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March 20, 2025 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:58:42
20250320_petitos-speak-out-about-new-doc-and-snow-white-con
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Gabby's Devastating End 00:04:36
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To these weird tapes of Alec Baldwin and his wife.
No clue what's happening there, but we'll dive into it.
But we are going to start with a much more serious story and one that's really important.
If you've got a daughter in particular, this is important.
The story gripped the entire world a few years ago: the disappearance of Gabby Petito.
She vanished while on a cross-country van journey with her boyfriend Brian.
As most people now know, Gabby met a devastating end.
She was murdered by Brian.
This week, Gabby would have turned 26 years old.
Her family continues to celebrate her life and memory with their mission to help other victims of domestic abuse.
As a new Netflix documentary with which the family cooperated has put a spotlight on the story again, and there's been a lot of follow-up on this critical traffic stop.
The police intervening after they received a 911 call suggesting a witness had seen Brian hit Gabby.
The police pulled over the van as a result of that 911 call.
And what happened next had the potential, the potential to save Gabby Petito, but it didn't.
And one of the things the family wants to speak about is how we can do better, these cops, but any cop and any family member seeing the signs of domestic abuse, many people have no idea what it looks like, sounds like, what the warning signs are.
Here is that 911 call.
Hi, I'm calling.
I'm right on the corner of Main Street by Moonflower, and we're driving by, and I'd like to report a domestic dispute to Florida with the white band, Florida license plate, Whiteland gentleman 5'6 Beard.
They just drove off.
They're going down Main Street.
They made a ride onto Main Street from Moonflower.
What were they doing?
What did you say?
What were they doing?
We drove by, and the gentleman was slapping the girl.
He was slapping her?
Yes, and then we stopped.
They ran up and down the sidewalk.
He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car, and they drove off.
That was days before Gabby Petito would wind up dead.
Gabby's father, Joe, and her stepmom, Tara, join me now along with their attorney, Brian Stewart.
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Thank you all so much for being here.
I'm really grateful to you for speaking out.
I'm sure even four years later, it is not easy.
I've watched the Netflix documentary.
It's very powerful.
Joe, let me start with you on that as Gabby's dad.
Why did you think it was a good idea to do the documentary and to cooperate in making this story?
We wanted it to be used as a learning tool.
Emotional Manipulation and Isolation 00:15:46
So we've learned that Gabby's video from Utah is being used in police training across the country, from what we understand.
And we want that to continue.
The whole point was to take lessons from what you saw there through the whole thing, from the beginning to the end.
And that was important for us.
There were a lot of documentaries that were made, but this is the one that we wanted to make ourselves.
And we think they did a fantastic job with it.
They did.
It's gripping.
And the way it unfolds is so gripping because you really get to know Gabby.
And you can tell that the family's participated.
People who loved her are participating and helping us see her and understand her in a way we didn't from just the news clips or like the little snippets from her van vlogging, you know, stint provided.
So thank you for cooperating because I just feel like it's filled out the Gabby picture so much more robustly.
It's amazing to me.
Let me just kick it off with this.
So Joe, you're Gabby's dad, Tara.
You were her stepmom.
But you and your ex, Gabby's mom, her biological mom, Joe, seem like you're good.
Like you seem pretty close and her husband too, who seems as invested, the four of you seem as like close as exes and new partners can be.
Yeah, Tara and Nikki travel a lot together.
Jim and I, you know, we'll go to travel together.
We'll play golf together.
Yeah.
It's been like that for a long, long time.
It wasn't always easy.
You know what I mean?
There are disagreements that you have, but we always put Gabby first.
And if you do that, you're going to be all right.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, one of the things you notice in watching the documentary, getting to know your family well, by the way, Brian, welcome to you as well.
Sorry to leave you over there on the side.
Appreciate you being one of the things that you see, at least this is what I gleaned, is that Gabby came from a very loving family.
And it explains this effervescence about this young woman.
That's the only word that came to mind, just effervescent.
Just her, you know, the million dollar smile and her positive energy and her sweetness, her love of nature and of life.
And I can't use any of those words about Brian.
And it's not just because I know.
The different Brian, Brian Laundrie.
He seemed like a very dark person right from the start.
And the Netflix documentary shows some of his art, which also is very dark as opposed to hers.
She was a great artist, which is beautiful.
Hers is stunningly beautiful.
His is dark with like disturbing scenes.
And I wonder to you, Joe and Tara, whether when you met him, they'd been together a couple of years, you saw any of that prior?
So at first, we really liked Brian.
He came into our home and he was kind and he was just, he was very quiet.
He could be a little awkward, but he was, but he was kind.
So we didn't see any of that.
I think for me, he was soft spoken too, which is like.
Yes.
So, but I think for me, I guess right before they went on this trip, I saw a change in Gabby's behavior.
And I thought it was her.
And I think I was just blaming the wrong person.
I didn't understand certain things, why things were happening.
Now, now we lived in New York at the time.
They lived in Florida.
It's a perfect storm of isolation.
So there was a shift where I was like to something not right here.
And I don't think the other parents agreed with me at that point.
It was only me who felt that way.
Even my kids still were like, no, we really like Brian.
He's such a good guy.
And I'm like, no, something's not right to me.
There's something off.
You know, when you look at it in retrospect, I didn't like any of her boyfriends.
No, I said, I didn't like any of her boyfriends.
Never did.
Because she's my babe.
You know what I mean?
So I always had that mistrust, but nothing to the extent of what happened.
So.
When you look at the van life vlog that Gabby and Brian were doing, you know, going to travel cross country and go to the great national parks and give us all a window into what that would be like, this tiny, tiny little van.
It's only in retrospect now that we know what happened that to me, one of the things that jumped out in the Netflix documentary was that whole thing now seems like control and isolation on his part.
No wonder he wanted this, Joe, right?
Now that you know what you know, do you have a different view of the whole purpose, at least on his part in doing it?
No, so Gabby's the one that wanted to travel in the van.
Like that's something that she wanted to do.
You know, I think he kind of went along with it for the ride.
But when you look at domestic violence and the processes that it goes with, you know, the isolation, you know, from friends and then family and then themselves and all that stuff.
So I think he was into it, you know, because he would have her all to himself.
So I didn't think from a from an abuser standpoint, there's no downside to that because then you have them all to yourself.
So, but this was what Gabby wanted.
She really wanted to travel the country.
And I mean, that's just who she was.
She really just loved nature and stuff.
So she worked really, really hard on that van.
And we crushed it because we didn't want it to be out there and people selling it, you know what I mean?
Or showing it off because it's so painful for us.
So we had to make sure we got rid of it.
Yeah, but Gabby loved the van.
I'm sorry.
What was that?
What did you get rid of?
We crushed the van.
Oh, you did?
Oh, yeah.
Who could blame you?
Sorry, go ahead, Tara.
Gabby loved adventure.
So yes, this was something that she wanted to do.
She loved to take pictures.
She loved to take videos.
So that was all her.
She wanted to be a video blogger and show the country.
She wanted to show her going on these adventures and how amazing the U.S. is and all these national parks.
And I think she did that.
The pictures that she took were absolutely beautiful.
The videos that she took, I mean, they were amazing.
And that was her.
That was all her.
That was her talent.
Yeah.
Well, you can see that.
And you do get to see some great sites of beauty in those videos and pictures that are in the piece.
It just occurred to me that that's an abuser's perfect solution.
You know, I believe you that Gabby wanted to do it, not knowing that she was engaged to a domestic violence perpetrator.
But I'm sure, given what I heard from one of Gabby's best friends in the Netflix documentary, forgive me, I don't remember her name.
She's got the tats.
She's blonde.
Rose.
Rose.
We love Rose.
Okay, Rose.
She talked in the Netflix piece about how she felt he was starting to isolate Gabby, like when she and Gabby were spending too much time together.
Gabby was leaning too much on her friend or even potentially her parents.
He started to get upset and started to want to isolate her, which is just exactly on brand for an abuser.
So you can see how Gabby's innocence about traveling the country and, you know, hitting the road together would have been right up his alley like he.
He gets her away from you guys.
He gets her away from her mom and Jim.
He gets her away from Rose and her other friends, and it it's this perfect storm formula, for you know the storm that was coming.
What do you guys make of that?
You're not wrong, you know that's.
That's how it works, you know you.
You alienate the friends first, then you alienate the family.
You tell them that they're they don't need their job and the people they work for are horrible, you know.
So now they're not working and then they don't need a car, so they're not there financially and uh, dependent on on on the abuser, and it really is a.
It's a slow process when you look at it from a high level view over the course of a few years you can kind of piece that together, but on the day-to-day it's it's it's kind of difficult, you know, and that's that's the stuff that we're doing with the foundation.
Now, you know, kind of bring that stuff to to the forefront where you can see that, where we can talk about it, spot the signs, kind of pay attention to some of the things that people are saying um, just just their reactions, you know, and uh, and speak up and learn how to talk to your friends about it.
We're going to get into the specifics about signs to look for and all that.
Let me just tee it up and i'll go to you tarot in one second.
Uh, here is Rose from the Netflix documentary and this, one of the interesting things they did in the documentary was to not have an actress voice over Gabby's journal entries but to use AI to recreate her voice, which is really that must be somewhat chilling and maybe weirdly comforting for you guys in a way to hear.
I'll ask you about it, but let me just play this soundbite where it's a Gabby voice AI, recreation of one of her journal entries, and the clip features her friend Rose.
I think there was a moment before her van life that she started to open her eyes.
Brian, you know how much I love you.
Just please stop crying and stop calling me names.
You, in pain, is killing me.
Gabby was constantly over at my house and kind of getting more frustrated, and the more her and I were together and talking and having a good time, she actually felt more independent.
And that's when he was like, okay, I gotta do something to change this, let me isolate her.
If I get her away from her job, I get her away from her friend, she only has me.
And then next thing you know they were gone.
Tara, that is really chilling.
It's hard to hear um, we have so many videos of her voice, So it's slightly off.
So it was kind of weird to hear it for the first time.
Again, we have so many videos.
It's always hard to watch her, but I love seeing her.
So I'm glad we have those memories.
I'm glad we have all those videos of her.
Again, it was just weird to hear her voice in AI because it's, again, it's slightly off, but it does sound a lot like her.
So.
When you see the increase and, you know, you hear that messaging.
please stop crying.
And the documentary shows a lot of those.
Like there were numerous messages by Gabby or by him, Brian, acknowledging his tears and how upset he was and how dark he was and Gabby blaming herself.
And even when she writes about how he loved her, there are statements like, I don't deserve his love.
You know, like he's this sort of vaunted guy who she's so lucky to have.
Meanwhile, I feel like, I mean, you guys probably know much, much more about it at this point, but to me, the whole thing feels like an emotional manipulation by him of her.
Well, abuse is a process.
It's not just one event.
And it normally starts with them charming you, love bombing you, and then it slightly turns.
And they'll only show that behavior.
And every relationship is different, but they'll start showing those behaviors after the relationship has been going on for quite a while.
And that's when you start seeing, because you always believe that they're going to go back to that love bombing and you always believe that they are, you try to see the good in them.
So that's part of the manipulation.
And Brian definitely was doing that to Gabby.
And it doesn't always start physical either.
It could start, again, with the manipulation, the financial.
And it can be a slow process.
It can be a faster process.
But once they have you, that's when I feel like it will shift.
Their true colors come out.
There was another interesting piece in the Netflix doc about his mother, Roberta, who I must say comes across as a villain in this thing.
But before we get to that, can we talk about what happened, Joe, when Gabby went down to Florida?
You guys, as I understand, she was raised in Long Island, but then she moved down to Florida to be with Brian and she was with him and his parents.
And the mother started off fine toward Gabby, but this is before the van trip.
She took a turn and there's speculation on why she took a turn in the piece show.
Yeah.
So I guess I have to start it off with, in my opinion.
But other than that, you know, it was almost like, again, you know, speculation, but a jealousy that was that was going on where Brian was giving all his attention to Gabby and not to his mom.
And then you could see on how things changed and how she was very critical of Gabby and getting on her for things that her own son would do.
So and then you had that letter that she wrote, which was just, I mean, the burn after reading letter.
Well, that's what the mother did write.
That was a little bit of a style letter, right?
That was a little rough there.
I don't know how a parent writes that to a child and thinks it's funny, but apparently they did.
So to me, it's interesting just because now you have a window into this being a very unwell young man.
And so the parents are obviously a source of interest too.
And the mother's jealousy over a girlfriend is odd and strange.
And you see Gabby texts in this piece too.
Once again, Roberta seems mad at her and Brian acknowledging she gets very dark.
This happened throughout my childhood.
You know, just be patient.
It passes.
So it's still a mystery there, but we're gleaning more from this piece than we had prior about these parents who were totally uncooperative in the search for Gabby and appear based on what I saw in the film to have known right from the get-go that he killed her.
I mean, that seems pretty clear that they got on the phone.
I mean, I'll bring you in on this, Brian, as the attorney.
It appears from the phone logs that the parents called their lawyer, that they lawyered up immediately after getting a call from Brian in the Grand Tetons within what looks like hours of Gabby dying.
Yeah, all indications are that they were aware of what was going on and immediately took steps to protect Brian rather than look after Gabby or her parents' interests.
And it was really unfortunate.
Right.
So because it looks like you guys reveal that he, we believe it was the next day after we believe the murder happened.
I think we believe the murder was 827 of 21.
And that on 828, he called his parents, had an hour-long conversation with his mother.
And then the next call the parents made was to a lawyer.
And then we know shortly thereafter, Brian returned home to Florida without Gabby, which no one knew.
Media Attention and Police Response 00:15:42
And you guys, meanwhile, Joe and Tara are frantic.
Eventually you get frantic.
At the beginning, you're like, I haven't heard from Gabby.
Where's Gabby?
She's kind of, you know, she's whatever.
She's in the desert.
And then it switches over to, no, this is not normal.
And that's when you brought in the national media.
And ultimately, you kept going to Brian's parents saying, have you guys heard from them?
And they were completely uncooperative.
And we now know we're housing Brian.
We believe also knew what he had done, or at least that Gabby was no longer with us and were trying to cover it up or hide it or do something other than the right thing.
So can you just take us back to that time, Joe?
And it was you, was it not, who brought in the national media to try to get attention?
Wait, I just want to ask you, I want to clarify something.
So they hired an attorney in Long Island.
They sent him the check.
And then that attorney actually got the attorney out in Wyoming.
He's the, their attorney in Long Island was looking for an attorney.
So, and he, their attorney in Long Island is actually the one that signed the retainer in the one for Wyoming.
Why, why is that important?
Because I felt like they were hiding.
So I guess it shows that they knew, again, my opinion, it shows that they knew the where things happened.
Remember when Gabby first went missing and we were frantic and bring in the national media, we had from Wyoming all the way down to Florida.
You know, so you're talking about 2,500 miles, you know, at that point, where they had hired an attorney in Wyoming, you know, to represent Brian in cases went sideways.
So how did they know to hire an attorney in Wyoming?
Yeah.
If Gabby just ran off and she was gone, because that's what they said in the deposition, that Gabby just ran off.
She was gone.
But he needed an attorney.
So if they were breaking up, why would they need an attorney specifically in Wyoming?
Right.
Because what you guys knew in the beginning was that he's home.
Suddenly you find out he's home and the van is here, but Gabby is not here.
And so is it the case that they never spoke to you?
Like you, obviously you were calling and Nikki, Gabby's mom was calling and her husband, Jim, was calling.
So did they ever speak to you?
No.
So I've never spoken to them.
Matter of fact, the first time I heard them say anything was at the deposition.
So in the civil case you brought against them.
Yes, for the civil case, because we wanted answers.
That was the reason why that was done.
And once we got the answers, you know, we weren't going to get anything else from them at that point.
So it really is what it is.
But, you know, when we first went to the national media, her story wasn't picked up as fast as people really think.
It was once the MOAP video went out.
I think that's when her story really blew up because, you know, I guess in previous interviews, I had said that it was like, maybe she's, you know, she's pretty or it's her color or it's the story.
You know, that's why her story went out that, you know, as far as it did.
But after watching the Netflix documentary and seeing the reaction afterwards, you know, I realize now that it wasn't just her color or the way she looked.
It was that so many other people see themselves in that position and, you know, really just empathize with Gabby because they've been there before.
And not just here in the States, all over the country.
I mean, all over the planet.
So it's just such a prevalent problem.
And the fact that people now are doing these videos on how they survived and how they got out and all that stuff, I'd love for that to continue to inspire others to do it.
If someone feels safe and comfortable enough to where they can share their story and inspire others to do it, I just, I think that's going to help get rid of the shame from the victim and really put it where it belongs on the abuser.
That's so right.
That's exactly it.
I cannot imagine your frustration while you're trying to find your child and the parents of the young man she was traveling with just won't respond to you.
They just won't, they won't say anything, which is why eventually you called the police.
You know what's really good, though?
I'll tell you this, is all the support that we got.
All right.
So anything that we wanted to say publicly, but our attorneys told us we weren't allowed to.
Sorry, Brian, I love you.
Was everyone else said it for us?
Like we didn't have to defend ourselves or come out and say something, you know, that's not accurate because people did it for us.
And the support that we got was, I mean, unfathomable.
So again, that's why we have the foundation now to help out as many people as we can because everyone helped us.
So we're trying to repay that.
It was eventually, you know, you did call the police and got attention via the media.
And the police went to Brian Laundrie's parents' home, where he'd been staying with them in Florida.
And the video of some of what happened appears in the Netflix flick.
Let's watch a little bit in SOT 6.
Last time that you saw Brian and Gabriel, well, Brian is here.
Brian is here?
Yeah, and that's all I'm going to say.
And that's why they're saying?
Yeah, we have returned.
And just to let the detective know, is Gabriel here?
No?
She's not here.
Is this her vehicle?
Her van?
It's both of them.
I know you've already said you don't want to speak.
But if you guys know anything, they would let the parents at ease and go from there.
We don't know anything.
Okay.
I mean, anything that you guys would be able to give them is any type of help.
Last time your son saw her, anything like that.
Am I able to talk to your son?
The other officer said he's not going to talk to you.
I mean, as a parent, you wouldn't want to know where it happened.
I mean, it makes it very odd, don't you think?
From my point of view, you couldn't call on trying to give your phone number.
I mean, when did you see that video for the first time?
You two?
Last year.
Last year, maybe?
I don't really recall.
But we did not see that video right away.
Okay, so it was after you knew what had happened with Gabby, but you must have been told by the police the parents won't get.
It's not that just that we couldn't reach them.
It's not that they said they don't know.
It's that they're refusing to talk to us.
And your reaction when you heard that was what?
So the night of September 11th, when we finally got Gabby reported missing, we got a call from Nikki.
She had, she's the one who got her reported missing up in New York because we were having a difficult time getting her reported missing.
We were calling Northport police.
We were calling Utah because that was our last known location where Gabby was.
So we were having a difficult time, but when Nikki finally was able to report her missing, she had called us immediately after and told us that Gabby is not there.
Brian is home.
And they lawyered up.
And that's all we knew at that point in time.
That was the most chilling feeling.
It was a nightmare that we were like, wait, what do you mean?
Because at first we really thought that they were still together and maybe they just were off the grid for a little while and we just couldn't get in touch.
I mean, we were looking for both of them.
We wanted to know where both of them were.
So getting that phone call was the second worst phone call I've ever received in my life.
Yeah, that had to be the beginning of realizing what had happened.
I totally understand.
Oh, it's awful.
It's awful.
Just to jump to the worst part was when you found out, of course, that he had killed her, that she was dead and her remains were found.
And then there was a period thereafter where we realized Brian had escaped, for lack of a better term, from his parents' house, notwithstanding the media and the cops having all eyes on him.
And he eventually took his own life in a park not far from his home.
And his bodies, his remains were found about a month after he shot himself in the head, according to the coroner, with a bizarre suicide note.
I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but he tried to blame Gabby, basically, basically tried to say she hurt herself and it was a mercy kill.
And just for the record, that's utter nonsense, correct?
It does not dovetail at all with what the coroner said happened to Gabby.
No.
No, not at all.
That's just it.
No.
Yeah, we like to try to focus.
I try to erase them out of my memory.
I don't want to think about Brian.
I don't want to think about the parents.
I just want to think about Gabby.
I want to move forward and try to do good in the world.
I want to use her legacy and try to help as many other people as possible.
Again, that's why we did the documentary to shed light on an awareness on domestic violence and also missing people.
That's really our main main goal.
Can I just say one thing?
So you were able to chuckle there, Joe, when we were showing the note.
It's pretty extraordinary.
As I've been watching you, I don't know you, watching you, you seem like a very affable man.
And that's how your daughter was too.
How are you even able to laugh?
Like, and given everything you've been through, is it just your natural countenance?
Is it something you were born with that you passed along to your beautiful daughter?
like talk about how you handle that emotionally.
It's a few things.
Listen, I got a great support system, you know, and not just with Tara, my boys, Nikki, Jim.
So when there's hard times, like yesterday was Gabby's birthday, you know, yesterday, we just sat around and moped around the house all day and did a puzzle.
Like that's like I, I, I, I will never work on her birthday ever again, you know, but um, not that letter that you showed, like it's such fiction.
Like you can't help but laugh at it because it's so ridiculous.
You know, we know it's not true, you know, and the fact that he even thought that that was okay to write just shows where his mental state was.
You know, we try to really take as much.
See, I'm all for, you know, learning lessons.
You know what I mean?
That's something I've always done since, you know, I was a kid.
You know, take the learning lesson from whatever you can.
And what we've learned from this, we're trying to help others, you know, take the pictures, take the, take the videos, because you never know when you're going to need them, you know.
And that's what helped with Gabby's story when it came to her missing.
You know, I talk about it a lot, how we were on hold trying to get her story to do an interview while she was missing.
And one of the producers asked me, hey, listen, do you mind if we use her pictures and videos from online?
And we said, absolutely.
I guess he meant to put me on hold or mute me or mute himself.
And he told her his boss is like, yeah, we got permission.
This is going to be a sellable story.
And, you know, and I'm not faulting.
Listen, I understand sometimes you get desensitized with certain things being in the line of work that these people are in.
Yeah.
And my heart breaks for them because it really, you know, they hear the worst stories you can ever imagine.
Right.
So, but when people go missing, those videos, the movements, the sounds helps.
So take them, you know, take that as a learning lesson, you know, stuff that we learned from DV, go to the gabbypetitofoundation.org, you know, and look at, you know, the resources that you have.
Because I'll tell you this, more than anything else.
You know, I know you asked me how I feel.
The reason why I'm able to do that is because of the work that we do.
You know, most people don't even know where to begin to find resources.
You know, we say it all the time.
You have pain with a purpose now.
You have pain with a purpose.
Yeah, you know, like there's the phrase, stop, drop, and roll.
Now, I don't know about you other than being, you know, other than the fireman that I might be watching this, you know, how many times have you almost been on fire?
You know what I mean?
I can tell you it's not very hot.
Where how many times have someone been in a domestic violence incident?
One out of three women.
You know what I mean?
One out of five men, 10 to 20 million children a year.
You know, that number is so much higher.
Why are we not talking about this?
This is a life-saving education by learning about it and talking about it and making people aware.
It's not a dirty secret, you know, stuff like that.
Take the lessons and show them to everybody.
And hopefully you won't have another Gabby story.
So that's how I laugh and stuff.
I mean, I've interviewed a lot of domestic violence survivors a lot, and most of them older than Gabby.
And the patterns are so familiar, right?
The woman making excuses for the man, the woman wanting and needing to believe the promises that it will never happen again.
The woman returning to the man and then defending and making excuses for the man.
And of course, all of his controlling behavior over her, you know, and it does tend to be escalatory.
You're right.
The love bombing starts.
Almost every woman I know says, I would leave after the first hit.
The first time he hit me or punched me, I'd be out the door.
And it's just far more complicated than that.
Strong women, smart women, successful women stay.
They do stay.
There are all sorts of psychological and emotional reasons why they stay.
So everyone listening to this knows, needs to know it could happen to you.
It could happen to your daughter.
And it's the outside circle, hopefully, that can help the person who's being hurt extract themselves from it.
But you can't if you don't know the signs.
And that brings me to what happened in Moab with the 911 call.
By the way, I've been meaning to ask you, have you guys ever met the guy who called 911 after they saw Brian hit Gabby?
I haven't.
No, I haven't.
I wonder if like he would, I bet he'd love to meet you.
I mean, he tried, you know, like that's just a good Samaritan who tried.
He saw what was happening and he did what most people like might not do, like get involved, you know, call the cops on somebody.
Actually, I believe most people probably would have, but many people would not have.
In any event, so we played that soundbite.
He called the 911 and then the police showed up.
And the police are very affable.
They seem to be wanting to do the right thing, but they do not do the right thing.
And they let the whole story get manipulated on site by Brian and frankly, Gabby.
But that's, if you know anything about DV, you know that she's going to do that.
And you have an eyewitness, an independent eyewitness saying he hit her.
Strangulation Indicators and Cop Bias 00:15:58
He hit her.
When they show up on the scene, she's got bruises and cuts on her face, bruises on her arm, which they do point out.
And he's got some sort of marks on his face too.
There's the terrible picture.
And here's just a bit of how the exchange went when the cops via body cam start talking to Gabby about what happened at SOT 8.
Yeah, I don't know.
It was somebody.
I really bad OCD.
And I just, I was just cleaning and fading apart.
And I was apologizing to him and saying, I'm sorry that I'm so mean because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I can get really frustrated.
It's not like me and for him.
I just like, I guess my vibe is like, I hear me like in a bad mood and I'm trying to start a blog.
So I've been building my website.
So I've been really stressed.
I didn't really believe that I could do any of it.
I don't know.
He's like down there.
I don't know.
We've been fighting all morning.
I mean, the car before.
Why wouldn't he let me on the car?
He's talking at me too.
Tell me the thumb down.
He really stresses me out.
This is a rough morning.
What's that like for you guys now to see her blaming herself almost entirely?
I just want to reach out to her and hug her and be there for her and help her.
So it's really, it's really difficult to watch.
But then it makes us want to fight harder.
I mean, we're all about backing the blue and getting the resources to police officers, making sure that they know what domestic violence looks like.
There are amazing.
What do you wish those cops knew, Tara?
What do you wish those cops on site with Gabby that day knew?
I wish they had the right training and tools to know about strangulation.
If they knew about strangulation, I think they could have helped Gabby.
If they knew about the red flags, I believe that they would have been able to help her and connect her to the resources necessary for her to get out of the relationship.
Like what?
Anything in particular?
There's a few things.
There's a few things.
I don't know what we can really get into.
Yeah, I mean, well, So when she puts her hand here, that's an indicator that she was, that she's been strangled before.
For the losing audience, you're putting your hand in front of like your chin.
She covered her mouth.
She covers here.
So even if they cover here, here, or here, it's an indicator that they've strangled before.
Oh, wow.
The markings on him could be an indicator that she was trying to get his arms off of her.
A lot of times with strangulation, the defensive wounds are on the perpetrator, not the victim, because they're trying to apply.
There's actually a video here in Florida that a police officer, because there's a sunshine laws, that all of their body cam is, you can see it.
So there's a video where a victim bit the perpetrator's arm right here.
And the cops were not aware of the fact that that could be an indicator of strangulation as well, even though the woman kept saying that she choked him out.
So the defensive wounds can wind up on the perpetrator, not the victim.
Right.
The fact that he had marks on him does not mean she was the aggressor.
Keep going.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So that's one thing.
Sorry, I'm just drawing a.
No, that's okay.
It's a very difficult.
There are other things too.
You know, you can't lock someone out of their home, right?
And they were on a road trip.
That vehicle was their home and that car was registered to Gabby, right?
So taking the keys away from her and locking her out of her vehicle is not something that someone should be able to do.
You know, there were, I think, two 911 calls, to be honest, of Gabby being hit.
So when you do all those things, and then there was also a lethality assessment should have been done in Utah.
And you can correct me if I'm wrong on that, Brian, since like 2018, which now actually the law, now they actually have it as a mandate since 2023.
And that was because there was another woman who went, who was killed, name was Mandy Ming on a domestic violence incident, you know, but she happened to be the lieutenant governor's niece.
And when someone who has that type of power, you know what I mean, can get things done quicker.
And that's how we were introduced to the lethality assessment.
Because once we learned about that, we actually brought that law here to the state of Florida.
That was signed last year.
And, you know, we worked on a committee with the police chiefs, the Sheriff's Association, DCFS, and other DV organizations to help bring it here.
And they rolled it out here too.
And we're working in other states to do the same because it is a tool that can help a lot.
Do you want to speak to that?
The lethality assessment that more cops are now starting to do and that these cops are.
I can't speak.
The lethality assessment is a series of 11 questions that a first responder or police officer will ask to figure out if a person's in a lethal situation or not.
But just asking the 11 questions isn't as important as the county or the department to be tied in with an organization for domestic violence, be a shelter and stuff like that.
Yeah, so they can get the training.
These guys said they had training.
I mean, that's the thing.
And like the way they're talking about it is like guys who have had training, but you have to wonder if it was the right training.
Can you give us a couple of the lethality questions, Joe?
Well, they'll ask you, have you been strangled before as this person?
Are there kids in the home?
Maybe kids and that not are theirs.
They'll ask a bunch of questions.
So you can see it too that it's all broken out, but it's in the way that they ask them.
And the really important part is letting the victim read their answers back because it's almost like that disassociation.
When you read a book and stuff like that, sometimes you feel like you're in that book or you're in that character.
When they read their answers back in their head, they're like, I can't believe I answered that way.
Like they know whether or not that's the truth.
So it's, it's things like that can really make that difference.
And I said, now Utah has that law.
Florida has that law.
New York has got a bill right now.
We're working with Wyoming to do it, Georgia to do it, as well as other countries to do it too.
So we've been asked to help out with Australia and Ireland and the United Kingdom.
So.
Oh, that's incredible.
All right, let me keep it going because I do want to spend a little bit more time on this traffic stop.
Then they talk to Brian.
And Brian, he's not crying.
He's actually kind of laughing at a couple of points on this.
And he's completely dissembling.
I mean, if you know anything about how to detect deception, it's jumping off the screen at you.
He's not answering the direct questions.
He's wiggling.
He's body language, all of it, which was not detected.
But here's SOT9.
What's going on?
We see this gets worked up sometimes.
And I try and really distance myself from her.
So like, I locked her car and I walked away from her.
What happened this morning is that she's trying to try to find her own little website vlog and everything.
So I give her time.
We really had a nice morning event, and if anything, but I said, let's just take a breather and let's not go anywhere.
Let's just hold down for nature.
And then she had her phone with the piece of that way.
I was just trying to, I know I was so pushed.
I just try to push her away.
Let's just take a little step back and breathe.
And we see if she got moved to her phone.
So you push her and she hit you.
She was, I wasn't, it wasn't like a person.
She comes.
I meet you and she's already, she was already, I don't know what to say, swinging there.
I was just going to go and smile.
I hope she doesn't have too many complaints about me.
I hope she doesn't have too many complaints about me.
Watching that now does what?
I know you don't want to spend a lot of time on him, which I'm fine with, but it's got to be very striking.
And this is why the lethality assessment is so important, because stranglers are the most dangerous people to walk this earth.
If a man ever puts their hand around your neck, the chances of them killing you increases to 750%.
And so these questions are not just about the safety of the victim.
It's also about the safety of the officers, because again, they are the most dangerous.
It's the most lethal form of domestic abuse.
I'm sorry, domestic violence calls are the most dangerous to officers too.
So having the right training, tutelage when it comes to how to handle that situation is all, like you said, you can look at the Florida bill, the Utah bill, and how to handle it.
It's a great program.
You know, again, but having the resources is important and knowing where to go when you're in that situation.
You know, if you could put the phone number up, 1-800-799-SAFE, you know, I mean, that's the number to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
That's a great place to start.
You know, that's the number that we give out, you know, all over the country here because it is.
1-800-799-SAFE, just for people listening at home.
1-800-799-SAFE.
I do want to get to this next thing.
So the cops in this exchange do start talking about how partners wind up murdered.
I mean, it's really incredible.
But they decide that Brian is the one who was the victim, that Gabby was the primary aggressor.
He laughs.
I'm going to play SOT 10 and SOT 11 back to back.
Let's watch.
Even if you didn't want to pursue this, you don't have a choice.
How far do you want to go with this?
Like, you know why the domestic assault code is there?
It's there to protect people, especially the reason why they don't give us discretion on these things is because too many times women who are at risk want to go back to their abuser.
They just wanted him to stop and they don't want to have to be separated.
They don't want him charged.
They don't want him to go to jail.
And then they end up getting worse and worse treatment and then they end up getting killed.
In no way, shape, or form that I can perceive does what happened here, a little slap fight between fiancees who love each other, want to be together.
Can I perceive that this is going to digress into the situation where he's going to be a batter man?
Right.
But then again, I don't have a crystal ball.
Brian Stewart, you're the attorney.
As you hear that, it's incredible what we see there because you see the cop is right on.
He's got it exactly right.
Women will defend and then they'll wind up murdered.
But at the end, he completely turns it to he's the victim.
And he dismisses the whole thing as a quote, a little slap fight.
And I think the reason he did that is because he thinks Gabby's the only one who really slapped anyone, notwithstanding her bruised and battered face.
What do you make of that?
Well, that's really why this case is so instructive is because it's so well documented.
You can see the injury.
You can hear the witness call.
You can see how the parties are reacting to each other.
And you actually get to see the officer's thought process.
So they admit that they know that there was an assault, that there is visible injury on both parties, and that they had witnesses saying that they had hit her.
And so they're aware of that.
And they choose not to do further investigation.
And they choose not to follow Utah law, which required them to effect an arrest and to separate them.
And so while they know that the reason for the law is to protect domestic violence victims from the eventual murder or worse violence that can come from not intervening in these situations, they didn't appreciate the risk.
They didn't, like he, this officer Pratt said, yeah, that's the law.
And yeah, that's what it's intended to prevent, but I don't think that will happen here because of my experience and my biases.
And so that's really why the lethality assessment protocol that they should have done would have been so important because understanding the law and the situation, they could have asked these questions and appreciated and helped Gabby appreciate the danger that she was in.
Can I just ask you?
So my own take on it is the cop was saying that I don't think that there's this is going to turn lethal because he was thinking about Gabby as the abuser.
It seemed to me he was like, she's the one to blame.
I don't think she's going to kill him.
And which just is just further evidence to me of how this thing got off the rails.
He had it wrong.
His foundational assumptions were all wrong.
And I will tell you my own take watching it is it gets very irritating because everyone there is kind of dismissing her as this hysteric.
You know, the cops on scene, Brian's kind of laid back, laughing like, oh, you know, she's hysterical.
And then Gabby is the only one blaming herself.
No one there is really probing whether Brian is to blame.
Like that to me is the real problem here, Brian.
I don't know how, how do we train cops to get past that when everyone, both of the perpetrators are blaming the woman and the cops here seem to have a natural inclination that women are hysterical and really obviously she's the emotional problem.
Right.
And that really becomes obvious, the biases that they have.
They're clearly identifying with Brian.
Even during the stop, they have conversations with Brian saying, yeah, my wife gets crazy too.
My wife gets upset too.
And so they're identifying with Brian and his situation in dealing with an upset woman.
And so they're not seeing it from Gabby's perspective.
So part of the training that officers and law enforcement need is not just, you know, what are the signs and what is the law, but also to be aware of their own biases and to be aware enough to be able to put themselves in the situation of both of the participants in a domestic violence situation.
Right.
This is like, I think most cops are coming to this thinking about themselves.
Threats, Weapons, and Wrongful Death Claims 00:02:25
Like I would never have hit my wife.
I would obviously, this isn't even like a tool in my brain that I can go to as a possibility here.
But of course, you're dealing with all sorts of people out there when you pull a car over who are not cops, who are not trained in protecting other people and who are in potential cases, in possible cases, actual bad guys.
Here are some of the questions from the lethality assessment for our audience.
Has he or she ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a weapon?
Has he or she threatened to kill you or your children?
Do you think he or she might try to kill you?
Do they have a gun?
Can they get one easily?
Have they ever tried to choke you?
Have they violently or constantly, are they violently or constantly jealous?
Or does he or she control most of your daily activities?
Have you left him or her or separated after living together or being married?
Are they unemployed?
Have they ever tried to kill themselves?
Do you have a child that is not your partners?
Do they ever spy on you or leave you threatening messages?
So these are all great questions.
And you guys want this lethality assessment done in as many instances as possible.
But in the context of doing all this, you have a wrongful death lawsuit against that police department in Moab, Utah.
And they have defended it by citing this Governmental Immunity Act, which basically is a state decision not to allow itself to be subjected to these kinds of claims because it would cost the taxpayers ultimately.
And that's on its way up, Brian, to the Utah Supreme Court, as I understand it.
That's correct.
The wrongful death lawsuit was dismissed at the trial court level because of the Governmental Immunity Act.
But the Utah Constitution says that the legislature and statute cannot infringe a person's ability to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against or to recover in wrongful death for damages.
And so there's a conflict between the Utah Constitution and this governmental immunity statute.
And that's the basis of our appeal to the Utah Supreme Court.
So you have obtained a settlement from Brian Laundrie's parents already, correct, Brian?
There was some some settlement, but I'll let Joe and Tara speak to that.
They'd like, okay, sure.
Yeah, I guess you can call it that.
Constitutional Conflict and Government Immunity 00:07:16
It's Miss Florida, you know, we just wanted the answers, to be honest with you.
And the, Brian Laundry's estate was an arbitrary number that didn't exist.
Brian didn't have money, you know what I mean?
So, I mean, he was 22.
So, um, no, the one's got nothing to do with the other.
We're, we're strictly focused on helping people.
That's that's what we're doing at this point in time.
And did you get, did you get answers?
Did they finally get you know what I mean?
We got as many answers as we can get, and we're not going to get any bit more, you know.
And to be honest with you, all I would do at this point in time would be selfish, you know, gratification for a few seconds, and then you go right back to being, you know, hurt.
And, you know, there's never closure on the death of a child, you know?
So it's not going to help me hear those answers at this point anyway.
It really isn't.
You know, now, now we want to hear, you know, other stories and get those things out, get as much information out there to maybe inspire someone to leave or help get a story out there for someone that's missing that, you know, can help get found right away.
I mean, that's, that's what we do now.
That's, that's our focus.
Just your participation in this documentary, you guys, I tell you, I have a 13-year-old, almost 14-year-old daughter, and I'm going to have her watch this.
I'm going to watch this with her and point out, you know, red flags, moments where, you know, her own behavior, her own guides should be up.
Her guards should be up.
God forbid this were ever happened to her.
And I'm sure there are millions of moms and dads across the country who will do the same thing.
I know it doesn't justify or really make anything better, but at least I think Gabby would be glad to know she had some sort of a legacy that includes protecting other girls and women.
And that's why we did the documentary.
Trust me, I did not want to sit down and interview all day because it just opens up wounds.
It just opens up, it just re-traumatizing, it's re-triggering.
It's so emotionally hard and exhausting.
That's not why, but the reason, that's not why we did it.
We did it so it could be used as a learning tool so that other young women can look at it and see the red flags and see themselves in that same situation and be like, okay, if it can happen to this beautiful blonde blue-eyed girl, it can happen to me.
It can happen, but because domestic violence doesn't see a color.
It doesn't see a financial status.
It can happen to anybody at any point in time.
It doesn't know where you live.
It just, and I think that's the important part of it.
And that's the reason why we did it, just to create more awareness.
And that's what it did.
We've had so many more emails coming into our foundation website.
We've had requests for us to go out and speak.
We've had requests on tools and resources.
I think we've had around 200,000 people since the documentary come out looking at the website, trying to find resources.
Trying to find resources.
So that was the one thing that to your point.
I was going to say to your point about it doesn't discriminate against class.
One of the other big hits on Netflix these days is the newest take on the O.J. Simpson case.
And it's excellent.
It's very well done.
But of course, she died from domestic violence.
She was killed by her abuser.
And they were as rich as you can get in America.
And so it's like, it doesn't discriminate based on money or success or fame.
I've had some pretty well-known people contact me and just want to tell me their story, you know, and for hours cry to me on the phone, you know what I mean?
On their own domestic violence issue that they had to go through.
And it really doesn't hold any status or race or gender.
It affects everybody and not just women.
There are men who are victims.
And when men try to tell their story, they get laughed at.
You know what I mean?
People don't take them seriously.
So that's something that we have to start doing.
Like 10 to 20 million children a year are, you know, are they have to watch the trauma that that goes through and watching your parents do that to one another.
It really is just, it's a conversation.
And that's, that was the point of the documentary, to start that conversation to be as loud and as vocal as possible to make sure that people talk about it in a way where it's an open conversation.
There's no shame in it for the victims.
They can tell their story without fear of being judged and get the help that they need.
And yeah, have you guys, have you learned anything in your studies, really?
It's what's been going on these past few years for you about what causes a man to become abuse, an abuser or a woman, but what causes one to become an abuser?
Do we know the answer to that?
Well, that's a lot.
You can have hereditary traits, you know what I mean?
You can have, but it really boils down to control.
And that's the main thing.
And that's why leaving a domestic violence situation is the most dangerous, because that's when the control is gone.
And so, yeah, listen, if you don't have a partner, like an equal partner, maybe this relationship is not the best.
I don't know.
Listen, I don't know what's going to work best for everybody else, but I can tell you what works for me.
And listen, we're 50-50, probably more 60-40 for her, to be honest with you.
She tells me what to do, you know.
But it's just really that way.
You got to be equal and you got to make sure that you're able to have that open communication.
If you can't, you probably shouldn't be in that situation to begin with.
It's not just about the education portion is not just about teaching the red flags.
It's also teaching how not to be an abuser.
I mean, it's a cycle.
So if it was, if they've grown up with it, not always, but if they grew up with it, they might become abusers.
They might think that that's the norm.
So it's not just about teaching the red flags to individuals.
It's more about both ends.
One of the things I did learn for me, like it was, it was, you ever see like the chihuahua and then the pitbull, right?
That the pitbull thinks it's the size of the chihuahua and the chihuahua thinks it's like the size of the pit bull.
You know, for me, listen, I'm a bigger guy.
I'm 6'3, 270.
Like it was kind of eye-opening where if I was to raise my voice and how intimidating that could be, you know what I mean?
And having to learn that and understand that is very difficult for some people.
And knowing what, you know, how a relationship is supposed to be and how the dialogue is supposed to go, you know, raising your voice, throwing stuff, like, that's not okay.
And situations that you're in like that, again, there's a phone number, 1-800-799-SAFE.
That's, you know, we should talk about it more.
You know, we should teach our youth that, you know, the, you know, these are the signs.
Protecting Children and Seeking Redemption 00:03:26
These are what happens.
You know, so the more that we talk about it, the more that they see, the less likely, because you can help the ones.
Yeah, but the less part of what you said is one in three, it'll be one in four.
Part of what you said is really relevant here.
And taking accountability for your own wrongdoing is obviously a very important piece of what we were supposed to be teaching our children.
And I have to say, just to round it out, that brings me back to Burn After Reading, the letter that Brian Landry's mother, Roberta, wrote to him.
We're unsure, I guess, of the date of this.
There's a lot of speculation she wrote this after he got back from the trip before Gabby's remains were found, though I don't think we've ever specified exactly when it was written.
And to the audience, since I told you I'd come back to it, she writes as follows, just in part.
I just want you to remember, I'll always love you.
And I know you'll always love me.
You are my boy.
Nothing will make me stop loving you.
Nothing will or could ever divide us.
No matter what we do or where we go or what we say, we will always love each other.
If you're in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it.
If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags and goes on and then ends with nothing can separate us.
Not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not threats, not even sin, not the thinkable or unthinkable can get between us, not time, not miles and miles and miles.
Now, she claimed that it was written before his trip with Gabby, but we all have our doubts about whether that's true.
But just the, I know it's easy for me to say because thank God my kids are young and have not committed any sins like this whatsoever, but it does, I would like to believe that, God forbid, one of my children made a horrendous mistake like this, a horrendous decision like this.
My first instinct would be to help them take responsibility for it and try to find redemption and now to do the next best right thing, now to do the next right thing.
What do you guys wish Roberta, and forgive me, I can't remember her husband's name, had done in the moments when Brian returned to them, Chris?
Listen, I understand wanting to protect your child.
I get it.
You know, you want to get an attorney and stuff like that.
I get it, you know, because sometimes, you know, nothing happens and you might need it.
So I understand how wanting to protect your child, you know, and I also understand that they lost a child.
You know, that's something that we understand, you know, and I sympathize with that when it comes to them.
That's the only thing that I sympathize when it comes to them.
But, you know, if my child were to do something, you know, wrong moment like that, I would say, listen, you know what?
We have a problem.
You need to look here for your child.
You know, we have an attorney.
I'm not going to let him speak.
But again, my opinion, I think Brian would possibly be alive if they held him accountable.
Right.
Right.
Oh.
Listen, you guys, I admire your strength and your commitment to trying to make some silver lining come out of this tragedy.
I'm totally with you.
All the best to you.
Good luck in the battles ahead.
And please let us know if we can be of any additional help.
Will too.
All the best to you guys.
Please send my regards to Jim and Nikki.
And Brian, thank you as well for coming on and telling the story, which we will stay on and we'll be right back.
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I'm trying to remember, but I definitely did choose them.
Yeah, Maryland.
Because my method is I choose the teams that I have some connection to, unless I have no connection to either, in which case I go with the odds.
But I have a connection to GCU thanks to that wonderful university being an advertiser on our show.
And I hope you give them the same benefit of the doubt making your choices.
With over 340 academic programs as of September of last year, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams.
The pursuit to serve others is yours.
Let it flourish.
Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University, private Christian, affordable.
Visit gcu.edu.
I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.
Disney Casting and Rachel Zegler Controversy 00:15:05
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Now we turn to some cultural news.
Disney's long-awaited Snow White set to hit theaters tomorrow, and the controversial star of it is working to rehab her image big time after spending the last few years bashing the classic film and Snow White.
Plus, Hilaria Baldwin.
Hello, Hillary.
We know you're from a Boston suburb, not Spain.
In a wild red carpet video with her husband, Alec.
Have you seen the video?
It's very strange.
And Dylan Mulvaney's back.
We're going to get to it all with our culture panel.
Not to mention, wait until you found out what Megan Markle just did.
Our panel today, Link Lauren, influencer and former senior advisor to RFK Jr., and Christian Toto, host of the Hollywood in Toto podcast.
Guys, welcome back to the show.
Great to have you.
Thanks for having me.
Link, look at you.
You're so formal today.
All dressed up.
I know.
I am dressed up.
I have on a suit and tie.
I mean, DC, I'm going to have lunch at the White House, and I'm very excited.
So I'm like, I need to dress up.
I know.
You are?
Are you having lunch with the president?
I don't think so, but one of my friends works there.
She's like, why don't you come have lunch at the White House?
It has to be at this specific time in the West Wing.
I'm like, I'm there.
I'm coming.
We're honored that you made time for us.
I have this feeling.
I have this feeling if Trump's lingering around, I can say hi.
He knows I'm his biggest fan.
So if he's lingering around, I'm definitely going to say hi to the president.
Totally.
You should ask your friend at Say, is there any way I can say hi?
And I want to say that.
He's so great about that kind of thing.
Yeah, 100%.
That has to happen.
I'm going to be checking your timeline all day.
Well, I'm also going back tomorrow.
I don't get it today.
You're Big Mac.
You're going back tomorrow?
Is that what you said?
Yeah, they're doing this influencer thing at two.
So I'm going to that as well.
So I'm excited.
You're basically, you've spent more time there than Melania.
That's what you're telling me.
Don't get me in trouble.
I don't want my lunch canceled, Megan.
No, I won't.
You're right.
I take it back.
I take it all back.
All right, let's start at something far less controversial, which is Snow White.
So I think it's fair to say that no one on the right side of America can stand the star of this movie.
And yet, Christian, you've seen the movie and it appears that the filmmakers coddled together enough salvageable material to make the movie itself quite nice.
Yeah, it's not a trained wreck.
I was expecting just that.
And listen, it's not a great film.
It's got its flaws.
And this third act is completely rewritten to be more empowering.
I think you know the drill.
But you know, one of the reasons why Rachel Ziegler sticks around is she's got a beautiful voice and she has some talent.
So I think that certainly helps her because she is a PR nightmare.
I don't know how anyone would hire her, but again, there is some talent there.
You know, it is a familiar story.
I think kids will enjoy it.
There are a couple of little scary moments, but nothing that much.
But given all the behind the scenes mayhem, I expected Frankenstein's monster were seen to be stitched together.
It's not quite that way.
So again, not a great film, but I think a lot of these live action updates are really hard to watch.
This one wasn't.
But again, they've really done so much stepping on rakes over the last few months with this project where the box office is just not going to recover.
Did the dwarfs make it or no?
Well, the CGI dwarfs did.
Of course, that goes back to the original controversy where Peter Dinklich, a very talented little person actor, said, why are we doing that?
We've hired a Latina actress to be Snow White.
That's progressive, but you're going to hire little people to play the dwarfs.
That just seems like a step backwards.
And then, of course, Disney instantly buckled and said, okay, we're going to add magical creatures.
And then the picture of the magical creatures leaked online and everyone just had an absolute blast laughing at it.
So the magical creatures are here in the movie.
The CGI dwarfs are here in the movie.
It works to a degree, but it's certainly going to be a financial hit for Disney.
That's for sure.
That is totally uplifting and the right way to be woke, Link, when you actually cancel the roles for the marginalized population, because just putting them on screen is somehow racist.
So I remember back in 2023 when this was going on and all the little people making videos saying, well, wait, there's so few roles for us in Hollywood.
We're being passed over for this.
You could have cast seven.
Peter Dinklage.
Exactly.
They're like, Peter Dinklich, you're rich.
We're not.
We're trying to be extras or, you know, we're in Johnny Knoxville's jackass if we're lucky.
And so for them, they're like, you're not going to cast us to be inclusive and progressive.
But these guys at Disney, they're not that bright.
They're not that smart.
And we see that because they can't come up with any new IP.
Why not write some new movies?
You guys sit around.
You have billions of dollars.
They keep going back and rewriting the classics to be more feminist and inclusive of the female experience.
I'm like, every Disney movie is about a woman waiting for a man.
Okay.
Sleeping Beauty.
She is comatose until a man comes to kiss her and wake her up.
Rapunzel, she's up in a tower, you know, taking biotin, hair vitamins, waiting for a man.
This is what these women are doing.
Cinderella.
Is it the best?
Yeah, Cinderella.
Is this the best message to send to young girls?
No, but you don't have to rewrite and rework the classics.
Up with something new, you guys.
It's a good idea.
You know it's funny.
I went to to see uh, My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center several years ago when my kids were young, and you know that's of course about Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, the professor who tries to make her into an upper crust lady or fool people into thinking she is in any event.
And um, they ended it in the actual film version and they end it together, like the two of them develop a romance and she stays with him and in in the Lincoln Theater uh, New York City version no, she leaves him, of course, because you can't, he is kind of a prick, but i'm sorry, the story is what it is like.
You say like, come up with your own stories, go ahead Christian exactly well that, you know that's what they do in the movie.
They they're, they're so torn.
They know there's a romance here.
They've got a prince-like character, but he's not a prince, he's like a Robin Hood guy, and they know that there's got to be a kiss, there's got to be certain elements that they can avoid.
Boy, they are uncomfortable with that particular sequence.
So it's like they're together but they're not together.
She's got to be the hero.
She's got to be front and center.
We're going to push him to the side as much as possible, oh and, by the way, he's pretty important to the story, so we'll drag him back in, then we'll push him back out.
It's awkward, it's absolutely it just you can tell, oh, a cisgender man, he can't be this, he can't be the savior here.
You got to be gotta have Rachel Zigler front and center.
So it's, it's really.
It's torturous at that point it's.
It's one of the weakest parts of the movie.
She's gonna like freeze her ass and be single.
This is the same.
It'll be easy for her because the snow.
Um, this is the same woman who posted on instagram after the election.
I find myself speechless in the midst of this.
Another four years of hatred, learning.
Leaning us toward a world I do not want to live in.
Leaning us toward a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in ps.
There's no daughter.
Leaning us toward a world that will force her to have a baby she doesn't want.
There's no daughter and there's no daughter's baby.
Uh, leaning us toward a world that is fearful, uh, this law should not have been and it certainly should not have been by so many votes.
I echo Ethel Kaine's statement more than anything.
May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.
Then she discusses the deep, deep sickness in this country.
There is no help, no counsel in any of them, and she also attacked Twitter and Elon and finished it all with fuck Donald Trump.
So it's one of the reasons why she's not like the ideal choice for the lead role in Sweet Snow White and why many people are still not to mention all the terrible things she said about including.
Well, let me just play the, the one of the ones that got her in trouble when she ripped on Snow White back in 2022, sop 38.
i just mean that it's no longer 1937 and we absolutely wrote a snow white that is not going to be saved by the prince she's not going to be saved by the prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love she's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be by the way i'm in something that she's trying the gender of her future child i don't think that's right good point good point i mean what also confounds Me.
I mean, a hot take, so don't drag me in the comments.
But these super liberal pro-abortion women like Rachel Zegler, they're always single and alone.
I'm like, I think you're safe, actually.
I think you're fine.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
So most of the women saying, like, I'm, I'm putting on the chastity, but it's like, you're good.
No, you know, you've got purple hair and nose ringing.
So you're good.
You know, years ago, Drew Barrymore was doing the Charlie's Angels reboot and she spoke so lovingly of the source material.
Listen, I grew up with Charlie's Angels.
It was a trashy, schlocky show.
It was not fine art.
But she was sweet and kind and said, you know, we're going to do the best we can to bring this to a modern age.
Now you have Rachel Zegler thinking, oh, that 1937 movie, that's just, oh, it's tacky.
It's weird.
It's, oh, we're going to change all that.
I mean, what a difference.
And now she's trying to reinvent herself because there's been so much blowback.
And you can only imagine the studio calls about this woman behind the scene.
Like, oh my God, we're $242 million in.
And our lead actress hates our film.
Our actors, our storyline, there's rumors that she and Gal Godot don't get along either because one's pro-Palestinian and one is pro-Israel.
It's just a total nightmare for the studios.
So now she's trying to sell like, oh, I love Snow White.
I love everything about the whole story.
Here she is more recently trying to change the messaging.
This is actually Wednesday, 39A.
Three, two, one.
Snow White Black.
This is beautiful.
You look lovely.
I love you.
I love me.
I love you.
Thank you so much for being here.
And to see this is really emotional for me.
So I'm going to try to not do that.
And her superpower is her heart.
Oh, it's nothing supernatural.
It's something that all of us have.
Thank you.
And I hope you enjoy Snow White.
Thank you guys.
I'm sorry.
That was acting.
That's what that was.
There was a thought just off screen.
They were going to yank her off if she kind of did a free Palestine chant.
I wouldn't even recognize her on the street.
So I find it hard to believe these kids are coming up and asking for selfies.
This has to be set up.
I wouldn't know her from Adam walking down the block.
No, the reason they knew who she was, because that took place at Walt Disney World.
And undeniably, those children had just exited from the, what's it called? The Cinderella shop where you can get your child a little dress and they've got trannies in there.
They've got a bunch of men with beards wearing princess dresses trying to costume up our children.
So they were probably like, oh my God, an actual pretty woman.
Yes.
Closest thing to a Disney princess I'm ever going to find at Disney World.
I'm sorry, but I don't really care what happens with this movie.
I really hope her career is pretty much over.
I'd be thrilled to see that.
I can't imagine.
I mean, Christian, you tell me, but is she not seen as box office poison now because of all of her antics?
You know, it's kind of a mixed track record.
She's still fairly young.
Her Westside story debut was not a hit.
And that was a Spielberg movie.
So that was kind of surprising.
But if you're a studio, if you're a director, if you're a casting director, you've got to think twice or three times before hiring her.
Listen, she's talented.
She's attractive.
She's got skill.
But there are a lot of actresses in Hollywood who bring all that to the table and are not going to absolutely sabotage your work.
Today's actors don't know how to promote their own movies.
They spend so much time on the red carpet, you know, talking to Stephen Colbert, doing all these things.
It's all publicity.
It seems so easy.
And they keep putting their feet in their mouth.
I don't understand it.
Well, you saw what she said to Allure magazine when she was promoting Snow White just this week.
She kind of ripped on Steven Spielberg, not directly or by name, but clearly it was about him and his team in that movie Westside Story where she said, she claims that the white executives on that movie made her prove her Latina heritage.
There's confusion because I don't have a single ounce of Latin in my name.
When I was running for, in the running for Maria in Westside Story, they kept calling to ask if I was legit.
I remember thinking, do you want me to bring in my abuelita?
I will.
I'll bring her in the studio if you want to meet her.
Zegler expresses some bemusement at, quote, having a bunch of white executives have you prove your identity to them.
Now, I don't care what they say, like on camera or to magazines.
Behind the scenes, you guys know as well as I do that those executives like Spielberg are looking at that saying, Rachel Zegler can F right off.
Well, I feel like this is what Alec Baldwin should have done when he was vetting Hilaria.
Are you actually Latina?
Are you actually saying you are?
I do want to meet your Abuelita.
I need a 23 in me, honey.
I need some DNA, saliva test.
So yeah, no, Rachel Zegler, she needs to be more grateful for the role she had.
If I were cast in a Disney movie, I would be saying, I love Disney.
I love Snow White.
I wouldn't be saying anything negative.
She's almost pulling a Rachel Maddow.
Remember when Rachel Maddow, like a few weeks ago, she got on air and she's like, this network sucks and the changes they're making.
Sweetie, you're being paid $65 million and you're on TV saying your bosses suck.
So Rachel Zegler, maybe keep your mouth shut.
Listen, it's the queen of the realm in Hollywood.
You're a victim.
That's just it.
So any chance you can portray, listen, she was plucked out of obscurity by Steven Spielberg.
All you say is thank you, Mr. Spielberg.
Reality Show Drama and Dylan Mulvaney 00:15:27
And you keep saying that for the next 50 years because he made her create.
Yes, it's like those snot-nosed Harry Potter stars who never miss an opportunity to stab J.K. Rowling for they think being a bigot.
I completely disagree.
Of course, she's just standing up for women's rights.
Okay, so that's that.
But you make a nice transition for us, Link, to Alec Baldwin.
What in God's green earth is going on between those two?
So they go.
I don't know what this event was that they appeared on the red carpet to discuss it.
Was it like some awards ceremony involving their reality show?
But they show up, Planet Hollywood.
Okay, they're at Planet Hollywood, but they're speaking on the red carpet.
And these clips have gone totally viral because she's a nasty person to him.
I mean, there's trouble in paradise.
Here's, let's kick it off with SOT 25.
Is it harder to memorize scripts or be yourself on unscripted television?
Oh, it's so hard.
It's so hard.
Yeah.
That's a good question.
I think it's because you want, you don't want it to be dull.
And just if you showed the way our life really is, you get it after like an hour.
You feel kind of feel the desire to make it more silly than it might be.
I have to say that every, I don't think you make it more silly than it is.
I actually feel.
You're going to cut that down on the show?
No.
No, we just cut all that part out.
Cut me out.
Cut you out.
Or in queen.
Routine is key.
We'll just say king and queen at the same time.
It's essential.
It's essential.
But, you know, I think that us trying to every day.
Is it, yeah.
Okay.
Let me down.
Yeah.
Oh my God, you're distracting me right now.
Like, no, you're just doing that.
Why?
Why are you distracting me?
I'm just capturing.
Yeah, you're just distracting me.
No, but, oh, my God, stop.
You're annoying me.
Stop.
It's not cute.
No, he's distracting me.
So I'm going to like walk out of this interview.
I need the motherhood notes.
You are doing an amazing.
No, okay.
Go back.
Let me go back.
It's all about routine.
Whoa.
People.
Link.
They don't like each other.
She doesn't like him.
Yeah, but he should have reassessed that maybe after the sixth child, before the seventh, I mean, you keep going back to the same well.
You're in this apartment with seven kids, nannies, animals, screaming, crying, housekeepers.
No wonder the man wants to get out of there and run for the hills.
But I just can't feel sorry for him because you made your bed and now you have to lie in it, right?
You married this woman with like multiple personalities and fake names and accents.
What did you expect?
She was not going to be somewhat mentally unwell.
But you know, my rule is always: I don't care if you're having a fight with your boyfriend, your partner, your husband.
If you show up to dinner or an event, get it together.
Nobody wants to see you bicker.
And there's some couples who I think almost get off on that.
Like when they go to dinner parties, it's like they kind of like to humiliate each other or bicker and fight in public.
And it's just so awkward for everybody else.
And so, no, I just got secondhand embarrassment watching that.
I think Ilaria is also thinking, oh, he has no money now, no career.
He's persona non grata.
I got to find another husband.
I think she's kind of over it.
She's like, now I'm in this apartment.
We got, we sold the house in the Hamptons.
We have nothing.
It's true.
At least Megan Markle still has Harry's royal status, or at least kind of royal status.
She's got that to hold on to.
But this guy, it's like, you're right.
His fortune's dwindling.
He's not really going to be a major movie star anymore.
She missed the peak Alec Baldwin, which was clearly Hunt for Red October.
And she's stuck with the leftovers here, which who killed a woman.
And, you know, like you say, he's now persona non-grata.
But that, like, it happened over and over.
In that one clip, you, you know, he said, you're so beautiful.
And she's like, no, no.
And actually, there's another one kind of like that.
Yeah, did we just play this in SAT 28?
Sot 28.
No, no, no.
This is another.
This is another piece of the same exchange, SAT 28.
I hope people read my wife's book and realize what an unusually amazing woman she is.
My wife is probably one of the most special people.
She is probably the most special person I've ever met in my life.
Her qualities are so the combination is like kind of mind-blowing.
Anyway.
So that's what he said after she was saying all the nasty things about him, including this one, which I forgot to play, SAT 26.
We want more of this.
Season two, David Donald.
The Ilaria show.
No, no, I think we're going to see.
You know, it's we're going to see how it feels to have it be out there.
This is great.
This is a winner.
Oh my God.
When I'm talking, you're not talking.
No, when I'm talking, you're not talking.
This is why.
Yes, we'll have to just cut him out of the show.
No, I like I'm on.
I'm so uncomfortable, Christian.
Yeah.
A couple of things.
One, if you look carefully, he's actually blinking SOS in Morse code.
He wants to get out.
And also, if you looked at that last clip, he actually does the JD Vance meme from the VP debate.
He kind of does like one of those eye lifts to the camera.
So yeah, let's, you know, I never thought I'd feel bad for Alec Baldwin.
I feel very badly for Alec Baldwin today.
I do.
But then when he was singing her praises, it was almost like he was brainwashed.
He was like a branched Davidian saying, I love David Koresh.
Like, I want to get off the compound.
Like Alec Baldwin going, she's an amazing wife.
She's an incredible mother.
You know, she doesn't, you just never know what accent she's going to have today.
And her yoga career is going to take off soon.
Yeah, it was just really weird when he started singing her praises.
He is brainwashed and fighting for his life.
She was still doing her little Spanish accent, wasn't she?
Did you hear that?
No, when I'm talking, you're not talking.
You're not talking.
We're not talking.
Like, we know you're from a tony suburb of Boston and went to a Ritzy private girl school for some 50 grand a year at this point.
Like, it's ridiculous how she continues to perpetuate this fraud on us.
Okay, this is not, I'm not done.
They were asked whether they're going to have a season two of their reality show.
Who's watching the reality show?
Okay.
And here is, here's a bit of him speaking to that standby.
Is this, I don't know if this is during the interview.
Hold on, let me ask my team.
Yeah, okay, it is.
SOC 27 still.
I predict now on television, on American television, that season two is going to be you and Carmen.
It's going to be the two of them.
Can I tell you from now on, unless it's he's three, don't take anything that this guy is going to say because he just invents it on the spot.
Whoa, what?
They hate each other.
Just ask the people who brought the gun lawsuit against him.
You know, he just got charges dropped.
And, you know, notwithstanding like, no, I never pulled the trigger.
No, I never.
And she's out there like, you can't believe a word he says.
He lies.
And it ends with him begging her for a pat on the head chasing photographers away from him.
And now he's welcoming cameras into his house.
You know it's her idea.
She wants to be even more famous than she is.
And how you say cringe?
It just, it's unbelievable.
Well, I also feel like people's desperation and principles kind of go down when they have no money.
I mean, Alec Baldwin is really in dire straits financially, and they probably offered him a bunch of money to do this reality show.
And now he's stuck in this house with all these kids.
I feel like the reality show is probably the first time he's been at home with them for, you know, days and days on end filming.
He's probably going to be a little bit more.
You're an eyewitness to this, right?
Link?
I saw a post that you made on X.
Yes.
So let me preface this by saying, I'm normally a hear no evil, see no evil person.
That's why people trust me.
I'm like, I've seen some things.
I keep my mouth shut, but with Alec Baldwin, I'm like, who cares?
So I used to live around the street from Alec Baldwin.
He would always be either pacing outside one of the buildings I went to for class, yelling into the phone, or he'd be eating at Il Cantonori alone by himself, which is this restaurant on 10th Street.
And they live on 10th Street down the street.
And he would just be downing wine.
His phone had one of those kickstand cases.
So he would sit there just for hours watching videos, watching games.
And I thought, man, this guy does not want to go home to that apartment tonight until all those kids are in bed, until bath time and bedtime is done, because it is chaos and crazy over there.
Or maybe it's because his very nasty wife can't stand him.
I would avoid that house too.
She's like a domino trick or something.
I mean, maybe that's what's going on.
There's something, but you know, we spent the first hour talking about DV.
And I'm not saying there's a domestic violence situation, but like it can happen to men, not for nothing, but it can happen to men.
And I don't know what's happening there, but she, she does not love him.
That's what I saw.
I mean, I've been interrupted by my husband before, and I've interrupted him before.
And, you know, you always handle that with like a joke, you know, like, I don't know.
I don't know exactly what I'd say, but I'd probably just let it pass.
I wouldn't embarrass him on camera.
I mean, like my boyfriend and I, we've gotten into arguments on the way to group dinners.
And he's like, well, walk into dinner and tell everyone we're breaking up.
We go into dinner and have a great time because you can be an adult.
Okay.
So I don't know why they can't keep their crap together for 10 minutes on the red carpet.
I think it's that bad behind you.
On the red carpet.
Exactly.
Well, then don't have dinner with Doug Brunt because if he doesn't like you, he will actually turn his chair.
Like he will turn and like start looking over here.
And like the dinner is all happening here.
And now I've just got to do such heavy lifting.
Like, my God, Duggar, you left me.
What do you mean?
He's like, I couldn't.
He does not have it in him to like feign the insincerity with somebody he doesn't like, which I have to say is an important social skill in life.
You have to have this.
He just won't.
He's like, no, I'm out.
Right.
Also, this is, this is Alec Baldwin.
We're talking about this guy's a powder keg.
Do you really want to keep pissing him off constantly day in and day out?
I mean, what is she doing?
She's not thinking this through.
Well, all right, let me take you to the background a little bit because their reality show, The Baldwins, It airs on TLC.
And here's a little bit our producers found of him talking on the show.
Watch Soph 29.
So when I bought this house, it was a cold winter day in December of 95 in the Hamptons.
Is that okay with the noise in French people?
And the world was like, no, we're going to throw a tree in your way.
Can I go?
Can I do a face scrub on you?
Like, not right now.
We have to whisper now because daddy is having a monologue.
It's emblematic.
This is my wife's bathroom.
Toilet, sink, shower in here.
My bathroom's around the corner.
My little cabin bathroom.
Who has the bigger bathroom?
That's really funny.
They used to say that.
Oh my God.
So first of all, why is his hair like down like the bangs in the front?
Like sort of a, I don't know, a character from like a Cohen brothers movie.
And once again, there she is in the background with her fake Spanish accent, right?
Like we have to, we cannot make it now.
Like, what she's doing, even if you saw him on late night TV, like my wife, she's from Spain.
I mean, at this point, you really have to wonder whether they've convinced themselves she's Spanish.
She's Hillary from Boston.
But that's how they live, right?
She's got the enormous bathroom that you could probably fit your average New York City apartment into.
Alex walking around with his weird Cohen brothers hair and his enormous belly, like listless.
That's what I, how I would describe that.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, Alaria reminds me of this friend I had in college.
She said she was from Naples and let's go to Naples for spring break.
I said amazing.
She was from Naples, Florida.
I thought you were going to Naples.
So Elaria, who said she's from Spain, it must be from the Spanish coast of Boston, this phony ass woman.
But yeah, no, Alec Baldwin, he needs to either divorce, cut his losses.
But the thing is, how much child support is he going to have to pay if they get divorced for seven children?
He's done.
So he's almost like, it's almost better for him just to stay in the marriage and suffer and go through this whole thing.
I couldn't imagine his kids are really tiny.
It's not like he has kids in high school.
They're what, single digits?
So we wish you well, Alec.
Cheers.
Yeah.
Which cultural appropriation police?
Yeah, go ahead.
So where's the cultural appropriation police where, you know, you can't do this.
You can't just say, I'm a certain ethnicity and then embrace the accent and pretend it from there.
I mean, the woke crowd should have canceled her years ago.
And by the way, why wasn't he canceled years ago?
He had alleged racist slurs.
He had alleged gay slurs, physical violence here, there, and everywhere.
And he just kind of marched on and kept making movies.
That was amazing.
They just never even canceled on how big a star you are and how hot you are on whether you will get canceled as a Hollywood actor, right?
I do think there are these intangibles that get factored in as to whether they kick you out.
Like Kevin Spacey, he wasn't hot enough.
Alec Baldwin, he doesn't look that way.
At his peak, he was quite dreamy.
And I do believe that's kind of what Ilaria thought she was marrying.
And now it's a different story.
I mean, she said herself that he's walking around with PTSD after the whole shooting on the Rusk set.
And so that's probably true.
I hope somebody gets him the help he needs.
So I think the three of us might need to drive by in a flowered van to grab him and get him to greener pastures.
Okay.
Okay.
Moving on.
Dylan Mulvaney back in the news.
I'm sorry, audience.
I'm sorry, but we're just going to spend a minute on Dylan Mulvaney, who has now not only dropped a memoir, but has opened up a podcast.
And it's called The Dylan Hour.
I'm sure you're all writing it down and to going to subscribe now.
But here is his opening song.
By the way, Dylan Mulvaney, for those of you who don't know, is a man pretending to be a woman and making a living off of describing his 100 days of girlhood and now his days of womanhood.
And he is not a woman or a girl.
He is a man.
Here is the opening song for his pod.
In the shower, on a walk through the Dylan hour, feeling sweet, feeling sour.
I feel nothing.
It's Dylan hour.
My couch is open.
It's better than therapy.
All you soccer moms, all you days and thems.
All you modern boys, have a sexual them.
Come on and all disassociate with me.
Grab a drink or two or three.
You have no friends.
All good.
You got me.
It's the Dillon hour.
Love you.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I apologize.
Forgive me.
It had to be done.
And you guys, I'm the one who did it to you.
Christian, will you be writing that one up soon and a review, same as Snow White?
Absolutely.
I mean, I just want to focus like the show on girls, gays, and they's, which is part of their promotional push.
You know, I want to tie this back to Snow White briefly.
If you had put Dylan Mulvaney in Snow White, it would be offensive.
She would be kind of mincing around as Snow White.
And that would be offensive.
And yet in movies today, every female seems to be this tough warrior.
And, you know, she can beat up six men and she's empowered and strong.
Cultural Shifts and Gender Stereotypes 00:15:23
And yet Dylan just kind of goes around as a sort of caricature of a woman.
But no one's upset about that.
Dylan is six men.
I, you know, Link, I'll tell you something.
Just because I knew you guys were going to be coming on, we'd be talking about this person.
I actually downloaded his audio book.
I didn't make it through the first chapter, but I did try.
And what I gleaned off of what I heard was this is this is just a gay boy.
This he, he was a gay boy who knew he was gay when he was very young and his family knew he was gay.
And he became a theater kid and he was starring on like off-Broadway type productions and Book of Mormon and like doing okay, not doing too poorly.
And I don't know how it crossed over, but I don't believe this person ever had true gender dysphoria.
I just think he was a gay man who saw an opportunity to take things next level by playing this new role.
So what I think happened was, because I've had the same theory for years and Dylan Mulvaney did a little video on me and then wrote me to apologize, which I never responded to.
But my theory for years has been Dylan tried a million different avenues to have fame and fortune.
Dylan wanted to either be a famous actor or a singer or a dancer and it didn't work.
So one day Dylan started doing this Days of Girlhood series where he would pretend to be a woman and say, oh, I wrote an angry email today.
I'm a woman now.
I'm a girl.
And the video started to get traction.
I think if the videos hadn't taken off, Dylan wouldn't have transitioned and gone down that rabbit hole.
But when the followers poured in and the views and the money and the brand deals, Dylan's like, oh, well, let me transition because this is now my ticket to fame and stardom.
But Dylan Mulvaney is phony.
Dylan Mulvaney is an actor.
Dylan Mulvaney is inauthentic.
And so I don't think that this book or the podcast are going to do too well.
Now, Dylan went on the view to promote his memoir.
Again, which I believe he launched on the International Day of Women.
Like, okay.
So he goes on the view to promote his book.
And they did raise with him the Bud Light controversy, where Bud Light agreed to put his face on a can and sent him the can as a promotional thing.
I mean, to be perfectly honest, this is all on Bud Light.
That particular incident is way more a Bud Light problem than it is a Dylan Mulvaney problem.
But Bud Light should have foreseen what was going to happen to Dylan as a result of it.
And I, look, he's out there trying to make money off of his image of women and girls, which is really offensive.
So I really have no empathy for what, you know, the mix he found himself in, but it was an overwhelming backlash and he was asked about it.
Here's how that went in SAT 21 of CBS.
CBS.
About that experience, because I felt like it was my fault.
And in that me taking this one brand deal was affecting trans people globally.
I think extremists and transphobic media needed a poster child, but I would have never taken any deal that I thought could negatively impact me or the community.
It resulted in a lot of suicidal ideation and dissociation.
I'm still battling with some of that guilt and that shame and that dysphoria that was projected onto me during that time.
So, and there was a question about whether Dylan needed to be institutionalized.
And Dylan said, I don't want to be institutionalized because people will just use that against me.
But I have to tell you, I really think this is more a revelation, Christian, of the unwellness of this person, because there are a lot of people who go through massive social media backlash, a lot of people who don't think about taking their own lives, who don't need to be institutionalized and not just hard, you know, cynical mofos like yours truly.
But, you know, a lot of people have backlash.
The people listening to this show have had it on in their lives, what is a massive scale where people have turned on them and tried to cancel them on Facebook because of their politics.
What have you?
I just know for my audience, this has happened to a lot of people.
But Dylan revealing that, I think, reveals more than he means to.
Yeah, I mean, he sounds like a troubled soul.
And, you know, part of this is unfair on him in that I think a lot of the culture's frustration with the trans agenda, putting, you know, women against trans women in sports, forcing kids to change their gender and hiding them from their parents.
I think a lot of that kind of just focused on him during that situation.
So, yeah, and I mean, so I think part of it was unfair, but it is on Bud Light situation.
But yeah, you know, he promised he'd be doing a lot of oversharing on his podcast and he's oversharing here.
And I, maybe just needs help.
Maybe that's just the end of the day needs help.
So like I've, I asked myself, why, what is it about this particular person that I find so offensive?
Because I will say, Link, I appreciate his sunny affect and how smiley he is.
And his signature sign off is love ya.
And he doesn't seem to be a hateful person, like necessarily.
Like trying to, I mean, like, what I'm trying to say is like his attitude is generally upbeat, you know, when you see him in a way that I can see it being appealing to like younger people.
Like, oh, he's so nice.
But the whole caricature of women that he's doing is deeply offensive, even though he's saying love ya at the end of it.
And it's almost like regressive.
I feel like he's setting us back decades with this portrayal of what we are.
And then you start talking about him giving out tampons and walking around with tampons.
It's like, is there nothing about actual womanhood that is sacred to you?
You have to make a joke or like a marketable shtick out of every part of what being a woman is actually like.
And then my blood starts to boil again around this guy.
Well, Dylan Mulvaney reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres because remember, Ellen DeGeneres was all about be kind and kindness.
That was her motto on her show.
And then we found out she was basically running the Stanford prison experiments backstage.
So I think Dylan Mulvaney is fake.
I've said it for years.
I think Dylan Mulvaney was like a bitchy, caddy, theater queen, gay boy, and is still a bitchy caddy theater queen gay boy, but now in a wig and a dress.
Like that is the real Dylan Mulvaney.
And I have that verified from people I know and my own interactions.
I think if you're a bitchy little gay theater boy, then that's still who you're going to be.
You can have all the PR and the agents around you and you can have this narrative that you're putting out now that you're a victim.
But I also have this role, especially with my friends and some of my newer friends.
I tell them all the time, you can't play smart and dumb at the same time.
Okay.
I see it with my friends.
They try to play smart and dumb.
They get themselves into a scandal or into trouble and then, oh my God, I'm in the press.
I'm in this.
I'm in that.
Well, if you play with fire, you're going to get burnt.
So Dylan Mulvaney wanted fame and fortune and was making millions of dollars.
I think Dylan bought a very nice home in Los Angeles.
So now you want to be a victim?
Your whole career has been handed to you on a platter because you threw on a dress and said you were a woman.
You know what I'm saying?
So I have no idea.
What did you think was going to happen?
It's true.
He courted public attention and comments on whatever he did.
And he crossed a line.
Look, there was blowback against him in the early days too, because he was mocking us with those ridiculous quote days of girlhood.
But it didn't get, you know, fever pitch until the Bud Light thing, which he wanted.
He courted.
It's like you have to take the bad with the good.
That's what Dylan doesn't understand.
It's what Megan Markle doesn't understand.
It's like, Michelle Obama, if you're going to put yourself out there, it's not going to all be loving and supportive and wonderful.
Like man up.
And I mean that to all three of them.
Man up.
I know.
I say man up all the time.
I'm like, can we still say this?
Man up, everybody.
But no, I fully, fully agree with you.
You can't play smart and dumb.
Okay.
You can't beg for fame, fortune, and millions of followers and then cry boo hoo, marry Lou Hoo because you got some negative comments.
In the Bud Light situation, I sort of defended Dylan on that one in 2023.
I felt like Bud Light strayed from their core competencies.
Like that's on them.
Dylan was just collecting a check.
But then Dylan also is pushing trans and gender ideology on millions of young, impressionable people saying, oh, get on hormones, take a pill, take a shot.
I had surgery.
It's just really not good.
It's dangerous.
It's kind of sick to me.
Yeah.
It's dangerous.
Building.
This is no different than having a severe anorexic all over the internet being like, try it.
Just stop eating or put your fingers down your throat.
You can just get rid of that big dinner and you can be skinny like me.
Go ahead, Trick, Christian.
You know, what Link was saying is true.
And I think that, you know, Dylan will keep saying, I want to counter hate.
I want to counter extremism.
But he's not really listening to the people who are criticizing him.
What about the parents who are aghast at their children are being sort of changed in the school without their knowledge?
I mean, maybe he should meet them and understand why there's this really frustration what's going on in the culture right now.
I think just saying, you're all extremists for not liking me is very glib.
I think he should actually dig deeper.
If he really does want to promote kindness and empathy, that's where you start.
If Dylan came out and said, I don't support men and women's sports, I don't support men and women's bathrooms.
I want to secure border.
If Dylan went like more Caitlin to the right, that would be iconic.
But Dylan doesn't have it in him.
Okay.
He's in that Hollywood liberal bubble.
I know.
It's, it's really kind of infuriating.
And now, of course, he's like a big star and he's working it for all it's worth.
Here's, you mentioned like he's actually a nasty person behind the scenes.
Here's, here is a, an exchange on his, for, from his first episode of his show where he's making his father practice speaking on the red carpet.
Watch.
We're going to the premiere of Wilwyn Harper on Netflix, which is Will Farrell.
And I know you're a fan of his, right?
Big, big.
Okay, good.
And I, I just, you always say you'd like to go to an event like this.
So I'm down.
We're going to do it.
But my bitter is that I'm already preemptively a little nervous about what you're going to say to people.
Oh, I don't blame you.
So let's practice this.
Okay, yes.
When somebody says, so, Jim, what'd you think of the movie?
It was beautiful.
It was something that moved me.
Oh, good.
Excellent.
Oh, what's it like being Dylan's dad?
Oh, I'm the most special dad in the world.
Yeah, you are.
I don't know, guys.
I don't, again, I'm uncomfortable.
It didn't seem real to me.
There were quite a few cutting comments in the whole exchange.
Yeah, I just really think if you're a bitchy, and I've seen it in New York, I saw it in NYU.
Sorry to some of my old friends.
If you're like a bitchy, nasty little gay twink and you transition, you're probably still going to be a bitchy, nasty person now, but you're just a trans woman.
I will say the dad wasn't bad looking.
The dad was kind of handsome, little Alec bald-esque.
I feel bad for the dad.
The dad kind of looks like how Dylan would look in 30 years had he not, you know, transitioned.
Well, but the dad is totally misleading people too, because he was asked, what do you do, you know, when your child, you know, comes out as trans.
And here's what he said.
Well, Dylan, and he talked about it.
Listen, here's Sat 18.
Like, you saw that I was a very feminine kid.
Yeah.
And so was it like a super surprise to you when I came out?
No, not at all.
I tell people I pretty much knew you were gay at five or six.
And then you saying to your mother and I, you know, mom, dad, I, and I think you said it to her and she mentioned it to me that I think God made a mistake and put a girl in a boy's body.
And, you know, it was, you just have to embrace it.
You have to understand.
You know, there's these things called chromosomes.
And, you know, these assholes in the world don't quite understand that.
And like you said to me, Dyl, the other day, a while back is, dad, what I'm doing right now is just like the gays 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
And in 20, 30 years, it's going to be just the same.
Hopefully, if we don't get our rights taken away.
They won't be taken away.
I'll kill somebody before that.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Well, if you're right, yeah, participate in girl sports.
It's a no.
That's a no for me.
But that's really interesting, right?
Because he's like, you just, you just embrace it.
And by the way, you guys know better than anybody, a five or six year old boy saying, I think God made a mistake and put a girl in a boy's body.
The overwhelming odds are he's talking about his sexuality.
He's realizing that in this society, you know, boys are supposed to date girls.
Boys are supposed to be attracted to girls.
You're supposed to want to kiss girls.
And this little boy was clearly realizing that wasn't for him.
That's not a gender flag.
It's just ridiculous.
Now you have these two people out there very publicly saying embrace trans ideology at age five.
And that message is everywhere on the hard left.
Absolutely.
It's also not what kids say.
It doesn't sound like something a little boy or a little girl says.
It seems a little bit like they've heard it elsewhere potentially.
But you know, it's funny.
We just played.
The Larry Eclipse when she was berating Alec kind of sounded a little bit like Dylan berating her his dad.
I mean, like, you know, say the right thing.
Don't do, don't, don't go off script.
You know, it's like, he feels like he's like a hostage, you know, like, yeah, don't put him out there.
Is that loving?
Yeah, then don't put him out there.
I mean, clearly there's a reason Dylan wound up the way Dylan is, but the whole thing is very sus to me.
And the issue of girl sports is in the news every day.
He doesn't speak out the way Caitlin does about it at all.
And there was just another one today.
Hold on a second.
It's in Portland, in Portland, Oregon, where this week, a male, an 11th grader, won gold in the girls' 400-meter varsity race.
His name is Aiden Ada Gallagher.
Watch this guy crush.
Look at this.
He's about two miles ahead of the girls who are behind him.
They have clearly zero shot of catching up with him.
And he's super thrilled that his post-pubescent male body beat the girls who are miles behind him.
This is at the McDaniel High School.
He set a season record, guys, after finishing over seven seconds ahead of his female competitors.
He was booed as he did it.
By the way, in the 200 meter and the 400 meter, both of those, he finished second place.
If he'd been running in the men's meet, he would have finished 61st out of 65 and 46th out of 58th, respectively.
He has not done hormone replacement therapy, at least as of April 2024.
So he's got all of his male advantage.
And that's why even in Portland, Oregon, they're booing, which I mean, I take some comfort from the fact that they're booing there, Christian?
Megan Markle News and Hormone Therapy Debate 00:04:17
Megan, this never happens.
When it does, it's stunning and brave.
So, you know, you mentioned the booing in Portland.
That is not insignificant.
It's a sign.
It's a cultural marker because the people in the crowd felt comfortable booing that, knowing that there could be significant backlash within their community.
So that's how the cultural shift is going on right now.
And yeah, I mean, how many stories are there where trans men are crushing against biological men?
Does that ever happen?
Has it ever happened?
I don't know.
Not once.
Literally not once.
So we mentioned Megan Markle earlier, and we do have Megan Markle news.
I know you're excited, Link.
Megan Markle, as you know, she's launched her little show, whatever, Ever After, and whatever it's called.
I don't remember what it's called.
And as ever, as ever.
Okay, whatever.
Whatever.
That's what I'm calling her show.
And it's terrible.
It's gotten totally panned.
And then she announced, oh, I've gotten the second season, which is a lie.
And they've already shot all the episodes.
So as you guys know, what that means is they shot all these episodes at the same time and intended on two seasons from the start, but decided to hold the announcement of season two until she started to get panned on season one to try to change the narrative to this is a success.
Because if this, if this were true renewal, she would not have shot all the episodes yet.
Like that's, they're not saying we're going to pour more money into this.
They already shot everything.
Anyway, so there's some podcaster out there who said something about Megan, like, I'm worried you're going to get backlash the way Blake Lively's gotten backlash.
And I guess Megan decided to write this girl a note.
And the podcaster, whose name is Amanda Hirsch, posted the note that Megan Markle sent her.
And you guys are not going to believe.
Look at this.
Look at the stationery.
Can you see that?
It's got her weird calligraphy, I'm fancy writing.
Look at the signature at the top, the little imprint, the emblem.
It's a huge M. Can you see what's on top of it, Link?
A crown.
A tiara.
It's a crown.
Oh my God.
So relatable.
Oh, this also feels a little bit like a threat.
I don't know the full subtext, but this also speaks to what I was saying last time, which is that Megan Markle, she must have staff, nannies, and help.
No mom who's raising her kids has time to make rainbow fruit platters and gourmet donuts and write letters to little influencers.
You know what I'm saying?
Nobody has time for that.
And with the crown on there, she is clinging to that Sussex title.
I have spent more time in Sussex than Megan Markle, but somehow she's the Duchess of Sussex and she's going to cling to it until the end of time.
I went to Sussex.
The beaches were all rocks.
I didn't love it, but I did spend more time there than Megan Markle.
I don't know what's going on with her.
So last question for you on this link.
I saw you did a post the other day about how Michelle Obama's lame podcast and Megan Markle's lame show, and there was one other that you said they're all tanking and for good reasons.
So why?
And who's the people?
Okay, so people always say bad things come in threes.
And I guess that's true because Gavin Newsome, Michelle Obama, and Megan Markle all dropped podcasts because this is what America needs.
We need more rich, liberal elites sitting around their mansions whining about their problems into a microphone.
So that's what we need more of.
What a shock that the people are not tuning in.
You're so right though, Chris.
It's so relatable.
Her little crown and her calligraphy note to this woman.
Okay, which is obviously just an attempt at PR.
Guys, a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
And we're going to be back tomorrow with a special look at the latest on the Brian Kohlberger case in Idaho with Howard Bloom, who's been covering this extensively.
As you know, we will see you then.
Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
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