Podcasts about me out

First up, a massive celebrity engagement has taken a bizarrely fated turn after fans discovered a hidden connection between Harry Styles, Zoe Kravitz and a beloved book franchise. Plus, we're dissecting the first grainy on-set photos from a highly anticipated movie sequel - including a certain "upgraded" diamond ring that has the internet comparing old flames .Plus, we have a very serious theory about a sky-blue dress and a horseshoe necklace. We’re unpacking why a certain countdown appeared and vanished on a major artist's website, and whether she is about to pivot into the world of animated sequels to finally secure her "EGOT" status.And finally, the real-life inspiration behind one of cinema's most iconic "assistant" roles has finally stepped out of the shadows after twenty years. We get into her "savage" rebuttal to the woman who wrote the book and her mortifying encounter at a mutual friend’s house with the A-list actress who played her on screen. Read the Vogue interview with the real life Emily from Devil Wears Prada here. Love binge-watching TV? The Spill has launched a new podcast called Watch Party where we deep dive into the shows everyone’s talking about. Follow the feed on Apple or Spotify now. Plus remember The Spill drops the tea twice a day in this feed so follow us for all the latest entertainment news… OR you can WATCH our show in full length video on the Apple Podcast app - make sure your phone is up to date and enjoy the watch! Link here. THE END BITS Find and follow us on socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespillpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thespillpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thespillpodcast/ Read all the latest entertainment news on Mamamia: https://mamamia.com.au/entertainment/ Support Independent Women’s Media: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe/ Your subscription helps us continue to tell the stories that matter to women. Want to join the conversation? Have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss? Send us a voice message or email us at thespill@mamamia.com.au and we’ll get back to you ASAP! Executive Producer: Monisha Iswaran Audio & Video Producer: Michael Kean Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. From Mum and Me Out.00:02Speaker 2 Welcome to the Spill your daily pop culture fix. I'm Laura Brednick and I'm Tina Burke and coming up on the show today, Look, Taylor slipped us up to some antics. There's secret coded messages in her outfits, there's potential secret songs, there's a countdown.00:15Speaker 1 I'm gonna be so honest.00:16Speaker 2 I'm gonna let you, Tina Burke, explain that because that is wait, you're crazy, Taylor, so fandom that's your business. Plus something I have been obsessed with for the last few days. I know we both have, but we need to talk about it. The real life Emily from The Devil Wears Prada has come forward after all these years, and she's given some really interesting insights about the author of the book, Anna wind Tour Emily Blunt. We're getting get into the biggest takeaways from that, but first you have some other things to discuss.00:43Speaker 3 I have some things that have come across my desk this morning. One of them is very short and I just need to touch on it really quickly, Will And it is that. Obviously, last week we discussed Zoe Kravitz and Harry Styles engaged. According to people magazine. Do you know what their middle names are? Her middle name is Isabelle, Isabella Isabelle.01:00Speaker 1 Last, what his is? No, it's Edward. Oh they are Edward and Bella. Oh my god, this has blown up.01:08Speaker 2 You might be the only person who. Oh no, it has blown up on socials this morning.01:12Speaker 3 It's come across the internet because they are Bella and Edward from Twilight, which means they are now faded to be together forever. I was skeptical before. I was like, they're not gonna last. It's not gonna happen. And now I'm like, no, they're Bella and Edward, so like it's gonna happen. By Stephanie Wheer, Oh my god, I love some little nerd put that together. I love nerds.01:28Speaker 1 And they together.01:29Speaker 2 For nine months, we've had this information for nine months and only now have people picked it up.01:32Speaker 3 Someone sat on it until now, And maybe they'll have a little renett me of their own, just something to think about, something a bit.01:37Speaker 1 More serious, do you think of it?01:39Speaker 2 Well, I'm sure they'll be thrilled that people have figured out they're supposed to be together because they're middle names.01:43Speaker 1 Yes, no other reason.01:46Speaker 2 Yeah, something more serious that isn't more serious, No, but with just my lurkings on social media is the Summer I Turn Pretty has officially.01:55Speaker 3 Been done filming the movie, which is very exciting. It's been really like under wrapped of what exactly the plot was going to be. I mean, we pretty much assume and everyone has reported that it's going to be about like Belly and Conrad finally getting married, but we didn't finally.02:10Speaker 2 Everyone's like, well, when will those crazy kids get married?02:13Speaker 3 Honestly like sitting on the shelf at this point. But I do think they're going to be about twenty five. But the first onset photos came out over the weekend. They've gotten back to set and while they were incredibly grainy and blurry and they were kind of like pat photos or fan photos taken on phones, they're all out on a boat on the lake.02:29Speaker 1 It's very the summer return pretty.02:31Speaker 3 Yes, what you can see is that Belly has a big diamond ring on her left ring finger.02:37Speaker 2 Okay, people have not handled these photos well in a mature way. Everyone has been pretty nasty, pretty crazy because the ring, as we all remember, if you can even call her that, that was given to Belly by Jeremiah in the show was so small that you literally couldn't see it. Even when she held it up in front of your face, you could not see it. We put it on socials and we had to.02:58Speaker 3 Draw a circle around it, the tiny little diamond.03:01Speaker 2 From that point, poor Jenny Hahn, the writer of the books and creator of the TV series and showrunner and all these things, This talented, creative, brilliant woman then gave up her precious time to go on oppressed tour to do interviews so that fans could ask her questions about the show. And all that woman got asked was what was that tiny ring? Was that meant to be a joke? And that poor woman had to answer over and over again. No, it wasn't meant to be a joke. We just thought, like, he doesn't have any money, so of course you'd have a small ring. It's just the way that belly held it up so defiantly to show the family and then you couldn't see it, and you couldn't see it at all. Became such a running joke.03:36Speaker 3 Yes, and so even from a great distance on a boat in the middle of the high seas, you can see the ring that we can assume Conrad has given to her. So it's a Peconkin diamond, and I'm very excited about that because she does deserve it. And this is why you date the handsome doctor and not like the weird other brother. There were lots of reasons, but I do think this is one of them. The other big thing that has come out based on these photos is that Jeremiah our like sad single other.04:01Speaker 1 Hey.04:01Speaker 2 Hey, some of us were kind of quietly team Joremiah nick word team Jeremiah, and I don't understand why, but that's your business. He has his arm wrapped around a mystery blonde woman, so that, oh god, it's not that woman from who was that girl?04:13Speaker 1 I kind of friend.04:14Speaker 3 Yeah, So the whole season three subplot of him falling for the roommate and the roommate being a weird hater of Conrad that never.04:21Speaker 1 Sat well, Yeah, that just felt right. That was for nothing.04:23Speaker 3 It felt rushed, and it was for nothing because now he's on a boat with a woman who looks a little bit too much like his mother and he's got his arm around her and they look to be a couple. So wow, something to think about there, But we don't really know too much about what the film is about, but we do know that Jenny Hahn is directing. So she directed one of the episodes of the season three, which was episode five. Laura, I don't know how much you remember the summer I Turned pretty, but episode five was the one from Conrad's pov Oh the Apple.04:48Speaker 1 We hate the Apple, and he is in the white T shirt. Yeah, that song played wild Horses beautiful.04:52Speaker 3 VI.04:52Speaker 2 Wow, I just like, I feel like I just lost you for a second, just went off and I just got into.04:55Speaker 3 My Conrad's little like mind bubble. But she's going to direct the film, so she said, taking inspiration from Nora Efron. Oh great, so great person to take your inspiration from. You do have to wonder what like the traditional third actension is going to because I think the whole show was third actension and we don't need to see a mini breakup again. But I don't know, maybe Steven and the other one can have some drama.05:17Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean that's the thing. Isn't it to be able to make a movie like that.05:20Speaker 2 Yes, yes, you've got the wedding as the plot, but there's going to have to be some moment where you think they're not going to get married some sort of drama.05:26Speaker 1 You can't just have a wedding.05:27Speaker 3 No, But like at this point, it's been drama non stop for years.05:30Speaker 1 You go tired to Paris.05:31Speaker 3 She's like, actually, I'm going back to Paris, thank you so much. I'm leaving you again. That would be so boring. We can't do that.05:36Speaker 1 Do we know when this is coming out? Like, at least not until next.05:39Speaker 2 Year twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty seven to be coming out. Yeah, I mean, I guess people will still be interesting, Like I know people still be interested, But I was worried when the show ended and they announced the movie was happening, and the momentum was so huge, and in my head, I was like, oh, I wonder if they've started shooting so that this can come out at least a year after the last episode has aired, and now it's going to.05:59Speaker 1 Be well over year.06:01Speaker 3 Yues.06:01Speaker 2 People still care because there was such a fandom around that show.06:04Speaker 1 But do we think it all? Do we think the momentums lost a little bit?06:07Speaker 3 I think so, And as well, there were reports like the other week about the fact that maybe the cast had only signed on to do the movie in order to get pay bumps for season three when they were renegotiating, and Deadline kind of reported saw stuff the cast themselves didn't come out and say this, but that the cast might have felt like they were a little bit taken hostage in having to agree to the movie so that they could get a pay.06:28Speaker 1 Rise for three.06:29Speaker 3 So there's also like that little underlying tension as well that I think some fans aren't happy with. And yeah, it's a long wait for a movie that realistically like I don't know what's like, how much could possibly happen.06:39Speaker 2 Yeah, we love Jenny harm but yeah, we love Jenny Harm. Well, hopefully there's a big plot twist in there. But that's the thing about having these continuing stories is like you do have to kind of break something or change something in order to make it worth the stakes.06:51Speaker 1 Yeah, but I'm sure to be fine.06:52Speaker 2 And also at least that they were all out of like high school and through college, they have to worry about it. They don't have to worry about them aging out of their roles. Yeah, we've got a good fifteen year years before that happens. So no, I think it'd be fun.07:02Speaker 1 Yeah, So, as.07:04Speaker 3 Discussed my favorite topic in the world. Taylor Ellison Swift has come up twice, actually more than even twice, several times in the past week, but on two very significant occasions. We have been talking about Taylor Swift and I have been talking your ear off, and I'm sure you loved every second of it.07:18Speaker 1 Right, No, I always.07:19Speaker 2 Find that you have an interesting angle on Taylor Swift because you're like really in the weeds with not just the fan theories, but kind of like the industry chat as well.07:27Speaker 1 So I find that very interesting. I thank you for play kating a lot of people who care about stuff I can't really relate.07:32Speaker 3 Yeah, and I care about everything weigh too much. But one of the things that came up last week, which some of the spillers may have seen, I know a lot of people were texting me going, what the hell is happening right now?07:44Speaker 2 People text you if something happens to tell you Swift, They're like, what's going on? Why is this a thing?07:48Speaker 1 And to be fair, you know the answer, and I do know the answer.07:50Speaker 3 So Taylor Swift. On Friday last week, a mysterious countdown appeared on her website for the briefest of moments and obviously, if you know anything about Taylor Swift, she loves like an Easter egg, she loves a big reveal, and she often does these countdowns on her website. So before the Life of a Showgirl album came out, whole website changed colors, big countdown pops up. This time, her website briefly changed to a sky blue background with like white cartoon clouds, and a countdown appeared in like this also cartoonish kind of font and then disappeared, and the Swifties very quickly put together that it looked like Toy Story Wow, okay, and Toy Story five is coming out soon.08:31Speaker 1 No, I'm aware, Oh good, I'm aware. I'm up on the plots, I'm up on everything.08:35Speaker 3 No, everything, and Toy Story five is coming out soon. But the thing is, people suddenly realized, holy shit, has a Taylor Swift been dropping Toy Story five clues?08:45Speaker 1 And again, yes, yes, okay, it looks like yes.08:49Speaker 3 So one of the things that I love about Taylor Swift is so and it's bold of me to say this, I'm sitting here in a T shirt, but her street style is not necessarily beloved by the fashion girls. A lot of people think she dresses a bit basic or like. The common theme is people think there's always like one thing wrong with her outfits, so she often gets roasted for her She.09:08Speaker 2 Gets roasted, And it's so interesting how there's this huge fandom of people that are just like, oh, she looks she just looks terrible. She dresses frumpy. If you listen to any kind of fashion podcast, fashion adjacent, any kind of industry chat, they're just like, she's known as being like one of the worst dress celebrities. Can I just say, I can't see it. I like her outfits.09:28Speaker 1 I like them too. I guess I'm just not a fashion girl.09:31Speaker 2 But I thought, like recently in the dress with the little yellow bag and the heels, maybe it's because I too am a little basic. Like when people just like, oh, it's so boring when she just wears a glittery gown, I was like, you know what, wear a glittery gown. I'm so sick of everyone wearing a beige column dress or a black dress. They're like, it's chival blah blah blah. I don't know, they all look the same. Well, at least she has a look.09:50Speaker 1 Yes, she has a look.09:51Speaker 3 She knows what her style is, and she has worked for years and years and years with the same style as Stress of Castles. You have to wonder how he feels about it all. But he also does like her, like streaming and stuff for like the Era's tool.10:01Speaker 2 If he does love that, it's so wild because I don't see a huge jump between her costumes from the RAS tour and her street style and her red carpet style. To me, it all looks very like concise and that it fits together, Like she doesn't look like she's in a costume when she's on stage to me, and she doesn't look like she's been dressed by someone else when she's like she always looks like her. Yeah, and there's very few celebs that look like that, Like some of them, there's such a clear line between their street style and their event dressing.10:26Speaker 1 Yeah. So I don't know what people want. I don't know what people want.10:29Speaker 3 But what they did was dig back, and they didn't have to dig very far because last week she did wear the outfit you're talking about, which is like a sky blue dress.10:36Speaker 1 She had a yellow bag.10:36Speaker 3 She was wearing lue batons, which obviously have a red bottom on them, and she was wearing a horse shoe necklace, and so people ripped into this outfit last week. Yeah, and then suddenly on Friday, when.10:46Speaker 1 I was like, wa, where can I buy that?10:47Speaker 3 And I can't afford it? But I thought she I thought it was a great dress. She was out for dinner with her family and friends. And though she has previously said she does an Easter Egg when she's like Easter Egg her personal life, she does Easter Egg through fashion all of the time. And people as soon as this Toy Story theory started kicking around, well like, wait a minute, was that hideous outfit we hated on Monday a.11:05Speaker 1 Toy Story five clue? Maybe?11:08Speaker 3 And then outside of that, there is also there's clouds in the background of her opal Aite music video, Greta Lee, obviously because of the Graham Norton show was in that music video. Guess what She's also doing voicing a character in Toy Story five exactly, and June five is the really.11:23Speaker 1 State of Toy Story five.11:24Speaker 3 It was also the really state of Tailswift's debut album, Whoa. So everyone's kind of gathered these clues together to decide that she is making his song for Toy Story five and that the countdown accidentally got set live early.11:36Speaker 1 Oh but does she do anything by accident that I'm not sure of.11:39Speaker 2 So if the countdown had been like real, it would have counted down to like Sunday five am ish our time, and then nothing happened.11:45Speaker 1 And nothing, but it did disappear.11:47Speaker 3 So I do have to wonder if it was like a phase test gone wrong. If it is gonna happen, I mean we'll find out. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility to me for like Taylor to be like, you know what, now it's time for a kid's music soundtrack.11:59Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, look, she's exactly the right age to have a very nostalgic yeah, because like all elder Malone, like she's an elder millennial just like us.12:07Speaker 1 Maybe or not, but yeah, we're all in that same.12:09Speaker 2 Bracket where we'd like grown up with Toy Story and then that we had like the later Toy Story movies that hit us as adults, and now this next one that we know is coming up is really kind of hitting everyone. It's more for adults and kids, it's hitting us at the stage of our life where we're in wood.12:22Speaker 1 He's got a bald spots triggering for everyone.12:26Speaker 2 It's yeah, so May there's a world in which she's a secret Toy Story fan and she has a real affinity with this franchise she's growing up with, and like it's all the cool kids like Greta Lee's getting in on Toy Story and then you have like Tom Hanks coming back and all the voice cast, and yeah, it's the one thing that everyone wants a piece of at the moment in Hollywood, which is so crazy.12:44Speaker 1 It's a Toy Story franchise.12:45Speaker 3 And one thing we know about Taylor Swift is that she does love an award. And if she could win a songwriting award and get a little bit closer to being an Eagle winner, you just know she would love that.12:55Speaker 2 She's just had a rough run as that poor girl. When will anything go right for Taylor?13:00Speaker 1 When will she again?13:01Speaker 2 I know she was meant to be a shoeing for the Oscars for Cats, Yeah, because she When you write a song, you co write a song with Andrew Lloyd Webber for one of the like most enduring musicals of all time, yea, you should at least get a nomination and probably a win, And that song was lovely, and I'm sure she pictured herself up on stage the Oscar singing it. And then Cats were so reviled and so universally hated the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber went and bought a dog. Man hated dogs.13:29Speaker 1 He's like it turned me. He literally said that the other day a dog person.13:33Speaker 2 Yeah, He's like, I hated the adaptation of my work Cats so much that I went and bought a dog.13:38Speaker 1 Like, that's how much that man is angry at And.13:40Speaker 2 So Taylor's missu and that, and then everyone thought she was going to get a short film for the nomination for All Too Well. And there's been a few other times her music has been in the mix for a possible nomination, but it just hasn't. It's the one thing that's eluding her.13:51Speaker 3 It is, and I do think like she's got her thinking cap on and she's like a sad song about Jesse the Doll. That's a Cowboys song that could do well.13:59Speaker 2 I mean, the thing is, it's it's a good plan. If that woman writes a banger for toy story for the next movie, then yeah she's in. Then that's a real hook for a Best Song nomination at least.14:10Speaker 3 Yes, and so that was sort of the like unseerious side, but I do believe in it.14:14Speaker 1 That was a serious side.14:15Speaker 3 Yes, no surprising thing. So something else that Taylors which is making headlines for at the moment is her name in relation to a billion dollar sale to do with Spotify. But it's kind of due to something that she did back in twenty eighteen. And the reason I want to talk about it is because I love her so much, but also she's going to get so many other artists and so many other like songwriters and people involved in production paid out as a result of something she did back in twenty eighteen. But basically Universal Music Group are looking at selling half of their three percent stake in Spotify. And that might sound small, but that deal could be worth as much as like one point four billion dollars.14:51Speaker 1 It's a lot of money.14:52Speaker 3 So basically a bid from Pershing Square came to Universal which was to like buy out part of Universal or to become an investor, and in order to do that, they wanted them to liquidate part of their Spotify shares. But then for some reason everyone's reporting that it's like independently Universal Music has decided to sell off part of their Spotify shares and that was announced in April, but at the moment, they're obviously looking to sell off the stake. And what that would mean, like why Taylor Swift is involved is that she negotiated a deal back when she signed in twenty eighteen and other labels were selling off their Spotify shares, she negotiated that the funds would be non recoupable.15:33Speaker 1 Hard work to say.15:34Speaker 3 Got to tell you what that means is, obviously record labels, like every other label that would exist in the world, when an artist makes money, part of that money goes back to their record label. But obviously in this case the record label would be selling something, they would be giving that money to artists, and Taylor Swift is blocking that money from ending up going back to the record label. Oh and so the reason that she did that was because, as we know, Masters were a really big deal to her. She universal in twenty eighteen, and the reason she left Big Machine Records is she wanted to own her masters, like to own her own work, and the only way that Big Machine were willing to do that was if she gave them all one for one deal. So every time she gave them a new album, they would give her back ownership.16:14Speaker 1 Of one of her older albums.16:15Speaker 3 Oh, and she was like no, and didn't really trust Scott Bourschetta. And I think as well. She'd signed on when she was so young, she was a teenager. Her family were really involved. She was one of the very first artists that they had at Big Machine Records. She's certainly their most successful and I think they tried to make her feel as though like she owed them this deal even though it wasn't beneficial or good for her, and so she walked away went to another music group. As we know, the Masters thing kind of carried on for years and at that time wasn't as well known. But in twenty eighteen it did become a big deal. Oh my god, Taylor Swift wants more money from Universal. And what she was actually doing was making sure that this deal would impact smaller artists and musicians. And she said it at the time, she was like, I see it as a sign that we're heading towards positive change, a goal I'm not going to stop trying to help achieve in whatever ways I can. But she was very honest at the time that she was on her sixth seventh album, and she was like, I can speak up and be a voice for change, but younger artists can't. And she was like, what is the point of me, essentially, if I'm not going to stand my ground and have these arguments with record labels and Universal agreed. So they were one of the first to do it, and it does mean now when they're doing this sale, all of these other artists are gain and benefit massively, and I do think it's a testament today Swift. And I know a lot of people talk about her being a billionaire or like money grabbing, and at the time this deal was viewed very much as like, oh.17:35Speaker 1 She's just out for herself.17:36Speaker 3 But I do think she's one of those rare people in the music industry who isn't even though yes, she's going to benefit too, she does want other people to not go through what she went through.17:46Speaker 2 That's interesting thing because and I've said this before public on the podcast, So whether it's wrong or right, is that sometimes I feel like when she takes in the past, she has taken these big stands, it often kind of comes across like people really rally around her and celebrate her for some of the things she's done or when she said, but a lot of them. It sometimes feels like she just weighs on an issue when it's going to benefit her, and she tries to make it a universal thing. She's like, this man said this, you know, inappropriate thing to me, which also fair enough to be upset, and she's like, I'm going to take a stand, and everyone kind of rallies around her, and yeah, it's like, you know, oh, women's rights are that sort of thing. But at the same time, when you actually look at it from like a like a higher lens and kind of float above it, you're like, that was that was.18:26Speaker 1 Just for you.18:27Speaker 2 And saying the master's thing where I think for a long time there where she was like everyone felt like they were swept up in this big movement of like Taylor Swift getting her music back and it was this huge thing and it felt like a communal win every time she did it. But if you actually again looked at that, it was like, oh, no, it's just it's her, Like obviously.18:43Speaker 1 People are not. Everyone's going to own their masters. Yeah, and also like that's nice.18:47Speaker 2 It's like, you know, to feel good about what your favorite artist does and to feel involved in that, and I know that was a real sense of community around the Swifties. But then at the same time, yes, it always kind of felt like, oh, she'll speak on it, but only if it kind of comes back to her. But then I guess over the years she has kind of tried to, like when she spoke about politics and you know, tried to endorse like a different candidate, and she was like very aware that was like a bigger thing than her then. And I you know, obviously I know how much money she gives away and all that sorts of things, but you know, if you want to get on the weeds in it, it's kind of always felt like and that's what I hear a lot of you know, fans talk about the fact they love her music, but they wish she really stood for something.19:23Speaker 1 Outside of herself.19:25Speaker 2 But then also because of her branding and the way she kind of puts herself as this kind of like very inclusionary person, we all obviously expect more of her than other artists, particularly male artists. So it's a very weedy path. So you're kind of telling me that this was on because when I first heard of this, I only heard of it really top line, and I thought it was once again a thing of Taylor's lived coming out and like making sure that she has a win, making sure that she has her money, making sure that she's protected, and that being her first kind of priority, and then as a default, she's pulled other people in with her and she's being like overly celebrated. That's what I thought, But you're that that's not correct.20:01Speaker 3 Yeah, Look, my perspective on it is as you kind of said, there's been times like the Master's thing when she was releasing the Taylor's versions of albums. I liked it because I got new songs. Oh yeah, yeah, which I know, so fair enough selfish.20:12Speaker 1 And like fun as as fifty it was like.20:14Speaker 2 Transactional, like an artist you like is putting out content that you're willing to, like essentially buy the streaming and stuff.20:20Speaker 1 That's fair, that's just how business works.20:21Speaker 3 Yeah, But I very much saw that as like she did that because she it was personal to her.20:26Speaker 1 She wanted to own her own art.20:27Speaker 3 That's great, but it wasn't necessarily, like you said, the big moment that a lot of people built it up to be where everyone was going to benefit or everyone was going to succeed out of this. I do think though, when she did make this decision, there was a lot She actually received a lot of backlash at the time because she'd also previously like she took her music off of Apple Music in twenty fifteen. Yes, I remember that, and it was a whole big deal because Apple started doing like free trials essentially, and Taylor was like, well, how are people going to get paid if you're doing free trials? So then she took her music off temporarily, and then Apple agreed to still pay the artist despite the free trial periods, and she.21:02Speaker 1 Went back on.21:02Speaker 3 And I'd always taken her music off Spotify in twenty seventeen, like, so she'd done it a couple times in.21:07Speaker 2 Order, and I know those were framed if she was like, this doesn't make a difference to me, I'm doing this for other artists. Yeah, But was some part of it also because she's a business woman, and you don't become a billionaire without being very conscious of like keeping your money and making sure you're getting like squeezing money out of every little area that you can, like that's how you become rich. So was they also a part of her that was like I need to protect my own money, even though I don't need to at this stage, it's still money I'm losing. And then by default I will pull like I will help other artists out, which I'm sure the artists getting the money they don't care that she did it for herself and they're a byproduct.21:40Speaker 1 You'd be happy to take it.21:41Speaker 2 But it's just so interesting we always have to like she's a billionaire, and everyone still has to be like we have to protect the downtrodden kind of, you.21:49Speaker 3 Know, like yeah, yeah, And I do think at the time, like, for sure, those decisions like with Apple and Spotify in twenty fifteen, twenty seventeen, definitely we're about protecting her assets and all of that. I do think the decision in twenty eighteen to sort of negotiate all of these terms with Universal because that wasn't the only agreement that they came to. But I do think that had a lot to do with the way she was feeling taken advantage of with big machine records. Yes, and yes, that is a lot to do with herself. But I do think she looked then at that point in time, this is like after she's been canceled. This is when people are hating her guts, and I do think she started to look more. It's also when she's getting to like reputation. That world tour was at the time the highest grossing tour of all time, Like it was a big deal in North America. So I do think she was at a very successful point, but also at a point where she recognized that she had a bit more power than she'd ever had before and finally got to negotiate something and look back at how she'd been treated by this independent record label and just wanted to do something that protected people. She's also had the same band her whole career. She's worked with a lot of the same production team, same songwriters, same people in her camp the entire time. And while they're really well taken care of, I think she also sees that like not a lot of people are, and she's about like when she was a songwriter back in Nashville, she would be in these like communities and people would be talking about how they got money from people buying like a Faith Hill song that they had worked on one time, and so she was like, that doesn't happen anymore. So I want songwriters to be better paid. It basically all came down to the whole songwriting element of how she sees herself rather than like the big pop stars and stuff. Did she benefit absolutely, and do people often yeah, compliment her when she does something just for herself and it ends up benefiting others.23:28Speaker 1 Absolutely.23:28Speaker 3 But I do think in this instance, like it is going to help a lot of people put food on the table and also remain in the industry a bit longer when you have deals that actually support the lower down people in music.23:40Speaker 1 And like I guess in terms of musical.23:42Speaker 3 Billionaires, I'm glad at least one of them is doing something better than other people.23:45Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.23:46Speaker 2 And that's the thing I don't like when people like, look at Taylor Sitch and has to do these extremes of like she's a superhero, she's a super villain. Like, yeah, it's a bit in the middle. It's a bit in the middle. Like do I think anyone should be a billionaire?23:56Speaker 1 No? I don't.23:57Speaker 3 But also I do think she donates a lot of mine. You see it all the time. She doesn't come out and go look I did this, Like random charities will be like, hey, she just gave us a million bucks and you're like, oh sick.24:07Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, Well, and you know the good news. I guess out of this might takeaway. She might have some sweet toy story.24:11Speaker 2 Money coming in. She might look she'll never be shy I of a dollar, Taylor Swift. But hey, maybe she'll help some people along the way. Well, we're still very much in the devil Weares prior to two weeks. The movie came out last week. We've got a special episode coming up this Friday about it. The movie, So it released this weekend. We're like number one at the box office across the world, as we thought it would be. Apparently it's going to go even further than projected with like the money it's making here the box office, because people are going to see it multiple times. And I love that and hopefully I don't know what it's going to take for studios to take notice, because it's like we have Barbie Breaks all the box office records, Wuthering Heights, love it or hate it, Women just wanted to get dressed up and go with their friends.24:48Speaker 1 Yeah, did amazingly crush the box office.24:52Speaker 2 And now the same thing, women are getting dressed up going to the movies.24:54Speaker 1 Like guys, are we seeing a pattern here? People like the movies.24:57Speaker 2 It's almost like women want to go and see women's stories at the movies.25:01Speaker 1 They can get dressed up and have a goddamn cocktail.25:04Speaker 2 Anyway, So, as we move through Devil Wears Prider Week, and I'm having a great time with everyone who's coming out and would work to share their thoughts and feelings and everything, something very interesting has happened, something historic. I would even go as far to say the real inspiration behind Emily Charlton, a character in the Devil West Prata who has been in three of the books and also now the two movies, the real woman behind her has come forward for the first time in decades. People have tried to work out who she was for years, and I'm sure people in the fashion and magazine industry knew, but she herself has never come out and said anything until now, until the movie has come out and so well received it to be said, there's a straight line there. So Leslie Freemar, who is a celebrity stylist and has been in the fashion industry for many decades, went on the Vogue podcast and talked to editorial director Chloe Mao because when Anna Wintle vacated, she wouldn't let anyone else be the editor of Vogue, said, she's the editorial director, but she is running the day to day operations at Vogue now as Anna win talk kind of move has moved into a more like overseeing role. And so she interviewed Leslie, and I know you've listened to this multiple times, right, this interview. Yeah, I couldn't get enough of it. I listened to it twice as well. It's been the thing all my group chats are talking about. And it's interesting because it wasn't supposed to be cutting in any way, but if you read between the lines.26:26Speaker 1 Oh yeah, there's some cutting lines.26:28Speaker 2 It's a bit of a savage story about Lauren Weisberger. So if anyone doesn't know, Lauren Weisberger is the author of The Devil Wears Prata and the sequel, The Devil Returns.26:37Speaker 1 And everyone keeps saying that this is the second book, but actually the.26:39Speaker 2 Third, When Life gives You Lu a Little, When Life gives You Lulu Levin's Crazy, which is Emily's story of her leaving Miranda and like getting pregnant and moving to the suburbs and like breaking up with her husband. It's nothing like the movies. Yeah you've said that. Yeah, I've not read this book. And then so here's the Lauren Weisberger that she was Anna Wintour's assistant well over many decades ago now, and she lasted about eight months in the second assistant chair, and we now know that Leslie was the first assistant at the time. So when she came on to do the podcast with Chloe, Chloe sort of says to her, like, why do you think you're the real Emily? And she's like, I don't think I know. And as she tells her story, it's interesting because Vogue was going to have a panel with past Vogue staffers that all could have been the Emily and they were going to sort of like have a discussion. And then Leslie, who doesn't really do anything like she works with celebs, and like, yes, she's Charlie's.27:33Speaker 1 There on style, Yeah, and she's style a lot of.27:35Speaker 2 Red carpet looks and things like that, but she's on a public face. And she had to sort of call Chloe and say, hey, I'm happy to come and talk and help.27:42Speaker 1 But it's going to be.27:43Speaker 2 Really clear if we all get on stage straight away that it's me.27:46Speaker 1 Yeah, that it's definitively me.27:48Speaker 2 I sat across from her, I said lines that are in the book, I know it's me, And so that idea is going to fall apart pretty quickly. And Soe said that she came on the podcast, Ye did you have a favorite reveal from Leslie? Although there was way too many, but I do think the clearest one, or like the best one to me is how she found out about the book. And also that's the clearest one that obviously, yes, the book was written about her, because even Anna Wintor knew the book was about to tell her. So can I tell the story please people who haven't listened. So obviously wide ranging podcast really really good. But in this part, she says she had moved on to be an assistant in a fashion department and then she gets a call from then Anna's new assistant to be like Anna needs to speak with you, and she was like, Anna never needs to speak with you, and also never needs to speak to an assistant. So she hustles on over there and Anna Wintour asks her who is this woman?28:38Speaker 1 Like who is this lady?28:39Speaker 3 And she's like, that was your assistant, and Anna Winter was like, I don't even know.28:43Speaker 2 Her, has no idea, Well, she has a lot of different assistants, and that she was only there for eight months, and I'm sure maybe she'd seen her.28:50Speaker 1 She would have, yeah, but she.28:51Speaker 2 Called her and she was just like, who is Lauren Weisberger? And it was so funny because Grace Cottington, who's a really famous Vogue editor who worked really closely if Anna and that team, wrote in her own book that no one could remember Lauren when brutal so focused so funny about it. She's like, none of us could picture this, and she's like, I guess Anna's assistants were always, you know, just these bobbing, faceless heads outside her office that you would talk to. But like, Leslie is really the only one who has any memory of her.29:20Speaker 1 Yeah.29:21Speaker 3 And so it's obvious enough when Anna has read this, you know, the initial draft of the book to her that the Emily character is Leslie, because she calls Leslie into her office asks her who Lauren is, and then Anna Wintour says, oh, she's written a book about us, and you come off far worse than me.29:36Speaker 2 That is the interesting thing that Leslie says in this interview, is that they received the galley, which is the very very early stages of a book where things are subject are changed, and she said, she it's so funny, Chloe. He's like, did you run outside straight away and read it. She's like, no, I had to back and do and finish my work. And I was like, life, Emily, I mean maybe because she's like, we probably had a big shoot that day.29:58Speaker 1 That was me.29:59Speaker 2 I would have run straight to some hidden corner and I would have read that book under my desk all day. She said, she waited till she got home at night. Okay, if you've got more will power than me, and she said the first iteration of the book was so mean and much more true to life, because what she's saying has happened is that Lauren took a writing class and they said write what you know, and apparently she wrote it as a memoir, and then they wanted to fictionalize it, and then the fictionalized version was really really mean to everyone who worked at Vogue Tour, to the Leslie character who became Emily, and then the editors who worked with her toned it right down to the book that went on the shelves. The Devil Wears Prada, which is interesting because that book does skew very not mean, but it's like the Miranda Priestley character.30:43Speaker 1 Have you read the book?30:44Speaker 3 No?30:44Speaker 1 Oh, okay, I wouldn't. Sorry, no, I wouldn't invite.30:48Speaker 2 If you're going to read a Lauren Weisberger book, I've got I've got a better recommendation. She read, She wrote some good books. She writes a fun book to have by the pool on holiday. I've read, Yeah, like Last Night at Chateau my Mond chasing Harry Winston. Yeah, The Devil is proud of Like the idea is good obviously because it went on to spawn this incredible thing. But the plot's a bit thin. There's no memorable one liners, Like, it's not a witty book. And also the character of Miranda Priestley is like a caricature. Yeah, all the layers that she has in the movie don't exist in the book.31:21Speaker 1 She's just a nasty woman.31:22Speaker 3 Well. I found that interesting because Leslie said she was able to watch the movie and she found the movie really enjoyable. She was like, it's really glamorous, but there's more like empathy and the people are more well rounded than we saw in that initial galley and then even in the book that got published, Like, that's crazy to me that you can know that this is about you and you see it is really mean, but then you see the on screen portrayal and like, yeah, you like Emily and you like Miranda. I don't have way more nuance than I'm guessing they have in the book.31:47Speaker 2 No, in the book, they just kind of mean girls. Like, yeah, I mean Emily and Andrea hang out a little bit more in the book, but she's still pretty mean to her. And like, yeah, the Miranda character is very kind of just like she's a nasty person. Yeah, she's just like this little talk about her being this little bird like creature, which I guess is very Anna Wintle coded who just like stalks into the office. Yeah, they make a lot of there's a lot in the book about what There's like a whole chapter devoted to what she eats, which apparently is also very Anna winto because she likes steak and potatoes and Starbucks and ice cream. And that's a huge cry in the book. So sometimes Lauren Weisberger was I think just typing out her day. But the end is very different, Like it still ends with Andrea like walking away from her, but there's no nuance with Miranda having like that breakdown scene in the hotel room, like that's to the movie with the no makeup where she kind of like drops the facade and there's no like, you know, Andrea, everyone wants to be out.32:36Speaker 1 It's like this is the sacrifice.32:37Speaker 2 It's just her screaming at her, yeah, and just screaming at her. And then it's like very anti climactic with Andy like calling the office and being like can I still get my flight home?32:46Speaker 1 They're like, no, I'm not going to leave you strand there.32:47Speaker 2 You can get your flight home, and it's just like, oh, kind of anticlimactic.32:51Speaker 1 Yeah. The end.32:52Speaker 3 I do think it's really interesting, like, oh forgot The whole thing is so interesting. But one of the parts that made me go, oh, you are Emily is that Leslie explains like the Lauren person slash Andy character, and she was like the reason that I found it like interesting in the book is like I don't remember Lauren ever being a star on the rise. Yeah, but she's pretty much like that didn't happen. And then she explains like Lauren probably thought I was a bitch because I had to do her job for her because she was and she's like she was probably just sitting around writing her book, I guess, but she pretty much is like that girl never did her job and hated it there. And so yes, I used to snap at her because she wouldn't do her job, and I was like.33:29Speaker 1 WHOA to me?33:30Speaker 2 That was the most telling moment from this revelation from the real Emily from the Devilwars Prider. And can I say I've talked to a lot of people who have listened to this interview, and a lot of people have said, like, she comes across as classic Emily. She comes across as a mean girl for saying that, And can I just say team Leslie on that one.33:46Speaker 1 I thought classic Emily in a good way.33:48Speaker 2 Yeah, they're saying she's too mean, Yeah, that she was being mean about Lauren. Everyone closed ranks against Lauren when she wrote this book, to the point where that's why the company line is like we don't know who Lauren Weisberger is.34:01Speaker 1 And the Devil Wears prior like the first.34:03Speaker 2 Premiere, the one that was in New York, apparently, you know how like they have a host camp on stage and kind of greet everyone a paving. The host was like, you know how they got round the room like this person's here, this person's here. They were like Anna Wintour is here, as is the author of the book, and no they're not sitting together.34:17Speaker 1 And everyone was like whoa because they were in the same room. But also, I have this now.34:22Speaker 2 I think that this has been scrubbed from the internet, but I swear to God I read this quote when The Devil Wears Pride. It came out, but I've gone to look for it so many times and I can't find it. So I think that it was written in a magazine and it's been destroyed. Yeah, but I swear to God that Meryl Streep in an interview, they asked what she thought of Lauren Weisberger and she was like, if I was her, I would have spent more time learning from Anna Wintour than writing a book.34:45Speaker 1 That's just me. Now.34:47Speaker 2 That is not maybe not the kind of thing Meryl Street would say, And maybe I'm paraphrasing, but I feel like she says that in an innuay you have like.34:54Speaker 3 A pretty what is you don't have like a photographic memory, but you have pretty similar.34:58Speaker 1 I have a photograph of memory for so things.35:00Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, that'll help me in life. But I swear to god, I read that quotally magazine. Yeah, and some person obviously didn't upload it to the internet or it was it's been screet internet.35:11Speaker 1 But I feel like that was just the vibe.35:12Speaker 2 But yeah, I was very much on Leslie's side because she really cared about fashion. She talked about the fact that she had come from Canada and she had really had to fight her way into this job, and she was working like all that stuff you see in the movie about she was told she had to be in the office at seven point thirty.35:29Speaker 3 She moved closer to the office so she could be there on time and stay late.35:33Speaker 1 I was sleeping in.35:33Speaker 2 That office, so she had to be there at seven thirty in the morning. Yeah, with all of Anna's like books and papers, all that stuff you seen the devil was part of them. Putting him in a fan on her on her desk is all real. And then she had to wait around for the book again things we know from the movie. She had to wait around for the book till like ten o'clock at night, and so she's working these crazy hours she gets promoted to first assistant. They she hires Lauren Wiseberger, who has come from a very prestigious university and is very educated. This is sorry, I mean we know that that's a fact. She did come from a prestigious She was in the ivy leagues in America, so like super educated. And she said, from the moment Lauren got to Vogue, she was just like, I'm too good to be here, yeah, and I don't want to be here. And she had and she said she just wouldn't do her work, and so Leslie had to do all of her work for her. And that's where the resentment grew. And that's where the character of Emily from The Devil Wes Pridact came from her resentment.36:25Speaker 1 And I'm just like, if you've worked in a creative.36:26Speaker 2 Industry, everyone knows that feeling of having to do the work for someone else. Yeah, but there's no way to kind of track it a lot of the time publicly. Yeah.36:33Speaker 3 And it also reframes because she says, she's like, I absolutely told her a million girls would kill for this job, yeah, And like it reframes that to an extent too, Like she is of the opinion that Lauren's come in just to write this book and was wasting time and not doing her job, And it's like, yeah, you probably would say something.36:48Speaker 1 To that effect if you're at Vogue at.36:50Speaker 3 That point in time too, Like insane budgets all of that, So many career opportunities, which there still are with Vogue of course.36:57Speaker 1 But like the more that it's changed.36:58Speaker 3 At that point in time, that was the place to go if you wanted a career in journalism. You could get anything, and like Meryl Streeps or alleged quotes saying if you put in me with.37:08Speaker 1 The Meryl Streeps slander, will they even say? Like in podcasts?37:11Speaker 3 The first assistant before Leslie moved up went on to become the entertainment editor at Vogue it for years and years and years and is a very successful and respected journalist. Like you, Yeah, you could build a career off of being that assistant.37:24Speaker 2 I think back then that was the job one hundred girls would kill for and it probably still is. Yeah, Like I know it still is, Like Vogue still carries a lot of weight, and being an assistant is how you get into that pool. So I think that was Leslie's kind of like and we see that dynamic in the book, but we see it in a different way from Andy's perspective, which is Lauren's perspective of her just not coming into this, like what she's thinking is like a plumb job and not doing any work, but like secretly writing her book under the desk, which is the allegation that Vogue has not been able to prove. And also Leslie also said that she took a writing test for Vogue and was rejected, which is in becau. Lauren Weisberger had some writing published in Vogue recently interesting and everyone was like, look, the woman.38:04Speaker 1 Who was turned away from Vogue.38:06Speaker 2 All she had to go do was write a tell all memoir that gets turned into iconic film series and she finally got in.38:11Speaker 3 It's also kind of interesting then that like a subplot of The Devil wes Prata too, is the idea that Andy might write a tell all memoir.38:18Speaker 1 Okay, that was.38:18Speaker 2 Such a quote when I went and saw because I saw that first part of the movie before I went and did The Devil West prior of interviews, and in the theater I was seeing there was like four other journals. I went because I'm like, that was such a Lauren Weisberger burn Yeah, where they were like, what is she going to do? Go write a tell a memoir about her boss? Ha ha as if that's the worst thing you could do. And I was like, that is literally why we're all sitting here, Yeah, because someone did that. But it's kind of become like, it's interesting because Anna Wintour like could have come out of all of this looking like the villain, but she's come out looking like the hero because everyone's like, we love Miranda Priestley, we love Meryl Street, we love this movie, and by default, we love and a wind Tour for being a part of this and that's why she's lent into it. And then Lauren Weisberger has become the kind of like, obviously she's published so many books and she's doing really well, but she has kind of become the punchline when she was initially set up to be the hero, which I find so interesting. And I just find like Leslie's perspective on Anna so different from someone who was just came in with like kind of no emotion, very ambitious because she talks about the fact that Anna was like very much like no personal chat. We're all here to work, and she works like that and she's very comfortable in that setting.39:28Speaker 1 Can't relate to that, can't relate but I love that story she told where.39:33Speaker 2 So Leslie who was giving the interview, the real Emily is from Canada, and so she was being sponsored by Vogue, a biolized Clark that's a fake company by Conde, asked to work at Vogue. And she got a call one day from the Vogue human resources team to say they were no longer sponsoring anyone, so they weren't going to like do her next visa, and so she basically had to leave the country and lose her job. And she said that she was just hysterically sobbing, something she's never done before, but she was so upset and fair enough, and she said that An she didn't know Anna was going to be in the office that day. All of a sudden, Anna Wintour walks in and I don't know why this is so funny to me. She's like, Anna was clearly uncomfortable, and she just walked away. She just walked into her office. But then she waited a few minutes called her in and I love how Leslie did her. Anna Wintour's voice she said she tried to like kind of do like half a British accident.40:19Speaker 1 She was like, Leslie, why are you crying?40:21Speaker 2 Looks so angry, but also just like can't not angry, but just like so flabbergasted that someone in her office would be showing emotion. And so Leslie told her and she was like, Anna Wintle' was like, oh my god, go sit down and stop crying for God's sake.40:32Speaker 1 And then Anna Wintour just called.40:34Speaker 2 All of a sudden, this man appeared in the office who's like the head of human resources.40:38Speaker 1 And Anna Wintour is like.40:39Speaker 2 Ci, my assistant is crying, and in her head, she's like and that's the worst thing anyone could ever do.40:45Speaker 1 In front of me.40:46Speaker 2 She's like, can you please just get her a visa? Just go and sword it. And he's like, yeah, that's fine. And so she got to stay in America. And now she credits this whole huge fashion career that she's had to Anna Wintour just telling her to stop crying.40:57Speaker 3 And fair enough, It's like, yeah, I do think I thought the little insights were interesting. It's also so interesting because Chloe's the one interviewing her. Yeah, and Chloe, like everyone who is online and has seen the pair of them together in recent interviews, is intrigued by the Chloe Anna relationship and like.41:12Speaker 1 Oh, I don't know. I want to from Chloe so bad.41:15Speaker 3 Yeah, and like little things right, like Leslie was like, well, you can't ask her questions and Chloe's like yeah yeah, and then then.41:21Speaker 1 She's like I'm living that in real time. It's like real And.41:23Speaker 3 They're talking about like the book and like the little like wheel seas, which was apparently like little posters or like seams, which was little posters that Anna would put on to be like email this person, tell them to come see me.41:33Speaker 1 I don't like this bro. Little things like that.41:35Speaker 3 It was so interesting to see like Leslie talking about a career she had twenty years ago and Chloe talking about the career she has now and then both just relating to like Anna's anaysms, but also revealing that like a lot of the things don't come from Anna herself. Yeah, that was interesting. They were like, she's not the one who says you can't take bathroom breaks. It's just like something that's been passed down.41:55Speaker 1 Yeah, it's been passed down. Yeah.41:56Speaker 2 The other thing I thought was really interesting was a reveal that came right to the end, and it was the question that Chloe asked her, which was like, have you have you who plays Emily and The Devil Wears Prata? Have you ever met Emily Blunt? And the answer was yes, because of course she's a celebrity stylist, so she's in that world. And she even Leslie said she always thought about what she would say if she ever met the person who had played her on screen and turned her into this iconic character, even though no one knew that she was the real Emily. So she said she was at a dinner one night at a mutual friend's house and she was like, this is my moment. Emily Blunt's right there. We're on this, We're on even ground. I'm not coming up to an event, We're at a mutual friend's house. We're both here as equals. And then she said to her as they were chatting, I just need to let you know that I am the real Emily. And to be so fair a Leslie, I would have done the exact same thing.42:44Speaker 1 Who wouldn't You're telling Emily.42:46Speaker 2 Blunt that her most iconic role, her first big role, that blew up her career is based on you. I would have dropped that and just been like, like, she she's gonna lose her mind. And apparently Emily Blunt couldn't care less. She said oh and just like went on with the conversation. Now did she not hear her or have so many people in the fashion industry said things like that to her before trying to have an in with her? She was like, oh, or was she maybe like and maybe like alarms went up and she was like, Oh, is this woman gonna say to me at my friend's house like she didn't like my portrayal because she plays her really nasty in a funny way.43:21Speaker 1 Is she gonna like.43:22Speaker 2 Ask me, you know some sort of like inside a question? Does she know something? She worked with the woman who wrote this book and like everyone I know doesn't like that woman, like it was a lot so or does she just is Emily Blunt so cool? She just genuinely did not care.43:35Speaker 3 I feel like Emily Blunt just doesn't care. I really like it, but sometimes intrigues me.43:41Speaker 2 I can't believe that because if you met any person, like if you met the person who was the real person behind a role you played as an actor.43:49Speaker 1 Wouldn't you be interested in that? I ignore people would Yeah, I know.43:53Speaker 2 Some actors don't like to meet the person because they don't want the lines to be blur, they don't want to feel like they can't show them in their worse or they don't want to sort of like do a parody of a person. Yeah, but like that shit is sailed like she did it for the first time twenty years ago. Yeah, Devil was prior to too, wasn't filmed at the time. But also there was no inkling that Devil's product she was ever gonna happen. Yeah, I just want and I'm sure someone will ask Emily Blunt the next time she does a lot of press, and I'm so interested in her answer that. Yeah, it's almost like you feel bad for Leslie.44:22Speaker 3 Like it would have just been at least nice, Like as much as I think she people really like the Emily character and stuff she does.44:29Speaker 1 Speak about it at the.44:30Speaker 3 Time, like people in the industry all knew that it was based on her and her being really scared of how she'd be perceived or if she'd be hired again, or what would happened to her career based on this version of the history they went through together. And she also says like Lauren never called her, Lauren never gave her a heads up, like they have not spoken since, so it's not like how Andy and Emily got along in the end. That's not what has happened here. So she's kind of gone through that never outed herself, goes up to the woman who played her, thinking, oh, we can at least have a nice discussion, and she just.44:56Speaker 1 Gets like kind of ghosted. I don't know that would suck. I think Emily Blunch probably reconsider talking to her about that.45:04Speaker 3 Well.45:04Speaker 2 It's such an interesting interview, and we'll link the whole thing in our show notes.45:07Speaker 1 Because we've only sort of scratched the surface. There's a lot more in there. So good.45:10Speaker 3 Thank you so much for listening to The Spill today. Don't forget to follow us on socials. We will pop all of the links in the show notes. We will be back in your feed bright and early tomorrow morning with morning Tea hosted by Ash London. The Spill is produced by Minisihaswarren, with video production by Michael King.45:24Speaker 1 Bye Bye,Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First up, the engagement rumours between Harry and Zoe have been swirling for weeks have officially been confirmed by a major outlet. We unpack how some of the world's biggest stars manage to share their life updates without looking "tacky," and why we are officially calling time on the "PR stunt" conspiracy theorists.Plus, production on the new season of one of the world's most anticipated television shows has been thrown into chaos after the A-list lead actress fled the set just days into filming. We dig into the "creative differences" that reportedly led to her sudden departure and look at the wild rumours surrounding who might be stepping in to save the day.And finally, it’s the reality TV leak that has consumed the internet this week. We’re discussing the explosive, top-secret audio recording from the Summer House reunion set that has caused a legal storm, furious producers, and a full-scale digital manhunt to identify the person behind the recording.Love binge-watching TV? 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You're already in the draw. T&Cs apply. Want to join the conversation? Have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss? Send us a voice message or email us at thespill@mamamia.com.au and we’ll get back to you ASAP! Executive Producer: Monisha Iswaran Audio & Video Producer: Michael Kean Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. From Mom and Me Out. Welcome to This Spill, your daily pop culture fix. I'm Laura Brodnick and I'm tinner Burk and coming up on the show Shay, real life drama on the White Lotus set with news that the biggest star of the new season has been recast. We're going to get into what really happened, or at least what the reports say are really happening, because it's very messy plus even more drama. It's reality TV meets true crime. The Summer House League explained, and even if you don't like Summer House, you on across it. This was breaking news across the world. There were investigations, celebrities were weighing in. We're going to get into that, but first, some news of a romantic nature.00:38Speaker 2 Yes, some news that you did unpack last week on the Spill, but that has finally we confirmed, And is that Harry Styles is engaged to Zoe Kravitz per People Magazine.00:46Speaker 1 Yeah, so I'm still I mean, I do think they are engaged, just because all the reports are on, I don't know if they're you know, if there's some celebrity couples that are kind of in bed with people and they do covers with them, or they do photo exclusives and things, and so when theyvenues to share, but they don't want to look tucky or they don't want to look like they're sort of fanning the flames of rumors, they'll just have their people confirm two People Magazine. But I don't see Zoey Isabelle Kravatz and Harry I'm sure of his middle name styles doing that.01:14Speaker 3 No, I don't think they're in fair with people.01:16Speaker 2 They're not like like tree Pain calls people up and she gives them the tea on ta like officially not in a bad way, But I don't think they're really like that for sure.01:23Speaker 1 Well, the reason they do that is they're not like some of the other tabloids. I mean, they're not tabloid. And sometimes they do if they run a room, they mark in rumor, which is fair enough, we all do it. But I guess the way that like someone like a tree Pain whose tailor swifts, pubblicers would do that because it's one of the quickest ways to clarify or put out a rumor, and the People Magazine team never breathe a word of it, even though it's kind of widely known who they're speaking to, so it's kind of like a win win situation.01:49Speaker 3 I'm not sure if Zoe and Harry's team.01:52Speaker 1 Is confirming to them, it's probably just someone there in a circle because they're not trying to hide it. Has yaid like yeah, because the quotes are very like, yeah, they're engaged.01:59Speaker 3 She really like three Yeah, thank god.02:02Speaker 2 Because I'd be weird if you didn't. I do think like, first of all, like shout out to all the haters last week who said it was a PR relationship and who.02:09Speaker 1 Oh my god, people, I never live in the fantasy world that these people live, where they think that celebrities get married, have children, spend their whole lives being photographed for PR.02:21Speaker 3 Sometimes for a movie they didn't even want to do.02:23Speaker 2 Yeah, people were like, it's a ring from her line. They're not engaged, is all I have to say to that. But anyone who's fanna Harry like saw it coming as well, because he did all those interviews for like American Girls. His song from his album which I cannot say kissing sometimes and discoing occasionally.02:38Speaker 3 That's the name of the song.02:39Speaker 2 No, that's his badly paraphrased album. The song name is American Girls. No, that should be a song. It should be a song name. But on American Girls. He literally like did a whole interview being like I assessed my life and I saw where do I want to be in five years. I want a family, I want kids, So I do think he was just like, right, Zoe Kravitz, it's with you.02:55Speaker 1 Everyone falls in love with Zoe Kravitz when they date her, like, yeah, we couldn't beating away. Yes, yeah, And she's only said yes three times that we know.03:03Speaker 3 Of, and this is the third one and this is the third.03:05Speaker 1 But she's if you're like the that's high odds if you're getting proposed to all the time, as I believe she.03:09Speaker 2 Would, Yeah, j Reckon, everyone has like did Michael faspend a late day?03:13Speaker 3 And she was like, can badly tried? He would?03:15Speaker 1 He would write it off now, but you just know that boy was like, please marry me, and she was like, no.03:19Speaker 2 No, I can't, pen Bactually I've got other people to marry exactly.03:22Speaker 1 Well. Someone she did say yes to was Channing Tatum, who's done in her movie Blink twice yea, and he put up a little Instagram comment this week that I'm actually kind of more invested in because like the engagement room is, I'm like still a rumor. I'll really believe it when I don't know if we'll see wedding photos. As we said previously, she did share a lot of photos from her wedding to Carl and they had that chic Parisian wedding where she wore the ballet flats. Yeah, but I don't know if this time around the level of fame and intrusion around the two of them, whether they will.03:51Speaker 3 But we'll see.03:52Speaker 1 But anyway, I just want everyone to spare a thought for Channing Tatum today because as news of the engagement was confirmed, I mean it's with the timeline, like definitely within the few days it was confirmed, but in the hour that after People Magazine fran I'm just saying there's.04:07Speaker 3 A correlation and that man like that man's been.04:09Speaker 1 Super famous for a long time. He has dated a lot of high profile women. Channing Tatum knows what he posting his Instagram story will be picked up as part of the news story, so he wanted us to know. I believe how he's feeling right now. So Channing Tatum posted this poem to his Instagram story, My brain and Heart divorced a decade ago over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become? Eventually they couldn't be in the same room with each other.04:38Speaker 2 It's very Chloe Kardashian of him. Why why Kloia Kardashian, She's always sharing a cryptic Instagram Oh, you should spend more time on her Instagram story.04:46Speaker 1 No, I used to like love following all the Kartashians on Instagram when they would like film inside their like houses and shows, like when it was like kind of like an unedited version of their reality TV.04:54Speaker 2 Now it's like sponsorship, sponsor, sponship. Well, she's still sometimes she has a poem, so you got to get in there. I'm not I'm not going back into the story. I think Channing and he's like, Okay, that's what you do.05:03Speaker 1 We can't be in the same room together. Feels very pointed. I'm sure one day in some magazine profile when he's there's a photo of him looking soulfully off into the distance, a reporter probably from Vanity Fair, We'll ask him about this and he'll be like, no, it was just it was just about my heart and my head kind are the timing? Yeah, like we couldn't be in the same room together.05:23Speaker 3 What do we think?05:23Speaker 2 What's interesting because when they broke up, obviously they were doing press for Blink twice, and they kept saying like the nicest things about each other. I mean, you're not going to go out and be like she's the worst. But at the time they were still really complimentary of each other. And then I kind of think that now it's just like, oh, maybe he's a bit sad.05:38Speaker 3 Oh, I bet he's sad.05:39Speaker 1 No, I bet he's one thing is okay, And first of all, I'm not shading Channing Tatum.05:43Speaker 3 I actually quite like that man. I like him.05:47Speaker 1 He's just a dufist who also has a bit of like a good head on his shoulders for like producing and making movies and kind of and like was like instrumental and kind of building out the magic mic Bran into like a feminist masterpiece. If you've seen this stage show, well, yeah, the stage show is a feminist masterpiece. And I know here's people around him who do that. Ye, Because the one time I think he really could have been outed as a Hollywood jerk was when the Sony email league happened.06:11Speaker 3 Oh do you remember all of his because.06:13Speaker 1 He was like really in bed with Sony with like making Magic Mind and all his movies. I'm not like he could be a terrible person behind the scenes. I'm just saying, like, yeah, he's see I lovely. His private emails were leaked and there are a lot of celebrities who came out of that looking badly, but his were just like, yeah, baby, our movie is so good, like, yeah, we did this, thanks so much for your help, and I'm just getting how are you little? By all accounts greaker, Yeah, exactly. And you know, I feel like Zoe Kravitz wouldn't date a bit of us. She was probably just kind of got like they made that movie together. She was directing, he was the star. They were like really kind of like this creative partnership. And I feel like, maybe, as you're saying, when they kind of finished it and they're just sitting in their apartment together, just the two of them, that's when you go, huh, yeah, maybe is it forever?06:53Speaker 2 And maybe that's what he means by sharing this poem. At this time, he's like he's like my head and my heart couldn't agree, and like maybe in his heart he liked her, but in his head he was like, oh, well, she's not the one for me. No, I feel like she broke up with him for sure. Wasn't that the vibe? I mean, probably she does have the vibe of someone who would like aways with him. Yeah, she's not the nun percent.07:13Speaker 1 And I think the catalyst might have been member when he posted that photo of her sleeping.07:18Speaker 3 You think she saw that photo and she went too much. I think she got the ick.07:21Speaker 1 I think she already had the ike because they were back from filming, like they're on an island and they're like.07:25Speaker 3 Filming on location.07:26Speaker 1 They're making this like intense movie, and she was like, oh my god, he's an incredible like filmmaker and actor and we're collaborators. And I think they got back to their apartment and where they're just having their downtime. And that's when it's why so many people like broke up during lockdown. It's like, oh, do I really want to sit on the couch to this person forever?07:41Speaker 3 Not really? And then he posted this photo.07:44Speaker 1 Of her sleeping and with a lovely caption about how creative and credible she was, but it did give an air of desperation that he knew she was one foot out the door, and he tried to win her back with an Instagram story. And now he's posting to an Instagram story about his heartbreak.07:59Speaker 2 It's very poetic and lovely when you think about it.08:01Speaker 3 I mean, I don't love it.08:02Speaker 2 If I was him, I would keep quiet and like keep someone lure and mystery the moment in time.08:07Speaker 1 And also he's in his early forties and he's dating I believe they're still together a woman in her I'm going to say late twenties, mid twenties. Yeah, so at the end of the day all met at the same And also he's fine. I'm so can you imagine being her today? You're like, Hey, did you just post a cryptic messages?08:22Speaker 3 Yeah? Ex got engaged to Harry Styles.08:23Speaker 1 Interesting choice, Yeah, interesting, Well thoughts and pros with that girl when I'm really thinking of Yeah, I'm sure everyone else is fine.08:28Speaker 3 Yeah.08:30Speaker 2 So production on season four of The White Lotus officially kicked off this week in France, and we were all very excited about it because the car sounded really incredible. It is sort of a new French location vibe. We're not on a boat now, we're near where there are boats. So essentially this one is going to be like set at the Can Film Festival. There's going to be two luxury hotels, the Hotel Martinez, which will be like the White Lotus Can. So they've moved away from filming at four Seasons for this one, and then the next will be the Chateau Della. I'm going to say this is really bad Messadier in Santrope, which is going to be the White Lotus do cap. So it's kind of like a rich, luxurious background. There's gonna be Ken Film Festival filming, which will actually kick off on May twelve, So I think they're actually going to film at the festival, which is cool, and we'll be a lot of fun because I'm sure there will be some celebrity cameos. But the actual cast itself was very impressive when it was first announced. So you've got like Alexander Ludwig, who I know from The Hunger Games but other people would know from Vikings, AJ Michayla, Steve Coogan, Christmasina, Sandra Bernhard, Max Greenfield. The most exciting one though, was when Helena Bodham Carter was announced, so she was one of the first ones announced. It was all very tizzy and very exciting because also as much as I love her, she's not necessarily I would think someone i'd picture on the White Loaders.09:42Speaker 3 I don't know about you.09:43Speaker 1 No, no, no, she doesn't really do TV like she does. She is kind of u She's a character actress, but she does a lot of big blockbusters. And she's also very careful that she said now also at this point her career of what she says yes to and who she wants to work with. She is one of those actresses who is which is only a small number of women in Hollywood who get a huge amount of offers and can actually pick and choose what they want. And she has also been very vocal in the past of only working with certain directors and filmmakers. So one like, she's a huge star. She's definitely the biggest name of this cast by far. And it was kind of an unwritten thing from Mike White, who's the creator and writer of The White Lotus, that she was going to be the center point or the lynchpin for the story. So you got this idea that they had met many times they had this collaboration and he had kind of centered everything around her. And the crazy thing is like recasting a role, even a huge role like that, is not unheard of, you know, like a Hollywood production or a TV show, but very very rarely when you're on set, especially a set like this where you've brought because famously the White loatus doesn't film in chunks and different locations. They bring the whole cast together and kind of lock them in. There's like summer camp vibe at like a beautiful resort and location and kind of shoot it all in one go with everyone on set at the same time. So the fact now that the star has led the premises is crazy.11:03Speaker 3 Yes.11:03Speaker 2 So over the weekend, it was announced to The Hollywood Reporter that Helena was dropping out of season four and it was quote like just days into shooting, so that actually started and then all of this happens. So what the Hollywood Reporter has said is with filming just underway in season four, it's become apparent that the character Mike White created for Helena Bonham Carter did not align once they got to say it, once they started filming. And this is from a HBO spokesperson, so it's also not rumor. Yeah, they said the role has subsequently been rethought, they're rewriting it. It's going to be recast in the next few weeks. The producers and Mike White are sad and they won't get to work with her, but they remain quote ardent fans and very much hope to work with the legendary actress on another project soon. So obviously that came out over the weekend, very formal, very official.11:44Speaker 1 It is, And like, I just I just feel like something bigger has definitely happened. Yeah, for like production to be stopped like that and for her to just like not be in the role at all, and what kind of creative differences have happened behind the scenes for them not to be able to get this character to work in this setting, because it is a huge deal now in the middle of production, and Mike White is you know, he speaks about being so meticulous about his casting because the casting is really what makes the White lotus every year because it's the same formula. We know there's going to be a death, that it's the sort of the same thing over and over again. The only thing that we're really tuning in for is all these different characters and their dynamics and how they come across. And so he has said before he's so specific about who he casts, and other actresses have said that we don't usually audition, but we auditioned for the White Lotus because that's just what you have to do. And he writes parts for people sometimes, like he did for Helen Us. So I just feel like something quite crazy has happened. I mean, not even crazy. I just want to for it got there and he was giving her direction to notes and she was just like doing her interpretation because that's what she kind of does, like she interprets her characters, and it just didn't align to the point that she hopped on a private jet out of there.12:56Speaker 2 And I love her deally and she is an excellent actress, but I also feel a lot of the time when I see her on screen, it is very similar, and I do, Yeah, I wonder if you're right, and like maybe the vibe of what he wanted to bring out in her just wasn't what she wanted to give.13:09Speaker 3 Maybe, yeah, I mean, also don't I mean, I don't know.13:11Speaker 1 I think also, you get to a stage in your career, and like I feel like Helena would be there where She's been in the industry for like well over three decades now, and you kind of get an idea of like how you want to work and how you want to shape things. And she is such a if you listen to interviews with her, likeath interviews that she's done, she's such a kind of like on Hollywood Straight Talker and doesn't stuffer fools. Not that I think my wife is a fool, but I also just think that like she just got there and she it didn't really work out. I guess the one kind of good thing is that because they have all the casts there, they've been able to pull all of the scenes forward, so they haven't had to fly people in and like all that sort of stuff. They've just been able to keep filming while they recast this role. Yeah, but it's I mean, it does happen sometimes. Remember when Stuart townsmen I mean not remember because we're not there, went to the Lord of the Ring set and started filming the role of Aragon and then they're like, it's actually it's not going to work, so you just need to sorry, like thanks for coming to New Zealand thanks for putting on the outfit. Yeah, and we're going to fly you out. And an actor called Vigo moreess fly little guy, pay no attention to you put on the way.14:13Speaker 3 I mean, it has to happen.14:14Speaker 2 Sometimes sometimes you do get to set and realize that a dynamic or a grouping doesn't work, or that like, hey, you did a chem test, but actually as we try to bring it together, it's not working. Yeah, which is something The Daily Mail has suggested. So an anonymous source has told The Daily Mail that the word is Helena left because of a clash with Sandra Bernhard.14:33Speaker 1 I mean, I kind of almost want that to be true. I would like it to be true.14:38Speaker 2 They're denying the claim, but I'm interested to know if something has happened.14:43Speaker 1 If that happened, that will definitely come out, because it'll come out from Sandra or Helena, Like one of them will say it.14:49Speaker 3 Yeah. They won't keep that quiet. They just don't.14:51Speaker 1 They're not on social They're not going to like tweet it or instare it or anything like that. But one of them will say it one day and like.14:56Speaker 2 Potentially, yeah, it could come out in an interview one day.14:59Speaker 3 I mean the White.15:00Speaker 2 This is like known for having a scandal here and there.15:02Speaker 1 It's always one scandal every season, but it's like almost like scandal light.15:07Speaker 3 It's just like they're never crazy.15:08Speaker 1 It's never like, as far as we know, like a big blowout fight or it's never like, you know, two married people hooking up.15:15Speaker 3 I think it's.15:16Speaker 2 Because not that they were married, but Ami Leewood and Wilton Goggins on following each other and that whole drama.15:21Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, I was that crazy, but that was crazy.15:24Speaker 2 That was even still that felt drama light because they kind of buried it and did stuff together afterwards.15:28Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, no, that's definitely That's definitely the big one.15:31Speaker 1 But I normally get the vibe that it doesn't spill over into social it's more just like as if like your colleagues and you are away for a month and like all these alter personal dramas and and all the stuff like blow up around like who's going to the beach together and who's going to lunch? And then everyone said they all organize a dinner every night, and like not everyone goes to every dinner like politics.15:51Speaker 2 Well yeah, last season it was something to do as well with like Jason Isaacs not getting on with everyone, and then he just kept dropping tea and everyone.15:58Speaker 1 Get Jason Isaacs on set. He was the only one giving us information last time around, and it's just unfortunate he wasn't super cross what was happening, because you just know that if he knew what was happening.16:10Speaker 2 We would know get him on the New white Land, we'd be getting like a four part Red Carpet Answer series.16:15Speaker 1 I know.16:15Speaker 2 So obviously now they're like working to figure out who's going to be the new Helena Bonham Carter. Like while actively filming, as you said, they're able to kind of bring forward other scenes. But there are rumors that Jennifer Tilley is in talks to replace her.16:29Speaker 3 That would I think that's a good fit.16:31Speaker 2 Yeah, so if anyone who doesn't know, she's currently a real housewife of Beverly Hills and a successful career poker player, but she's also like an Academy or nominee. She's like Chucky. He loves that sort of like a bit of stunt cast. Yeah, a stunt casting. I am intrigued of, like what exactly that role entailed that you would replace someone like Helena with someone like Jennifer.16:51Speaker 3 Yeah, that's a that's a swing, isn't it.16:53Speaker 1 I just like when you said that, I was like, oh, that kind of makes sense because Mike White like it's crazy. Well, no, yes, he is a creative genie. But like, if you didn't want Helena, why would you go and cast another like critically acclaimed British actors, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, obviously whatever he wanted from that character is not he's not getting from her, and she can do like she does like a lot of times, do a similar kind of vibe of her, like quirky character, but got the rain. She has a lot of range, and so he couldn't get it out of her. Maybe the right thing to do is to go in completely the opposite direction and get the poker playing housewife to do it.17:31Speaker 3 Because otherwise you're just recasting the same kind of actress and they would she would give the same kind of thing.17:35Speaker 2 Yeah, And I mean, like, not a lot is known at this stage, but I'm assuming with her being one of the first that she was also going to be one of the most central to the plotline. So it's also like very important obviously that they get this right to fit in with everyone else. But also you don't have much time. This isn't like a case of like, oh, we've got years to film, like they can't film festival starts in two weeks.17:54Speaker 1 Yeah, and they're clearly going to film it, and they only have these like locations booked out for a certain amount of time. It's because book out a hotel that is your set and also where the carts live, and you only had that hotel.18:04Speaker 3 I mean, I'm sure there's a buffer.18:06Speaker 1 On either end, not us getting worried about the production timeline. For the White Loaders, there's a buffer on either end, but like how big is that buffer? Yeah, because they're shooting quite quickly and you only have all those actors on hold for a certain amount of time to shoot, and then they often have built into their contracts like to come back and do reshoots. But again, the White Lotus films so differently, yes, that they usually do knock it all over in like one series, and everyone like leaves the camp they've been staying at.18:31Speaker 3 Yeah, it's absolutely wild.18:32Speaker 2 What I do hope happens though, is that they set an entire episode in like the period of a standing ovation at camp because gos for like twenty minutes. If you had different povs, you could fill a forty minute episode.18:43Speaker 1 It's an entire episode just from a standing ovation point of view, and like, I'm sure they will absolutely again Mike White, he's on the case.18:49Speaker 2 He's a bit busy on the case. He's lost his cast, but he's on the case otherless.18:54Speaker 1 So this is the year that I became very invested in reality TV because.18:59Speaker 3 Of the show. Well done to me. I thought I was better than everyone else.19:02Speaker 1 Turns out I'm not mad, and that was because of a show called Summer House. I've also never been into true crime before, but recently I find myself very invested in true crime also because of Summer House.19:16Speaker 2 Yeah, you put on your little FBI hat and you're ready to go.19:18Speaker 3 Me and everyone else in the world.19:20Speaker 1 Like, if you've been on any sort of social media platform grouped had anything over the last couple of days, you would have heard about the Summer House league breaking news. Obviously, big things happening in the world, but this was a bit of a fun for all of us. So, as we've said before on two episodes that we've covered, this, Summer House a reality TV show on Bravo that's been running for ten seasons, is in the midst of a huge scandal because two cast members, Amanda Patula and West.19:45Speaker 3 I want to say, Wilson not important. That man isn't Wes Wilson.19:49Speaker 1 The name of Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool is I don't know something to information, No, I know, I don't think it is. Those two hooked up and confirmed their relationship, which was a huge drama because Amanda was newly separated from her husband, Kyle Cook, also a member of the Summer House, actually a founding member since season one. But the bigger thing was is that Sierra Miller, a very beloved star of Summer House, had had a very intense relationship love story with West and was very very close friends with Amanda. So betrayal across the board. So up until this moment, people involved in the situation have given a few interviews. Wes did like a little meandering story on his podcast. Amanda put up something on her Instagram story saying she had to get it to real life, but she knows she's hurt people. Kyle Cook's giving interviews on the street. Sierra did a Glummer magazine cover kind of explaining her story. But everyone has really been waiting for the Summer House reunion because if you don't watch Bravo, which I personally didn't until the last year and a half, is that they released the season and then a few like well many months after the season has wrapped, but a few weeks after the final episode has aired, they have a reunion hosted Andy Cohen where all the carts come back together and they look back on this season and they have a few laughs, but mostly they air grievances and they fight out kind of things that have happened. So all eyes have been on the Summer House and reunion because not since scandal, not since the vander Pump Rules situation, with a cheating scandal of a much more intense but equally important kind of layer, not since that happened have people been tuned in for a reunion like they have for the Summer House reunion. And then we found out it was happening, and the casts were pictured going into the reunion. They were pictured leaving West and Amanda very infamously were photographed leaving together.21:37Speaker 3 She was wrapped in a blanket. I'm sure why.21:40Speaker 1 It's very cool, stressful, Well, she wasn't covering her face, but maybe she just needed a security blanket. And then like everyone's like, it's this brand of blanket, and then the brand came out, was like it's not us, we wouldn't be associated.21:51Speaker 3 So like tensions were high.21:52Speaker 1 Yeah, and Andy Cohen even filmed himself afterwards being like, okay, we filmed the Summer House reunion and he said, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. I've done over one hundred reunions and nothing I've seen has been as intense as this. And everyone's like, oh my god, this is going to be crazy. And then a day or so later, a piece of audio from the Lockdown Secretive set was leaked online and no one can even trace like where it just like it just appeared all of a sudden.22:19Speaker 3 It was just everywhere. I was convinced it was Ai. I was like, you're not going to get me today, I.22:23Speaker 1 Know exactly, and everyone's like, this is Siero, this is a man. I'm like, no, it's not like I listen to it and it was an audio leak from set. Now we're not going to play it because one legal issues, but a bigger, a bigger issue is that Andy Cohen asked everyone not to. He's like, yes, Andy Cohen took a real approach. He has been very intense about this. That man has been through the ring. Oh my god, the like it broke kind of late at night and then like looking like I was watching it all unfold on like threads and Insta comments and TikTok comments and like it was everywhere and everyone was like, oh my god, this leak is crazy, this audio is crazy, and so many fans are like, don't look, Andy, don't look when you wake up. And then when Andy Cahn woke up, he's like, I've seen it. He's replying to fans. He's like, I've seen it. I'm on my way to have eye surgery. Oh my way to ie surgery. He's like, I'm so disappointed, and this person will be found. So the audio itself, you listened to it, right.23:14Speaker 2 Yeah, In my favorite parties they do will have kind of different accents. So you're like, cool, that's siarah great. Yeah, oh you can se clearly.23:20Speaker 1 Yeah, I guess because they're sitting on a sound stage and they're micd So even though we'll get to how the recording happened, but like it's clear as day what everyone is saying. And so you hear Kyle kind of questioning West and Amanda. You hear Lindy another cast from the show who's like very outspoken and is a real kind of like tell the truth kind of person, sort of calling them out. You hear Wes just bumbling away like a slimeless and I don't dislike Wes, but like this a few years ago when he treated Sierra really badly, said he was in love with her, pursued her for a whole season. She finally kind of gave in to him. He's like, this is a nice guy. He took her to meet his family, and she has like a different relationship with her family. This is getting the weeds, and she was like, this is and she's like and also there's a huge racial element too, because Sarah was the first woman of color to be a main cast member on the show, and when she was with West, when the breakup happened, she got a lot of really racially charged hate against her. And then it's been a thing on the show of all the guys want to hook up with herb but that don't actually want to date her and be her girlfriend.24:21Speaker 3 And she's had to talk about the fact that and.24:23Speaker 1 She's like a real relationshippy girl. Yeah exactly. And she was like, you guys don't understand like the extra layer of like we all get fan criticism being on a reality TV show, but the extra layer of criticism and backlash that I get and the way people talk about me in the way I get treated, the way publications talk about me is so so so different.24:41Speaker 3 So West took her.24:42Speaker 1 To meet his family and then that was a big deal for her, as it would be for anyone, Like she's not crazy. She was like, Oh, this guy really likes me, and like all this happened off camera, so this was like a real relationship happening away from the camera. And then he broke up with her via an op ed in the New York Times.24:58Speaker 2 People need to stop doing New York Times opinions. I mean, because I love it, but like stop.25:02Speaker 1 Yeah.25:02Speaker 3 He was like, yeah, I just don't think that we were each other's person. That's okay.25:06Speaker 1 And then she was like, how about you tell me that before you go off and like give interviews about how I'm not your person anyway. So the rest of Summer House since Nan has been about them sort of coming back together, and here ty Win her back and just this week, as the audio leak was happening, they had a whole episode dedicated to them going off and having this really intense conversation and crying, and they ended up hugging and hugging and hugging and she was like, I think we can be best friends again.25:31Speaker 2 Do you think the producers went back and changed the season storyline potentially, yes, so that we got more of this, Yes.25:38Speaker 3 I think.25:39Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, it is hard to say, because they do have the footage for a long time, and they do like there is the potential to have it edited and had the whole season set before it comes out. I don't think they kind of show that's editing in like almost like real time to yeah, like it's me mass but yeah, exactly. It's not the kind of show where they're editing week to week. But the way that this last few episodes have been constructed with like so much on Western Sierra, but also so much on like how West and Amanda.26:07Speaker 2 Yeah, there was where she bought him a drink and I was like, this is suspicious.26:11Speaker 3 I know, Kyle's like right there, and I like all that poor silly beare.26:16Speaker 1 So yeah, potentially they have just added in I don't think they've changed like so much of what happened to storyline, because it is kind of set while they're filming, like they have producers coming over and tellme, like, now you guys are going to have an argument. You guys are going to do this, so we're going to film you guys together. But I do wonder if they added in a few more scenes because now that show has so many more eyes on it. So the audio came out, and so it's Kyle questioning them, it's Lindsay chiming In, It's Jesse Solomon, who's another cast member who was like really good friends with West chiming In. It's West being like, oh, the reason we put that statement out is because everything just blew up so fast, and like very famously last time Sierra confronted him about breaking up with her public and he just said nothing the whole time, like he he doesn't have a like a back bone when these things happen. The big kind of moment from this leaked audio that made it so explosive was like it really showed us the moment where Siara and Amanda have their confrontation.27:13Speaker 3 The audio kind of picks up where.27:14Speaker 1 Amanda is saying like, you can't help who you like, and you can't help what you do in this situation. And she was like, you know, I'm single, and Siah's like, you're not. You're still legally married. And then Amanda fires back to her, what was I supposed to do, like stay celibate until I get divorced, until a judge signs the papers.27:30Speaker 3 What was I supposed to do? Never date anyone?27:32Speaker 1 And then Siah's coming back and saying, but you didn't have to date like your friend's ex. And then she and this is a really explosive part, she goes, you are a sneak in the grass, Amanda, silent but deadly. You are a sneak, can you men?27:45Speaker 2 And it's amazing because Sierra's accent is so fucking delightful, Like, oh my god, I love when she speaks.27:50Speaker 3 She's on the South. Yeah, it's so good. Fair enough look for me.27:54Speaker 2 I don't think anything's ever going to top Ariana telling Rachel when scandal happened, like go fuck yourself with the cheese grater.28:00Speaker 3 That was crazy. So we haven't seen the whole reunion, but that is a.28:02Speaker 2 Close second, and it showed like I just think at the end of the day, like what we do remember but Alo sometimes forget is these are real people, yah, and this is happening in real time, Like that reunion was fresh after all of this happened, So like, I love that she got a moment to stand up for herself, but it's still just like and apparently.28:18Speaker 1 They did film for about ten hours, so that's like the clip itself is like forty seconds. Oh. The other thing that was confirmed that we talked about when this news first broke, which I always said, ikey of true and now it is true, is that Amanda said their hand was forced because an intimate video was taken. So there was always this rumor that the whole story broke because someone filmed her and West in his apartment like before they're about to have sex some while she was getting changed and they were talking about the video. So in this Amanda was saying, so she's like, I hadn't seen the video, but like we had to get a statement out before the video was released.28:50Speaker 3 And there's a rumor that.28:51Speaker 1 Ceria met with a fan who had the video. So that's all still to come.28:54Speaker 3 Yeah.28:55Speaker 1 So then everyone started questioning, well, who leaked the video? And first of all, or I turned to the cast of Summer House and everyone was trying to figure out who was sitting where, and they were like, it's it must have been kJ, who's like a new cast member came in his West friend now very off West in his team Sierra everyone, so you can tell by the sound the audio that it's kJ And someone's like, no, no, no, it's Jesse. When he talks, his voice is like a slightly different level to everyone else.29:21Speaker 3 And then everyone's like, no, no, no, it was Kyle.29:23Speaker 1 And then there was even a theory that went for a long time that it was Amanda and West who put it out because they.29:29Speaker 3 They would be a bad move.29:30Speaker 1 I mean, who would even know at this stage, but that was the story. Everyone's like, oh, West and Amanda have leaked it themselves. Was the room for a long time because they were unsure of how it was going to be edited together and where they would get a villain edit. And they thought that bit of them saying like, well, our hand was forced. A video was out there. We had to do this right. We like him saying like we had to get that statement at her saying like, well, you can't help her, you like would put them in a better favor than an edited version. So that all happened. All the different Summer House people were saying no it was and asked like all the cast members. Kyle Cook put up a video saying it wasn't him. And he also said like when we're filming these reunions, security on set is really tight, and you have your phone with you, it has to be turned off and like zipped into one of the couch cushions. So he's like, how would you even get it out without anyone scene to film it.30:17Speaker 2 I mean you could just pressure record before you went in, Kyle, but plot hole anyway.30:21Speaker 3 Well, I think they get checked that they're turned off.30:23Speaker 1 They're like everyone's phone turned off, like they like they've been doing this.30:26Speaker 3 For twenty years. Like you feel like if someone's gonna like it.30:29Speaker 1 Yeah, And he also said that all the hair and mancup people who come out and do the touch ups are locked dinner not locked. I'm sure they can go to the bathroom and get water. They get taken back to the makeup room. So then on set for filming and then they get brought out for touch ups. So he's like, so they couldn't record either, And then the roommate came out that it was potentially someone from production who there was like speakers in other rooms because you know, like you have the feedback in the audio and stuff that they had put a phone up against a speaker to recorders or hell broke loose.30:58Speaker 2 Yes, and like he was like, it's disgusting and illegal. Yeah, he was like intense, Oh my god, he was.31:04Speaker 1 So he was like, this person will be found and if it was you, like you know, watch exactly, and he's like, we don't tolerate this. And it was so funny because I saw so many people being like, oh my god, it wasn't even at the Summerhouse reunion and I'm getting nervous. That made me with me, Everyone's like, was it accidentally me? So then it came out. Then Bravo released the same and saying we got them, we found the person.31:27Speaker 3 That person, yeah, that person. Bravo haven't said yet, who know, they haven't said who it is.31:31Speaker 1 They said it wasn't anyone from the car, so they put that information in the official statement. They said it was someone within the production, but they haven't said who it is who took an illegal recording and that they are being dealt with, and that I asked, has anyone's seen this person again they get disappeared by Bravo. I wouldn't put a pass, bro, I don't if there's anyone I'm not crossing, it's freaking Andy Cohen. No. That man is like a mastermind and he does not take. He the one thing he doesn't take is like any kind of slander or anyone messing with his shows. Yeah. Sa Michell Geller the other day just said like, oh I don't like this new season and whatever Housewives she was watching, and he went online.32:04Speaker 3 He's like, how dare she like? He doesn't suffer it? Yeah?32:08Speaker 1 So yeah, God God rest that poor soul, who I'm assuming could be.32:12Speaker 2 Someone from Sound Productions. To me, all of it sounded pretty level. I know, people were really like, oh, it's also different. I just thought it all sounded like Mike pickup, yeah, which would indicate someone from Sound Probably.32:23Speaker 1 Well again this person who I'm gonna go ahead and allegedly is no longer with us. This person, apparently Andy said on his podcast Just that was released today that they had a team of investigators on it who were like forensically breaking down the different sound, Like this is how serious it is because also there's money, there's legal things and everything.32:43Speaker 2 I mean, if anything, I think this is going to get people to watch it. Oh but people already gonna watch it.32:48Speaker 3 Yeah.32:48Speaker 1 So apparently Andy said they found the culprit via like forensic investigation of sound. But also this is the thing, this is how crazy Bravo fans are, and like full respect to them and never cross them. Is that he said that the Bravo fan pages and like accounts everything were on it in such an extreme way, and they were passing on information about who the league was, Like they were zoning in on this person from like across the world in their fan groups. They were hunting this person down. And Andy's saying that a fan came forward with the crucial information, like they cracked the code a fan.33:20Speaker 3 What did a fan have?33:21Speaker 1 Well, he said, well, knowing we'll know soon, but we don't know now. A fan figured it out and passing information onto Andy Cohen, which allowed this person, who I'm assuming is down de ceased. I'm just like, I'm assuming it's own deceased to be caught and dealt with by the proper authorities within Bravo, because Bravo's a self servicing world, whereas I feel like they don't. They have their own rules of how to.33:42Speaker 3 Deal with people.33:42Speaker 1 Do you think they're going to need like a reunion for the reunion because Andy's gonna have to give us like a four part series A they edit that freaking union down to two hours when they have ten hours of footage. God help me, Andy Cohen, I'll leak something myself.33:54Speaker 2 But you know, well you wouldn't know because you don't really want ch ows wives. But you know, like on Housewives, when there's like a throwback, it's like black and white and like the camera's always shaky. Yeah, and there's that really specific like Hou's Wives and music it's like d and then like I just am picturing that. But if someone listening to audio waves, they have to have filmed the investigation.34:13Speaker 3 Oh, I mean god, I hope. So yeah.34:15Speaker 1 Now the question just remains why did they do it? Because yes, the simplest and always I guess the main reason for everything is money. But also no one outlet leaked it as a e exclusive. It just was like disseminated to a bunch of outlets, so did all those outlets pay? But also that couldn't be tracked, so did this person not get any money? The theory is that they did it because they didn't want Amanda in West. This is getting in the weed because everyone's like those producers work with these people for years and they feel betrayed as well, and they didn't want Amanda and West to get a good edit, and they didn't want them to be protected the way they potentially could have been, because Amanda is in another rapin off show and potentially Wester is as well, and so they wanted people to see how they really were in the reunion.34:58Speaker 3 I don't know.34:58Speaker 2 That's a prodlicting story, yeah, because ones like Western Amanda wanted to get it out to show that good people, and the other is like, no, they're awful and we're going to prove it.35:05Speaker 3 Yeah, so we.35:07Speaker 1 Don't know yet, but like there's a lot of theories around. But anyway, that is a summer house leak.35:12Speaker 2 I didn't think it could get any worse last week, Like I thought we were at the peak.35:16Speaker 1 It's not airing the Ringion for a few more weeks. So more drama to calm but anyway that is true crime meets pop culture a beautiful place to be in.35:24Speaker 2 Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today. We love hearing from our spillers, so please send us a DM on Instagram or TikTok.35:31Speaker 3 We will be back in your feed.35:32Speaker 2 Tomorrow morning at seven am with morning.35:33Speaker 3 Tea hosted by Ash London.35:35Speaker 2 The Spill is produced by Manisha's Foreign with video production by Michael Keane.35:39Speaker 3 Bye Bye Lan Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Mob 47 we've been trying to get to for a while. Along with a new unreleased BGP lick. Go get the new BGP Distro release by World Beaters! Hit us up at brothersgrimpunk@gmail.com and grab our music on our Bandcamp page. Physical media available.486 Playlist:Get The Punk Out...GTFO 0:46 BGP Unreleased Single Spela Bort Ditt Liv 1:03 Mob 47 Tills Du Dör London Zero Point 1:08 W.M.D.s Front Toward Enemy IN Running joke 1:50 Use Of Force Liminal dread Full Demo (bkgrd) 16:21 B.I.C. B.I.C. 8 Song Demo Sistema Mortal Tapes For how longer? 1:34 Reality Earth of darkness To Stop The Conflict 2:08 LiFE LiFE / DESTRUCT - TO STOP THE CONFLICT Fist To Fist 1:27 Richter Scale Chain Circuits - Demo NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH GESTAPO 0:44 Shut the Fuck Up Stay Hungry I DO MY GRATITUDE JOURNALS IN PEN 1:35 TEN CENT LIFE DEMO 2024 [NTR 416]  Futuro Negro 1:34 SYSTEMA Última Guerra LP Sac Dead to your world 1:48 Aggrastat Noise Extermination EP Cocaine Wars 1:00 Toxic Wizard 有毒なウィザード 2019 Demo Promo 反帝国 (Hanteikoku) 1:20 Nisemono 偽者 Demo I'd Piss Anywhere But On You 1:52 Ciggy Pepsi The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit, and Ciggy Pepsi Full Demo (bkgrd) 16:21 B.I.C. B.I.C. 8 Song Demo Santa Rosa Dope Sack (Trippin' Me Out) 2:25 Speak for the Dead 9 To LifeOther ways to hear BGP:Archive.org#486 on ArchiveApple PodcastsYouTube PodcastsPunk Rock Demonstration - Wednesdays 7 p.m. PSTRipper Radio - Fridays & Saturdays 7 p.m. PSTContact BGP:brothersgrimpunk@gmail.com@Punkbot138 on Instagram@BrosGrimPunk on XMore Music:Bandcamp - Follow us and download our albums: Brothers Grim Punk, Fight Music, and more!YouTube - tons of our punk playlists, from Anarchy to Zombies!

Haize welcomes guest Dstany from Hoeology podcats for a fun discussion about submission, black culture embracing kink, & being sex positive. Haize also talks about the upcoming Martin re-union special, Texas A&M University coach Sydney Carter, Kayne West & much more.Topics:Intro (00:41)In The Mind Of Haize: Sydney Carter, Martin Re-Union & Kaybe West & JP Morgan Chase Racism Lawsuit.(2:15)S.L.U.T. Me Out feat. Ds'Tany (15:05)Get at us:Email: TheAwakenedSoulPod@gmail.comFacebook: The Awakened SoulInstagram: @TheAwakenedSoulPodTwitter: @AwakenedSoulPodPhone: (614)-547-2039Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-awakened-soul-podcast6887/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

CityBillyHowl'sHaunted JukeboxFeaturing thrills and chills by :Black Knights (Stockholm)Boyd Bennett (Louisville)Crazy Cavan (Newport) Donna Dunne (Dublin)Glen Glenn (Joplin)Guitar Slingers (Dublin)Hank Thompson (Texas)Johnny Stark (New Jersey)Memphis Morticians(New York)Moonshine Stalkers (London)Pete De Bree (Detroit)Spellbound (Bray)The Dead Ricardos (Los Angeles)The Grims (Los Angeles)The Lab Ratz (Montreal)The Lucky Bullets (Oslo)The Meteors (London)The Monsters (Bern)The Quakes (Buffalo)The Spectres (Seattle)The Strange Blue Dreams (Glasgow)T.J. Mayes (OKC)Wanda Wolfe (Oklahoma)Weldon Rogers(Oklahoma)Wild Wax Combo (Copenhagen)1.) Don't Believe in Love - Spellbound [Eleven Deadly Sins]2.) Long Tall Lou - Pete De Bree & The Wanderers [Hey Mr. Presley/Long Tall Lou]3.) Rockin' Billy - Johnny Stark & The Four Winds [Rockin'Billy/Drivin' Me Out]4.) Everybody Wants You - Weldon Rogers & Wanda Wolfe [Everybody Wants You/This Song Is Just For You]5.) Hot Rod from Hell - Wild Wax Combo [Ready To Go]6.) Mr. Cool - Crazy Cavan & The Rhythm Rockers [Mr. Cool]7.) I'm Not Dead - Krewmen [Into the Tomb]8.) Nightmares - Black Knights [Yonder Comes a Sucker]9.) Into the Darkness - The Meteors [In Heaven]10.) Johnny Remember Me - The Meteors [Wreckin' Crew]11.) Insaniac - Guitar Slingers [Carnevil of Souls]12.) Diggin' My Grave - The Monsters [I See Dead People]13.) Dead Man's Shoes - The Lucky Bullets [Dead Man's Shoes]14.) The Barrel of Her Gun - The Lucky Bullets [Dead Man's Shoes]15.) One Cup of Coffee - Glen Glenn [The Glen Glenn Story]16.) I'm Glad My Baby's Gone Away - Glen Glenn [Glen Rocks]17.) Move - Boyd Bennett & His Rockets [Rockin' Up A Storm]18.) Millionaire Hobo - Jets [Session Out]19.) Rockin' In The Congo - Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys [Rockin' In The Congo/I Was The First One]20.) 45 R.P.M. - T.J. Mayes [From The Plains To The Piers]21.) Riding - The Lab Ratz [Terror Is Loose]22.) Suicide - Spellbound [Mystical Madness]23.) Homicide - 999 [Homicide]24.) Spook Factor - Memphis Morticians [Dial 'M' For Morticians]25.) Spy vs. Spy - Moonshine Stalkers [Splatter House]26.) The 4D Man - Doyley & The Twanglords [Twang Solo]27.) Restless Nights - Donna Dunne & The Mystery Men [Voodoo]28.) Reverberatin' Love - The Strange Blue Dreams [The Strange Blue Dreams]29.) Moonlight - The Wrongdoings [Wolf Party]30.) Broken Rules - The Dead Ricardos [Broken Rules]31.) John Doe - Moonshine Stalkers [Last Day On Earth]32.) I'm Your Zombie - The Spectres [The Great Erotic Zombie Shakedown]33.) You Can Run - The Grims [The Grims]34.) Shake And Howl - Memphis Morticians [Bereave It Or Not]35.) Cat English - Dandies [Cat English]36.) All Messed Up - The Quakes [Voice Of America]37.) Streets Are So Lonely - The Quakes [Planet Obscure]38.) John Henry - Glen Glenn [Missouri Rockabilly 1955-1965]Rockabilly & Psychobilly Keep A' Howlin'

Haize welcomes guest Dstany from Hoeologu podcats for a fun discussion about submission, black culture embracing kink, & being sex positive. Haize also talks about the upcoming Martin re-union special, Texas A&M University coach Sydney Carter, Kayne West & much more.Topics:Intro (00:41)In The Mind Of Haize: Sydney Carter, Martin Re-Union & Kaybe West & JP Morgan Chase Racism Lawsuit.(2:15)S.L.U.T. Me Out feat. Ds'Tany (15:05)Get at us:Email: TheAwakenedSoulPod@gmail.comFacebook: The Awakened SoulInstagram: @TheAwakenedSoulPodTwitter: @AwakenedSoulPodPhone: (614)-547-2039Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-awakened-soul-podcast6887/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This episode chronicles the good, the bad, and the ugly from Night Demon's first-ever live performance on May 20, 2011 at the Bombay Bar & Grill in Ventura, California.  You will hear how the band solved the conundrum of filling a setlist despite having only four original songs.  Armand and Dusty give their impressions from the show, which they both attended.  The bulk of the episode consists of Jarvis giving a song-by-song rundown of the set, augmented by audio clips recorded that night. (Never-before seen video of the entire set is available in the subscriber section.)  Jarvis candidly describes the mistakes, the snafus, and the missteps of the night.  But he also highlights aspects of that performance that still make him proud today and that hinted at greater things to come.  From humble beginnings, glimmers of brilliance still shone through.  The Demon was finally alive. Become a subscriber today at nighdemon.net/subscriber. This week, subscribers have access to the bonus content below: Full video from Night Demon's first show (never before seen)A 20 Minute mini-episode where Jarvis breaks down the band's gear and stage set up and walks you through his bass solo and effects pedals from this first show. Jeff Hershey & the Heartbeats “Wearin' Me Out” - https://jeffhersheyandtheheartbeats.bandcamp.com/track/wearin-me-outDiamond Head “Lightning to the Nations” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6ieb5ZXYPoAngel Witch “White Witch” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGnOMjOqXsNight Demon “Radar Love” video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXS3vUdhbIkAragorn “Black Ice” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgAt-B_QjK4Night Demon “Ritual (First Live Gig)” - https://nightdemon.bandcamp.com/track/ritual-first-live-gig Listen at nightdemon.net/podcast or anywhere you listen to podcasts! To unlock massive amounts of bonus content, become a subscriber at nightdemon.net/subscriber

Today's passages are from Some Answered Questions by Abdu'l-Baha, pages 78-80, titled True Wealth, and Prescription for Living by Ruhiyyih Khanum, pages 62-63. We continue our reading of The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah with the thirteenth Hidden Word from the Arabic: O Son of Spirit! I created thee rich, why dost thou bring thyself down to poverty? Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself? Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I moulded thee, how doest thou busy thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.

Pleasantries Frankenmuth Recap Rash-Men    Chicago Trip      Couples Haircut Outings? $100 Meatball?         Would You Dan Rather? That's Probably True    STOP, You're Crepe-ing Me Out! Something's Fishy          When I Was A Different Dad Sexy Teachers        Asian Corned Beef ATL Airport Jumper BretandAdam.com        StrangeLabel.com  

Luke, Gary and Matt discuss the return of I'm a Celebrity get Me Out of Here and BBC Three's new documentary series Drugsland. Custardtv contributor Michael Lee talks the return of Peaky Blinders and we discuss whether the DVD boxset is now a thing of the past.

Luke, Gary and Matt discuss the return of I'm a Celebrity get Me Out of Here and BBC Three's new documentary series Drugsland. Custardtv contributor Michael Lee talks the return of Peaky Blinders and we discuss whether the DVD boxset is now a thing of the past.

Alexandra Merisoiu shares her story of how she went from guzzling Coke and eating at all hours to lean, fit and healthy. Plus a tiny food that you'd never guess has more calcium than dairy, and a food for sport that keeps you going all day long!The food that I'll share with you is not only an amazing source of protein, energy and healthy fats, but one tiny ounce contains 18% of the recommended daily allowance for calcium. So it's also an amazing bone food for all you people who don't eat dairy and might be worried about where you're getting your calcium. And I bet you don't know what it is! Or maybe you do...you'll find out in a bit! Our guest, Alexandra MerisoiuI am very excited to be joined here today by Alexandra Merisoiu, also known as The Body Engineer.Alexandra specialises in working with runners, beginners and advanced, who want to run faster and further, with less effort and fewer injuries. She also has a 3rd Dan Black Belt in Karate Shotokan, and she is a Martial Arts British National Champion, with a host of national and international awards in the sport, including World Cup Champion. And if that weren't enough, in between helping others with their running, Alexandra still competes at an international level!Alexandra's storySo let's get to the story. Alexandra welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today!Alexandra: Thank you very much for the invitation. And thank you for the introduction as well.Me: Oh well you're welcome! I just find it astounding, everything that you manage to do. And I don't know how you do it, but I'm sure you'll share a bit about that in a moment.I mean, I know when we talked about you coming on the podcast, you mentioned that there was a time when you were drinking like 2 liters of coke a day and definitely with a very different level of health and fitness compared to what you have today.And I would really love for you to tell everybody how you changed your relationship with food, because there are a lot of things that you've overcome that a lot of people still struggle with, you know?Alexandra: Yeah, well that's true. 2 liters of Coca-Cola, 2 liters of Sprite, I kind of changed from one to the other. Me: Variety, yeah...Training hard in RomaniaAlexandra: I mean, back then in my family I didn't have the education that I have today. When McDonald's came to my country, I was there a few times a week. But we didn't really know what and how and why...Me: Oh sorry, so can you remind people where you grew up, then?Alexandra: Oh yes, in Romania. In Eastern Europe.So I was practising martial arts 6 days a week, sometimes 12 sessions a week. Twice a day was in school holidays.Me: Wow!Alexandra: A holiday with my family didn't really exist because I was always training. And yeah, I was just eating, burning calories, eating, burning calories...There was no way I could have put on weight.But fast forward to today, it's not actually about being able to burn calories. It's about what's going on inside your body, it's all about calories.Alexandra's first turning pointMe: I know you had a turning point at one stage, right? Because you said you had Coke and a sandwich, and...what led you to change?Alexandra: Oh yes, I remember it. I was actually a little bit scared. I was twelve, thirteen years old, and I was eating a sandwich really quick. And I was drinking Coke while eating a sandwich, right?Me: As many people do, right?Alexandra: Yes, and two minutes into eating, I just threw it up. And I think from what I remember, that was the turning point. At that point I just stopped drinking Coca-Cola.Me: Yes because you weren't feeling sick, right? It wasn't like you had an illness and threw up, it was actually the...Alexandra: No, no, I actually think I was getting ready to go to my karate training. I actually went!Me: (laughs) That doesn't surprise me!Alexandra: (laughs) Yes, my training is a bit like if I'm not in the hospital...Me: Were you competing at that time too?Alexandra: Yes, yes, I think my first competition was when I was ten years old, or nine. It was an in-house competition, so small. But yeah, I was competing, and then at fourteen I received my first black belt.A definite U-turnMe: Wow! And what were you thinking when, I mean, you've eaten the sandwich, you've drunk the Coca-Cola, you've thrown it up. I mean, what thoughts were in your head when you were like 'I've had enough, I can't eat this way any more'?Alexandra: Oh it's been such a long time, I don't remember. But the shock of throwing up and of feeling sick...I think it was a U-turn, basically. I don't think I thought about it too much. I don't remember thinking 'Oh this isn't too good for my health'.Me: Yeah, a twelve-year-old probably wouldn't think like that, right?Alexandra: Yes, probably I thought 'This made me throw up so I'm not gonna have it anymore'.From training to clubbingMe: Cause you were quite heavier at one point, right? You said that you were like ten kilos heavier at one stage, so how did that happen?Alexandra: Yeah, so when I was eighteen I stopped karate. I did the other martial arts, but I stopped karate because I started travelling. And I kind of...when you are an athlete, you don't go out much. You don't have a lot of friends.So I made some friends and then we started going clubbing and dancing and drinking and all the other stuff. I saw the other side of life and karate all of a sudden didn't seem so fascinating anymore, you know?I trained less, but I was eating the same. And when you're an athlete and you train 6 times a week, maybe 12 times a week, and you eat a certain quality of food and a certain quantity of food, you're balanced. You don't put on weight.Piling on the poundsBut when you stop that, when you take your training to 3 days a week, and you eat the same, you start putting on weight. And you put on weight fast. So that's what happened. I stopped karate and I went to visit my father who was living in France. With my friend. And basically what we were doing was we were eating McDonald's and other fast food at midnight, and you know, watching movies...Me: Whoa! So like the worst time ever to eat the worst kind of food ever!Alexandra: Exactly! So I think I was there for 2 months during the summer holidays. And when I came back I was 10 kilograms heavier and my mom was like, 'What happened to you!'Me: Ohhh!Alexandra: Of course, going from 49 kilos to 60 kilos doesn't seem like such a big thing. But for me it was a huge contrast.Me: Yeah, because you're not like super tall, right?Alexandra: Yeah, exactly. And as an athlete I was skinny, as skinny as...Me: Skinny as a rail, right?Alexandra: Right! So for me that was a bit of a psychological downfall.Me: Yeah, of course.Weightloss: a fast-moving trainAlexandra: No-one was looking at me in any other way, but it was how I saw myself. I mean, I was used to being lean, being fast and strong. And all of a sudden – well not all of a sudden, over a few months – that changed.Me: But it creeps up on you as well, right? I mean, that's the difficult bit. You said you put it on fast, but I imagine it wasn't like all of a sudden you woke up and the 10 kilos were there, right?Alexandra: No, it wasn't. It was a few months. I don't remember exactly because it was a while ago, but probably when I was in France I put a few kilograms on and then...I see weightloss like a fast moving train. It gains momentum. You put on a little bit of weight and then faster and faster until...Me: Out of control!Alexandra: Yeah, and with weightloss the same, but you have to stop the train and then go back and build the momentum. So that's a weightloss lesson, for example.Me: Yeah, yeah.Alexandra's second turning point: in the poolAlexandra: So one turning point was with Coca-Cola, and the second turning point was with the fast foods when I gained weight and I just didn't feel good about myself anymore.Me: So then you made a massive commitment at that point. What did you say to yourself? Were you just like 'This ends here, I have to just change everything'?Alexandra: Well I actually remember – I don't know if this is the first, but I do remember – I went swimming. There's a 50-meter Olympic swimming pool that I learned to swim in. And I was struggling to do 3 or 4 lengths!Me: Wow!Alexandra: In the past I could do 15, 20...I could just do it! So my fitness level was just...And that was the turning point. That scared me and I thought 'I need to get my fitness back'. And I think that was in 2007 when I became a runner.Motivation for changeMe: Did you start both at the same time then?Alexandra: Yeah, I think from what I remember that I used running to lose the weight. I was also going to the United States, it was the first time that summer and I was going with a working travel program on the shore of the Atlantic. At the beach. So that kind of motivated me more, because my swimming suits weren't fitting me anymore!Me: Oh no!Alexandra: My clothes weren't fitting anymore! Now I do have to say this, because it's really, really important. The people you surround yourself with.I had some very good friends. Very good friends, I learned a lot from them. However from a health and fitness point of view, they weren't the best people to be around me. So in the personal development world, you know, they say you're the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.And looking back, I didn't know about personal development then. I know now, but looking back, I was drinking a lot. And I could take the spirits. I wouldn't have a hangover. It was so easy for me, that I could just drink.Me: (laughs) I can't do that!Alexandra: (laughs) Well, I can't do that either, it's been 4 or 5 years since I've had a sip of alcohol, so...yeah. The swimming pool, that's what turned me around and made me start running and made the commitment to give up the fast foods.And my mom had a very important role in this. She understood that in order for me to lose the weight and get back to normal, I needed to make some drastic but gradual changes.The plan of attackMe: So what were those changes? Because I know you said you cut out a lot of foods, right?Alexandra: Yeah. So first of all, the drinks. My mom always said, 'Don't drink Pepsi and Coca-Cola and all this stuff. These are the first things to cut out.' So we started with that.And I say 'we' because my mom was there all the time. She always said, 'Have one day a week where you can eat whatever you want. Don't deprive your body because then you will crave it'.And she's right again, right? (laughs) Moms just know!So one day a week I would have, I don't know, whatever I wanted. But it's important to say that I made these decisions. My mom supported and advised. She's not a nutritionist but she has a very good intuition when it comes to nutrition and weightloss.The next foods to go were...The second thing I cut out was pretty much anything that had sugar. So any chocolates, ice creams, anything that tasted sweet.And then we started taking out the potatoes, oh and bread. Bread was actually together with the drinks. The drinks and the bread were like the first things we started with.Me: But when you started, you did it gradually, right? First you cut out the bread and the drinks for a little while, but you were still eating ice cream and other sweet things?Easy does itAlexandra: Yeah. But I wasn't replacing. I was still eating the same amount. So it wasn't like, 'Oh, I'm not gonna drink Pepsi anymore but I'm gonna eat 3 more ice creams!' (laughs) I wasn't eating ice cream every day, I was eating ice cream once or twice a week maybe.Me: But I think that's a really interesting point though. That you did it really gradually. Because most of us are like, 'Right! No more ice cream, no more bread, I'm gonna eat super healthy every day'. And then like 3 days later we just fall down, right? Whereas you did it really gradually, right?So for example, just to give people an idea of the timeline, you know? When you said the drinks and the bread, do you remember how long you went before you decided to cut out the next thing? Was it really like...was there a system behind it? Or did you just go with what you felt?How you can know when you're ready to cut out a foodAlexandra: At that point I didn't know about systems. I just went with what felt comfortable. So if I was still thinking about having Sprite or another fizzy drink, then it meant that I'm not ready for taking out the next food or foods.Me: Oh, that makes sense! Oh!Alexandra: Yeah. So once my craving for something or the thought of having something disappeared...Now for example if I think of a sandwich, no matter how good the sandwich looks, I don't really want it, right?So I guess we went with how I felt. And I think to give people an idea, I probably would go 4 to 6 weeks of taking out one group of foods. Or one food, not necessarily one group of foods.Me: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because they say it takes at least 30 days if not longer to establish a new habit, right?Here's how to test yourselfThat's really cool, I just want to really emphasize that point, because it would never have occurred to me to cut out one thing and then wait until the cravings for that one thing disappeared before cutting out the next thing! I think that is amazing! I've never heard that before, actually.Alexandra: Well, it's just going with what you feel. It's a test. If you think about having bread, how do you feel? Do you really want it? You know, if you have a slice of bread in front of you, are you gonna take it? Or can you just ignore it?So I think that's when the change happens. When you can go to the next phase.Change for lifeMe: Yeah! Plus the other thing that I love about that is...that's like lifetime change, right? That's not the kind of thing where you fall down again after a year. I mean you hear about people who deprive themselves for months and months and then they just...they manage to go past the 30 days and yet they still fall down because they haven't passed the test yet!Alexandra: Exactly! And no matter, it can be 30 days, it can be...you can do the same habit for 2, 3, 6 months and then go back to it. Seriously. Nothing is guaranteed.Me: Yeah, of course.Alexandra: That's why I don't go with 30 days or 44 or 60...Me: Well, we're all different as well, right? One food isn't going to have the same effect on everybody, right?Alexandra: Exactly, yeah.How to refuse politely...Me: Wow, that's really cool. Oh and I wanted to ask you, because you said that in those first 3 to 6 months, that was the worst, right? And that sometimes you had people offering you other foods, foods that you don't eat and stuff. So how did you manage to a) resist the temptation and b) manage to say no in a nice way? (laughs)Alexandra: (laughs) Yeah, well I don't know how to say no in a nice way actually! (laughs) I say “No thank you” and that's it!Me: (laughs) Oh! Ok! The truth comes out... (laughs)Alexandra: Right, well it's about educating the people around me. It's about how you educate the people around you, or reeducate.So they know I like this kind of cheese, it's like a kind of cottage cheese, a type of cottage cheese pie that we make in the east. And I love it, you know? I always loved it. So all of my family, when you go for Easter, they always have it for me. And it has the right amount of cheese in it... (laughs)And you know, in the first 6 months it was difficult because I was trying to cut out all these things. But there you have it in front of you on the table! So...Me: And made by people for you, right? So the guilt thing could come in if you let it, right?Alexandra: Exactly!What to say to friends and familySo there were 2 ways, well a few ways, actually, out of this situation that people can use.First of all, you say “Thank you, but I can't eat anymore”. You know, after your meal, you are full. “Just leave it for later”, right?Sometimes it's good to tell people, “I don't eat this anymore, but I'll just have a small piece”. And you just have a small piece! Not a whole slice, you know?And here's what you tell yourselfBut it's good to voice it. What you tell yourself, that's what you're going to believe. So if you tell yourself, “I can't eat this” or “I can't have this” or “I'm not allowed this”, it's like an interdiction. You tell your brain you can't have it and it wants more.Me: And you want it, yeah.Alexandra: So what I did – unknowingly I did it – I said, “ I don't have this”. I mean, it's my choice not to have this any more. And in my head I always said that, it's my choice to have this or to not have this.Alexandra: And then, you know, people insist, because, you know, that's how family is...Me: Yup!Get a family member to support youAlexandra: And they're right...I love them all. But I have to say that after a few times of insisting, I would start to get a bit bothered or annoyed by it, and that's when they would leave me alone. (laughs)But also my mom was a big supporter, to be honest. Because she would say “No, no, she doesn't eat that”. And when my mom would say it, then everyone would just let me be.Me: Oh, that's really nice!Alexandra: So it's very important if you can have someone in your family to support you and to, you know, be on your side for the first year or so. That makes a huge difference.Make the right choice, every single dayAnd if not, always remember that your mind is the most powerful. So you make the choice, every single day.Me: I love that. I'm glad you said that again because I love that idea of making the right choice every single day and remembering that it's always a choice. Because it's kind of like reminding yourself how powerful you are over your life, right?Alexandra: Absolutely!Me: Yeah, that's really cool!Alexandra: Many times – even today – when I have pizza...Well, I can have pizza maybe 3 times a year even though it's one of my favorite foods. I always say I want pizza but I never get it.How to take charge of your mindEven if I have a pastry or an ice cream, I always tell myself, “I choose to have this. I don't need it, and I don't crave it, but I choose to have it today”. And if I do crave that stuff, I don't have it in that moment.This is basically one of the food discipline lessons. It's like disciplining my mind to say that if it craves something, it doesn't mean it's gonna have it. So there's no point in craving it. It's when I decide.Me: Oh!Alexandra: There's this book, The Chimp Paradox. You know it.Me: Yeah.Alexandra: It's talking with your chimp, telling it “You're gonna have this when I tell you, not when you want!”Me: Exactly, yeah!Alexandra: So that's one of the food discipline lessons: don't have them when you crave them.Cravings: what they really mean...Me: Yeah! That's really good! And also because some people think that...I think it can be an excuse sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes...especially if it's something unhealthy. Some people think, 'Oh well, I have this craving because I'm lacking in iron' or some other nutrient. I mean, I don't know what your take is on that?My take is that if it's a healthy food you're craving, yeah then it's probably true. But if it's an unhealthy one...Alexandra: Yeah, absolutely. That's right. If it's unhealthy...If you lack iron, get foods that have iron. Or, I don't know, vitamin E. Get foods that have that. Don't lie to yourself. Don't say, 'I want this pastry' or whatever it is. Or chips, or ice cream, or whatever, because you crave the healthy stuff that's in the chips.If you crave salt, that means maybe you've trained and you haven't replaced your salts. But you can do that without eating chips.Me: Yeah, exactly, yeah. (laughs)Take your time with the processOh I remember what I wanted to ask you. When I read your story on your website, I remember you were saying that it was really important to you to take your time with the whole process. I think you said the whole process took...How long did it take? Like 1 to 2 years or something?Alexandra: Yes, it took about 2 years to get to a stable point, so I took the 10 kilograms off. Then I would know that I could eat other stuff and not put on weight.But I have to say that I did not want to deprive myself and restrict myself, right? So in the 2 years my weight went up and down. You know, 2 kilos down then half a kilo up, then 1 kilo down and 2 kilos up. So up and down, up and down. I wasn't looking to starve myself. I didn't want to be hungry. That was the last thing.Me: Oh yeah, yeah.Alexandra: So I would eat quite a lot of healthy stuff. I would eat quantity and quality. Both. So that's why my weight went slowly. 1 to 2 years.But at the end of 2 years I could start eating other stuff as well without worrying about it. Although if I had eaten cakes and stuff in the first 6 months to 1 year, I don't think I would have actually taken the weight down. Because I would have just fallen back into...Me: Old habits, right?Alexandra: I still have that one day a week. That's really important.Me: Yeah, that's really good! And so for the other 6 days a week, what do you eat typically now?What Alexandra eats nowAlexandra: Well, since then, this is what I eat. I would say 80% of my food is fresh vegetables. I have salads and fresh vegetables in my fridge day in and day out, 80%. Then about 10% is dairy, 10% is meat. Meat I would say...turkey and...turkey, actually. Chicken very little, and the rest is mostly when I go home and my mom says “Have this because it's healthy”. And I say “Mom even if I don't have it, I'm not going to be unhealthy”. But yeah, meat's about 10%.Me: And fruit? Do you have fruit as well?Alexandra: Yes, I have berries, but not as much as I used to. Berries I have, but not the other fruit. The reason for that is because fruit is healthy but it still has a lot of sugar. I love fruit! I can eat 2 or 3 kilos of apples a day! Without my stomach having any problems.Me: Wow! That's a lot of apples!Alexandra: Yeah, I can eat that. Or clementines...I like them. They're fresh, they're sweet, they have water so they hydrate me, so I like it. So for me fruit is...I need to be in control, because otherwise I could just eat fruit all day!Me: Oh, OK!Alexandra: Yes, it's healthy, but it's a lot of sugar.Alexandra's other food guidelinesMe: And is that something that you suggest to the people that you train? To the people that you work with? To eat very little fruit?Alexandra: Well, I advise them 5 a day, as a nutritional guideline. But obviously you can have 6 or 7, you can have less. Everyone has to know where they're at.Like I don't need that much fruit. I need vegetables, fresh vegetables. If I don't have vegetables...Red peppers, I like red peppers because they are very refreshing with all the water. I like baby plum tomatoes because again, they're slightly sweet, but they have water in them. So for me if I don't have that, at the end of the day I feel like I'm missing something.For some people, if they don't have some fruit they'll feel like that. So you kind of have to look at it and judge the what and how to have the minerals and vitamins that you need. But again I take, upon my Sensei's advice, I take a multivitamin. Because I train so much, he said 'You need to get this, because the foods nowadays are not the ones you grew up with'.You can still do it, even working full timeMe: And one thing that I read in your story where I almost fell off my chair, I mean I was like amazed. When you started running and eating really healthily and doing all the food and stuff, you were working like 8 hours a day? Is that right? In an office?Alexandra: Yeah, at some point I was working 8 hours a day, 9 to 5.Me: Oh wow!Alexandra: So in the morning I would wake up at 5. And I was a student back then, yes?Alexandra's routine (in a full time job)This was my routine, and I loved it actually. At 5 am I would wake up, by 5:15 I was out the door going for a run, running 1 hour. 1 hour meant 12 k for me. Then I'd come back and cook breakfast and cook lunch, had breakfast and took the lunch to go. I took my bike, because I could cycle about half an hour to my office.I was working in corporate banking back then. And, you know, I would stay for 8 hours there. And like anyone who works in an office, people would come with chocolates and with biscuits and all the other stuff. My answer was always, “Thank you, but I don't eat this kind of stuff”. Not like that, but “Thank you, I don't eat that”.And from time to time if it was someone's birthday, I would take a small piece of chocolate. But one – and one every once in a blue moon. Most of the time though I'd say no thank you, even if I was hungry. I would have a tea, I don't know, I would just...Me: Yeah, the reason I ask is because there are so many people who are working full time in an office, and they already struggle with just eating healthy, you know? So being able to do that, plus working in the exercise regimen as well, I mean I just find that really incredible.And evening classes on top of everything elseAlexandra: And after that actually I would cycle to university which was about 1 hour cycling. I would have my master's degree and most of my classes were in the evening by then. It was full time, but classes were in the evening. I would have my master's degree classes, and then I would be back at 7 or 8. Then I would eat something, and then go ice skating if it was winter, or go for another run if it was not winter.Me: Wow! And you were still competing at that stage, right?Alexandra: No, at that stage I wasn't competing anymore. That was...I think I was 19 or 20 years old. So I left karate behind for a while and then I started another martial art: Daitoryu, the ancestor of aikido. I don't remember when I started it, I was doing it at the weekend, 3 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday I think. It was in the time I was in corporate banking. I think that's what it was, if I remember well.Me: So then how did you...You were in corporate banking and then 1 to 2 years later, you lose all the weight, you get really trim again, and then you went back to competing, is that right?Competing againAlexandra: I went back to competing when I moved to England. So I moved to England when I was 24, I went to London when I was 25, so about 5 years ago. I joined the SKC – Shotokan Karate England. They invited me in the squad and I've been in the squad for 3 and a half years now I think. And now I wear the English flag!Me: That's really cool! That's so cool! I really love your story, I think it's just absolutely incredible. And I really want people to know where they can find you, because you help other people do the same, right?Can you say a little bit about what you're helping people with now, and what you've got going on at the moment?How Alexandra helps others nowAlexandra: Right, so now I specialize in working with runners. I'm very passionate about body mechanics. And that's because I've had a lot of injuries when I was 12 or 13. Structural injuries, damage to joints. So my interest in how the body functions was fueled by that curiosity to understand why that happens.So now I specialize in working with runners who experience these injuries. Obviously not any injury. Some injuries you need to see a physio, osteopath, chiropractor, it depends on the injury. But a lot of aches and pains come from the way we use...the way we move, particularly if you're a runner.I'm also qualified to work with lower back pain...people...so most lower back pain is due to activity - a lack of it, or the wrong type of activity and poor posture, so we work on that. And obviously the nutrition, the food discipline lessons which are part of my system.How people can get in touch with me is through themerisoutechnique.com - or easier – themtechnique.com – m like Mike. And should I say something about my event in the summer?Me: Yes! There's an event you're doing that I've got to have you talk about, because I just think it's fantastic! I looked at the description and if I didn't have events of my own going on, I would be on a plane! I want to hear all about it!Alexandra's summer eventsAlexandra: It's called Dracula's Retreat.Me: Yay!Alexandra: As the name goes, it's at Dracula's castle. Well, it's not at Dracula's castle, it's like 1 kilometer away.Me: But still! That's pretty close!Alexandra: (laughs) Some people think it's scary, but it's not scary.Me: No, it looks beautiful!Alexandra: Yes, and in summer because we will be in the mountains, you have the green, you have the forest, you have trails to go up the mountain.3 aspects to the retreatSo Dracula's Retreat has 3 components.One is touristic, so obviously you learn about the culture of Transylvania, you learn about Dracula's story, you visit the castle, then another fortress which is close by. Then it's the fitness, so we will go hiking. Now hiking is more like trekking. So we don't need axes...Me: (laughs) You're not gonna be chopping down the jungle and stuff.Alexandra: (laughs) Not on this occasion, no. And natural movement fitness. Now if we have runners, we go running. And actually we do have runners as well. And natural movement fitness, which has to do with animal movements, balance, logs: carrying, throwing, lifting logs, slack lines...So for people who don't know, that's a flat type of rope, you'd call it. But it's flat and it's slack, so for upper body exercises. Hanging off of branches...And it's all about exploring nature, leveraging nature. And understanding that to get fit and healthy and to experience the joy of training, you don't really need a gym. So people who are bored with the gym, they come to me, basically. And then there's the social part because you get to be with a group of people and you do the whole thing...The food is also a very important part of it.Me: Yup, I'll bet!Alexandra: Trying to keep it as healthy as possible, but it will be traditional. So there will be the odd pleasure for everyone.Mindfulness and meditationMe: Yup! And there's a meditation aspect to it too, right? A mindfulness component to it?Alexandra: Well, yes. Natural movement and balance exercises first of all, you know, you need that body awareness and mindfulness. But we will go through guided meditations. Guided meditations are a big part of Qigong and Tai chi which are a big part of my personal training.We will practice breathing exercises, mindfulness meditations, and some Qigong exercises. We're gonna look at what Chinese medicine says and how the meridians connect to the internal organs. I'm not a Chinese medicine expert, but I read a lot and I practice a lot, so...I'll be just sharing the knowledge.Me: Oh, that's really cool. And so where's the best place for people to find information about the retreat? I mean, I'll link to it in the shownotes, but...Alexandra: Simply draculasretreat.comMe: Oh! That's easy! Alexandra thank you so much, I mean I just love your story, I mean, it's inspiring and also I learned a lot. I can't wait to hear how Dracula's Retreat went, and I'm definitely coming on one of them!Alexandra: Yes, it's going to be every year. This is it. I have such a big vision for it, and it's going to be an amazing adventure, really. I'm taking people on an adventure, not only on a retreat.Me: No, of course. That's really cool.Well thank you so much, I'll link to everything that you've mentioned in the shownotes so that people can find it easily. I'm going to share our food tip now, and thank you so much! Awesome!Food for sportRight, so I also mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you a tiny but amazing food that is an incredible source of protein, energy, healthy fats and calcium. Not only is it a fantastic food for sport, but it's a great bone food as well. And that food is...are you ready?Chia seeds!Benefits of chia seedsChia seeds are one of the best foods ever for everybody to eat in my opinion. I don't really care if you're vegan, vegetarian, paleo, junk food addict – you want to be eating these little guys. They have so many benefits it's ridiculous. I'll link to a really good article that I found in the show notes if you'd like to read more about the health benefits and the nutritional analysis of chia seeds. And a recipe of my own as well.Eating chia seeds has been linked to not only bone health, but also gut health, stabilizing your blood sugar and helping reduce inflammation.Components of chia seedsOne cool thing about chia seeds is that they do contain a good amount of fiber but they're also gentle on the gut. So this is important for people who have trouble digesting high-fiber foods like broccoli and cauliflower. Chia seeds actually are soothing for your whole digestive tract.They're small and hard when you get them in the packet, but when you soak them or when they mix with your digestive juices and things, they puff up and they're quite viscous which sounds horrible but they're actually quite delicious!They also contain minerals like phosphorus, manganese and magnesium, as well as calcium. And for those of you who don't eat dairy and you get people asking where you get your calcium, you can tell them that ounce per ounce, chia seeds actually contain more calcium than most dairy products.Chia seeds are also a complete protein, so if you don't eat meat and you get the 'where do you get your protein' question, well you can tell them that one ounce of chia seeds has 4 grams of protein. So you won't wilt.Why chia seeds are a great food for sport On the contrary. Besides providing protein, calcium, minerals and antioxidants, chia seeds also release energy over a long period of time rather than all at once. That's why they're such a good food for sport.Also if you've got a long day ahead of you and you know you won't be able to eat for a while, chia seeds can help keep you going for longer. You can try this out for yourself actually, have yourself a chia seed pudding for breakfast and see how you feel.How you use chia seedsWhich brings me to how you eat chia seeds. A lot of people just sprinkle the dry seeds over food, like you would any seed. Over salads, for example. Because they absorb liquid, you can also use them to thicken sauces and other dishes.But my favorite way to eat chia seeds is to soak them in some nut milk for an amazing pudding. It's a bit like tapioca, so if you like tapioca, you'll love chia seed pudding.There's a lot of them out there on the internet which you can find, but I've got a gorgeous recipe for chia seed pudding on my website which I'll link to in the shownotes, along with other recipes as well.And as an extra special bonus for you, Alexandra has an extra special recipe that uses chia seeds!Alexandra's super food for sport recipeAlexandra: Right! So I compete a lot. I go to a competition at 8 am and I come back home at 9 or 10 pm, so it's a very long day. And in 12 hours, I probably compete 10 or 15 minutes throughout the day.Me: Wow!Alexandra: Yeah, sometimes I have my fights at like 6 or 7 pm. So it's like, it did happen, I had one fight at 7 pm. You have one event in the evening. Because it's senior – senior meaning plus 21 - you have to wait a lot.So I read in a book this chia seed drink. The first time I had it was the world championships in Bulgaria, and I did not need water, or food, or anything else for the whole day. I was not hungry. And it was really amazing, because by 4 or 5 pm, I would be so dehydrated that nothing – tea, water...No matter how much I would drink, I would be dehydrated. My tissues, my body...my body was just saturated with water.Having this drink, what it did was it kept my energy levels up. I did not need to eat solid foods because it gives you protein, omega 6 and 3 fats, and in the drink it also has carbohydrates. You also have something that gives you a bit of a zing.So I was with my energy levels up, nourished, hydrated, focused...pretty awesome. Strong! Everyone else by 7 pm, they were down, you know, they can't drink anymore...but I was, yeah!How you make itFor the drink, how I make it, so everyone needs to test and see whatever they like. 500 ml of water, 2 tablespoons of chia seeds, the juice of 1 lime...sometimes I put 1 ½ depending on how sour I want it. And 2 or 3 teaspoons of organic honey. You just mix it up, shake it up, and it becomes like a gel to be honest. You just drink it throughout the day.I have 3 or 4 bottles with me when I go to a competition. And I had 3 competitions already. I tested it – it works!No drugs, just food for sportMe: Wow! That is so cool! And I think you said somebody...you were afraid they were gonna think you were on like, you know, performance enhancing drugs!Alexandra: Yeah! Well, you know, it's a food. So if they were to test anything, they wouldn't find anything besides chia seeds! (laughs)Me: (laughs) They'd find a lot of chia seeds!Alexandra: A lot of chia seeds! But yeah, people look a bit weird at you because the bottle is see-through, you know? You can see all the bits, and they don't really know what it is. So you have to say, “It's chia seeds, it's a food”.But you know, it's not their problem. As long as you don't have any weird substances. And you don't need weird substances, you know? You have all these foods...try this! This is good!And for runnersAnd if you're a runner and you do marathons and stuff, see if you can create a thicker gel. You put it in those pouches, and it's a lot better than the geogels and all that other stuff.Me: Oh yeah, yeah.Alexandra: Much, much, much better, so...Me: That's fantastic, yay! You guys have to try it! I'm gonna try it! Thank you so much!Alexandra: My pleasure.Have YOU got a story to share?So I hope you've enjoyed Alexandra's amazing story today as well as our food tips. And if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have been helpful, or even saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESAlexandra's website: http://themerisoiutechnique.com/unleash-your-physical-potentialAlexandra's retreat: http://draculasretreat.com/Book The Chimp ParadoxChia seed pudding recipe: http://rockingrawchef.com/gluten-free-rice-pudding-recipeOther 5-minute recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on benefits of chia seeds: https://authoritynutrition.com/11-proven-health-benefits-of-chia-seeds/Alexandra Merisoiu, The Body Engineer, is the Founder of The Merisoiu Technique Institute and Dracula’s Retreat. She is also a qualified Low Back Pain Prevention Exercise Instructor and REPS registered. She specialises in working with runners, beginners and advanced, who want to run faster and further, with less effort and fewer injuries. This is done through natural movement fitness and running technique and mechanics.

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This is show #87, My Birthday Blues! Hey, welcome back, my friends! This is your snowed in blues DJ coming at you from the snowed in studio in the … Well, since it's my birthday, this show is gonna be called Birthday Blues! Well, I started off the show with playing How I Feel from his CD called Hell and Back! So, who else is on the birthday roster for today's show? Well, how about , Big World; , Me and My Music; , You Should Learn From This; , Sweet Loving; , Nine One One; , Little Queen Bee; , That's What's Knockin' Me Out; , My National Enquirer Baby; , Heart and Soul; , Full Load Boogie; , Cherry City Boogie; and wrapping up with , Better Be Ready. As always, special thanks to Michael Allen, from the for his ongoing support in allowing me to use his incredible artwork on my show and web sites! Now a great time to go out and get your special loved one a great print for the holiday season! Thanks to everyone who sent messages to the BluzNdaBlood Facebook site and MySpace with all the great messages! I hope you and yours have a great and safe holiday! Special thanks to all the BluzNdaBlood listeners out there. Be sure to swing by the home page! There are hyperlinks to all the great music that you hear on my show! Enjoy the show and keep in touch! I can be found at , , and ! Or better yet, e-mail me at . Until next time, this is Dave Harrison, reminding you to keep the blues alive and keep the blues in the blood! Dave