Chris Hansen, host of To Catch a Predator and host of the Crime Watch Daily show, joins Jemele to discuss his life and career as a crime reporter and how he deals with the dark arts. He also talks about why he doesn t need therapy and why he loves what he does.
00:01:56.520We also get a very healthy, you know, male viewership on, you know, the various crime shows that I do.
00:02:02.180I think what draws people in is this attitude that I try to bring to every show where, you know, I take the viewer along on a journey of discovery.
00:02:13.220Where they get to see things they wouldn't normally see, hear things they wouldn't normally hear.
00:02:17.360You know, I get to go places that most people don't get to go.
00:02:20.920I get to talk to people most people don't get to talk to.
00:02:24.680And so that's fascinating for the average viewer, I think.
00:02:27.100Yeah, it's kind of almost, I wonder if you seem to me like as, because I would consider myself a, I guess basically like this, I would consider myself probably a female viewer.
00:02:36.180I mean, I've watched so much of those types of programming.
00:02:39.240I mean, not really, but I mean, it's almost like, yeah, I guess I'm almost in that demographic.
00:02:43.580But you are, you're almost like a liaison, you're like, I can't tell sometimes if I'm like, you're, you seem like an Edgar Allan Poe of sorts, you know, or like a, like a concierge to like the dark arts or something a little bit.
00:02:58.360I mean, I know you're reporting and you're, you're the, you're kind of the, the Sherpa, but.
00:03:04.500You look at some of the different investigations we've done over the years and, you know, I do, you know, occupy a unique space in television and journalism.
00:03:14.600And it's been crime and I've been at it literally for some 36 years.
00:03:21.300But, but, but, you know, so, so it's true.
00:03:25.180You know, I was at a, a news conference in, in LA one time for kicking off a show and, and one of the print writers who covers broadcasts for Gannett, who has covered me for many, many years, said, do you ever go to therapy or get counseling for all the dark stuff you, you do and see?
00:03:43.640I said, no, it's all kept down there nice and safe.
00:03:47.480Do you, do you ever think that those types of things like that subconsciously though, that interacting with, you know, such a dark, you know, a Voldemorty cauldron of the universe kind of, that that can impact you like on a level that you're not able to.
00:04:09.920Or you think through scenarios where something bad happens and you have to react, not just as a journalist and covering it, but you're in the middle of it.
00:09:19.480The crew is very safe, but there are a lot of moving parts here.
00:09:23.320And we essentially set up a television production studio in another part of the house because, you know, most of what we get in terms of video is with hidden cameras.
00:09:33.660And I'm seeing the lights kind of hidden.
00:09:35.140And, like, I've worked with Howie Mandel on some hidden camera shows.
00:09:37.780So, like, even when I'm able to watch some of you guys' work, it's like, you know, I'm even able to see some of the just the same parallels, you know, because a lot of the production kind of stuff is the same.
00:09:47.000Did you, when these guys, like, did you feel, like, as a viewer sometimes when I would watch that show, sometimes I would feel, like, remorse.
00:10:03.380You know, I'd feel sorry sometimes for the person that was getting captured.
00:10:08.040Not that, like, in one part of me, if you asked me any day of the week, like, what do you think about, you know, people that molest children or something?
00:10:22.320Well, sometimes I'm the prosecutor, the detective, sometimes I'm the psychologist just trying to get in their heads and have them talk to me, and sometimes I'm the dad, you know, when it's a younger guy.
00:10:36.140And I do sometimes feel empathy for some of these characters, and everybody wants, in our society, one size fits all, this is how we treat the problem.
00:10:48.560And the reality is that, you know, not all these guys are the same character.
00:10:54.040They're the hardcore, you know, guys who would go after kids no matter what.
00:10:58.900Yeah, I saw some of those guys in their 50s and 60s.
00:11:01.120Right, they'd be at the playground with or without the internet.
00:11:03.180The middle section is our guys who do this because they have the access to the internet, the 24-hour access, the anonymity, and just the ability to be on there and continually chase their fantasy.
00:11:18.040And all of a sudden, they cross this line between fantasy and reality, and they're knocking on our door, and they're there.
00:11:23.580And then you've got the younger guys who may be socially inept, and I'm not defending them one bit, but these are guys who, you know, made a mistake, and they can probably get probation for a year.
00:11:32.200And computer monitoring, and they'll get scared straight.
00:11:35.800Yeah, I saw there were some guys, yeah, like in their 19 and 20-year-old, you know.
00:11:39.500We usually don't even, the decoys don't even engage somebody unless they're 21, unless there's an extenuating circumstance.
00:11:48.860Right, so you guys, so at a certain point, the decoys started to really seek out, like, oh, these guys are a lot more predatory than maybe some young, some guy who's 18 years old might be just a little bit more on the perverted fringe or something?
00:13:35.780So anyway, he gets his five-year-old son out of the car, out of the child seat, and they walk up the driveway, and I'm like, how am I going to handle this one?
00:15:01.280I have a friend now that's a flasher, you know, which is crazy, right?
00:15:04.600It's crazy, but it's also he's a regular guy.
00:15:07.500And he has this compulsivity that he's like, sometimes I'll go walk in my dog and halfway down the block, I realize I don't have my dog, you know?
00:16:41.420The children interacting on video games with people that they don't know.
00:16:45.540One of my producers was having a conversation with his teenage son.
00:16:49.860I want to say he was like 14, 15 at the time.
00:16:51.820And he said, what's that on your cell phone?
00:16:53.120And he goes, oh, well, there's this app where you can randomly talk to people who are just on the app.
00:16:58.240And he said, well, show me how it works.
00:16:59.800And he dials somebody up and it's a 42-year-old woman who says, or someone who identifies themselves as a 42-year-old woman says, I'm just jumping in the shower.
00:17:09.200I'll call you when I get a towel around me.
00:17:16.680It was a random, you know, connection.
00:17:18.840Do you feel then like that there's some, like sometimes the internet, I mean, even for myself, like I've struggled in my life with like relationships, commitment.
00:17:27.740I think a lot of it is probably from, or some of it, some of the things have been from growing up issues.
00:17:33.760I had some of them, though, I've struggled with watching pornography growing up and like using that as like an outlet to feel something good about myself sometimes in whatever wrong way that is, right?
00:17:44.600But I can see how that web can get tricky and you can get down that staircase and it's excessive.
00:17:56.760Should there be laws or more restrictions against that?
00:17:59.220Well, it's hard to make laws because the whole notion of the internet is its ubiquitous nature.
00:18:07.140And, you know, all the access is right there.
00:18:11.240I mean, I think there's a responsibility for parents to regulate children on the internet.
00:18:15.820I always say that, you know, the golden rule should be that if you don't know the person in real life, you shouldn't be chatting with them or giving personal information to them on the internet.
00:18:31.240Because the person who is a stranger on Tuesday can groom kids into being their best buddy by Friday.
00:18:41.580I used to do this thing called crank texting, right, Chris, where I would basically take – I took my phone number one day and I changed the last two digits of it and I just sent out a random text to that number.
00:19:48.960It's, you know, obviously I do a lot of social media for the shows and for what I do for a living.
00:19:54.860And, you know, the vast majority of the people on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, they may be listed as friends, but I actually don't know them.
00:20:03.380And it's shocking sometimes what people will expect from you, will say to you, and you really don't know sometimes, do I respond to that?
00:20:12.660If somebody identifies themselves as a live-in nanny in Washington State who suspects the mother's boyfriend has, you know, improper interests in the daughter she's babysitting, what do I do about that?
00:21:14.540And so you try to do the socially responsible thing, the journalistically responsible thing, but you have this gray area where, wait a minute, who am I actually talking to?
00:21:24.000Or, you know, someone will say, hey, can you talk for a minute?
00:21:26.080Well, I'm on an airplane coming out to L.A.
00:21:28.800You know, and I try to be pretty engaged in all this stuff and answer all the questions and to be helpful, but it's difficult to follow.
00:21:40.280And, again, you really don't know who all these people are.
00:21:44.720Yeah, and you're kind of a linchpin in a strange way because a lot of reporters and a lot of journalists and investigative journalists, you know, they have the – it doesn't have – their thing hasn't hit home with so many – you know, it hasn't – I don't know.
00:22:00.680You have – yeah, you're like the person that people think of when they think of anything in that world, you know?
00:22:06.940Like I thought of John Walsh and I thought of you.
00:22:08.980Like, I mean, you know, like just in terms of like, you know, just like helping out children or dealing with issues with children, you know?
00:22:16.780Well, it's really hit home with people for a lot of different reasons.
00:22:20.420You know, I only half-jokingly tell the story of being parodied on South Park some years ago.
00:22:28.240Yeah, I saw that last night, actually.
00:22:29.280And my kids were both in high school at the time, and it was the only South Park that season they didn't see.
00:22:37.000For some reason, they went to bed early, and I didn't know it was going to be on.
00:22:40.080So I get a call from one of my agents on the East Coast saying, South Park is doing you right now.
00:23:13.140Now, you can take issue with whether it's appropriate or whether, you know, you like it or not.
00:23:18.140But in my son's eyes at, you know, 16 and 18 years old at the time or whatever, you know, that was – I had made it in their book because Chris Hansen was on the South Park.
00:23:44.440At the end of the day, just like any other investigation, we're trying to educate, create a dialogue that didn't exist before and awareness that didn't exist before.
00:25:17.100Was there parts, though, where it started to become too much like, okay, let's, Chris, we want you to talk to him more.
00:25:23.540We want to watch this guy fry out there kind of stuff?
00:25:26.080Well, I think the goal has always been to get inside these guys' minds, whether it's this or whether it's somebody who's, you know, trafficking young women here in Los Angeles or in Atlanta.
00:25:36.380And, look, anybody can jump out of the bushes and create, you know, 10 seconds of dramatic video.
00:26:33.220And, you know, we had a guy show up, an insurance executive from Boston, drove all the way to Fairfield, Connecticut, brought pizza, offered me pizza, offered the crew pizza.
00:26:44.340But he had in his car a, quote, unquote, marriage contract that he thought would make it legal for him to have sex.
00:26:55.100We had a guy show up who was an employee of one of the cable companies who was on the waiting list to become a police officer in Connecticut who, when they searched his car, they found a loaded gun, duct tape, a camera, and a knife.
00:27:11.400Oh, that's hide and go seek in Afghanistan, I feel like.
00:27:23.940Yeah, what if some, what if, yeah, say one behavior, right, a sex act occurs, then he still has these, like, what is it, then where does his mind go that he doesn't even know his mind is about to go to another place?
00:27:36.000And it escalates, and what if she, you know, says, hey, wait, this is too much for me, I'm only 13.
00:27:43.620Did you, did you, it's interesting to me that, like, when it goes from online to real life, like, that's really a lot of what I think.
00:27:53.920I feel like when I'm watching your, like, that's what I started to see, like, oh, this is wild, because this is something that, you know, it's this fictional universe online.
00:28:03.260It's, I mean, it's real, but it's, you know, it's not, it's not tangible.
00:28:09.060You know, it's, so your brain can go to kind of dark places, but not really be doing dark things.
00:28:15.720What happens, I think, sometimes, and you hit it right on the head, is that men will say things online that they wouldn't say face-to-face, not to a woman.
00:28:45.320You're one step removed, and it feels safer.
00:28:47.900And suddenly this line gets blurred, you know, at some point between fantasy and reality.
00:28:53.200And that's when these guys step over, and as I said earlier, come knocking on our door to fulfill this fantasy that's building inside them.
00:29:01.400Did you ever feel, so were you the executive, were you the one calling your own shots as well as, were you directing yourself?
00:29:09.360When you were with Tickets for Better?
00:29:10.400So, you know, obviously we have a main producer.
00:29:13.560And we have the crew, and we have security and everything.
00:29:17.000But, you know, generally, you know, I'm out there without a net.
00:29:20.360But we did try one time having an earbud so I could communicate.
00:29:26.640And I honestly didn't like it because it was, I don't, when I'm out there, whether it's on those investigations or others, if I'm listening to somebody, I'm not thinking about what I'm going to do next.
00:29:38.860It's like doing an interview like this and having a list of questions and going from this to that.
00:29:43.360The first thing I do when a producer hands me a list of questions is I put them under the chair.
00:30:42.440You know, whether it's with somebody who almost became a murder victim, somebody who is a relative of a murder victim, somebody who's a detective who investigated a murder, or any of these other cases that we delve so deeply into.
00:30:55.400Um, do you, would, did you, um, did you ever follow up personally with any of those people?
00:31:03.580Like, was there ever, is it always like a work, does it always feel like a work kind of, are you able, was there ever any, were you like, you know, I need to, I need to follow up with this person?
00:31:13.400I think it'd be interesting to go back and see what some of these guys are up to.
00:31:18.060And, and we're talking right now about doing that.
00:32:01.800I had some time to think about it and it's, it's wrong and they're probably not going to reoffend.
00:32:06.620But when you get to the hardcore person, you know, you need to talk to the psychiatrists who interview them in the prison where they have no reason to, to not tell the truth.
00:32:38.440Do you think we are able as humans, especially like, um, do you, especially as men to be able to withstand the, the fire that is coming off the internet, like the internet and social media?
00:32:51.460Like, are we even built to be able to, I think so.
00:32:54.320I mean, at the end of the day, you're just as responsible online as you are in person.
00:33:15.700I'm not the moral arbiter of society, but you can clearly say that soliciting a child online is illegal and wrong on every level.
00:33:25.760And you create a victim there at a very young age who's scarred for life.
00:33:29.740Do you, undeniably, do you feel though that, that like the, like, I guess like there's, I just feel sometimes like it's hard to battle against, not against the child pornography type of stuff.
00:33:42.420But even if you just start with pornography, right, like it's hard to like, it's such a, it's such an opiate in a way, you know, it's such a.
00:33:52.300It just feels like it's unfair sometimes.
00:33:55.340Like when I think about the young men now, you know, like I didn't have as much access.
00:33:59.800Like when I was young, we had, when I was young, we had a guy that would draw a picture of a woman for us for the weekend.
00:34:05.820If we wanted, like, if I wanted to see like some genitalia or something, they had this guy, Nick, would draw pictures and you'd buy it from him for a couple of dollars.
00:34:11.640You know, I'm of the age where, you know, we buried Playboy magazines in the woods and that was.
00:34:17.840And it was, it was, it was, you know, not even that racy by today's standards.
00:34:23.360It just makes you wonder, like, if kids see that or young people see that, then do other darker things seem less, you know, those aren't real to them, you know, like just, just the effects of that and us not knowing those.
00:34:39.260Well, I think there are studies that, that will prove that's true, that, you know, the repeated viewing of pornography and child pornography, especially.
00:35:21.440And it can have breasts in the picture.
00:35:22.680It's just like delete, delete, delete, delete.
00:35:25.200And you don't know what, what's up or whether it's real or somebody's creating something or somebody wants to create a linkage that doesn't exist.
00:35:34.000How many women reach out to Chris Hansen because like, there must be like a wild web of ladies out there that are intrigued by, you know, kind of this Clint Eastwood of pedophiles kind of, you know.
00:35:46.960It's pretty tame, really, to be honest.
00:35:50.020I mean, you know, there are some texts like that or messages on social media like that.
00:35:56.280But generally, like, you know, 95% of them are either, you know, whack jobs.
00:36:11.380It's block, block, block and, you know, move on.
00:36:13.540And most of it's like, we've got a situation in our neighborhood, what do I do, or thank you for what you do, or you should look into this, or, you know, city council member in whatever city is up to no good.
00:36:36.480But do you feel like, though, that there's a, I mean, I feel like a, you know, especially with so many women watching that type of programming, that they would see you as like a, you know, you're kind of like a Hugh, like, not that you're a Hugh Hefner, but they would envision you like that.
00:36:51.520Well, I mean, I think some people have fun with, you know, graphics of, you know, my head on a James Bond body or with that.
00:36:58.480There was one the other day and I sent it to my significant other with, you know, I was in like all built up muscles and chains and ranges and stuff like that.
00:37:11.960Did you, you know, a lot of people, when they think about, you know, you guys' show, there's a lot of To Catch a Predator and some of that work and Crime Watch Daily, right?
00:37:51.760We just exist online and the potential predator has to make that first approach.
00:37:56.020And even in something like human trafficking where we worked with the, you know, L.A. County Sheriff's Department or the, you know, the Sheriff's Department, police departments down in Georgia, there's a very strict protocol.
00:38:09.680Well, because after we make TV out of it, those cases have to be prosecuted.
00:38:22.540Or, you know, the other common, you know, misunderstanding is that if somebody asks if you're the police or Chris Hansen that you can't do anything about it.
00:38:44.020They're not committing a crime or committing entrapment by saying, no, they're not the police.
00:38:48.860But did you ever, even on a personal note, was there times where you're like, man, like, because it's definitely like these guys, a lot of these pedophiles and, you know, and predators, I mean, they're sick.
00:40:11.480Mentally challenged, and I could see that there was a scar, like a carve-out on the side of his head where maybe he had suffered an injury or something.
00:40:50.340And lo and behold, the same guy surfaces in that investigation and, in fact, says, I can't make it on a Friday because I've got a court date from the other Riverside County case.
00:41:00.140He shows up on a Saturday, and in the course of him traveling to Long Beach, we find out that he did a year in jail for a violent assault.
00:41:12.640Well, suddenly, he's going to make the movie.
00:41:17.140And while I feel sorry for whatever injury he suffered and how that may impact his behavior, it doesn't take anything away from the danger he posed.
00:41:26.120And so he becomes, you know, a significant part of that particular investigation.
00:41:30.280And so you feel like over time, you've seen enough proof and evidence for you where you don't feel that you feel your responsibility tried and true.
00:41:40.040If we weren't there, a real child would be.
00:42:07.480We did some investigating, and I did this in a book called Catch a Predator some years back.
00:42:13.840And we found a case in Arkansas where a young woman, great student, was in high school, the daughter of a police officer, was on a Christian youth chat room, talking to somebody who identified themselves as a teenager in San Diego, I think named David.
00:42:53.560And so this whole panic, you know, starts looking for this poor missing young woman.
00:43:00.240And tragically, it ended up the way it did, but it was a real wake-up call to me, and that's why I wanted to, you know, make it its own chapter in the book, because it's an example of a kid who is doing everything right and got tricked.
00:44:05.440I mean, from the methodology to how you portray someone.
00:44:12.220And, you know, when we do these investigations, whether it's a predator or anything else, I mean, we are absolutely transparent about the way we do things.
00:44:20.600And if you say, look, we do it this way, this is why we do it, this is why the police run a parallel investigation and are there.
00:44:26.160I mean, you got to remember, the first three investigations we did, the first two, the police were not involved until after the fact.
00:44:35.380And it was, number one, socially irresponsible to let them go.
00:44:40.720Now, the police did make some cases after the fact.
00:45:25.580I'm just telling you how it went down, which was, you know, we were, we had done the two.
00:45:30.440We had done the one in Long Island, New York, and we had done the one in a suburb outside of D.C.
00:45:35.140And we were looking to do the next investigation.
00:45:37.980And I don't know whether they reached out to us or we reached out to them, but we got in contact with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.
00:45:43.560And, you know, a lot of lawyering and a lot of, you know, meetings went on and to do this in the appropriate fashion.
00:45:51.300And I think we've done it all along, both at NBC and at Crime Watch Daily and down the road in how we, you know, distribute the next Hanson versus Predator.
00:46:01.220Yeah, and what is Hanson doing now against Predators?
00:46:03.820Like, what's going on in some of that world?
00:46:04.940We're developing, you know, the next investigation as we speak.
00:46:09.040We pretty much know where it's going to be.
00:46:20.920I was thinking with the Me Too movement, right, and a lot of that, would you ever consider doing like a To Catch a Predator type of show, type of show in that world?
00:46:31.220Not saying that they're sexual, like pedophiles, but in the corporate space or anything like that?
00:46:44.020And there are people who would like to see me do it, and I've had meetings about it.
00:46:47.960And, you know, again, it's harder to do something like that.
00:46:53.300Right, there's a lot of legalities, I'm sure.
00:46:55.120There's a lot of legalities, a lot of gray, I mean, what's wrong is wrong.
00:47:00.720I mean, if you're a boss, you should not be hitting on an employee or doing some of the stuff that those have been accused of out on this side of the country.
00:47:08.060Could you say that would be a softer, it would be?
00:47:10.700Well, I think you would need to have people come to you and say, this is my horrific story.
00:47:33.240And then figure out a way to do a confrontation.
00:47:36.260We just can't go, you know, beating it outdoors in private offices around the country.
00:47:40.760But, you know, there are ways to do it.
00:47:43.540And, you know, if the right cases come along where, you know, we know this is what's happening, we know it's wrong, we know it's illegal and actionable, that, you know, we'd take a look at doing it.
00:47:56.680Yeah, because I grew up, my mother was, you know, provided for me and my siblings.
00:47:59.760And so I remember there were times where I know she was, you know, trying to get involved with different business or move up in her ladder.
00:48:05.560And there were just times I even felt as a child that whatever, you know, maybe like she'd been taking advantage of her.
00:48:12.100Like I even as a kid, I remember getting a specific feeling like that, like a man had mistreated her.
00:48:17.140Well, I think any woman of a certain age has a story about, you know, looking back on a situation saying, ooh, that was a little creepy or that was inappropriate.
00:48:28.600And, you know, what was accepted in even newsrooms across the country in the 70s, 60s, 70s, 80s is just, you know, it's people look at it today and say, well, how did that even happen?
00:48:39.620Yeah, now you couldn't say like, you know, get your bosom up, Rhonda.
00:48:44.500I remember, you know, as a young reporter and anchor, having a general manager walk in and berate my female co-anchor who also did the weather because a certain part of her anatomy was covering Montana.
00:50:16.240I'm feeling things start to like, enough is enough.
00:50:18.860Like, I do think some things have needed to be noticed.
00:50:21.440We do need to notice like, you know, what a lot of women have been through.
00:50:24.500Like, even as you said, like, we were talking in the beginning about like victims, like women are always kind of the victim, like, or have been the victim a lot of times.
00:50:35.940I mean, again, whether it's your mother or, you know, your significant other or your girlfriend or, I mean, everybody of a certain age has a story.
00:50:45.700That looking back, they might have just laughed off or said, ah, ha, ha, you're hysterical and, you know, made sure they didn't get put one-on-one with that person again.
00:51:00.780And I think we're getting to that place in society now where it's like, yeah, it's like we're getting to a place where we're starting to be able to look back at what we've done.
00:51:08.660It's almost like a comfortable level and a comfortability.
00:51:53.060And some electric toothbrushes are too abrasive.
00:51:56.580Well, Quip has a built-in two-minute timer that pulses every 30 seconds to remind you when to switch sides, helping guide a full and even clean.
00:52:05.200And I love Quip personally because it adheres right to the wall next to my sink.
00:54:55.240Well, you'd see it show up as the impetus for Law and Order or CSI Miami or, you know, you saw a different version of yourself being played in an entertainment world, which is always interesting.
00:55:09.040It almost jumped the shark a little bit.
00:55:10.500But still today, I mean, you know, I remember getting a phone call.
00:55:14.820One of the guys who does my security also did security for Saturday Night Live.
00:55:20.620And Ronnie Knight, who's a former NYPD and had his own security company for years.
00:55:25.520And I still bring him out of retirement for –
00:55:41.800So I got to the rehearsal and I was watching and they did a whole thing, the Chris Hansen show where, you know, they had different actors on SNL portray, you know, Hollywood celebs.
00:55:52.420And so they'd walk out and Hader, who was imitating me, would pop up from behind the desk and they had a band and the whole thing.
00:55:58.940And he'd say, what are you doing here?
00:56:00.200You know, and the guest would say, well, I just – I came here to be interviewed.
00:56:20.500So I'm sitting in the audience and they come out after dress rehearsal to take their bow and I see Hader and Hader sees me because I'm in the front row of the second charity.
00:56:43.000And in my – even in this year of my career, my career is like exponentially increased, right?
00:56:47.460And to me, it's like it's – I'm grateful and at the same time, it's a little alarming because I get scared of my own ego and like things that can happen if I get a wrong idea of myself, you know.
00:56:58.480Did any – did you start to notice some of that in your world?
00:57:02.720Yeah, just the recognition factor, you know, taking my kids to a baseball game or just, you know, in general being out in public, you know, especially here in L.A.
00:58:03.640You know, especially the morning after a piece would air, you know, people would stop and talk to you or ask about it or do whatever.
00:58:10.180And very much in law enforcement circles because so much of what I do is crime.
00:58:14.240And, you know, a cop will stop you walking through the airport and, yeah, they would just want to chat or take a picture or something like that.
00:58:20.580But, you know, we – I was with my sons.
00:58:23.500I'm from Detroit originally and I'm back there a lot.
00:58:35.380Of course, you watch the Lions, you know, do very well against the Bears in the first half and then, you know, go to hell in a handbag after that.
01:00:14.380You know, one thing I noticed, we grew up in like kind of like an impoverished area and we would get more, we would get a lot of those sex offender registry cards on our door a lot because a lot of poor neighborhoods can't keep, they don't have HOAs that can like, you know, even hypothetically scare off pedophiles and predators sometimes.
01:00:31.580So I remember being, you know, in a lot of environments where you would have neighbors that, you know, were abused or, you know, guys that were doing things that were illegal, you know, and it was a little, it wasn't common.
01:00:44.720But it was more part of the world in more of like an impoverished area because there aren't any HOAs, you know, parents are working.
01:01:02.760To help be a part of that, I mean, I would gladly come and help out.
01:01:05.000Well, I try to do stuff like that for not only groups that, you know, raise money for awareness of issues with kids, but also, you know, the opiate addiction crisis.
01:03:01.980And I think with the advent of, you know, the opiates, I think so many young people follow that same road where, you know, somebody shows up freshman or sophomore year with a bottle of this stuff.
01:03:55.160It's almost necessity at a certain point that leads them down.
01:03:57.620That's why they call it chasing the dragon.
01:03:59.720You know, you're always chasing that first high.
01:04:02.240Is that synonymous a little bit, you think, with the pornography and how it can lead people down?
01:04:06.340Well, I think addiction is addiction, whether it's alcohol or drugs or pornography or, you know, any number of things.
01:04:13.300But I think that this opiate crisis and, you know, like a year ago we did this story outside of Dayton, Ohio, right around Dayton in Montgomery County, Ohio,
01:04:26.720which per capita had the highest number of overdoses in the country.
01:05:17.560I mean, it's, especially when you see young people, you know, and that's the saddest thing, I think, you know, even hearing some of your stories is like, because, you know, when it's wild how sometimes I'm still a child in some ways.
01:05:29.760But in other ways, like, you know, at least now I can get a perception of things, I can see what's going on.
01:05:35.720I have a clear view of the world a little bit.
01:05:37.560And yeah, how susceptible you realize you were when you were a kid and almost how grateful you were that some things just didn't come along that locked you into something that you couldn't.
01:05:48.020You know, what always strikes me is, you know, the random nature of this stuff.
01:05:52.680In crime, this person made a left-hand turn and ended up being, you know, carjacked and killed.
01:05:58.640This person went the other way and is fine.
01:06:01.340This person was presented with a roommate who had, you know.
01:06:08.920It doesn't make them good or bad, but it just, you know, what if they had not been presented with that opportunity and never took the pill?
01:06:20.640And, you know, what's interesting is the level of prescriptions being written for opiates has gone down, yet the overdose is still rising.
01:06:31.960So it'll be interesting to see with all this education, awareness, treatment, what happens when they tabulate 2018 to see if it hopefully starts to come down.
01:06:40.580When you do shows like To Catch a Predator, are you, do you feel like you are doing that for kids?
01:06:48.420Do you feel like you are doing that to, is it entertainment?
01:06:53.820Do you, just in your own person, do you feel like there's a...
01:06:58.740Obviously, there's an entertainment value to it.
01:07:38.280I do feel like it's deterred a lot of people probably from going down that road of getting caught in the internet and staying indoors and getting into these dark circles.
01:42:27.760I like that and I don't want to think about that when I eat it.
01:42:31.800Are there any things that you, are there other stuff that you like to do like outside?
01:42:35.980Like, do you have any games on your phone or anything?
01:42:37.400What else does Chris Hansen like to do?
01:42:39.380You know, I don't really have any games on the phone or do the video game thing.
01:42:42.760I mean, I did, you know, when the kids were young, obviously, and they would routinely, whether it was Guitar Hero or whatever, beat me senseless at whatever game.
01:42:50.380You know, I think the last one I played was Pong, you know, back when I was a kid, but, you know, I like tennis and skiing and, you know, being out on the water and reading, you know, it's, it's, I've really gotten into this Peloton bike, though.
01:43:10.800One of our friends, Rod, one of the biggest podcasts also is right through this wall.
01:43:14.500They're not taping today, but Fighter and the Kid and one of their guys, he's Peloton every day almost.
01:43:19.120Yeah, I do it pretty much every day because I, you know, we have an apartment in New York and then, you know, home in Michigan.
01:43:24.180So, you know, in Michigan, it just lends itself.
01:43:26.300It's near a park and, you know, you go for a run and you do the hills and all that stuff.
01:43:29.680But in New York, while I enjoy running in New York and I'm close to, you know, being on a walkway near the river, it just, if I can get 45 minutes right off the bat and it's right in the bedroom and I have to trip over, you know, going to make the coffee in the morning, I do it.
01:44:03.440Who inspired, do you have, do you have like inspiration at this point?
01:44:06.140Do you find like inspiration has changed in your life as you've gotten, you know, further in your career?
01:44:10.220You know, you know, one of the greatest compliments I've ever gotten was, you know, I ran into Mike Wallace one time years ago and he was still working for 60 Minutes at the time and, and he's so good with people, you know.
01:44:22.060And then I said, um, hey Mike, Chris Hansen, and I was at, with Daylight at the time and he looked at me and said, oh, Chris.
01:44:29.120And I was on like goofing off that day in Miami and he was working, he was doing an interview with Lawrence Taylor, I think, who had just written about him.
01:44:56.280And I felt so, you know, later I sort of figured out a system of being able to say something nice, even though he didn't have it at the top of his head.
01:45:01.960But it meant so much to me that he would even think to do that, you know, and, and he, you know, had so many great classic stories over the years, you know.
01:45:11.020Do you feel like, uh, when you look back just on like, uh, the work in sexual predator, do you feel person, do you feel like a hero or no?
01:45:17.060No, it's, you know, look, I, I think it's important.
01:45:21.780Um, you know, it, it built a platform for me to do some of the stories that weren't.
01:45:32.260Automatic fits in the format of a syndicated show.
01:45:37.300Uh, it's given me some leverage to do things that I think are important, you know, that, that, you know, are highly rated, but they're expensive.
01:45:46.280You know, if you're going to go hang out and do stuff undercover, you know, it's, it's, it's not the murder story where you interview the six characters and you put it together, the dramatic video.
01:45:56.180I mean, you got to go get it and there's no guarantee.
01:45:58.800I mean, as much as you try to get it set up and you work, you know, side by side with law enforcement, so you know, something's going to happen that'll, that'll constitute interesting television.
01:46:08.440I mean, there's nothing worse than going out, talking your executive producers into doing something, spending the money and then missing the guy at the last minute.
01:46:17.860But I mean, we were going after a guy, it's a horrible case where this guy was raping his 11 year old stepdaughter and did it for like four years.
01:46:25.860And we did the story and, and they had let him out on parole.
01:48:18.940And do you spend a year going undercover and going to India to expose human drug trials of something that you know is dangerous, but you caught them doing?
01:49:53.040And a lot of sex workers were upset when they shut down some of the sites where they were able to sell their services.
01:49:58.920Because, you know, there's such a big sex trafficking, let's stop sex trafficking.
01:50:02.600But then at the same time, it was preventing, you know, women who were, had been sustaining their livelihood and supporting, you know, families or whatever for a while.
01:50:10.240Do you think that one just outweighs the other and it doesn't matter?
01:50:13.520I still think women are being exploited.
01:50:39.240I mean, you sit there and you talk to a 17 or 18-year-old who was coaxed into this life at 14 or 15 years old because she was having a bad day and somebody appealed to her, her weaknesses and exploited that.
01:50:53.640And a pimp made her feel loved and put her to work and took all the money, you know.
01:51:10.640Yeah, this woman was, she was in her 30s, I think.
01:51:13.000And so I guess her perception was different.
01:51:15.280But I guess how these people get into that situation and how that all starts, it's probably.
01:51:19.900Yeah, I'd be willing to say and go on a limb here that the vast majority of women who find themselves in that situation are desperate, threatened, or victimized in some way that makes them vulnerable.
01:51:34.860I mean, you know, this, it's like, you know, the notion of, you know, somebody working their way through law school, you know, that's, that's a rarity.
01:51:47.180These people get jammed up in bad situations on whatever level and resort to this sort of thing.
01:51:53.320Is sex trafficking as big of a problem?
01:51:55.700Like, like, you know, every now and then, like the live, like far liberal go, you know, it's like, they'll just make a postcard says 700,000 women were abused yesterday.
01:52:05.040Yeah, the number is, I always caution.
01:52:06.420I sit on boards and am an advisor to, you know, a number of groups, airline ambassadors being one of them, which is made up of airline employees who, it started out donating their airline parks miles to bring kids in from third world countries who needed extraordinary medical care.
01:52:23.840And they'd fly them into the United States for that medical care.
01:52:27.880And then sort of branched off into educating airline employees to recognize human trafficking when it goes on.
01:52:37.300So I speak to, because of a lot of the stories I've done over the years, I speak to the groups and I'm on a panel that helps educate, you know, flight attendants.
01:52:44.700But, you know, flight attendants will see stuff.
01:52:47.420You know, if you see a guy with, with a, you know, young girl, and for some reason it's not.
01:53:45.940But I, I, I, you know, I always caution these groups, don't put a number on it because we really don't know.
01:53:52.020What I can tell you is that when it comes to human trafficking, you can take any big event, whether it's a Super Bowl, World Series, a Republican convention, a Democratic convention, and I guarantee you a fight in Las Vegas.
01:56:18.500So those small things that, yeah, it's just, like you say, sometimes it's just so moment to moment how one thing could happen to somebody in one turn or one car ride or one this or one that.
01:56:27.760So it really, at that point, then you have to just be aware.
01:56:31.060You have to be cognizant of what's going on, no matter what situations you're getting into.
01:56:35.660Well, again, it goes back to, you know, why we do all these stories.
01:56:38.720If you can get into the mind of a criminal and hear the voice of a victim, you can prevent other people from becoming victims.
01:56:46.640And I feel it, too, from this conversation that the risk of exploitation, the risk, I kind of feel like it does, it outweighs, you know, it just weighs heavier.
01:56:59.180You know, it weighs, like, it's a worthwhile risk to take when you look at the other side of the scale and see the possibilities of things that can be going on, you know.
01:58:06.140Except for the editorial part of it because any young man who wants to see anything, it's a film.
01:58:11.520Well, I remember years and years ago, a friend of mine was helping his daughter with a, you know, school project and went to the, I forget, was it, it was on the Wizard of Oz and he put into a search website, Dorothy, and the stuff that came up.
01:59:58.140You know, a lot of the Dr. Lisa Stroman, who's a psychologist, a lawyer who's done some stuff for our shows, also does a lot of stuff with Dr. Drew.
02:00:06.940So, I mean, you know, he's a smart guy with a good reputation.
02:01:31.720Of course, we bought, you know, switchblades and stilettos, and I was digging through a drawer, I don't know, a couple years ago, and I found this thing.
02:01:37.980It still works, and I keep it in the drawer in the apartment, because it works as a screwdriver, and if they're a letter opener, and my oldest saw it, he goes, you know, you carry that on the street.