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July 14, 2022 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:33:57
20220714_woke-shaming-over-reality-and-faith-over-fame-with
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Identity Politics and Violence 00:14:32
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey, what's going on, Megan Kelly?
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
President Biden in Israel today, where he's making gaps about the Holocaust and fist bumping and handshaking world leaders, despite his advisors saying he wouldn't.
Long story.
We're going to get to all the headlines with my first guest today, who I'll get to in one second.
And then later in the show, we're going to be joined by two actors we're super excited to have on.
The Penavegas are here, who were famous, still are, for movies like Spy Kids and hit shows like Big Time Rush, and who now have left Hollywood, have moved to a place that they believe they can raise their family according to their values and have a new book out about faith, family, and Hollywood.
But first today, very happy to be joined by Konstantin Kissen.
He is the co-host of Trigger Nometry, clever, and author of the brand new book, An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West.
Konstantin, welcome back to the show.
Great to have you here.
Megan, thank you so much for having me.
Real pleasure to be back with you.
Congrats on the book.
So the last time you were on, we talked about Russia and Ukraine, and you know a lot about this because you were born in Russia and you married a woman who's from Ukraine.
And as you tweeted out recently on the birth of your son, this is one thing that Russia and Ukraine worked on together, this beautiful little boy.
So it's something that you know a lot about.
But your point in this book is sort of to capitalize on that background and say, there's a reason my parents sent me to school in the UK.
There's a reason they fell in love with the West and you did as well.
And it seems to me like you've kind of had it with all the shaming of the West that is so in vogue, or as you point out, fashionable in today's day and age.
Well, right.
And to extrapolate on what you're saying about why my parents sent me to the West, this is why millions of people are desperately trying to get to the West as well, Megan, because they haven't heard that we are the worst society in history, that we are all these bigots and racists and iss and fogues and whatever.
They actually would quite like a bit of freedom and democracy and prosperity and whatever.
And it seems to me that the only people who no longer realize that we have those things in the West and most people don't have them elsewhere are the people who are born here, who perhaps haven't traveled much, who haven't seen many other societies, who are not aware that another world exists.
They think that what we have in the West just sort of fell out of the sky and was always like this and always will be like this.
And the book, I think, is a celebration of the great achievements on the West, but also a warning, which is that if we forget how these things that we enjoy in the West were created, if we allow ourselves to just navel gaze endlessly and obsess about things that divide us rather than unite us, we will find that there are people elsewhere in the world, as we're seeing in Ukraine, as we're seeing with China.
There are people elsewhere who have a strong cohesive ideology, not one we would agree with, of course, but they have a strong sense of who they are and they're going to challenge us for the top dog spot.
And if we are busily dismantling our own societies, we are going to be in a lot of trouble.
Right now, in the wake of Boris Johnson going down, the UK is debating who's going to be the next prime minister.
And they're celebrating the fact that pretty much everyone on this short list is a minority or a woman except for one guy.
And they're like, this is all, you know, this is great because we're not going to be able to be called racists on the conservative side, the Tory side, because we're definitely going to be having a new prime minister.
Odds are, I guess, not definitely, but the odds are, who's a minority?
And you, from the moment Johnson went down and the speculation about him going down began to today have been trying to disabuse people of that notion that it's pure folly, that electing a minority is going to somehow immunize people on the right from charges of bigotry.
Well, it's not going to happen.
And by the way, Megan, you know me.
I'm sort of somewhere in the center.
I'm not on the right.
I'm not on the left.
But I kind of try to call it like I see it.
And what I've seen in the last few days is sort of confirmation of what I said on day one, which is, you know, it's not going to help.
They're not going to stop calling you racist.
The reason they're calling you racist isn't that they think you're racist.
The reason they're calling you racist is that they think it works.
And what we've seen even today, I was having a conversation with somebody on Twitter about this, someone with a very prominent account who tweeted saying, well, this isn't real diversity because they all have the wrong opinion.
And that's where we've got to, you know, I'm very fond of the Eric Hoffa quote, which is every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
And I don't know what the situation is like in America, you tell me, but here in the UK, we've got to the point where diversity, inclusion, and all these other words that people are throwing around, it's just a racket now.
It's a way of advancing a political ideology.
It's a way of winning in the political arena.
It's a way of getting people to stop talking, to shut them down, to prevent them from speaking.
And it's a way of smearing entire swathes of people.
And by the way, increasing numbers of minorities are deeply, deeply disgusted with what's happening because they see it plain in plain sight right now.
The moment that you have the most diverse field.
And by the way, Matt Goodwin, who is a political analyst, a brilliant political analyst here in the UK, he mentioned recently that actually the number of minority candidates and female candidates in this leadership is greater than the total number of former people who've run for leadership of the left-wing Labour Party, the number of people from minority backgrounds who've been in cabinet, who've been in the House of Lords, and on you go.
In other words, you've got the party that's being called racist every day has actually got a really diverse field and the other party not.
But it doesn't matter because these brown people, these black people, these women, they're not the right kind of minorities.
They're doing it wrong.
They've got the wrong opinions.
And so this is my point is like, you know, we need to stop talking about this, in my opinion.
Identity politics has discredited itself.
Initially, the diversity drive I do think was important.
We did have genuine discrimination.
People were not being given opportunities who deserve them.
We've got past that now.
That's what we're always trying to get to.
And now we've got to get to the position that Dr. King urged us to get to, which is we should all be judged by the content of our character.
No, he was a racist.
Well, Uncle Tom, apparently, is what we now call him.
Under our current thinking, he was a racist and his beliefs were racist.
And we have to move on from Dr. King.
Yeah, so that sets me up perfectly for this clip that was all over the news yesterday.
And we didn't get to it, but I wanted to.
And so we'll get to it today.
Ben Shapiro did a great takedown of what happened here that inspired me too to ask you about it.
So this woman, Kiara Bridges, law professor at Berkeley, goes before the U.S. Senate.
And this is this person's background.
All right.
She's, as I mentioned, law professor at Berkeley, specializes allegedly in constitutional law, critical legal theory, which is related to critical race theory, racial and social justice.
She's written books like Reproducing Race and Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization.
Oh, it's perfect, right?
The poverty of privacy rights, critical race theory of Primer, or Primer, if you like.
And she's co-editor of a reproductive justice book series, blah, blah, blah, blah.
She's got this high pedigree, valedictorian from Spelman College, JD from Columbia Law School, PhD in anthropology from Columbia.
And so she goes before the Senate to talk about women's reproductive rights, but she will not say women.
She will not go anywhere near women.
And she gets offended when others try to.
So Senator Josh Hawley, Republican from Missouri, tries to challenge her on the weird language she's using.
And here's the clip that has now gone completely viral.
Professor Bridges, you said several times, you've used a phrase.
I want to make sure I understand what you mean by it.
You've referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy.
Would that be women?
Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy.
Many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy.
There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy, as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy.
So this isn't really a women's rights issue.
We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups.
Those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley.
Oh, so your view is, is that the core of this, this right then is about what?
So I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing that.
Wow, you're saying that I'm opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies?
So I want to note that one out of five transgender persons have attempted suicide.
So I think it's important.
Because of my line of questioning?
So we can't talk about it.
Because denying that trans people exist and pretending not to know that they exist.
I'm denying that trans people exist by asking you if you're talking about women having pregnancies.
Do you believe that men can get pregnant?
No, I don't think so.
So you are denying that trans people like this thing.
And that leads to violence.
Is this how you run your classroom?
Are students allowed to question you or are they also treated like this?
They're told that they're opening up people to violence.
We have a good time in my class.
You should join.
I bet.
You might learn a lot.
Wow.
I would learn a lot.
I've learned a lot together.
I know.
Absolutely.
Extraordinary.
Oh, it's all there.
Her perceiving condescension.
You are there to answer to us.
He works for us.
Senate hearings are for us, the citizenry.
And you do not get to redefine the questions and answer your own questions to yourself.
Out of respect for the American people, you answer the questions that are asked.
You don't restate the questions in the terms you want and then get snied with the questionnaires because you want to go viral.
The other thing is about that clip that jumps out at me is how she can't do it, Constantine, the way that you were just talking about how these people who are so focused on identity, they're not actually looking to win arguments or persuade you on the substance of their argument.
They're looking to shame you into silence.
They want you to shut the hell up and just accept their worldview.
And you saw at the moment that really, you know, sort of indicates it's so indicative of how the left, the woke left speaks today, is she starts to lose and she says, your rhetoric is transphobic, right?
She's got to do the name calling.
She's got to shut them up by saying you're transphobe, your language is transphobic.
You're opening up trans people to violence by saying that women are the only ones who can get pregnant.
That was his offense.
And then dropped the old trope about how one out of five transphobic or sorry, trans people have attempted suicide.
This is what the trans activists always do.
People are going to commit suicide unless you accept our worldview that men can get pregnant.
And what Ben was saying was, number one, there's a very high, unusually high rate of suicide within the LGBTQ community.
That's true.
Whether they're trans or not, whether they transition or not.
There just is.
And number two, even if you accept that rhetoric somehow is the tipping point for some trans people when it comes to suicidal ideation, it's not the responsibility of society to engage in the same delusion that they have about their gender and their abilities when it comes to having babies, if they're men, to prevent that.
I mean, with all due empathy to the situation they're in, we don't have to pretend we believe the same thing they believe, that despite the fact that they're a man, they can have a baby in order to protect them from suicidal ideations.
Like, but this is, this tool works.
This woman's probably never had anybody challenge her like that in her life.
So she just goes to her usual trick of calling names.
And it really puts the lie, the baselessness to her whole critical race theory life.
What do you make of it?
Well, Megan, I don't disagree with the word you've said there, but I invite you and our listeners and viewers to take a step back for a moment and realize that your Congress is having a hearing in which you're debating secondary, elementary, perhaps school biology.
And you and I are sitting here.
You're one of the most respected journalists in America.
And we're having to discuss an issue on which we all know the truth.
This is a pretend game that these people are playing.
They're not, you mentioned respect for the American people.
I don't think they do have respect for the American people.
I think they clearly think that most American people are bigots and are beneath contempt.
So that's why she's not answering the question.
And she also not answering the question because she knows on the argument, as you say, she's not going to win, which is why, you know, this concept that words of violence was so dangerous.
And, you know, in my former career as a stand-up comedian, I fought so hard against this because anyone with half a brain can see that once you set it up that words are violence, well, that's the method by which you A, allow words to be shut down.
And B, by the way, and this is quite important.
And I hope to God this doesn't, it doesn't come to this, but it did somewhat in the summer of 2020.
If words are violence, then if you're saying something I don't like, I am entitled to quote unquote defend myself.
I'm entitled to use violence against you.
I'm entitled to burn down the city.
I'm entitled to portion off a part of an American city and create an independent area, which is policed by people with guns.
I can do all sorts of things once we decide that words are violence.
And we have to find a way to row back from this, whether you're left or right, because I think we should all be deeply troubled by the way that we're having these conversations.
Me too.
Me too.
And just the notion, you know, again, everyone's going to commit suicide.
A high proportion of this community is going to commit suicide unless we go along with what they think about gender.
Well, we don't have to do that, but we don't have to submit to those threats.
And secondly, you're denying their existence.
She kept saying that you're denying their existence and that's dangerous.
Biological Reality vs Ideology 00:14:52
Denying that a biological man can get pregnant is not denying the existence of trans people.
It's denying that if you are born a man and then you decide to transition to female, certain biological realities will remain with you.
And one of them is you cannot get pregnant.
And if you are born a woman and decide to transition to male, you are still a woman.
Yes, you can get pregnant, but the reason you can do that is because you're a biological woman.
There's only one way you can have a baby, and that is if you are a biological woman.
So it's like they try to parlay your adherence to biology and to biological realities into bigotry and a denial of the trans community's existence.
And I think the discussion.
Megan, by the way, sorry to interrupt.
This isn't about the trans community.
Let's be very clear.
I employ on trigonometry, our YouTube show, at least two people who have gender dysphoria.
One of them is trans and one of them just has gender dysphoria.
They don't want this.
This person isn't speaking for them.
This person isn't making their lives better.
They're not the sort of people that want, you know, as we have here in London, the tube to stop saying, ladies and gentlemen, most trans people are quite sensible people who just want to live their lives and be left alone to live their lives in peace without violence and without being confronted by hateful bigots in the street who unfortunately do still exist, right?
But they don't need this professor to be making stuff up or to be calling someone transphobic for asking simple questions.
This is not helping trans people, just like many of the conversations we have about race don't help black people or other ethnic minorities, like the conversations we have sometimes about women's rights don't help women, and on and on and on it goes.
This isn't about the community, this is about a few activists who've realized that there's a lot of money and a lot of clicks to be found in talking about this in this ridiculous way.
And that is, excuse me, the only reason these people are doing it, because it benefits them.
And I say this, as you know, I talk about this in the book.
Think about how many of these activists talk about how evil and terrible the West is.
Have you noticed, Megan?
None of them ever leave.
None of them ever go to the country which they came from or to which their country from which their parents brought them into the West from.
They never leave.
Why is that?
Is it maybe because this is just a way to get famous and to get some money?
I wonder how long it can go on.
You know, this self-lagellation that my country's doing, your country's doing.
Like, could we go 10, 15, 20 years more of saying how awful we are, the refusal to celebrate July 4th.
I know you pointed out, you know, Corey Bush here in the States, part of the squad, was, you know, July 4th is a holiday for white people, white privileged people.
Okay.
Like, how long could we continue it?
You know, I do wonder where we are on the graph.
What do you think?
I think the pendulum is slowing.
I don't think it's started to swing back.
And I think reasonable people like you and I should be concerned about what happens when it does swing because every revolution is followed by an equally ugly counter-revolution.
So we definitely got to be careful when that moment comes.
We're nowhere near there yet, I don't think.
But I've always said from day one, Megan, that the trans issue would be what broke all of this intersectionality nonsense because people will accept, of course, historically speaking, there are communities that have been disadvantaged.
You know, many of the black people who live in America today are the descendants of slave and the slaves and the disadvantages of that will persist and so on and so forth.
I think no one sensible would argue that women haven't had a difficult time and have been unfairly treated at points in history.
All of these things are true.
And when you start to weaponize those, even moderate, sensible people will say, you know what, there's probably some truth to all of this.
You know, I'm going to be extra empathetic.
I'm going to be extra understanding.
But the trans issue is different because once you start to ask people to deny the evidence in front of their eyes, basic biology.
And by the way, probably most importantly, when you're starting to see, as you're now starting to see, a wave of detransitioners who were encouraged down the path of medical intervention, taking hormone blockers, mutilating their bodies, who now regret it.
And you want to say to parents of seven-year-olds, if your kid says, well, I think I'm a girl today, you've got to go and get them on the path to transition.
That's when you start to lose normal people, Megan.
And I've always said this was going to happen.
I'm really sad that what it's probably going to take is more and more young people who have gone through the process, who've tried to transition because they were encouraged down that path and sadly ended up with a body that's mutilated or not the way they'd like and terribly, you know, in terrible mental health situation as well.
But that is probably what it will take.
I do think that's starting to happen now.
I'm hopeful that we can minimize the number of people that are in that position.
We saw here in the UK, we've interviewed people from the Tavistock clinic, whistleblowers from the clinic where a lot of this was being encouraged.
We're seeing extensive pushback in the UK.
I know there are people who are pushing back against this in the US as well.
And I just hope that we can do get, I hope we can do that and get to a point where this is no longer happening before it's too late and before more young people have been captured by this terrible ideology.
Yeah, next week we're actually doing a full show on on and with detransitioners who have lived this firsthand.
And sorry, it's in August, the beginning of August, but who say they did not give informed consent.
They were teenagers.
who were confused, who encountered a system that said, oh, affirm, affirm, affirm at every turn, or you're endangering their life.
Or you, you know, you'd rather have a dead daughter, a dead son, or I'd rather have a live daughter than a dead son.
All the same rhetoric that we saw this so-called professor using about, you know, this high suicide rate and your language is dangerous.
And so they got shepherded through a system that wanted their transition when they were too young to really understand it, consent to it.
And now, if you were a young woman who thought she was a man and you go through this, you're sterile.
You're not having a baby.
You can never carry a child.
You can never breastfeed a child.
These people who claim to care about trans kids, allegedly trans kids in crisis, couldn't care less.
They care about their own agendas, their agenda pushing.
And that's why I think your comment about in the book about like what's in fashion is so telling because I do think not only is it fashionable to call your country and ours racist and to sort of hang everything up on some sort of racial problem, but the trans thing is somewhat fashionable as well.
It's like all these teenagers, they're not trans.
Some small tiny percentage of them might have gender dysphoria because it is a real thing.
But the vast majority of these kids think it's fashionable or they feel like they don't belong or they were told like our one guest, if you feel uncomfortable in your body, you might be trans.
Well, every teenager feels uncomfortable in their own body.
Like that is not the standard by which you judge if you're trans.
But the fashionability of it, it's an overcorrection to the demonization of it.
And Megan, I'll add something very controversial right now, which is I'll say, children can't consent.
We seem to be forgetting this basic point.
Children are children by virtue of the fact that they're not capable of fully understanding the consequences of their actions.
I've actually come back from one of my sister's weddings.
She just got married.
And in the process of the wedding, her husband was asked questions about her.
And one of them was, what did Ira Irina, your sister, what did she want to be as a child?
And the answer was a boy.
Because my sister, the prettiest, loves pink, all feminine now, she, as a seven-year-old, said to my mom, I want to be a boy.
And she went through a phase for a few months where that's what she said.
And guess what?
Now she's turned out to be a perfectly normal, straight, cis, quote-unquote woman, right?
Children cannot consent.
Children are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions.
We've got to be very, very careful that we don't make this, you know, children choosing their own gender at that sort of age.
And we don't encourage them down paths that are going to be detrimental to them.
It is our job as adults to protect them from the consequences of things that they don't fully understand.
And we've done a terrible job of doing that.
It's so true.
It's something that we're going to live to regret.
We're already starting to regret.
And I do think the real way forward is not just the detransitioners, but it's going to be the lawsuits.
It's going to be the lawsuits from the detransitioners and families who in earnest sought care for their child psychiatric care, amongst others, and instead were pushed an agenda that tends to be left wing, that tends to be weirdly ideological.
There's not a lot of conservatives pushing this.
And that tells you something.
Like that's an alarm.
And so I remain hopeful that the courts, as they have been in so many situations, can be some sort of a backstop to some of this lunacy, but we just have to start it.
We've got to get it started.
when you've got constitutional law professors like this moron out there teaching the next generation of lawyers i do worry you know i mean can you imagine can you remember back in the day when you used to think like you just had a baby it would be great if he wound up at berkeley or harvard or yale like wow that would open up such doors and make such connections hell no i don't want my kids anywhere near those institutions I don't blame you.
And look, as you know, we've just had our first child.
He's a couple of months old.
And this is something I've already thought about.
It's like in the past, the standard path line was, you know, you go, you get good grades at school, then you go to college or university, and then you've landed, you land a great job.
Well, if this is what's happening at colleges and universities, I don't want my child anywhere near that.
I'd rather they were a plumber, frankly, at this point.
Do you know what I mean?
So this isn't, this isn't, you know, and this is one of the reasons that, you know, that I talk in Immigrants Love Letter to the West about how I really became aware of all of this stuff, where I was asked to sign a behavioral agreement contract to do a comedy gig.
And that's the point I was making at the time, which was, look, I hear these students, you know, that are running around being a bit crazy.
Students have always done this.
Of course, young people are going to do this.
Sure.
The problem isn't the students.
The problem is who's teaching them and what are they then growing up to be?
Because we see it here now in the UK.
A lot of these people are now politicians.
They're lawyers.
They're judges.
They're making decisions that actually impact the real world.
And they're bringing a lot of this complete nonsense and rubbish and a lack of understanding of the real world into political spaces, into legal spaces, and then having a genuine real impact on the world.
So this isn't something that's contained to college campuses.
And I'm glad people are starting to realize that.
That was just in 2018.
I didn't realize it was that recently that that happened.
They wanted you to sign this pledge that you were going to, you weren't going to touch any third real subject.
There would be no jokes about it.
I can't remember the list, but it was like.
I can.
Let me tell you, Megan, because it's worth hearing.
Racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion, anti-atheism.
And it also said that all jokes must be respectful and kind.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Would have been a great, great bet.
I'm sure you would have crushed it.
Yeah.
So that's the kind of thinking that some people at our universities are starting to engage in.
And I saw it in comedy and comedy is now riddled with this stuff, certainly in the UK.
And that's because comedy is downstream of culture of society in general.
So I saw the early signs of it in the comedy industry, which is why we started trigonometry in the first place.
Frankly, we were just two idiot comedians who were trying to understand why is it that people were suddenly saying, instead of, you know, make any jokes you want, and that's the whole point of being a comedian, to like, jokes are violence and you mustn't oppress people with your offensive humor.
And that's kind of the journey that I've been on, and which is why I wanted to write the book, because that experience as a comedian really terrified me because of where I come from.
You know, I was born in the Soviet Union.
I saw this sort of repression of people's ideas, repressions of people's statements, the fact that you were restricted from making jokes or punished for making jokes.
And I was like, hey, I left Russia, the Soviet Union, because I didn't want any part of this.
And now I've ended up in the West.
And that's exactly what we've got.
There is a popular British feminist and poet named Aja.
And she just got banned from Twitter because she went online to complain about a trans woman, a biological man, a trans woman, basically trying to lecture her and others on how they on their objections to certain of the encroachments on women's rights that the trans community, or better put, their activists push for, right?
So she got out there and she did her sort of poetry, like this is bullshit, not object.
And Twitter's banned her because they don't like the way in which she expressed herself.
And it really is ironic if you think about the fact that what you really have is a biological man lecturing a woman on how she needs to speak about women's rights and the woman saying, no, I will not let you constrain me.
I will speak about women's rights the way I want to and stand up for them the way I want to.
And Twitter telling the woman, you will shut up.
And the biological man will have the last word.
He can say what he wants about, quote, women, but you cannot.
Your side of the conversation will be shut down unless you agree to speak in the way he slash she wants you to.
I mean, that's the point that we are at.
Because you kind of like out of respect for the trans community.
And I am somebody who does their pronouns.
I don't mind saying their pronouns.
It's fine.
I just think it's respectful and it's kind.
But when you get to the point where you realize a trans woman is a biological man, that's a biological man.
And so it's essentially a man trying to tell you, a woman, how you need to speak about women's rights.
The only answer is to say, no, no, I don't consent.
I will speak about women however the hell I want.
And if you don't like it, you can listen to another channel.
You can walk away, but you cannot censor or silence me and my speech.
There's nothing feminist or pro-woman about that.
Well, I agree with you and very passionately said.
And of course, if you said all that on Twitter, you'd be banned as well.
That's the situation we're in because you keep saying he and you're not allowed to do that.
And I come back to the point that I made earlier, which is this is about the idea that words are violence.
Once you accept that, everything else follows.
Another thing, of course, and we've got a big problem because it's legislated for now in many countries, you've got this idea that there are protected groups.
And once you have protected groups, and by the way, not to attempt to annoy feminists, but I do think there are portions of feminism that actually got involved in this and tried to introduce the idea of protected groups.
Pandemic Mandates and Control 00:12:32
And it's starting to, you know, kick them in the rear now at this point or bite them in the rear, right?
Once you introduce the idea of protected groups, you're saying, well, not everyone is the same.
Not everyone's equal.
Of course, not everyone's the same, but not everyone should be treated equally.
Then you get to a position where some, you know, some animals are better than others.
And some animals deserve to be treated better than others.
Of course, I'm quoting Animal Farms.
So that's the place we're in.
And we've got to get to a point where we start to unwind some of these very, very dangerous ideas.
Because once they go from the realm of just some people talking on a campus to actual legislation, as we have in this country, where we have the Equalities Act, which says in terms, some people deserve to be treated differently to other people.
You're always going to have this problem.
You're always going to have certain groups that need special protection.
And therefore, anyone who says anything, because remember, words of violence, they've got to be punished.
They've got to be struck down.
They've got to be silenced.
And that is the position we're in.
So there's a big job ahead of unwinding some of those policies that we've seen in the last couple of decades.
All right.
Constantine, stand by.
I'm going to squeeze in a quick break.
Much, much more to go over with you.
Okay, so let's talk about classism.
This is something that you do talk about.
And you care about income inequality.
And I do too.
I do too.
It doesn't mean you don't like capitalism, but you can see the issues with like skyrocketing rents and not a skyrocketing employment opportunity for young people in terms of salary and so on.
But I've heard you talk about recently, like in particular, these economic or these green energy policies, which are crushing, are crushing the working class.
And how I think it was a tweet that you sent out that says, the one thing that's becoming clear to me is whatever your view of climate change, the pursuit of net zero by continually raising the cost of living is going to cause populist revolts that will make Brexit and Trump look like minor blips.
I agree with that.
We're seeing it now in Sri Lanka, right?
In what's happening in the Netherlands with these farmers.
And, you know, in your country and mine, people have about had it with these so-called green energy policies that come at the expense of the working class.
And, you know, there are a lot of other causes for concern economically as well.
I mean, it's going to be, let's be clear, Megan.
I think the economists I speak to all are very clear about this.
A very difficult economic time is coming anyway.
So to spend the time that we have instead of dealing with those problems, whether it's the effect of the war in Ukraine, which is probably in terms of the global food crisis, is going to cause famine in many countries around the world.
Now, we in the West, of course, are fortunate to probably avoid that, but we will see very high rises in the cost of living, whether that's fuel, whether that's food, whether that's gas, and to be piling all of this stuff on top.
Look, I don't know enough.
I'm not a climate scientist.
I don't know what the deal with that is.
I'm just saying, I think the way we're approaching this by impoverishing the people who are already vulnerable in our societies is not going to achieve that.
And what you're going to get instead is populist revolts of the kind that I, frankly, don't want to see.
And I don't see how you get away from that fact that at a time when people are already struggling, if you have a situation as we do in the UK, where so much of our energy pricing, so much of our fuel pricing, so much of our food particularly is the product of these levies, is a product of some of the ways that we are approaching this idea that we must get to net zero immediately.
Otherwise, we're all going to drown and run out of food in 12 years.
It's not going to have a good impact on our society.
So even if you believe that we have to tackle the issue of climate change and with urgency, this just does not seem to me like a practical way to do it, particularly when we seem to be ignoring forms of energy like nuclear energy that actually do help to solve the problem, but for some reason don't seem to get the green activists excited.
I don't know why.
I blame Jane Fonda and that movie, The China Syndrome.
I blame her for a lot, but that's one of the problems.
And my guys were Chernobyl.
We did not handle that well, to be fair.
So that probably didn't help either.
That's true.
Although that series was amazing, right?
That so-called documentary.
I'm not sure if it was a true documentary, but in any event.
So Joe Biden, let's talk about him politics for a minute because he goes over to Israel in the Middle East.
He's going to meet with the Saudis as well, the ones he said he would deem pariahs, but now he goes hat in hand.
And today, actually, yesterday in Israel, I mean, you know, the one thing you're not supposed to do when you go over to Israel, I think, is make gaps about the Holocaust.
I'm pretty sure it's the one thing you shouldn't screw up.
Here's a little bit of what happened when he was there, Soundbite 2.
I will once more return to the hollow ground of Yad Shav Veshem to honor 6 million Jewish lives who were stolen in the genocide and continue, which we must do every, every day, continue to bear witness to keep alive the truth and honor of the Holocaust, horror of the Holocaust.
Honor those we lost.
I realize this is a stumble, the honor of the Holocaust.
It happens, but it happens to him all the time.
He kept referring to the prime minister as the president.
It was just, I mean, it was every turn.
You really do have the feeling of like, when he's talking, right?
And it's like, it just feeds into the lack of faith in our leaders.
You guys are about to elect a new one.
I hope you do better.
I do too, Megan.
I'll be honest with you.
I mean, of course, people can make partisan points here, but I'll be honest, as an outsider, as someone who respects America, who thinks it's a country that has a lot of the right values, I know you're very divided at the moment, but actually that's because you're trying to work out how to run a country, how to run a society.
That's one of the things I love about your country.
Like here in Europe, we're like, we've got all this sorted out.
We don't need to talk about it when actually we do.
You guys, yeah, you've got problems, but you're trying to work it out.
You're trying to, I love America for this reason.
And to see that you've gone from one guy who said a lot of stuff that was unpleasant to listen to to another guy who barely says anything that you can actually hear and is coherent.
I just think it's a bad look for your country.
It's a bad look for America.
It doesn't reflect well whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or a moderate or anything.
It's just sad.
It's sad to see.
I'm sad that he's in a position where this continues to happen.
It just looks bad as an outsider, I'll be honest with you.
Yeah, Viazi's just elected somebody who's got similar stumbling problems, though he's a much younger man.
He said that when he went to the Middle East, he wasn't going to.
I mentioned this on my show yesterday and said I hadn't confirmed it.
I wasn't sure if it was fake news.
No, it's real.
He said he wasn't going to shake the hands of any leaders while over there because of COVID, you know, because they're very concerned.
The WHO is saying we should bring back masks, mask mandates.
All right.
It's like they're never going to let go of their hand over our mouth ever.
Once you give these controls to the government authorities, they will never give them back to you.
So he's saying because of COVID and the rise in the Omicron sub-variants, he doesn't want to shake hands while he's over there.
Most people believe that he just doesn't want to shake the hands of the Saudi leaders, who he said he would make pariahs out of and who killed Washington Post journalist Khashoggi.
Anyway, so he goes over there and what does he do?
He starts fist bumping.
He's fist bumping the Israeli leaders.
My God, Constantine.
And then, and they're trying to shake his hand.
And then he sees Netanyahu.
And what does he do?
Grabs his hand, gives him the big, you know, five-finger handshake and winds up seeing some Holocaust survivors a bit later.
And he's kissing them and he's hugging them, putting the lie to this whole nonsense about his COVID concerns.
I don't know what to make of it other than it's more lying from our leaders.
You've written a piece recently.
Was this in your book?
I'm trying to remember where I saw this, but you're pointing out how you might have some good leaders in the UK.
The same applies here, but there's very few who you actually find impressive, who you actually like deeply respect.
And more and more we're getting that here too.
Yeah.
And this COVID theater, Megan, it's one of the things it's doing, people think this is just a playful thing that we all laugh at.
Actually, it has real consequences because the more you see that the people who are telling you to wear a mask or to get vaccinated or to get your booster or to socially distance or whatever, the more you see that they don't do any of this, that they don't actually live up to the expectations that they set for you.
The more I think a lot of people actually switch off and don't take sensible precautions in situations where actually it probably would be a good idea to socially distance from people when you can, if there's a lot of a virus going around.
Do you know what I mean?
So we've got this point.
We've got to this point where they are doing theater and people, of course, lose trust and faith in our politicians.
But the broader point, yeah, you're right.
I talk about it both in the book and on my sub stack is we've got to a position where I think we deliberately filter out people of principle and character, because of course, the moment you stand up for principle, as you and I both know, the moment you stand up for what you believe in, you do alienate some people.
Some people won't like it.
And in the current environment that we have, the moment anyone doesn't like what you do, that is the end of your political career.
If you said the wrong thing, it's a gaffe.
If you did the wrong thing, well, you're evil forever and so on.
And I'm afraid as a result of that, we're preventing decent people from going into politics.
And when they do, they find that it's not a place that they're going to stick around.
And so you end up with the people that we all end up with.
I have a glimmer of hope on this subject to offer.
I was thinking about this the other day.
One upside of the younger generation having grown up with social media and just having to worry from birth about what they say online and the incoming attacks and bullying you get on Instagram and Facebook, whatever it is, is we might wind up with better leaders.
Because I think a lot of people, a lot of sane people right now are like, I'm not running for all, why would I put myself and my family through that?
I don't want to be subjected to that nonsense.
And I feel like the younger people are like, I've never known any other.
Yeah, of course I'll do it.
Yeah, why would I let public scorn stop me?
That's, I've been immersed in that toxic stew since birth.
So I'm kind of hoping it could lead to better leaders because we're neutralizing that factor.
You can no longer live a life of privacy where you're not constantly getting attacked.
And so why not get out there and try to make a difference?
We'll see.
On the subject of COVID, we're gearing back up.
There's already talk about, should we be bringing back more lockdowns about mask mandates?
Returning now to LA.
New York just brought back not mandates, but mask recommendations.
I mentioned the WHO.
And now Hong Kong, Hong Kong is going to electronically tag COVID patients, people who have tested positive for COVID as it adopts China's health code system.
This is pretty crazy, where they're going to make you wear a bracelet to track you to make sure that you're isolating in home.
And I mean, it's like one of those things where you look at it overseas and you say never here, never here.
And I wouldn't put it past our leaders to try it.
No, I wouldn't either.
And if you remember, Megan, I don't know if this story made it over to the US.
I hope it did.
But Neil Ferguson, one of the statisticians responsible for helping to introduce lockdowns here in the UK, he openly said in an interview in the Telegraph, I think, that they had no idea that they could do lockdowns until they saw China do it.
And then they were like, oh, they can do it.
So can we.
So I'm afraid this entire thing has been handled with a very Chinese slant.
And if you know anything about the way the CCP controls the population, if you know anything about the Chinese social credit system, you should be very concerned.
And I think what's really, really important is the opposition that was fomented to all of these measures during the peak of COVID here in the UK and of course in the US.
That needs those people who are part of that movement, myself included, we need to remember this ain't over.
They're going to try again.
I think there's no question that this winter there will be another wave, judging by what people are saying.
And if there's another wave, there will be another wave of authoritarianism that we're all going to have to resist once again.
Yes, we're going to have to resist.
We're going to have to fight.
Finding Purpose Beyond Conflict 00:03:38
So let's end on this note because as we discussed, you have a new baby.
He was born in May.
So you are brand new to fatherhood.
And it's fun and it's exciting and it can be overwhelming, I'm sure, if it's anything like my experience.
But you wrote a barn burner of a substack column to your son that I absolutely loved called We Do Not Kneel, a letter to my newborn son.
And the gist of this letter, and I encourage everybody to go to Constantine's Substack and read it, is as follows.
If you want to live a comfortable life, you can fit in.
Don't ask too many questions.
Keep your head down.
But son, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that comfort is overrated.
You did not come into this world to consume as much food, pleasure, and entertainment as you can.
A fulfilling life is one of purpose.
And the meaning of your life is to identify that purpose and pursue it with every fiber of your being.
You go on to say those who lack the courage of their convictions will be threatened by yours.
Those who lack confidence will consider you arrogant for having it.
And most of all, those who are desperate to fit in will hate and secretly admire you for standing out.
I love that.
You encourage him not to settle, not to settle, and to pursue a life of extraordinary nature, of an extraordinary nature.
I couldn't agree with everything you've written more.
I feel like it, I mean, it was for what I was trying to get at in my book, Settle for More as well, one of the many reasons you and I like each other because we have similar life philosophies.
And just spend a minute speaking about that.
Do not kneel.
I don't know how to say.
I'm probably going to cry talking about it because it's so important to me, Megan.
You know, I come from generations of people who were in gulags in the Soviet Union because they said the wrong thing, but they believed in it.
And so they said it anyway.
I come from generations of people, as my boy does, of people who refuse to bend to authorities like the kinds that no one in the West can imagine.
So when I see people who are afraid of speaking their mind because the mob is going to pursue them on social media or someone is going to send them a threat or whatever, I understand.
I do understand.
But this is no way to live.
This is no way to live.
Every single person is born to do something brilliant with their life.
And I really believe that the pursuit of that brilliance, whatever form of shape it comes in, is the purpose of your life, is the meaning of your life.
It's the only thing that I've ever done that's made me happy.
It's when I've been doing what I believe.
It's when I've been speaking my mind without muzzling myself.
And that's why I encourage my son and frankly, anyone who wants to listen to pursue that to the best of their ability.
And by the way, I don't care if your politics are different to mine, if your views are different to mine.
It doesn't really matter to me.
I just know that a world full of people who are pursuing their purpose is a world full of happy people.
And happy people don't engage in the sort of divisive crap that we've had in our countries for the last decade or two.
And if we can all be doing something that we love, I think we'll get to a position where we hate on each other less and we actually come together in a much more productive way, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write the book, because as you know, I tried to address the book to people who would disagree with me because I do think it's important that we reach across the aisle.
It's important that we don't demonize the other, even if we think they're silly or stupid or whatever it is.
We've got to get past that.
Megan, we've had a lot of division.
We will have more division.
But look, if we are to survive as the West, we're going to have to come together eventually.
And I think that's really important.
Faith, Marriage, and Community 00:16:33
Love it.
Everybody should buy the book.
It's called An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West.
Constantine Kissen.
Those are two K's there in case you're Googling it.
And check out Trigonometry as well because it's well worth your time.
Such a pleasure.
Congrats on the baby, on the book, and much, much more success coming your way.
Thank you so much, Megan.
Always a pleasure.
All right, coming up here in just a bit, the Penna Vegas will be here.
Very, very popular.
And Gwendolyn is very excited for them.
My intern.
Big, big fan.
And you will be too.
You know both of these folks, whether you know it or not.
Don't forget, folks, in the meantime, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at Noon East.
The full video show and the clips are on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.
If you prefer an audio podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast.
I read all the reviews there.
There were some updates today, which had me laughing, and I appreciate the guest suggestions too.
And there you will find our full archives with more than 350 shows.
So check it out.
Our next guests have several members of my staff, extremely excited who know them as I do from movies like Spy Kids and shows like Big Time Rush.
Alexa and Carlos Pena Vega were hugely successful in the entertainment industry and still are, but their success began at a very early age.
Alexa became known for her role as Carmen Cortez in the major, major hit movie franchise Spy Kids.
And Carlos starred in Nickelodeon's big time rush and toured the country with the band.
But there is so much more to this married couple and their story.
They recently released a memoir titled, What if Love is the Point? Living for Jesus in a Self-Consumed World.
Love that title.
And it details their journey in the industry, finding their faith, finding each other, and why they decided to leave Hollywood behind.
Welcome to the show, Carlos and Alexa.
Great to have you here.
How's it going?
Thank you for having us.
Oh my God, the pleasure is all mine.
I love, love, love your backgrounds and your stories and how open you guys both are about getting to the place you are now.
And you don't pretend it was easy.
You don't pretend you've had these perfect lives.
To the contrary, you own all the bumps along the road.
And there's a reason you want to own them and explain to people sort of who you are now and what makes you the glowing, happy people I see before me on the screen.
Hey, we'll take you.
We'll take it.
Well, I think, well, for us, you know, you look at just even social media today.
It's all filtered, veneered, right?
And the truth is, like, when we first kind of started growing in our faith, it wasn't this like perfect, easy thing that I think sometimes people sell Christianity to be.
They make it sound like the second you become a Christian, your life's going to be perfect.
And in all honesty, our life got really, really hard after we found our faith because this world is not set up really for faith-built people.
It's not really set up for happy marriages or happy families.
So we really had to navigate what that looked like in our careers, what that looked like on social media.
And we were frustrated seeing all of these kind of perfect Christians, I guess, on social media.
We're like, no, we want to share what our walk really looks like.
So for us, we just wanted to be really consistent and honest and authentic to what it looks like to actually be a Christian in today's world.
I want to talk more about that, that this world is not set up to celebrate happy marriages.
Hollywood, certainly, no, but even regular world.
I mean, I've observed this even in my own life.
You go out with groups of friends in certain pockets.
You know, we travel amongst different groups of friends in different places.
And in some of the groups, it's always the guys with the, with the guys and the girls with the girls, right?
Like you go out to dinner or whatever.
It's like, wait, no, I want to experience this evening with my spouse.
Like I don't, I'm not looking to separate from him at every party and every dinner.
But that's just my own, but you've experienced it in a world that the messaging around faith, around love-build, well, happy marriages is nothing like what it used to be.
No, no.
And especially like in our industry, we got married really young.
I mean, what was it, 23?
23, 24.
Like that's kind of unheard of in our industry.
And I feel like people, like our friends kind of, kind of disowned us because they were like, well, they're the married couple now.
And I'm like, but, but it's okay.
We can still hang out.
You know, it's fine.
And it was, it was really hard for us in the beginning because we didn't have a lot of friends, especially.
Yeah, especially in LA.
And we ended up, after we had our first kid, we ended up moving to Maui.
And it's been amazing.
You know, a lot of young Christian families.
And it's just, man, I really hope that my goal is that we can really show people the beauty of marriage again, you know, and the beauty of creating that family and having a bunch of kids and traveling.
I mean, we're currently on tour with my band.
We're coming to you live from our tour bus.
So cool.
Yeah.
And, you know, a big conversation was, are you bringing your family on tour?
And I'm like, well, yeah, I'm not going to leave my kids, my five-year-old, my three-year-old, my one-year-old, and my beautiful wife for three months while I go tour the world and play shows.
Like, I want them to experience that with me because those are the memories that we can create.
And we had to make a lot of sacrifices to make this happen.
But man, you know, it's been three weeks and I wouldn't change a thing.
It's a good way to start distancing from one another.
If you physically distance, the emotional distance inevitably will follow.
So you're right.
You're doing, you're prioritizing your love, your family.
But I've got to ask you why Maui, right?
Because most people, I don't, nobody moves to Maui.
Who moves to Maui?
Like it's an amazing idea.
We vacationed there a little bit.
Yeah, but we always thought like, oh, once we retire, we'll live there.
But what I love about my husband is he's such a go-getter that like for us, we're like, why are we, why are we going to wait until retirement to go have fun?
Like, why don't we just go have this fun?
Well, because we were worried about what other people would think about it.
And I think over the last, you know, handful of years, we kind of realized like, who cares?
Who cares what people think about what you're doing?
They're already not going to like you.
Yeah.
That doesn't matter.
And we're all so worried about, you know, making, making our life look like an Instagram picture, you know, so perfect with all the filters.
Like, man, you know what?
If I feel like I want to go do this and, you know, it's not bad, of course, like, let's just go do it.
And who cares?
You know, my, my dad, I love him to death, but he thinks we're crazy that we moved to Maui because it's not convenient for him.
And I had to go, well, pops, like, it's really convenient for us, but he's mad about it because it's not convenient for him.
And, you know, the old me would have been like, well, maybe, you know, maybe we shouldn't do it because it's not convenient for him.
But now I'm like, no, it's, this is what our family needed.
And we made it happen.
Well, I love the idea because I know, Alexa, you grew up, was it on a ranch in Florida?
So you're like, you're used to being outside and having a connection with nature.
And having lived in New York City for a bunch of years.
And I know now, and not you, me, but you were in LA, obviously for a bunch of years.
You kind of lose that.
You know, you're surrounded.
I realize LA, you can hike or whatever, but it's not the same as being in Maui or growing up in a ranch.
Your kids now sounds like the way you're raising them is they're outside.
They're connected with nature.
And you guys are too.
You're not sitting in front of screens constantly or, you know, in New York where the main focus is on getting drunk at some bar or restaurant.
Exactly.
No, we just wanted to give our kids the best upbringing we could because at the end of the day, we are going to travel.
We are going to be in big cities.
They have the coolest life because they get to go experience all these different cultures all over the world because that's where our work takes us.
So we wanted to make sure that home base was a place that we could really root ourselves into and really create community and a place that felt like home.
And for us, it ended up being Maui.
But I will say, and I've talked about this recently, but I moved begrudgingly because I knew God was calling our family to move.
I really felt that pull on my heart.
Oh, it feels so badly for you.
You had to move to Maui.
Listen.
But the truth, the truth was I was so invested in my career and it was really picking up.
And I was working a lot that for me, it was really taking a big step back to focus on family and to focus on our marriage.
And, you know, for the longest time, I had always really thought that we moved for Carlos because Carlos was really frustrated with how things were going in the industry for him and how things were moving.
So he just was like, I need to get away or I'm going to quit.
So we moved.
And in the beginning, like, it was actually a struggle for me because I just, I grew up in this industry.
I started when I was four.
So for me, set is home.
So the idea of leaving this place that offered me so much, it was like ripping a part of me away.
What I realized actually ended up happening was my identity was so in the industry that I needed to be pulled away from it to really root myself like further into my faith, further into our relationship, our family.
And we came out stronger than ever.
We've taken the last five years to really foundation build in our family and in our faith.
And we are, I feel like we can conquer anything now.
We've really come out of it.
Just like we got there.
You're welcome.
Thank you, babe.
Thank you, babe.
That was such a smart choice.
I mean, most people don't listen to that little voice.
You're lucky that you had Carlos to sort of pull you and say, I see the path.
And you took a leap of faith in many ways.
And it paid off.
So let's talk about the faith because it was a journey for both of you, right?
Like, Carol, Carlos, you were raised Catholic.
Then you tried out the Baptist church.
And then I think, as I understand it, your parents got divorced and it didn't bring them together.
So you were like, all right, Baptist Church doesn't work.
So how did you reconnect with God?
Because I read you writing about like Jesus, and I'm trying to remember exactly how you put it.
Hold on, I like it because I wanted to ask you about it.
Yeah, you write how you listened to somebody talking about how he'd met Jesus, how he'd met Jesus.
And what did that mean to you at the time?
So our best friend now, Andrew, who's probably listening right now, Andrew, we love you, dude, so much.
He'd always been this like shining light in our lives.
And I never knew why, but his consistency and his faith and his just love for people, it just like, you know, like, like I was attracted to his light, right?
And I was in a really dark place in my life.
I had just come off a tour.
I was doing things that I probably shouldn't have been doing, definitely shouldn't have been doing.
And I didn't know who to call except for this one person in my life who was a consistent light in my life.
Yeah.
I mean, Andrew and I were friends, you know, he was my, he was my realtor.
So like, we weren't like best friends, but like, I, you know, I knew him, I knew him.
But I thought about everybody in my life, everybody in my family, all my friends, my coworkers.
And I was like, this is the one person that I see.
I feel like he's got it all figured out all together.
So I, so I call him up and I'm like, Andrew, I'm like, dude, nice talking to you.
Got one question.
Why are you so happy?
And he literally just laughed and he started talking about Jesus.
And I immediately hung up the phone.
I was like, I'm not doing this.
And after that, two days go by.
I call him again.
I'm like, okay, I'll listen this time.
So he invites me to church.
And begrudgingly, I go to this church, but you know, I'm just kind of like, I'm searching.
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I need something in my life because I'm just miserable.
So I go to this church.
It's this little black church in Inglewood.
The old ladies with the big hats, they're like, you know, clapping their hands, singing some gospel music.
And I'm just feeling it.
And the bishop goes up and he preaches this sermon about when he was 23.
And I was like, I'm 23.
And he preaches all this stuff about he was doing this, he was doing that.
He was sleeping around.
I was like, oh my gosh, this is me.
And it was as if he was, God was literally speaking through him directly to me.
And I left that church and I was like, I, I, I want it all.
Like I was on a Jesus high.
I called everybody that I'd ever wronged and I apologized.
And I, and I go to Andrew and I said, Andrew, I want more.
Like, like, like, how do I get more?
And he goes, well, I have a Bible study on, you know, Wednesday nights.
You should come.
And I said, okay, I'm there.
So I end up showing up to the Bible study.
Now, I'm on my Jesus high.
And lo and behold, Alexa shows up at the Bible study for her first time also.
And she was going through Morris.
It was just literally, I tell people, I'm like, I found God and truly found God and just like submitted myself to him and gave him my life.
And my life changed within seven days.
Yeah.
I mean, right away, but like within seven days, I had met my future wife who I was going to have three kids with and travel the world.
Like I, I, I couldn't have written that.
You know, yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
Well, now, did you know, Alexa, what was your history?
with faith with God before that moment of meeting Carlos at the Andrew Bible study.
It was touch and go.
So when I was really little, my mom really instilled a love for God, instilled a love for Jesus in my heart.
But then, you know, as seasons go by in your life, like we all have our seasons that we go through, faith really fell off of our family.
So we stopped going to church when I was like 13.
Now, when I say we were going to church, we were kind of doing the like every other Sunday type thing, very topical.
Like I knew there was more to Jesus.
I just didn't know like what that depth was.
I knew there was a better relationship with God, but I didn't really have anybody with our whole family.
We didn't have somebody in our life to like really guide us and navigate us to what that was.
So my heart craved it though.
And when I was 16, I started driving and I would drive myself to church and I would drive my sisters to church with me.
But again, it was this like Sunday morning thing.
I knew there was more, but I didn't know how to attain that.
Like I would try to read my Bible, but the version that I had wasn't really a version that I understood.
So my craving for that relationship was always there, but it didn't really actually, I didn't deep dive until that first Bible study.
I even went through a failed marriage.
I learned a lot from that.
I always deal with a cordial relationship.
I even talk about it in the book a little bit.
He was somebody that helped me navigate the outs of my, I battled the eating disorder growing up and he was there for me for that.
So I'll always be thankful for the things that I learned in that first relationship.
But coming out of it, I was just really lost and I was done.
I'm like, God, I need you and I really need to find you.
And I wanted to deep dive.
So I called my friend Andrew, who had told me about his Bible study multiple times and I was finally ready to go.
And it was just interesting how the crossroads for us, we were both at low points in our lives where we were really craving being rooted into something and really having that stability.
And that happened to be right when we met.
So our entire foundation of our relationship is our faith and always was our faith.
It wasn't like started out our relationship and then we discovered this and had to try to figure out how to add it to our relationship.
Like us hanging out was going to Bible study, going to church together, talking about God, praying together.
And it really molded us as a couple.
And I think that's why we've been able to be so successful as a couple, as a family, because of that foundation.
Rooted in Shared Belief 00:16:21
Don't get us, don't get me wrong.
We had our hard times.
We got our heels in our valleys.
Well, that brings me to my next question, because I think in a way you were very lucky to have such success professionally in your lives, each one of you, at a young age, right?
Because that the industry that you chose, and I can relate because media is no ball of roses.
But the industries that you chose are kind of toxic.
And I think a lot of people go into them thinking it's going to fill something in you.
You know, if you, if you can spike that ball in the end zone, you're going to be like, yes, I made it.
I'm famous.
I'm earning a great living at a young age.
I'm beautiful.
Yeah, I know, Alexa, you were on, I wrote it down, the Vanity Fair hottest teen celebs list, starring in movies, and you're touring, Carlos.
So it's like, okay, I did it.
Like I am accomplishing all of my professional goals.
Why do I feel so bad?
Right?
Like, if you don't get to that, then you're still just chasing the false God, right?
You got to the point where you captured the false God and felt the emptiness that comes with it.
And listen, we still battle.
I mean, we're human.
We still battle, you know, finding good community, especially when we're on the road.
I mean, we haven't been home in five months.
So, you know, trying to build friendships, especially, you know, when you move to a new place.
So, like, we've been on Maui almost six years now, but a friendship doesn't happen overnight.
You have to build it.
You have to cultivate it.
Right.
And then for us, we've been on the road and something awesome happened.
We, we, I don't think we can announce it yet, but something really amazing happened about a month ago.
And we were like jumping up and down, like crying, celebrating.
And then we were also really sad because we're like, we have like one person that we can call about this.
We didn't have, we don't have Andrew.
I don't know.
We don't have like this plethora of friends, at least not to that kind of depth.
And Andrew has just always really been there for us.
But it was also this moment of kind of like pain too, because, you know, we love our parents.
We're not very close with our parents.
We're starting to develop better relationships with our siblings, which has been amazing.
But again, it was just this kind of sad, lonely moment where, like, thank God we had each other.
Thank God we had Andrew and we're really trying to build our community.
But we're just like, man, we don't have anybody else to celebrate with.
But it was just such a moment where like, God did not intend us to be alone.
He wants you to have that community because you can't really celebrate something alone.
Like you want to celebrate with other people.
And that's why I always tell people, I'm like, if you can dig into community, if you could find your people to do it, it's so important, especially like-minded people.
Cause we have a ton of friends in this industry who don't know God or who don't think like we do or who are polar opposites in our in our way of thinking.
But like, but they're awesome and we want to we want to pour into each other.
We want to love on each other.
But there's something so special about finding like-minded people because they really lift you up in all the areas that you need to be lifted up and they hold you accountable.
Yeah.
And that's been, to go back to your question, that's probably been like way more fulfilling than any of this other stuff that the acting, the awards, the, you know, being on tour, this is all great.
But, but you're right.
There's always like a sense of emptiness.
And how did we feel that?
It was literally deepening our relationship with God and finding a really good community, whether it's, you know, as small as ours or, you know, big, like just really, really having that one-on-one with God and one-on-one with people.
I feel like people are so topical now.
So like the friends that we do have, they really invest and we invest in them.
So it's, it's, it's so fulfilling.
Here's my question for you, Carlos, because when I was reading your story and it's, it's a great story because I love that you, you had so much rejection before you actually got big time rush.
It was like, and I tried out and I did really well and no.
And then I tried another one and no.
And it just kept coming, but you kept going.
So you, then you get cast in this, you know, hit show and the band.
And I was, I was expecting like a fall where it was like you were strung out on drugs, you know, but it was actually kind of sweet to me that it was short of that, that your light bulb went on.
I mean, like a lot of video games.
You're talking about eating hot pockets and ice cream every night.
I'm like, it sounds pretty good, but that was part of your love.
I mean, you know, it's so funny.
When we did Dancing with the Stars, I told my testimony and I said, you know, like, I was smoking a lot of weed every day and I was doing this and I was drinking and I was sleeping around.
And one of the dancers, you know, he, he, he came up to me after the show and he's like, bro, you're making us all look bad.
Like, that's that was your rock bottom.
That's my life.
Right.
I was like, look, I was like, at the end of the day, everybody's walk is going to be different.
And for me, like that's that, I'm thankful that that's when I hit that moment of like, I need help.
Because if I didn't, if I didn't have Andrew in my life, I don't know where I would have been.
I mean, like, I might have gone deeper.
You know, you just like never know.
But, but then, you know, that being said, I've taken that to, you know, in my heart going, I need to be that light for anyone in my life.
So Andrew was this bright, consistent light.
That's the word we always go back to.
Consistency.
And I feel like our world right now, like, there's no consistency, like faith, politics, whatever you want.
Everybody's just like this.
And I'm like, can we just get this one bar of consistency?
And people are going to just trust it a lot more.
And they're going to be way more willing to, you know, go and, you know, take, take that advice.
So, so for me, like, if I didn't have Andrew, I don't know.
I don't know how far how deep I would have gone.
This is reminding me of the Mr. Rogers, you know, when tough times come, look for the helpers.
Look for the helpers.
Don't you think Andrew was sent to you?
Yeah, I feel like he was sent to you.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
100%.
To so many people.
And he's a true servant.
And I always tell people, if you want to be a good leader, you have to be a really good servant.
I mean, that's literally Jesus.
And he walks the walk.
And it's beautiful to have witnessed.
Where is Andrew?
We need Andrew to call in or something.
We need like Andrew.
He's just listening.
He's listening right now.
No, no, Andrew.
He's going to be our next booking.
You can be a great leader, but if I've learned anything from Andrew is that a great leader knows when to allow someone to lead, right?
So it's like you can.
You need to allow someone else to shine.
But like, you know, listen, listen, like, like you can lead all you want, but as long as you know when it's time to step back and let somebody else lead for a change, most leaders want to lead all the time.
And that's where you get all of you just know, hey, you know what?
This is my time to take one little step back so somebody else can lead.
You go.
That takes a lot of confidence, which not everybody has.
I feel like your background, Alexa, was, I don't know if I'd say more typical, but you definitely had some hardship in your childhood rise to fame.
You mentioned the eating disorder, which I would definitely like to ask you about in a minute.
But can we talk about the relationship with your parents?
Because as I'm reading about, and I watched you, I mean, I have three kids.
You know, I definitely watched you in spy school and sleepover.
And I was shocked to read.
And by the way, I didn't realize you were in evening shade, the Burt Reynolds, like that was a long time ago.
You're really little.
So you have your life on camera.
And then you get to the part of the book where you talk about how your mom did not let you take your money when you turned 18 and left home.
What?
See, okay, so I know that people see that and they think that's a big deal.
Like I've never really thought of it as a big deal because the truth is, I never looked at my career as a career.
For me, I was doing something that I loved and I would have done it for free.
And it was something that my entire family sacrificed for me to be able to do.
Now, I know a lot of people hear that and it makes them frustrated.
But the truth was like, I really would have done it for free.
And I probably would still continue to do it for free.
Thank God we don't because we provided, it's provided for us a great life.
But yeah, so that's not, I wish, thank God that that's not technically the reason why we've had a rocky relationship.
And I'm hoping that we're a little bit more on the men now.
I've been praying for it.
We're so different than we were, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago.
So we've grown a lot.
But yeah, yeah, I walked away and I just started over and I lived on my friend's couch for a little bit.
I learned a lot there and God really provided for me.
And I think that's like, that's the biggest takeaway that I hope anybody can get from the book is it's easy to get look like lost on or it's easy to get stuck on like, oh, you left with nothing, like you had no money.
But the truth was, I could give everything away right now.
And I know for a fact that God is going to provide for me in the weeks to come.
Like I'm not going to be left alone completely like broken on the side of the road.
I've given all my money away before and I was provided for greatly.
And I think that's just kind of the fear that I'm always.
You said you me.
Yes, Dave.
Yes, Dave.
I mean, you are great, but I would still like to get my residuals from sparse crowds.
Oh, I know, right?
You don't really want to have to choose.
You can harbor on it and like really let that eat you alive or go, it's just money.
I'll make more and move on.
And for me, the help option was just moving on.
There wasn't.
Okay, let me ask you about that because you were saying the prayers and so on.
Do you pray for your enemies or people who have hurt you?
Always.
You have to, or else you have to.
I've just started.
It's very hard.
I can't like, it takes a lot.
Like when I do it, I'm like, motherfucker.
I know, I know.
Well, because like part of you is like, you could just send a bus, God, just send a bus.
Like, no, no, no, you don't want any harm to anybody.
But, but the truth is, like, I, I wasn't always that way.
It took, it took learning.
It took growing.
And it took like, okay, what's actually going to make the difference in my heart when I do this?
And you feel so much lighter.
You feel so much better when you are praying for people who you don't really like or who are mean to you.
But the biggest thing I took away from it was I was driving one day and somebody cut me off and I was just like so annoyed by them.
And I happened to be driving with this really, this woman who was just filled with wisdom.
And she was like, how about instead of getting mad at them?
Why don't you pray for them?
Maybe they've never received prayer before.
I was like, oh my gosh, that I just got checked.
I just got checked by the woman next to me.
So now when people cut me off at traffic, I pray for them.
When you drive like Alexa, you know, listen.
Happens a lot.
Oh, man.
She's like, she, she needs to get from A to B in the fastest time possible because she, because she left 20 minutes late.
And I'm like, why did I leave 20 minutes late?
Don't blame me.
Don't blame me.
Usually, Carlos.
I can 100% relate to her on every front.
I am exactly the same.
And I do get mad.
And I always, I hate when people cut me off.
And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.
Was your, was your time more important than my life and the life of my child?
I know.
I get it.
Okay.
It'd be great if you can have a dialogue with these people and not just with the Lord about these people.
But I am trying.
Kathy Lee Gifford, my pal, talked to me a long time about how, and she's told this story to him too.
So he knows, but Howard Stern used to hate Kathy Lee Gifford and he used to rip on her all the time publicly.
And she used to pray for him.
And he met her one day at the Today Show.
He was coming through to promote something.
And I guess the way she tells it, she went over to him and he said something nice.
He wasn't a jerk to her face.
And she said, I've been praying for you, you know, all this time.
And it kind of led to a thaw.
And I think they're on good terms now.
But the fact that she was able to pray for him all those years while he was saying the terrible things is what got me kind of considering like maybe instead of just resorting to this hatred I have in my heart for certain people, speaking of the Today Show, maybe, maybe I could do something else.
I'm working on it.
Yes.
You know what?
Your heart will feel better for it.
And also when you really think about it, like, what do people, what, what are, what's happening in the world?
Division, division.
There's so much division.
And you could either really lean into that division and like stir up the hate in your heart, or you can say, like, no, I'm going to overcome it.
Like, I'm going to stomp out the enemy and I'm going to overcome this division with light and love.
And it's not easy.
It's not easy.
Like God did not call us to like everybody, but he did call us to love everybody.
So I love a lot of people that I don't like, but it's because I'm called to.
We say that a lot.
All right, let me pause it there.
I'll squeeze in a quick break and then much, much more with Carlos and Alexa right after this quick break.
So fun.
So fun meeting them.
So Carlos, let's go back to when you, quote, like hit, right?
So you're struggling, you get the rejection, all that stuff, but then you get cast in big time rush.
And it was like, you guys had, you had sort of a similar thing and you shot to Superstardom.
It was like, boom.
You know, I mean, that show was a big success.
Before you know it, you've got tons of fans.
For people who haven't seen it, here's just a little clip so people know what we're talking about.
This is Sat 9.
Soon we'll be together.
We'll pick up right where we left off.
Wow.
Music video, but it takes you back.
Yes.
That's the clip you show.
Oh.
So cute.
What do you mean, Sidora?
You brought back the boy band.
We were doing it in homage to Baxter Boys in the airport.
That was the idea.
Okay.
It worked.
Yeah.
It was cute.
It was cute.
You've got the fawn.
I mean, you had to have had the fawning girls everywhere.
It's like a modern day version of the Beatles.
Yeah.
Listen, he's very humble.
He will not say this, but I'll speak for him on this behalf.
We're literally sitting here right now where he's going to be performing tonight, but they just played MSG.
It was sold out.
Every venue that they go to, it's nearly sold out or sold out.
They sold out their Mexico show in like, what, three hours or something?
Like, it's, it's amazing.
The fan base that they have is incredible.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, we, we, I like to say that we, we did bring the boy band back, you know?
Um, you did.
There had been a lot of boy bands trying to make it, but the fact that we had a TV show that was reaching 4 million kids every single week, and then the songs would be on iTunes.
And like, we, you know, it wasn't as big as Hannah Montana, but we definitely, you know, we helped reignite that love for, you know, the boy band male dudes on stage, you know, pointing in the same direction.
Synchronized dancing.
Synchronized dancing.
It actually feels so much more wholesome to me.
I'd much rather have my child watching that than listening.
Even, you know, you put on Spotify today and you just hit like today's hits and it's like F and F and F and F and N word, N word, N word, N word.
You're like, oh my gosh, what is today's hit?
I don't get it.
I don't.
I feel like it's a person.
I don't understand it at all.
I mean, so you're not going that direction.
No, no.
And you know what?
We like I, there's four guys in my group and this resurgence, this comeback of ours has been so much fun.
And we're writing a lot of music, but it's definitely a battle.
I mean, I'm, I'm really the only believer.
Our lifestyle is very different from their lifestyle.
I'm married with kids on our own bus.
They share one bus and they do their stuff.
And it's like, you know, I love them, but I'm very much, you know, alone in this.
So I'm constantly being like, well, can we not say this in the song, but can we say this?
You know, can we not do this?
But can we do this?
So yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's done a really good job at balancing it though, but also keeping them in a, keeping the whole band in a place that is still family friendly.
Like you guys are able to grow up, but you're still family friendly.
Yeah.
Walking Alone in Faith 00:04:42
Well, it's like you mentioned Hannah Montana, and I don't want you to rip on Miley Cyrus, but she did sort of cross over from this beloved children star to like very raunchy.
And I would say as somebody who is her fan at that, you know, earlier, I was like, I don't want to see this.
I don't, you know, I'll never forget her interview with Matt Lauer on D-Day years ago, right?
And it was like, she was clearly trying to be titillating and he was inappropriate too.
And when it was over, I just felt kind of skeevy.
It makes me sad because as the years keep going by, I feel like the bar of like what is okay just keeps getting raised.
And I'm like, no, can we bring it?
I mean, the stuff that they're allowed to say on cable television.
I'm like, how can they say that?
Like, wait, really?
They just got away with that.
Well, I think it's hard because ultimately at the end of the day, like Miley's really talented.
She is so talented.
She's a fantastic performer.
Like when I see girls kind of go in this direction, I'm like, you don't even need to do that.
I don't know why.
I don't know who's pushing you to do this stuff, but you don't need to.
You have talent.
Like that's, that speaks for itself.
You don't even have to go down that road.
But I get-and like Carlos editing out the whatever, the lyrics that maybe they don't have to, you don't, as the fan, you don't even know that's been done.
You don't, you know, so it's great.
You just get this nice product.
And it reminded me of, and I were talking about this, the Super Bowl show with J-Lo and Shakira, right?
Where it was like, I mean, I saw lady parts as I watched the Super Bowl with my then six-year-old.
I did not need, I did not need to see that.
I did not need my son to see that.
It's like, they're great dancers, they're great performers, they're great singers.
Why?
Why does it have to be truly like almost X-rated?
Yeah.
Because it's that bar.
That bar keeps getting raised.
Like, it's just, I mean, even push the boundaries every year.
Even, even children's programming now, again, I'm not going to rip on anybody individually, but there are some things out there.
Like, I can't let my kids watch.
We just don't let them want.
We have to be so careful.
Yeah.
I mean, like Disney movies.
You can't go to Disney.
Disney movies.
I mean, even Nickelodeon.
I'm like, come on, guys.
Like, there's, there's no need to go there.
It's okay.
These are babies.
They're babies.
We need to remember that they're just little kids and they're still navigating life.
It's so, it's what's so crazy about our society right now is we try to, you know, we put more, forgive me, but like there's more vag in the public square and there's less God.
100%.
100%.
But I will say this, you read, you read the Bible, you're looking at the Old Testament and it's not very different than what's going on today.
I mean, you had all of this stuff happening back then.
It's just, we have social media now.
Like there's a faster in your brain way to get there.
But again, that's a great point.
I actually, I haven't yet, I've never read the Bible like beginning to end, but I have been doing Father Mike's Bible in a year, which I like everybody's been doing this, this great podcast past.
And I listen to it.
I'm like, because I also love crime podcasts.
I love Dateline.
I have 48 hours and 20 minutes.
It's just like, I don't know, whatever.
But I'm like, this is, this is like another crime podcast.
Okay.
People always laugh at me, but I compare the Bible.
I'm like, I'm like, I loved the hunger games.
I remember reading them and just being so enthralled, like so excited about it.
And I felt the same way about reading the Bible through.
When you find a Bible that you can understand, so make sure you find one that's easier for you to read.
Even if you have to just start with the message version, start there and then grow and like move on to like maybe like a more like old school version.
But it felt like I was reading some crazy adventure book.
It's incredible.
And it's actually like the stories are amazing.
And the fact that all of this happened, like, I don't know, I get excited about reading the Bible.
And we feel a little differently.
The Bible is a little harder for you to read.
Definitely harder.
I'm like you.
I'm more like, let me just listen to it.
Let me have like preach me.
Like somebody explain it.
This woman used to wake up at like four in the morning and go to this room that we designated as like our prayer room.
And she would go to the room.
And every morning when I felt her get out of bed at four in the morning to go read her Bible, I was like, you go read your Bible.
It bothered me so much because I felt so convicted that I should be waking up and going to read my Bible and pray with her and start her mood like that.
And I mean, she did that for like half a year until I was like, hey, you know what?
I feel guilty.
I've been hating on you for doing this, but I should be supporting you and maybe joining you.
She was like, I'll tell you, I have the experience where like I have it playing if I don't have the headphones in and my kids will come into the room.
My kids are older.
I think you said you're five, three, and one.
I've got eight, 10, 8, 11, and 12.
And, you know, there's like on Sodom and Gamora.
I'm like, pause, pause.
Teen Years and Eating Disorders 00:07:52
Yes.
Yes.
He didn't listen to that.
There's some intense stuff in there.
Very much so.
Okay.
So let's get back to your individual story because we talked a bit about Carlos and, you know, for you, it was a low and it was a recognition that there was a void that needed to be filled with something other than adulation, money, fame, or even doing what you're great at, which is, that is fulfilling.
Doing what you're great at is fulfilling, but it might not be as fulfilling as you need, right?
You needed faith, you needed true love.
And on the other side, there you were, Alexa.
Same thing, hugely successful.
Wait, we do have, okay, so we have a clip of you and Spy Kids for people who want to walk that fun walk down memory lane, somebody.
Junior don't listen to her.
You're not worthless.
You figured out how to get us here.
You helped Floop realize he was good, not bad.
You talked to the googlies and saved mom and dad.
You're strong, Juny.
You're strong.
You're not that strong, Junior.
I have a fun fact right here.
If you look up Joseph Gordon Levitt when he was in third round from the sun and then look up Alexa from Spy Kids, they look exactly the same.
This is very wrong.
They do, Bell.
They look the same hair.
The face looks the same.
I'm telling you.
I'm 100% dropping a split screen of that into a video of this show, which we'll post on this lecture.
That has to happen.
So now, so things are going great.
I'm like, you, you were successful at a level.
A lot of kids were not successful as Hollywood actors.
And before I ask you about where that led, you made a point in the book that one of my good friends is Melissa Francis, who starred in Little House on the Prairie when she was a little girl.
She was like, she was with Jason Bateman as the next round of children.
Once the original three aged out, they brought in new kids, you know, and so she was one of them.
And she has made this complaint to me many times.
Justine Bateman actually made this complaint to me.
You said one of the worst parts of being a child actor was the parents, the parents like on the set.
Can you expand on that?
Well, okay, so the kids just want to be kids and have fun.
And so like, we all want to play together.
We all want to hang out.
But then when the parents still get along for whatever reason, they all had like beefs with one another.
It really, it messed up our relationships because then we couldn't hang out with the other kids.
We couldn't just go and play basketball in between setups or takes or anything like that.
It was just very separate because the parents didn't get along.
That meant that the kids couldn't be friends.
And, you know, I will say like for a long time in my career, my mom was not a typical stage mom.
She really did try to stay back.
And something that she implemented into that we've taken with us is that we traveled everywhere as a family because she saw how families were being broken up in the industry.
So she was like, if you're going to do a movie, the whole family is going.
We're not, we're not separate.
Like they're not being raised by somebody else and you're not being raised by a manager.
You're being raised like with your family.
So I really appreciated that.
But you know, things get trickier as, you know, more of, I guess, somewhat like fame comes out.
And after Spy Kids, I think things just got a little harder to navigate as anything.
And I was entering my teen years.
But on set was just difficult because none of the parents got along with each other.
There was just always fighting.
Melissa said it was basically like the kids get along, but the parents were like, she's getting more screen time than I am, than my kid is.
And you're trying to position the kid.
Luckily, it wasn't that.
We didn't have to deal with that.
I think it was just, you know, frustrations within each other.
Like, I don't.
I honestly don't know, but it was not about screen time, luckily.
Okay.
So as you age up in the industry, invariably you, like every teenage girl, get to the awkward teenage years and you start thinking about more of your appearance and your weight.
And it happens to all of us, but you were doing it on cam.
And then some lovely producer called your mother about your quote fluctuating weight when you were shooting sleepover, which would have no effect on any teenage girl.
I'm sure nobody would respond.
No, zero.
No, no.
And an eating disorder would soon appear.
And it got bad.
It got really bad.
I know you say it's not something you totally get over.
Just learn how to manage it.
But it was to the point where, forgive me, but you said you were vomiting almost 20 times a day in the book.
And I just, your body no longer even understood how to process food.
Looking at you today, so vibrant and beautiful, how did you find your way out of that?
Well, there was years of prayer and years of just being very ashamed, like knowing that this was not me.
Like I think that's the hardest part.
And that's what I was so fearful.
That's why I was so fearful people finding out that I had this eating disorder was that I was still me.
I was still this girl who was joyful and happy, who wanted to live life, but had this secret that I was so ashamed of that no one could know or else they would think differently of me.
And just trying to balance like people want you to be skinny in this industry and they want you to look a certain way and having no real idea of health, no idea of nutrition, because like nobody teaches you that.
They just say like, if you want, go eat, go eat mac and cheese, go eat this.
But when you're a teenager, you're like, well, I don't know what that's going to do to my body, especially as you, you know, start going through puberty.
Like your body's fluctuating like crazy anyway.
So this was just an added layer.
But after years of being in this eating disorder, the kind of the first step was my mom confronted, confronted my ex-husband about it right before we got married.
And when he found out that you would think it would send anybody kind of like running in the opposite direction, but I'll give him a lot of props.
Like he really stuck with me.
And he's like, no, you're going to beat this and I'm going to help you through it.
And in the beginning, I was mad because I wasn't making the decision for me.
It was somebody else like forcing this on me.
And it was really hard.
And I was, I did okay for a couple years, but that beginning, my body was, didn't know how to take in food.
So I was, I ended up being hospitalized.
I had like insane bloating, crazy ulcers.
My body couldn't handle food.
I should have been introducing it slowly, but we didn't know how.
And doctors were not helpful at all.
Like when I would explain my story and I would say, I know, I would say like, hey, listen, I had an eating disorder.
I don't have it anymore.
I'm not throwing up, but my body can't handle it.
They didn't believe me that I wasn't throwing up anymore.
Instead, they were just like, well, you're still throwing up.
That's why it's happening.
I'm like, no, you don't understand.
Like, I've stopped and my body's going insane.
So instead, they just want to kind of pump you with pills and send you on your way and they don't hear you out.
And it was a really frustrating couple of years that we ended up getting a divorce and I fell right back into where I where I left off.
And it wasn't until I deep dove into my faith.
And I always tell people when Paul in Ephesians is talking about the armor of God, you have your helmet of salvation, your breastplate of righteousness, your belt of truth.
You then have like your shield of faith and then your sword, which is the word of God.
So I had this shield of faith, but I couldn't quite defeat this eating disorder because I didn't yet have the word of God.
And when I started diving into the word and what the word says about my temple, which is my body, with what God says about us and how much he loves us as his children, I suddenly just felt this overwhelming sense of love and peace.
And I felt like I could conquer everything from then on.
And one day I woke up and it was gone.
Like the feeling of wanting to like overeat, to binge, the feeling of wanting to purge.
It was as if somebody had like moved out of my house and they were gone forever.
You gave me the chills.
That's that is a true miracle.
Healing Through Divine Love 00:02:50
It was 100%.
Like a helper.
This is not a miracle, but we have to end on it.
My team found the image of Joseph Gordon Levitt.
Please, please, we got to see this.
Is that not?
Dude, come on.
You literally look like this.
Dude, that is literally Alexa.
I see where you're going, but she is much prettier with all due respect.
At the time, I looked like Joseph.
I had no interest in that Spy Kids girl.
No interest.
You should be happy that there are middle school images of you out there that are tolerable in any way.
There is a reason I have buried all of those and I've just gotten rid of all my middle school colleagues.
I've just made sure that they're never to be heard from because no one needs to see that.
You two are absolutely lovely.
I can't like, how can people find out how to hear you, how to watch you?
Like, where should they go?
Where can they find out everything they need to know?
If, if they want to hear the whole story, our book, What If Love is the Point, is out now.
You can get it anywhere where you can buy books.
And then we have Instagram.
Mine is The Real Carlos Penna, and Alexa is at Vega Alexa.
And then we share a joint, you know, we were not super excited about joining TikTok, but we're on TikTok and we're Penna Vega.
We just share some family fun and just, you know, just want to put a light out there.
Yes, I think I love it.
You've joined together in that way.
You've joined together Penna Vega, which I like too.
You didn't have to give up your last name and you, it's sort of another symbol of your connection, your love.
You guys are a great example for young people, for Christians, for people who are struggling.
And if you want to know more, just read the book, What If Love is the Point.
What if Love Is the Point?
What if it is?
Because it is.
Thank you both so much, Alex and Carlos.
Lots of love to you.
Thank you for having us.
Wanted to give you a word on an important subject we discuss a lot here on the Megan Kelly show before we go, and that is Strudwick, my dog.
Get a lot of questions about him online.
He's still just as naughty as ever.
He was making progress with a trainer before we left Connecticut for the summer.
And then we left Connecticut for the summer.
So now he's down here terrorizing the New Jersey shore.
He's sweet.
Don't get me wrong.
He's not aggressive.
But I mean, since we've gotten, we have a house guest staying with us right now.
He peed on our house guest.
Peed on him, not like near him, on him.
The other day, ripped open these dog toys.
You know, like the stuffing inside of it, it's like insulation.
Most dogs are like, that's disgusting.
He ate it all.
I don't even know where it came, where it went.
Didn't come out the back end.
I think like in six months, it's probably going to resurface some way.
Just one of the many things I'm sure we'll be discussing when Andrew Schultz joins the program again tomorrow.
Really looking forward to it.
Talk to you then.
Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no
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