene and help prevent somebody going through as extensive as a nightmare as this.

01:02:46.260 Alec Baldwin needs to help you.

01:02:49.220 Alec Baldwin should fund your restaurant.

01:02:51.120 No, I don't know.

01:02:51.880 Somebody else should control the finances.

01:02:54.060 But why not?

01:02:55.120 He was like kind of played an early role on this.

01:02:57.220 In a way, he was responsible for you meeting this guy.

01:02:59.380 I mean, he's got a lot of money.

01:03:01.240 He met a lawyer at my restaurant.

01:03:03.800 So I mean, it was a weird and I I ended up getting I adopted my dog because of him.

01:03:08.920 And so that's another story that's in the book.

01:03:10.820 But there's a weird connection there.

01:03:12.660 And it's not, you know, it's it's a lot of things just need to go right.

01:03:17.520 But for me, it's a matter of finding the right partnership and people that I can trust because, you know, it's not that I necessarily would need somebody else to oversee the money.

01:03:27.040 It's that I need guardrails.

01:03:28.460 I need people that are trustworthy and honest and forthright and that I could work collaboratively with and move forward.

01:03:37.140 So that also I think it's not it's not for you that you need somebody to control the finances.

01:03:41.840 It's that anybody who is going to be associated with a restaurant is going to want to see that it's not you controlling the finances.

01:03:48.120 So, yeah.

01:03:49.220 Or that nobody could get me.

01:03:51.080 Yeah.

01:03:51.500 For this next phase out, you know, maybe when you're at this for 10 years and everybody sees you're you're good.

01:03:56.600 You don't need that.

01:03:57.300 But I think that's all part of rebuilding trust and telegraphing to the world that, you know, what happened and you acknowledge it.

01:04:04.140 And but you're going to earn back trust.

01:04:06.220 I think that would be a great start.

01:04:08.060 Anyway, I'm going to text Alec Baldwin.

01:04:10.020 I'm going to tell me.

01:04:10.640 No, but I do think he should help you.

01:04:12.880 And if not, then you help yourself.

01:04:14.260 Then you you'll you're very capable.

01:04:16.380 You're well educated.

01:04:17.160 You have a lot of skills.

01:04:18.020 I think you're you're you can earn money and help give yourself the next big start you need.

01:04:23.800 I hope you do it.

01:04:24.560 Thank you for telling your story.

01:04:25.880 I'm sorry this happened to you.

01:04:27.420 Thank you so much.

01:04:28.680 I appreciate being here.

01:04:30.340 All the best.

01:04:31.320 And we'll see you again.

01:04:32.340 Thank you, Sarma.

01:04:35.060 Wow.

01:04:36.200 Unbelievable, right?

01:04:36.980 Like what a crazy story.

01:04:39.100 The book, again, that she mentioned is called The Girl with the Duck Tattoo.

01:04:43.060 And that's where Sarma aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story.

01:04:48.460 One note for you.

01:04:49.520 The Megyn Kelly Show reached out to Anthony Strangus for comment regarding the sexual assault allegations made by Sarma.

01:04:55.940 As of now, we have not received a response.

01:04:58.280 Thank you all for joining me today and all week on Crime Week.

01:05:02.740 We have a new show for you tomorrow, too.

01:05:04.500 As I mentioned, I get so many emails from you all that I wanted to take some time to start this new year by answering your questions.

01:05:12.320 There are some great questions that we're going to go over.

01:05:15.900 There's some hard news.

01:05:16.700 There's some personal stuff.

01:05:18.360 There's some makeup advice, fashion. 0.59

01:05:21.500 I mean, you know, we covered the gamut in this thing.

01:05:23.340 We had a lot of fun shooting it.

01:05:25.500 And we have that teed up for you tomorrow.

01:05:27.440 So we've got some new content to keep things rolling.

01:05:29.640 Hope you will join us tomorrow.

01:05:31.400 We'll see you then.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - January 01, 2026

The Truth About Netflix's ＂Bad Vegan＂ and a Crime Week Con, with Sarma Melngailis ｜ Ep. 1221

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