Pamela Anderson

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dan Rather.

[2] I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.

[3] Hi.

[4] You're decked out in Daniel.

[5] D and D. Decked out and Daniel.

[6] Oh, by the way, that makes me remember something.

[7] What?

[8] I was watching a football game recently.

[9] Okay.

[10] In the future.

[11] This one was real time.

[12] Oh, okay.

[13] Yeah, the thing's over.

[14] Oh, that's sad.

[15] I'm sorry.

[16] Also, someone gave an explanation to that.

[17] Oh, no. What?

[18] comment they said the NFL network re -aired their previous game that had just happened at the time you're talking about the Christmas game yeah the records were the same the outcome of the halftime was the same so it's just an older it was like a month old not even like a two week old game they happened to show the same day same team same record yes I'm glad we figured that out I am and I'm not yeah sure I did like the idea that we caught a glitch sure I know And it was a glitchy weekend, if you recall.

[19] You were having your own glitches.

[20] Horissa.

[21] God, Horissa.

[22] Today we have Pamela Anderson on.

[23] I don't think I need to explain to anyone on Planet Earth who Pamela Anderson is she is an actor, a model, and an activist.

[24] Became enormously popular on Baywatch, home improvement.

[25] She has an incredible documentary that's out that I really, really, really loved.

[26] It's called Pamela, a love story.

[27] And it's kind of beautiful because her boys are part of it.

[28] I think they instigated it.

[29] Oh, that's nice.

[30] Yeah, it's really sweet to see her and her boys.

[31] And she also has a memoir that is coming out tomorrow, similarly named, called Love Pamela.

[32] So memoir out tomorrow, Love Pamela, and a Netflix documentary, Pamela, a love story that is out tomorrow as well.

[33] This episode, I was four minutes late.

[34] Uh -huh.

[35] And by the time I sat down, I was like, oh, my God, did it start?

[36] An hour before?

[37] Yeah, I thought, like, oh, no, I messed up the time because it was so deep in.

[38] Yeah, I really did.

[39] It got heavy, fast.

[40] I adore her.

[41] The other funny thing was for my mom, there was a big pop out.

[42] So my mom was staying here.

[43] Oh.

[44] We take pictures when the son's wrong.

[45] We take it against the house as opposed to against the garage.

[46] Yes.

[47] And so we were against the house and she heard what she thought was knocking at the door of her bedroom.

[48] Sure.

[49] She peeked her head out.

[50] And her hair was all fucked up and she was still sleepy.

[51] Oh, no. And she, like, peeked out the door to see who it was.

[52] And she goes, Dax, Pamela Anderson was standing there.

[53] It was a huge pop -out for her.

[54] She couldn't compute it for a minute.

[55] It took like a minute to remember that we have a show where people come to the house and the whole nine yards.

[56] She got a real bang out of that.

[57] Knock, knock, knock.

[58] Hello?

[59] Oh, hi, Pam Anderson.

[60] Kind of like the time Dr. Phil got the house wrong.

[61] Yeah.

[62] He came to the show.

[63] He knocked on a neighbor's home and an old woman answer.

[64] He's just like, hi, I'm Dr. Phil.

[65] And she was just delighted.

[66] He came out of her TV up to her porch.

[67] It's a moment you'll never forget.

[68] That's like when Sean Penn was standing outside my apartment.

[69] Yes.

[70] And I couldn't believe it.

[71] To retrieve his daughter.

[72] That's right.

[73] Call on his daughter.

[74] Yeah.

[75] All right.

[76] Well, please enjoy Pamela Anderson.

[77] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[78] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcast.

[79] or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts How long you've been doing this?

[80] February 5 years?

[81] Five years?

[82] I didn't even know what podcasts were until like last week.

[83] First of all, that word podcast?

[84] Yeah.

[85] How would anyone want to do it?

[86] It's like blog.

[87] Uh -huh.

[88] Yeah, it's not sexy at all.

[89] I don't do podcasts.

[90] Uh -huh.

[91] I do like journaling and radio.

[92] You know who has done our podcast?

[93] Who?

[94] Obama, Hillary Clinton.

[95] Oh, wow.

[96] Oh, it's fantastic.

[97] Oh, God.

[98] Now I'm nervous.

[99] Now everyone does podcasts.

[100] Now you got to do podcasts.

[101] No matter what anyone tells me, I say, no. I'm a rebel.

[102] Everything I say is just like, no. Yeah.

[103] Then I don't do it.

[104] And I go, oh, that was really great.

[105] I'm like, I'm just such an asshole.

[106] I have a very similar disposition.

[107] I haven't even heard the thing.

[108] As soon as I hear they want to know, I'm like, no. No, but I don't want to.

[109] If they want me to do it, I must not want to do it.

[110] So this show will be an interesting interview.

[111] No. Just a battle of the wills.

[112] Are your kids that way?

[113] One is.

[114] Youngest is Zen, musical, kind of like everyone just chill, man. It's okay.

[115] And then Brandon's like fierce.

[116] He's making the deals.

[117] Thank God for him.

[118] I didn't realize I had children to have them grow up, you know, and be smarter than you and kind of take care of you or worry about you.

[119] And you never want to be a burden to your kids.

[120] But I'm just a project.

[121] Yeah, but if you think about how it's always been throughout human history, people have kids specifically for that reason so that they can be cared for.

[122] There's no social security.

[123] There's no social security.

[124] hospitals, there's no nothing.

[125] You know, I moved my parents onto my property because I always thought you care for your parents.

[126] I've always looked after my parents.

[127] They've never had the ability really, but it's hard to live with your parents.

[128] Yeah.

[129] You know, and especially when you write a book.

[130] My mother's inside right now.

[131] We'll write a book about your childhood and then face her every day.

[132] That's a little hard.

[133] But I thought it would be healing.

[134] Not so much.

[135] It's been very interesting.

[136] Because she feels guilty?

[137] Well, I think it's hard to kind of relive some of it.

[138] You know, I wanted to get through my whole life in this book.

[139] So I had to talk about my childhood.

[140] I mean, I was a child.

[141] I was born into this kind of wild young couple.

[142] And I think that's kind of, 17 and 19.

[143] So they were just trying to get through the day and what that entailed and how I learned to kind of escape into my imagination and how I looked after my brother a lot.

[144] Believe me, writing the book, I was like, oh, I get it.

[145] So it was therapeutic for me. And they kind of wanted to move past some of those things.

[146] But the book is so little really about them, but they're only fixated on that.

[147] And, you know, it's just been difficult on top of exposing your whole life.

[148] And it's not going to make everybody happy.

[149] I mean, I feel bad because I didn't want to hurt anyone.

[150] And it's like, the truth is the truth.

[151] And it's just my perspective.

[152] Yeah.

[153] You know, my mom was nice enough to say to me, I was on a talk show and I told a story and it involved her.

[154] And initially she called me and she's like, eh, I don't love hearing that, basically.

[155] And then I felt bad.

[156] But then, because she is a gangster, she called me a couple A couple weeks later, and she goes, you know, I had no right to call you and say that.

[157] That's your story.

[158] You own your story.

[159] Always tell your story.

[160] Don't think of me. I thought that was enormously generous of her.

[161] Very kind.

[162] And big of her.

[163] Can your mom call my mom?

[164] Yes, but doesn't this play into so much stuff?

[165] Because my mom went and built a few things that I think buoyed her self -esteem.

[166] Also pregnant at 17 in high school, had my brother, had me. They got divorced when I was three.

[167] Lots of husbands.

[168] But she built a lot of stuff.

[169] So she had her own identity and things to lean on that helped a lot, I think.

[170] That's important.

[171] And because I think that generation, too, the compartmentalized and when it's over, it's you shut that door.

[172] But then there's this angry, I don't want to be an angry old lady.

[173] I want to face it all.

[174] My son made this film, Brandon, and I said, my only request is that you don't tell me what you're looking at and what you're doing.

[175] I don't even want to know about it.

[176] Just do it.

[177] I opened the door, said you have all access to all the archives, all my diaries from when I was a kid, everything.

[178] And I said, just do it.

[179] I mean, I'm a person.

[180] I'm a human being.

[181] I'm imperfect.

[182] Yeah, I think that part of the documentary is kind of mind -blowing.

[183] And also, I think I would feel the same way.

[184] So I'm a big journal or two.

[185] I have a journal over the last 20 years, never missed a page.

[186] I'm assuming my kids, though, one day, if they're ever interested, it'll go through all that.

[187] And I'm totally at peace with it.

[188] But like you, I don't really want to observe you go through it.

[189] And I don't necessarily need to go through it for myself.

[190] Well, I haven't seen the documentary.

[191] I don't plan on it.

[192] kind of interested what my kids have to say about me, but maybe I can just get those clips.

[193] They adore you, which is obvious.

[194] They think you're a bad motherfucker.

[195] That's really obvious.

[196] I think you would like all the ways that they talked about you.

[197] I really wanted to raise my kids.

[198] I wanted to be present for them.

[199] I wanted to be imperfect.

[200] Let them meet all this wild, you know, bohemian kind of lifestyle that we had and love them the best we could.

[201] I don't think I ever felt that from my parents, you know, that kind of camaraderie.

[202] I just always felt in the way.

[203] They were madly in love, and I always felt that Jerry and I just, it's not a good time right now.

[204] Like, we have to go somewhere else, like, they're either fighting or make it out or whatever it was.

[205] So I was really cautious of that.

[206] Even though, you know, Tommy and I were wild again, madly in love, their kids were everything.

[207] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[208] It was different.

[209] Do you have lots of moments when you were raising them, when it makes you reevaluate your own childhood, talking to my daughter.

[210] She has a nightmare that mom and dad have gotten a divorce.

[211] I'm trying to tell her that's not happening.

[212] A. B, if it happened, you would also be fine because you're going to be a winner.

[213] Like, that's how that's going to be.

[214] Nothing's going to break you.

[215] But as I'm talking to her, I'm realizing, oh, I was on dad number three at her age.

[216] Oh, I was already molested at her age.

[217] Oh, my God.

[218] She's so fucking young.

[219] I know.

[220] Isn't that crazy?

[221] Did you have those moments when they were little when you'd go back in time and go, oh, I was way too little for that.

[222] Yeah.

[223] I look at my nieces and nephews.

[224] My niece is five.

[225] And I look at her and I think, oh, God.

[226] that was happening to me at that time.

[227] And how did I survive?

[228] And the cruelty of knowing, right, you're looking at them, they're so trusting.

[229] I was so trusting.

[230] You were so trusting.

[231] It's heartbreaking.

[232] And I had this really kind of weird realization the other day and it's kind of morbid and people will probably not like it.

[233] But I was like, why have kids?

[234] I'm glad I had kids, but I knew I had kids I was going to be financially able to look after them with or without Tommy.

[235] That was important to me that I was independent.

[236] That no matter what happened, I could look after my kids.

[237] But I wonder, what is it driving force behind?

[238] having kids if you can't protect them, if you can't look after them very well.

[239] Believe me, I'm not trying to say that I wasn't protected because they did the best they could.

[240] And I don't want to think that it's a dangerous world.

[241] I always say it's a safe world with moments of danger.

[242] It's not a dangerous world with moments of safety because, you know, we're just getting inundated with all of this stress.

[243] And right now I'm promoting my book and my doc.

[244] So I'm all reflective and emotional and vulnerable right now.

[245] Well, yeah, so it's one thing to sit in a room and write and be open and be vulnerable.

[246] It's another thing to sit with your kids and do a documentary.

[247] having to promote stuff that's intimate and vulnerable is a whole other animal.

[248] It just seems very kind of self -serving to go promote my book and my documentary about me and then me, I'm going to go talk about me. It seems so silly, but that's the way the world is right now.

[249] You've got to be knocked over the head before you hear something because you're inundated with so much information.

[250] So, of course, I want my book to be successful.

[251] I hope it's inspiring.

[252] The doc, I had very little to do with it except for just open the floodgates, just so there's a record of truth.

[253] Yeah, yeah.

[254] You're right.

[255] It's much easier to write about something than talk about something.

[256] And I always have felt that.

[257] Yeah, because, again, there's like the intimacy of you in the journal.

[258] There's the intimacy of you and your family, all these things.

[259] And then there's, oh, gosh, now I got to discuss the things that are in the book.

[260] I was happy saying them in that venue.

[261] But I don't necessarily want to be on the today show saying this.

[262] I don't want to be in this silly attic with presents all over saying that.

[263] Right.

[264] Well, and I just did my audiobook.

[265] What's that experience like?

[266] Obviously, you're reading and you're writing, you're reading your book, and I've read it through a ton of times, but reading it out loud all in one go to a stranger with headphones on, like going, mm -hmm, and the things I talk about in the book are pretty explicit when it comes to some of the abuse, and I just did it.

[267] It felt good.

[268] It felt like another layer that's kind of a little bit torturous, this whole experience, but I'm hoping that maybe this is what I needed to do so I can maybe make some better choices in my future because I just keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

[269] So a couple different guests have been reading their audio book out loud.

[270] And in that moment, they actually really comprehend their story for the first time.

[271] And several people have said they've just been bawling kind of uncontrollably in the booth when they're supposed to recording.

[272] Yeah.

[273] I tried to just tell the story because I would be crying all the time and just feel like when you say it out loud, words are like spells.

[274] It just becomes more real when you say it out loud.

[275] By the way, it's Monica.

[276] Hi, Monica.

[277] Did you guys start early?

[278] No. Wow.

[279] You've jumped in so fast.

[280] Naturally.

[281] I love it.

[282] I love that.

[283] What are we doing right now?

[284] Who came up with the word pod?

[285] Right?

[286] She doesn't love the term.

[287] It sounds like blog.

[288] It sounds really shitty.

[289] And I agree.

[290] Like what about journaling radio?

[291] Isn't there a sexier word?

[292] What is a pod?

[293] I don't know.

[294] You've been doing this for a long time.

[295] You don't even know what it is.

[296] I mean, listen in French.

[297] Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[298] Yeah, I ain't trying to deconstruct it and figure out I shouldn't be doing it.

[299] I'm just like accepting all of it.

[300] What's podcast in French?

[301] That always sounds better.

[302] Oh, that's great.

[303] I'll try it.

[304] Podcast.

[305] Oh, it always sounds better.

[306] He is a podcaster from United States.

[307] That sounds sexy.

[308] I don't know what that accent.

[309] Yeah, it's not very good.

[310] That was my first attempt at French.

[311] But I would imagine with reading the book, you have a gear that you can click into.

[312] I think it's definitely born in the abuse of childhood and learning to disassociate.

[313] I guess I was relieved to hear this.

[314] I'm going to jump to it.

[315] We'll go backwards in time.

[316] But you first go to L .A. Crazy story.

[317] She's at a football game.

[318] She's wearing a Labat shirt.

[319] They put her on the Jumbotron.

[320] Now they can't stop putting her on the Jumbotron.

[321] They invite her down to the 50 -yard line.

[322] And then Labat sees that.

[323] They want to put her in a commercial.

[324] There's all up in Canada.

[325] And then you're in a commercial and then Playboy calls.

[326] And she is from a podunk fucking town.

[327] No disrespect to Lady Smith, but a tiny little town in Canada in Vancouver.

[328] by Vancouver on Vancouver Island there we go so then she lands at the airport at LAX and there's a fucking limousine with the playboy bunny ears and she goes to the mansion immediately and you're greeted by the editor and she's nice and you're seeing famous people it was gay pride day it was like a parade here every day she's like oh that sounds fantastic you're home you've arrived for sure oh what a stark contrast.

[329] It just got crazier from there.

[330] That was just the beginning.

[331] Yeah.

[332] And I just want to get to the switch that you can flick.

[333] I was happy to see it, which is, it's like, it's all overwhelming.

[334] Now we're doing your hair.

[335] And now you're in a photo shoot naked.

[336] And prior to that, you were extremely shy because of lots of past abuse.

[337] Yeah.

[338] And I hated being shy.

[339] It was paralyzing.

[340] It was the worst feeling in the world.

[341] I wanted to overcome it.

[342] And I guess I did with a vengeance.

[343] But you said, like, soon as the photo shoot started, something just kind of happened where you're like, okay, oh, I understand this.

[344] I like this.

[345] And now you're walking around naked on the set and you've lost that, right?

[346] That insecurity and that shyness.

[347] It took a while.

[348] I was actually physically sick the first day that I shot.

[349] I was still trying to get over that shyness.

[350] And I just realized that we're our own worst critic.

[351] Nobody else cares.

[352] I felt like if I walked naked down the street, people wouldn't even notice.

[353] They're busy with themselves.

[354] Yeah.

[355] Yeah, but you found that you're a performer, I guess is what I'm saying.

[356] People either have that kind of gear or they don't.

[357] So in the face of absolute terror and shyness and insecurity, you found a persona, which was confident.

[358] The performer.

[359] I bring all that out to say, I'm sure during the book reading, when it got dicey and emotional, you're like, nope, I'm putting on my performer hat.

[360] And it's going to save me and safeguard me and walk me through this as it has so many times.

[361] Yeah, that's the thing that I have That a lot of people have That's why I hope it's inspiring Because I know there's a lot of people That have gone through things And I mean, I went to the extreme Of trying to get through my shyness And overcome things But it was stuff that was coming at me I never pursued to be an actor I never thought I would ever be on a plane I never thought I'd leave my little town So it wasn't that it was something I was searching for It just was happening and happening And I was just like, okay, okay I have a global question for you So I'm from right where Detroit turns into farmland?

[362] Ortonville?

[363] So down the street, yes, from where you once lived, I apologize.

[364] To the east was Detroit, to the west was fucking hillbilly terror.

[365] Well.

[366] Too much privacy, too many places to take kids, too much weirdness, too much alcoholism, too much violence.

[367] It was fucking gross and gnarly.

[368] And when I'm listening to all the things that happened to you in such a short time, by the time you're 12, I'm thinking of all the things that happened to me, I'm like, There's too much privacy.

[369] Yeah, the woods.

[370] The woods.

[371] They're fucking kind of terrifying, right?

[372] Yeah, well, predators find their way.

[373] Yeah, but I also think people are bored.

[374] They're drunk.

[375] You're seeing 25 -year -olds hang out with 12 -year -olds.

[376] Like, you and I are in Beverly Hills, and we see a 25 -year -old man go and approach a 12 -year -old, and her to go for a walk, you would call the police or you'd intervene.

[377] Right.

[378] But so much shit is just weird shit's happening out and all that rural privacy.

[379] Yeah.

[380] And I looked really young.

[381] too.

[382] I mean, when I was 12, I looked like it was five.

[383] I was a late bloomer.

[384] I think that was on purpose somehow.

[385] Well, going back to what you were just saying, I think if you've had abuse, you're probably exceptional at compartmentalizing.

[386] I think that's inherent in kids who are abused or younger people who are abused.

[387] So yeah, of course, you could click into performer and click out.

[388] You're built for that.

[389] Now, this is the time where I'm trying to feel your feelings, all this, you know, I'm not in therapy, which I should be.

[390] I have had therapists before, and he retired after me. He was like, that's enough.

[391] He never worked again.

[392] But, you know, I love talking to him about Jungian philosophy and dreams and dream interpretation.

[393] I've always been into mythology and fairy tales.

[394] And that's kind of been my thing.

[395] But I really feel the same way right now.

[396] For some reason, I feel sick to my stomach.

[397] I'm worried about the book coming out.

[398] I'm worried about hurting other people.

[399] Because as also a kid who's been abused, you're always wanting the attention from your parents.

[400] You want the admiration.

[401] You want someone to say it's okay.

[402] And it's another vulnerable space to be in because you're putting it all out there and you're not getting the support.

[403] You're actually getting blamed.

[404] Like, don't do this to our family.

[405] Don't do this to me. And if I knew that was happening, I would have called the police making up some crazy stuff.

[406] They knew all about.

[407] They knew all about everything.

[408] But this is a whole other level.

[409] Well, first of all, was your mom's name, Carol?

[410] Yeah.

[411] First of all, you guys have the cutest relationship, at least in the documentary.

[412] She likes you.

[413] She is proud of you.

[414] She thinks you're spunky.

[415] you clearly had a life that she would have died to have and is blown away that this little girl of hers became you.

[416] That's very clear.

[417] Right.

[418] At least in the documentary, it seems very clear.

[419] I'm glad.

[420] You know, the thing that I could relate to is when you have this pretty life -altering event at 12 with a 25 -year -old guy, your first thought was, well, I can't tell my mom because I can't burden her with this.

[421] She's already so burdened with this insane relationship she has with my father that I can't add to that.

[422] I didn't want to get anyone in trouble.

[423] Yeah, those feelings.

[424] That's such a role reversal that the kids have to worry about the adult's emotional state.

[425] You know, adults should be helping kids regulate their emotional state.

[426] And I hope my kids always feel they can come to me with anything.

[427] That would be a terrible burden on them.

[428] Yeah.

[429] But after that event, no one knows.

[430] You're not going to tell a soul.

[431] You don't tell your brother.

[432] You don't tell anybody.

[433] And yet this pervasive feeling, yet everyone knows that you're walking around and there's a sign on your head that basically says, I've done this.

[434] I've had sex.

[435] Yeah, the worst thing in the world, you know, to me at that time, I thought everybody knew.

[436] So in that way, your own sexuality was arrested.

[437] It was kind of taken from you.

[438] It was weaponized.

[439] You were terrified people, knew that and thought that about you.

[440] And it kind of just went in a vault.

[441] And then through doing Playboy, you kind of reclaim that for yourself.

[442] I think that's how I did it.

[443] Yeah.

[444] There's kind of a well -known obesity study in San Diego.

[445] And in the obesity study, they found out that this really high percentage of them had been sexually assaulted.

[446] And then the conclusion was they want to make themselves invisible to men.

[447] So one of the ways they would do that is to gain a lot of weight and try to just be off of men's radar, right?

[448] Okay, so I went the opposite route.

[449] Yeah, you were taking charge.

[450] I was like with a vengeance, yeah, I took charge of my own sexuality, my own sexual image, and it gave me a power that I hadn't had before.

[451] Did it feel healing at the time?

[452] Well, at the time, I felt more confident about myself.

[453] I always had these insecurities.

[454] You know, I never liked pictures of myself, nothing like that.

[455] I was always a critic.

[456] It was my way, like I say, I just felt like I closed my eyes and I just fell off this bridge into the abyss and I just felt like, we go.

[457] You open up your eyes and you're taking pictures.

[458] And it just felt like a gateway for me. You know, it felt like a portal.

[459] Just the way that I connected to the camera was like another fantasy.

[460] You know, it was a way for me to disconnect from all of it.

[461] And so, you know, then you dip in and out of reality and fantasy.

[462] And that's kind of been my life as a roller coaster of fantasy and reality.

[463] If it's not this fairy tale, then I run away.

[464] And it's just been this kind of childish immaturity and I wish I made some better choices but I can see looking back why I did and plus I used to think that I just drove people nuts and that's why they got crazy with me and then I would just disappear but I think it's relevant to explain the whole ride your dad's a very specific character your dad as you described it was a card player a con man in a chimney sweep he drove recklessly he was a fucking wild man he was the bad boy of lady smith Some oceany green eyes.

[465] You know, my mom, the bouncy blonde, waving her scarf to the camera, you know, like funny calisthenics in the garden.

[466] And he was dangerous.

[467] Your mother went through the windshield of a car that he was driving when she was pregnant with you.

[468] They don't know anything about podcasts.

[469] I know that's the thing.

[470] Do they know anything about movies?

[471] I mean, they know Netflix because it's in the documentary.

[472] No, I know.

[473] She's read the book.

[474] That's the hard thing.

[475] I'm a writer.

[476] And when you write, you know, you have to write the truth.

[477] I didn't want to just gloss over certain things.

[478] I wanted to really paint the picture.

[479] the reality and create the characters that were honest and no one's even interesting if they're not flawed no there's no third dimension to them it's just not even worth looking at but yeah he was you know the guns on the wall you know things like that intermittently violent with mom and then mom would leave you guys would leave you'd go get on welfare you'd move to another town then they'd rekindle say all that just to say duh fucking foo that you were attracted to bad boys you're all like this is what we do yeah I'm married to my mother I'm like I took you inside right now and introduced my mom to you.

[480] And then Kristen, you'd be like, oh, yeah, he got the show business version of her.

[481] Yeah, that's what we do.

[482] It is what we do, because we're still trying to work out our stuff, I guess, maybe.

[483] But, you know, my dad wrote letters to my mother all the time and poetry and everything, very romantic, super heightened romance.

[484] And still to this day, they're romantic.

[485] They left when they were younger, but no, they're together and they're madly in love.

[486] And they're just really close.

[487] I don't know what they would do without each other.

[488] They've been together their entire lives, you know, and nobody else.

[489] else.

[490] Yeah, at this point, 50 -some years they've been together, obviously, right?

[491] 55 years, yeah.

[492] Well, there was so much danger and instability.

[493] Then, of course, you lived in fantasy land.

[494] That's the only place you could go.

[495] That's the only place that's secure.

[496] Yeah, and then I loved my relationship with Tommy.

[497] We were madly in love, and I experienced that, and then no one had any shot after that because I was like, wait a second, you're not riding it on a horse to see me today?

[498] Like, you don't love me. So it's just been continuous silliness.

[499] And now has spent the last year alone, actually, in writing this book.

[500] And you have to be alone before you can love anybody else.

[501] I mean, really, it's the cliche.

[502] I know, but it's torturous because, okay, I'm a recovering addict.

[503] I also certainly for some period probably would register as a sex addict.

[504] Do you not feel dead in the absence of the heightened everything?

[505] Like, is it hard to not just feel like, well, then what's the fucking point?

[506] I know the thing's damaging, but who gives a shit?

[507] I'm bored out of my mind and I'm dead.

[508] I've done that over and over again.

[509] This is therapy from me to be at home.

[510] Then I went back to the ranch where it all happened, the scene of the crime.

[511] I went right back home.

[512] I live in my place my grandmother had where all these things happened.

[513] I'm right there in the middle of this little wooded area and my little ranch, my farm, and my five dogs.

[514] The trees have known me since birth.

[515] So I'm walking the same beach.

[516] I'm like, why am I doing this to myself?

[517] Yeah, yeah.

[518] But this is the healing part of it all.

[519] And it's really hard.

[520] And I want to do it alone.

[521] You know, I kind of met somebody else when I was at home to.

[522] And it just, we had nothing in common, even though if I wanted to be with a normal.

[523] guy.

[524] He was the least normal of all of them.

[525] Like I just said, just, everyone just, this is, the common denominator is me. I'm crazy.

[526] This is my fault.

[527] I said, I just need to spend some time alone because there's that great quote.

[528] The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love OSHA quote.

[529] It goes on and on.

[530] And it's true, not to make someone else responsible for your happiness.

[531] No, I have to be on my own.

[532] I'm with my dogs.

[533] I get restless sometimes.

[534] I call my kids.

[535] I go, I need to go to I need to go and they're like, just, it's okay.

[536] It's okay.

[537] Yeah, yeah.

[538] I love road trips.

[539] I took my golden retriever and we just took off down the coast.

[540] It was so fantastic.

[541] And I just listened to audio books.

[542] I mean, I've read all these books, but then I listened to him again, like women who love too much, like codependency no more.

[543] All these things I just was feeding myself.

[544] And then talking to my poor assistant who was driving, like he was in therapy too.

[545] Like he's, I think he's more messed up now.

[546] I want to read that dude's book.

[547] Exactly.

[548] Exactly.

[549] Oh, poor guy.

[550] Okay, so let's go through the timeline a little bit.

[551] Well, first of all, you need to discover podcasts because if you're in the car all the time listening, that's what podcasts are for is road trips, is in the car, is exercising, you know, and they're endless and they just keep coming.

[552] I just thought they were like to do with aliens and stuff, like alien podcasts.

[553] That's fair.

[554] I think there's some friend shit.

[555] Yeah.

[556] There's three million podcasts.

[557] So you better believe any topic you can think of.

[558] I don't want my own podcast because it happens a lot.

[559] People do a book and a documentary.

[560] Then they get a podcast.

[561] I don't want the podcast.

[562] Yeah.

[563] Yeah.

[564] I think you got to really want to do a podcast to do it.

[565] But you're right.

[566] Representatives pitch it to clients now.

[567] I can't tell you how many friends of mine call me. And they're like, my ages are saying I need a podcast.

[568] I'm like, you know.

[569] They're like, no, you don't.

[570] It's a great thing, though.

[571] It's so fun.

[572] Yeah, you never age on radio.

[573] Exactly.

[574] Can I tell you my favorite thing?

[575] Yeah, I've quit acting because of this.

[576] I don't have to get makeup on anymore.

[577] I don't do any.

[578] I'm not even.

[579] I don't have makeup on right now.

[580] I see a little eyeliner.

[581] No. Okay.

[582] If there were a guess I would have wore eyeliner for it would have been new.

[583] It did cross my mind to wear a wife beter for this interview.

[584] I thought that would be kind of funny.

[585] Yeah, to see if I could like be as appealing to you as possible.

[586] So I'm going to get myself in a wife beater.

[587] Yeah, I don't even know who I'd be with.

[588] I mean, I couldn't even dream up.

[589] I have no idea.

[590] Somebody older, you know, which really cuts it down now.

[591] So the documentary is great.

[592] It goes through your childhood.

[593] It goes to you moving to L .A. To being in Playboy, Pamela has been on the cover play.

[594] Playboy more than any human in history.

[595] That's a good one.

[596] I need to paint a picture for people because many of our listeners are younger.

[597] They grew up in the post -Playboy era.

[598] Playboy was Esquire, GQ, and Vandy Fair.

[599] The best authors wrote pieces in Playboy.

[600] It was a very classy magazine.

[601] It's hard for people, I think, now who've not grown up with it to actually imagine what it was.

[602] And Hefner, you know, he was really a great activist.

[603] Yeah, he's like a rap pack figure.

[604] Like, you'd have to be alive to understand the cachet he had as a human, is a media mogul.

[605] Some of the best nonfiction and fiction that's ever been written is in Playboy.

[606] So it's a very, very esteemed magazine.

[607] Great writers, Hunter Thompson.

[608] I mean, think about all the writers.

[609] Norman Mallor was always writing.

[610] All these great, great authors that were in there.

[611] So out of that comes Baywatch.

[612] She canceled the audition 11 times.

[613] What?

[614] She's like, I don't know where the fuck Marina Del Rey is.

[615] What did you think?

[616] Marina DeRae sounds exotic and far away.

[617] And I'm not a good driver.

[618] It is far away.

[619] I get easily distracted.

[620] Yeah, I never made it.

[621] You get on Baywatch and things start really happening at this crazy accelerated pace.

[622] Baywatch is the number one show in the world.

[623] Everyone knows you.

[624] Nobody doesn't know you immediately.

[625] Globally.

[626] And you just got off the plane five.

[627] It was that just what David Hasselhoff said.

[628] No, no, no, no. He does his research.

[629] Yeah.

[630] When you're a kid and you go to Europe on a Ural Pass, which I did at 19, every hostel you go to, no matter what country you're in, Baywatch is playing.

[631] That's a given.

[632] Baywatch and Simpsons were playing every single place you would go.

[633] Yeah.

[634] The world was fucking Baywatch nuts.

[635] You know that you went around the world.

[636] Well, yeah.

[637] Well, that's when I started traveling.

[638] And yeah, it was wild.

[639] It was wild.

[640] And then all the options are on the table.

[641] You're dating everybody pretty much.

[642] You're with Mario Peoples for a second.

[643] Then you're with Scott Bayle.

[644] Then you're with this person, this one.

[645] Guys are losing their shit about you.

[646] One of them in particular is Tommy Lee.

[647] You meet him at a party.

[648] And he gets your number.

[649] And then he calls you like a. psychopath for months and you will not answer.

[650] You didn't like him.

[651] Yeah, I was busy.

[652] Yeah.

[653] With any calls and I said, I have to go.

[654] I'm sorry.

[655] I can't talk to you because I'm going to Mexico.

[656] I'm going to Cancun.

[657] And he said, without me, I said, oh my God, do not come to Mexico.

[658] I'm thinking the whole country, do not come to Mexico.

[659] And he chased me down there.

[660] Wow.

[661] So he shows up again, this is one of these stories that nowadays, you'd be like, well, that's dangerous.

[662] But back then, this is very romantic.

[663] Romantic.

[664] Right.

[665] It's still romantic.

[666] It's still romantic and it's still dangerous.

[667] It's romantic because you ended up liking him and he's Tommy Lee.

[668] But you switch him out with another character.

[669] He just fucking went to Mexico to find you.

[670] That's terrifying.

[671] That's a horror movie.

[672] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[673] What's up guys?

[674] It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season.

[675] And let me tell you it's too good.

[676] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[677] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[678] And I don't mean just friends.

[679] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[680] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[681] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[682] We've all been there.

[683] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[684] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[685] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[686] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[687] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[688] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[689] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[690] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.

[691] So she's evading him for the first few days of the photo shoot down there.

[692] And by George, he fucking figures out what hotel she's at.

[693] He calls.

[694] You kind of reluctantly go, okay, we'll hang out on the last night.

[695] Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

[696] This is my favorite part.

[697] She said they're in a nightclub and like five guys in her in wife beaters with chain wallets.

[698] And she doesn't know who he is.

[699] And her friend asked him.

[700] Which one of these guys that looks identical?

[701] Just sleeved and like the white beaters.

[702] And they're just kind of sauntering in, swinging wallet chains and jeans, lanky skinning.

[703] Yeah.

[704] They do ecstasy on that first night.

[705] Which I'd never done before.

[706] I didn't even know he put it in my drink.

[707] Well, that's again.

[708] Don't do this.

[709] This is, I was saying it's romantic because it's a once, you know.

[710] It worked out.

[711] It kind of worked out.

[712] But guys, do not do that.

[713] Do not drug anyone without their permission.

[714] But obviously, you have a very heightened and exciting.

[715] It's a very dependent.

[716] It's a dependable drug in that way.

[717] And he goes, you want to get married?

[718] And I go, absolutely.

[719] So they got, Monica, they got married four days later in Mexico.

[720] Do you know?

[721] Wait.

[722] Well, I was feeling so good.

[723] And then he grabbed.

[724] Because you were on drugs.

[725] Yeah, but I didn't know that.

[726] And he goes, have you ever felt this way?

[727] before.

[728] I'm like, no. He goes, you want to get married?

[729] And I said, absolutely.

[730] Of course.

[731] Well, I feel like this all the time with you.

[732] Yes.

[733] I wish I married you 10 years ago.

[734] This is the feeling I've been looking for.

[735] Like, this is the feeling I can't find.

[736] Yes.

[737] This is love.

[738] Pure love is happening.

[739] No wonder.

[740] I haven't experienced before.

[741] I didn't realize your skin fell off when you felt love.

[742] No wonder you're like, I'll never find anything like that because that's not real.

[743] But then we weren't doing drugs.

[744] We were together, you know, for a few years.

[745] Yeah.

[746] But you started on that high.

[747] So they come back from Mexico.

[748] Now a new chapter of your life really kind of starts.

[749] I would argue up until that point, you're pretty in charge of the narrative.

[750] There's not this insatiable interest because it's so out of the norm.

[751] Four days and they're getting mad.

[752] They're crazy.

[753] I would imagine prior to that, you're kind of in charge of shaping the narrative.

[754] You get to pick if you're going to go to a party and get photographs.

[755] You get to pick if you go here.

[756] But now, I'd imagine the horses kind of leave the barn at this point.

[757] Oh, then that got out of control and car chases and people going off into ditches and boulders through the windshield.

[758] I guess in Malibu, it looks like, where you lived together back then?

[759] Yeah.

[760] There's like people hanging off of fences trying to get in the yard.

[761] It's pandemonium.

[762] It's unsafe.

[763] It's out of your control.

[764] And Thomas got a sought -off shotgun and he's pointing it at the reporters.

[765] And they're saying they're not going to charge us for our wedding present and stuff like that.

[766] Yes, I don't know him.

[767] I mean, I've actually bumped into him over the years in sobriety.

[768] I'm guessing he, too, is a child of trauma.

[769] He's been a rock star since he's 16.

[770] Yes, yes, yes.

[771] And he's an attic.

[772] He's clearly an alcoholic at the point you guys meet.

[773] Are you uncomfortable saying that?

[774] No, no, no. He is over now, so, you know, that's good.

[775] Yeah, very.

[776] Yeah, so he's an alcoholic.

[777] He has been living in this heightened and sane world.

[778] So now when the fucking photographer show up, he's built for this.

[779] This is.

[780] Chaos Monster.

[781] Yes.

[782] We were just hunkering down and trying to be as normal as possible.

[783] But there's a really sweet, beautiful phase of it.

[784] And then kids come along.

[785] So heartbreaking.

[786] So you're doing your first movie that you're starring in Barbwire.

[787] You're pregnant.

[788] You're so excited.

[789] You want a baby so bad.

[790] You miscarry during the filming of it.

[791] As you're leaving the hospital, you guys are getting chased.

[792] They're in your face.

[793] And you guys both kind of rightly.

[794] So snap in that moment.

[795] Of course.

[796] you're fucking pissed he's pushing people like i get it i deserve five fucking minutes in the wake of this traumatic experience this isn't for you the other shit okay we're out in a nightclub but this is like oh god i am totally exposed at all times i will have no privacy nothing's for me now you're in a cage fighting for your life at that point i think mentally yeah and just not having the tools not being equipped how old are you too we're early 20s just didn't know how to handle it all and obviously that's I think where it just took its toll you hate to complain about these things but we really were trying to have our relationship our children our privacy it was just so heightened and we had babies back to back too I mean Dilley's only just a little bit over a year older than Brandon and they were pregnant for three years yeah and so now he's totally ill -equipped to share attention with anybody he's had everyone's attention and a lot of my attention much more than probably normal like very heightened version of both of us yeah and you're also working you're shooting nonstop on bay watch it breaks my heart to watch all this part so he starts showing up to work every single day if she's going to have a scene with another guy he's going to be there when she kisses a guy on set he fucking trashes her trailer oh my god he's super jealous he's already he doesn't know this but he's already jealous of his children now you're going to work and now this motherfucker's getting your attention to and now I'm a child too so I'm going to act insane and then on some night it gets physical with you guys he gets arrested he goes to jail for six months I'd say this is the hardest part to navigate because I found myself watching the documentary kind of heartbroken for both of you despite the fact that I watch my mother get beat not a fucking option no one should ever that's one and done you don't get a second shot at that so knowing you made the right decision for you and your kids, yet seeing there's still a ton of heartbreak.

[797] Yeah, a lot.

[798] And that's really, really brutal.

[799] Yeah.

[800] It's really a bummer that that happened because you clearly were super in love with him and he was super in love with you and neither of you knew how to do that.

[801] Do it.

[802] I know.

[803] That's the tough part.

[804] But I always tell the kids you were born out of true love.

[805] You're born out of two people madly in love with each other.

[806] So that's kind of a nice start.

[807] Yeah.

[808] Yeah.

[809] So that's it.

[810] for you guys.

[811] Now for 30 years or however long that's been.

[812] Wow.

[813] There was no back and forth.

[814] There was all sorts of stuff that happened.

[815] I don't think we could ever get over it.

[816] Plus, I think I got into a point where I was starting to be with other men, just trying to get past him.

[817] It just became a mess.

[818] You were trying to get over him by finding someone as a, to feel, yes, to feel as in love with someone else.

[819] And you were trying a lot of options hoping to get that, I imagine.

[820] And I never, ever found the replacement.

[821] But it's just great to see my kids grown and to be in such good shape.

[822] I mean, despite the gene pool, they're perfect job.

[823] gentlemen.

[824] They're really good men.

[825] And I think a lot of that had to do, too, with sending them to Canada for school, getting them out of Malibu.

[826] Yeah.

[827] Getting that male hierarchy, they're both doing really well.

[828] And they both have girlfriends.

[829] They're both madly in love.

[830] I mean, I think that's a huge testament.

[831] Because you don't have to be in love.

[832] It's easier not to be these days, especially.

[833] Yeah.

[834] To see them in long -term relationships that are very romantic and generous and loving.

[835] Yeah.

[836] Just makes me feel so good.

[837] It's like I didn't take that away from them.

[838] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[839] Okay.

[840] So during all of this, there's this roller coaster of your own empowerment right so it's like it's completely stolen from you in your youth you kind of recapture it for a moment in playboying and baywatch then this tape is stolen from your house it comes out and then it's really fucking taken from you like it's literally stolen from you and it's now disseminated around the world and some motherfuckers profiting from it To watch all the footage of the beating you are getting is fucking cruel.

[841] I mean, it's wild.

[842] And it's all misogyny.

[843] When dudes fucked up, it just wasn't the same version.

[844] When women fuck up, it was a feast.

[845] It's not also fucking up.

[846] You didn't do anything.

[847] Something was stolen.

[848] I shouldn't say fuck up.

[849] I'm saying if a woman ends up in the headlines for something, and most importantly, Tommy was kind of, bros were high -fiving him.

[850] All in all, I'm sure he felt violated and stuff.

[851] but there's no lens of he's a slut because he has this lifestyle.

[852] There's no shaming to him.

[853] There's really no rules for rock stars anyway.

[854] Yeah, exactly.

[855] So you kind of just add some color maybe.

[856] Yeah.

[857] Times have changed so much.

[858] Now, if someone attacked you for that, they would be a bad feminist.

[859] Now we look at women, or we're trying to.

[860] I think we're heading there.

[861] I'm like, good for her.

[862] She's owning her body.

[863] It's changed so much since when you were in the spotlight.

[864] Yeah, it's definitely changed.

[865] bring that up to ask you because I know how I felt what was all happening and I'm embarrassed that that wasn't obvious to me how cruel all that was.

[866] But for you, what was it like to nightly hear that stuff?

[867] Well, I didn't watch it and I was really clear on everybody.

[868] I don't want tabloids around me including every magazine.

[869] I just wouldn't have it around me because of course you find yourself looking at something and getting really hurt by it.

[870] So I said, I just can't see it.

[871] Please don't have it near me. And I don't want to contribute to that kind of journalism.

[872] I don't want to buy anything.

[873] like that.

[874] I don't want to watch anything like that because I don't want to contribute to anybody else's pain either.

[875] So I just took it out of my eyesight.

[876] But then, you know, I'd go on a trip to Europe for something.

[877] And it was like headlines of these things.

[878] And I was like, who is that person?

[879] Like, who are they talking about?

[880] You know, they got me half naked on the cover of different things and all over the place.

[881] Like, I've turned into a cartoon character.

[882] Then I started playing into the cartoon character.

[883] And I think even with my friends, it's like I'm always the life of the party.

[884] Oh, Pam's here.

[885] it's going to get wild, you know, and yeah, it got a little wild.

[886] But, I mean, I just kind of became that thing.

[887] Trying to make lemonade out of it.

[888] Yeah, I mean, I was having fun.

[889] You had a bunch of big basket of lemons and you're like, okay, well, now this is the path that's open to me. And I guess that's the one I have to pursue.

[890] But can I just say that I think the ugliest part of it watching it was at some point they attempt to sue the person distributing the tape because, A, they don't have permission.

[891] B, they're just taking all this money.

[892] And they are, of course, entitled.

[893] to depose you you have to give a deposition it's just going on and on and on in their position the defense attorneys was get real you were in playboy you don't give a shit if anyone sees you naked yeah i mean is that not the fucking and that you have no right to privacy and i was pregnant with dylan grossest when i was ever deposing me too which was so much stress so that's when we said karma and we just walked away from it because i couldn't take it and we didn't want to affect the baby because I was feeling strong, like, we're going to fight this.

[894] I just didn't have the capacity.

[895] Yeah.

[896] You were concerned about the pregnancy.

[897] That's always going to trump everything, right?

[898] Yeah.

[899] Then we were like, we're going to get through this.

[900] We'll get through anything.

[901] But, you know, we didn't, which was sad.

[902] Do you feel like there's the little girl from Lady Smith?

[903] And then there's kind of the empowered character that you discover in L .A. And then I imagine after all this stuff happens.

[904] literally to you.

[905] We have to live in the performer.

[906] If you go to the little girl experience, you're just going to be destroyed by it.

[907] Right.

[908] No, I don't have the strength to do that.

[909] And I had two kids to raise.

[910] So I had to become this kind of strong character.

[911] And I didn't want to be away from them.

[912] I didn't trust anybody with them.

[913] So I was doing things and making choices in my career, too, that were just going to be quick, easy, easy money.

[914] I can still put a roof over our head.

[915] You know, let's just get through this.

[916] and don't want them to ever feel like we're struggling.

[917] But that's what's so nice about right now.

[918] We made it through.

[919] The kids are great.

[920] I have my little farm on the island.

[921] I'm back where I started somehow.

[922] There's an insane strength.

[923] It's a bummer because really you needed to actually collapse for about a year and let it all wash over you and then maybe walk out of that.

[924] But you're so, so strong and you just keep it moving, keep it moving.

[925] Would it pop up on you, like kind of unexpectedly?

[926] I was doing like flower essences.

[927] I was making these special.

[928] I was like trying to do as much as I could to be strong for my kids because I was a kid when things happened.

[929] I could leave my body.

[930] I could float down the street.

[931] I could play with people's toys.

[932] I had this really, really strong imagination.

[933] But with my kids, I knew I had to stay present.

[934] So I was like, I can't run away.

[935] I can't escape this.

[936] I have to be strong for them.

[937] You know, I can't sit here and fall apart.

[938] I've got two little boys.

[939] Yeah.

[940] Yeah.

[941] I also have to really commend you.

[942] I don't know all the details, but the fact that you weren't back and forth in that relationship over and over and over again when that relationship was a high for you.

[943] And you were so low.

[944] And the fact that you didn't just go there is almost impossible to do.

[945] I'm so amazed that you were able to not do that.

[946] I didn't want my kids to feel like that was okay either.

[947] And I think that that.

[948] That's where you talk about your childhood and you kind of reflect back.

[949] And there's times where I wish my mom left my dad.

[950] Yeah.

[951] But they stayed together.

[952] But what kind of a message is that?

[953] Exactly.

[954] But you picking that is so hard.

[955] Because you're so alone in it.

[956] He's the only person that knows this whole experience.

[957] He's the only other person that actually went through the same thing.

[958] It has to be so appealing to go to him for comfort.

[959] Yeah.

[960] I still love Tommy.

[961] I know he's in a relationship now and she takes good care of him and they're good together.

[962] I wish him all the best.

[963] but there's always that soft spot because every time I look at my kids, I see Tommy, you know, and they look so much like him.

[964] But it feels right that I made that right decision.

[965] But I made so many stupid decisions, too, past that.

[966] Now I'm in a better place.

[967] Good.

[968] Tell me about your pit stop in Detroit in 06.

[969] He was so good to my kids.

[970] They either rode dirt bikes.

[971] They played golf with John Daly.

[972] I mean, they threw a football with Peyton Manning.

[973] They skated with the Red Wings.

[974] I mean, Bob had a lot of.

[975] lot of really crazy friends.

[976] The kids were just in heaven there.

[977] But, you know, I wanted to be in Malibu, so we kind of split the time.

[978] But Detroit was cool.

[979] It's got such a great energy.

[980] And he's a great guy, but I wasn't ready for any other relationship.

[981] There's just no hope of anything else.

[982] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[983] I guess the one curiosity I had when watching it that wasn't really talked about, and because I'm an addict, I'm most curious about it.

[984] What's your own drug use?

[985] Because you're around tons of addicts.

[986] And I'm imagining how the fuck would you be around us?

[987] I look at my parents.

[988] I mean, I've experienced, I've seen it.

[989] My parents used to you know, party on the beach half naked and, you know, I kind of thought it was cute.

[990] Uh -huh.

[991] I experimented with drugs too, but it just, it just didn't suit me. You know, I never tried any drug until I met Tommy.

[992] My dad had me convinced that if I ever tried anything, I'd be paralyzed.

[993] I don't know why.

[994] I thought that's what was going to happen if I ever tried anything.

[995] You know, drinking is nothing.

[996] Canadians drink every day, like just something bad.

[997] So I experimented with it.

[998] And, you know, I can even go too far sometimes, but then I would go, hey, first of all, I have kids too.

[999] So, I mean, that was the part that saved my life.

[1000] probably with a lot of my wild and crazy friends, my artist friends, I would always be like, I got to be home at, you know, midnight because I got to take them to school in the morning.

[1001] I can't hang out for three days.

[1002] So I'm not going there.

[1003] Eight out of ten people who are molested end up having addictions.

[1004] It's such a high.

[1005] Now, granted, yours is, I guess, is love addiction.

[1006] So you did find one.

[1007] I probably have love addiction.

[1008] I have my own addictions, but I also never really liked that feeling of being high or drunk.

[1009] I'm crazy or straight, sober.

[1010] I have such an imagination.

[1011] I can't write if I've had a drink, you know, and I love to write, but I'd like to write in the mornings, really early.

[1012] I get about 4 o 'clock in the morning, 5 o 'clock in the morning.

[1013] Yeah, no, this morning was up at 3 something.

[1014] Oh, my God.

[1015] Yeah, just because I get up and I start thinking.

[1016] What time?

[1017] Did you go to bed?

[1018] I'm nervous for you.

[1019] Like 9.

[1020] I went to bed early, but still 3 o 'clock is a little bit early for me, but 4 .30.

[1021] I just love mornings.

[1022] And I love having my time to write.

[1023] I make my coffee.

[1024] Have you considered why you like mornings?

[1025] No, why.

[1026] Was there something you're going to tell me. They're safe.

[1027] They're safe.

[1028] Nobody's up to cause any shit.

[1029] And this day is just progressively get worse in my experience.

[1030] And by the nighttime, all the werewolves are out.

[1031] Yeah.

[1032] Yeah.

[1033] You're right.

[1034] So you would never object when you were with the addicts and they were in the height of their addiction.

[1035] No, I always told them, I thought it was cute.

[1036] You know, I'd line it up for them.

[1037] Oh, yeah, just whatever.

[1038] I don't care.

[1039] I don't judge.

[1040] It's your own journey.

[1041] I'm not a dictator.

[1042] And I'm not like shaking my finger at anybody.

[1043] But what about with the kids?

[1044] Were you like, you can't be fucked up?

[1045] Actually, you know, Brandon's sober.

[1046] Brandon made a really wise decision.

[1047] He's so smart.

[1048] And, you know, after high school, they both went to university.

[1049] Because we told them that they're on their own kind of if they don't go to college and they want to get out of it, that we're not going to financially support them.

[1050] They've got to work at the smoothie shop and sleep on kids' couches.

[1051] We were really strict about that.

[1052] But then Brandon said, I want to take acting lessons.

[1053] He was in the arts.

[1054] And he said, I would like to use the rest of my college fund.

[1055] to go to rehab.

[1056] And we went, why?

[1057] Like, me and Tommy were like, what?

[1058] Like, why?

[1059] You're not in any trouble.

[1060] No one told him to go.

[1061] He goes, I think I have that thing that ruins people's lives.

[1062] And he goes, and I really want to nip that in the bud.

[1063] He goes, because I got too much to do in my lifetime.

[1064] I don't want to deal with that.

[1065] I don't want to lose everything I love to, whatever that is.

[1066] Good for him.

[1067] And, you know, as an actor, too, you know, he's now producing, he produced this film.

[1068] He's such an amazing guy.

[1069] It would have been fun to have him here.

[1070] Or maybe not.

[1071] After what we talked about.

[1072] But anyway, he knows everything.

[1073] What am I saying?

[1074] Tommy, me and Dylan, we went to the rehab and stuff and we talked through family stuff.

[1075] And it was just so smart for him to do that.

[1076] I mean, he chose it.

[1077] And he has been sober for 10 years, I think.

[1078] That's incredible.

[1079] No, I shouldn't say, yeah, 2 and 20, whatever.

[1080] I don't know.

[1081] Age and me in time space.

[1082] I don't get it.

[1083] But anyway, more than five years, he's been sober.

[1084] And the good thing about having the crazies in my life, like the Rick Solomons and people like that, they've taken the good parts of it.

[1085] Like, Rick's a lot of fun.

[1086] Oh, yeah.

[1087] I don't want to be married to him.

[1088] But he's always been there for my kids.

[1089] He'd be the first call.

[1090] If I was ever in trouble, I would call Rick.

[1091] Well, he can get dirty.

[1092] He's funny from a distance.

[1093] When I left him, I was worried about my kids being around him.

[1094] And my kids were just like, we're staying friends with Rick, mom.

[1095] We don't care if you don't like him or not.

[1096] We love Rick.

[1097] But Brandon realized that he could be sober and still have fun.

[1098] Yeah, yeah.

[1099] Sober isn't a dead end.

[1100] Being sober, you have more fun.

[1101] He's around people, too, that they drink or they do whatever.

[1102] And he doesn't have any judgment.

[1103] Well, the dream is, yeah.

[1104] Yeah.

[1105] It's super fun partying.

[1106] It just has a diminished return.

[1107] It just gets less and less and less fun to the point where you're using drugs just to be a little less happy than you are dead sober.

[1108] That's why it's so cunning.

[1109] I'd have these moments I'm at the bar and I'm just reading the fucking label of the Budweiser bottle over and over again.

[1110] Oh, it's brood here.

[1111] It's right here.

[1112] And then I would go, oh my God, this is terrifying.

[1113] I'm hammered and bored.

[1114] What's left?

[1115] And now I got Coke.

[1116] Now I have Coke and I'm hammered and I'm bored.

[1117] I've had Coke.

[1118] I've had sex.

[1119] I've drank and I'm fucking bored.

[1120] I'm never bored in sobriety, ironically.

[1121] No, you're never bored.

[1122] I've tried to numb myself too.

[1123] Like when you're feeling a lot of feelings, you think, oh, maybe if I just escape this, but usually it just doesn't work out or you surround yourself with people that are going to take you down.

[1124] When I went back home from even living in France and coming home, I felt like a spawning salmon.

[1125] I was like, I'm going home to die.

[1126] This just feels so depressing.

[1127] You know, and then you're sitting there by the campfire with a beer in your hand and you're drinking every day.

[1128] I gained about 20 pounds.

[1129] So I was like, who am I?

[1130] I called it my puffy suit of armor.

[1131] I didn't know what was happening.

[1132] I looked around and said, who are these people?

[1133] Like, what have I created?

[1134] Like, I am so out of here.

[1135] I took my golden, you know, Zubi, Zuby, and we're out of there.

[1136] You're a great ejector.

[1137] You know how to hit the eject button.

[1138] You have to.

[1139] Yeah, that's exactly.

[1140] It's always really dramatic.

[1141] But once I make that decision, I'm committed to it.

[1142] I'll take a lot and I'll think a lot and I'll try on other people's clothes and lives and think.

[1143] Then I just go, No!

[1144] I'm out of here.

[1145] Can't do this anymore.

[1146] Yeah.

[1147] Two questions.

[1148] One is because the way sex and love addiction works is it is all fantasy, right?

[1149] So you're really addicted to the fantasy of the person and the fantasy of this.

[1150] And I'm not suggesting you're not super in love with Tommy that he's a love of your life.

[1151] But do you also police yourself and go like, well, I'm now looking back in time, which is already nostalgic, already a warped thing?

[1152] Well, I mean, I don't sit here and pine for Tommy or anything.

[1153] that he was the love of my life i think and if i don't fall in love again i'm okay being on my own that's not something that i'm pursuing but then i never really pursued it it just happens do you think it's possible that even your real life can get fantasized well where my dreams end and reality begins yeah it's a complete blur yeah because i'll even same thing i don't pine but i had this wonderful girlfriend brey we lived together for nine years absolutely adore still friends with her i do have to remind myself of the challenges that existed during that time because there were plenty and the things I wasn't bananas about because really now it's just a memory of our great trips all the wonderful conversations we had and it can get a little misleading I got to actually actively police myself to remember the whole experience well my therapist at the time told me to write a list of all the reasons why we're not together and then when you do slip into that read the list Yeah, smart.

[1154] That helped.

[1155] Maybe I should make that list again.

[1156] Like, experiencing someone's jealousy is the worst feeling.

[1157] Tommy wasn't the most jealous of my boyfriends.

[1158] I mean, it just got worse and worse and worse.

[1159] You don't feel trusted and then you stop trusting other people because usually the people that are really jealous are the ones you shouldn't trust.

[1160] Yeah, yeah.

[1161] Yes.

[1162] Yeah, it's always ironic.

[1163] It's always the guy that's most.

[1164] Because they're projecting their own thing on you.

[1165] Like stuff you couldn't even dream up.

[1166] They're doing it.

[1167] Okay.

[1168] My other curiosity was having.

[1169] Had beauty such a prominent part of what I'm sure your perceived value was to everybody.

[1170] I never felt like I was any kind of great beauty ever.

[1171] No, just a little funny looking.

[1172] Well, you said that your boobs had a great career and you were along for the ride.

[1173] I think that's the quote in the documentary.

[1174] But being labeled a sex symbol, that being such a prominent aspect, I'm curious how aging is for you.

[1175] I can't wait to see myself old.

[1176] I always said I'd recognize myself when I was old in the mirror.

[1177] I want to let my hair go kind of natural gray, put my little straw hat on, don't wear makeup.

[1178] I mean, that's my comfortable kind of state.

[1179] A lot of women, I think, that are these classic beauties, have a really hard time with aging.

[1180] I always felt a little funny looking.

[1181] So I don't think it's as hard for me, and I don't want to chase that, and I don't want to do all the crazy shit to myself.

[1182] And it's my kids going, no, mom, no, you have to wear makeup.

[1183] I'm like, when I was wearing makeup before, everyone told me not to wear makeup.

[1184] I'm older, and now I just kind of want to let it happen.

[1185] They're like, no, not yet.

[1186] You just got a couple more months to promote these projects.

[1187] And then you can take the makeup off.

[1188] You can take the makeup off.

[1189] Well, see, I think your value proposition has evolved and changed.

[1190] Like, what I look at you now, I would put you very much in the category that I would put Monica Lewinsky in.

[1191] You're like one of these living survivors of the apex of our societal misogyny, and you went through the whole thing and you're still standing.

[1192] You still have a voice and you still have a perspective.

[1193] It's kind of like a funny moment for me because you do feel like you've survived all this.

[1194] But then there's also this really outpouring of love from this young generation that are doing like TikTok, Pamela, filters.

[1195] And I don't even ever touch TikTok.

[1196] I was talking to the New York Times other day.

[1197] And she was like, check this filter out.

[1198] And it's like you can put it on your face.

[1199] And my makeup comes up on your face.

[1200] Oh, my goodness.

[1201] I could look like you?

[1202] Yeah, exactly.

[1203] Oh my gosh.

[1204] All my attention does it all the time.

[1205] He's like, you know, like with the lashes and everything.

[1206] It's so funny.

[1207] And the fashion, the 90s kind of fashion, and it's funny to see people do.

[1208] I always say, if you're a Halloween costume, does that mean you made it?

[1209] Big time.

[1210] What the hell?

[1211] Well, you're immortalized.

[1212] Yeah, people used to come to my door because I used to always give out Carmel Apples in Malibu, and it was like, they were either Kid Rock and Pamela or Tommy and Pamela or me in a bathing suit or a little boy in a bathing suit with balloons in his chest.

[1213] I was like, it's a lineup of Halloween costumes, my life.

[1214] Oh, you know, the other part of it that really reminded me of the Britney Spears documentary.

[1215] She's in interviews at like 17, 18, 19, 19.

[1216] And these older men are asking her if she's had a breast job.

[1217] If she's a virgin.

[1218] Are you a virgin?

[1219] These are like old men.

[1220] And I'm like, fuck, why were we allowing this?

[1221] That was another thing.

[1222] Like, you see even these, quote, reputable reporters saying like, well, I have to talk about your breasts.

[1223] Are they real?

[1224] Larry King.

[1225] Are they?

[1226] Yeah.

[1227] No, Larry.

[1228] They're not.

[1229] Fucking Larry.

[1230] What do you want?

[1231] Like, where do you want me to take this?

[1232] He asked you that.

[1233] I can't remember who asked me first.

[1234] There isn't.

[1235] I just thought I'd be honest, but then everyone was like, you should never be honest about stuff like that.

[1236] And I said, I just am who I am.

[1237] Like, take it or leave it.

[1238] Yeah.

[1239] Oh, I don't think not being honest was the right recommendation.

[1240] I just think it's none of your fucking business.

[1241] Yeah, none of your business.

[1242] Like, if you're my friend, I'll tell you.

[1243] No one teaches you how to do interviews.

[1244] And so when someone asks you a question, especially when it's on air, you feel you have to answer the truth.

[1245] You have to answer as more of an adult and more maturity, we might say, it's none of your business.

[1246] But in the moment, I didn't want to disappoint anybody.

[1247] And I felt like I had to answer everything.

[1248] Like, I was on the court of law.

[1249] There's even this really subtle and gross acting that exists among the anchors.

[1250] Like, there's a Matt Lauer interview in there.

[1251] And so he's taking this role of like...

[1252] I have to watch this after all.

[1253] I don't know.

[1254] No. He's taking this position of like, oh, I'm so flummoxed by you.

[1255] Oh, I've never had to ask this.

[1256] Oh, I'm so uncomfortable.

[1257] He's actually kind of making himself the victim in this whole thing.

[1258] Like, oh, I'm so uncomfortable.

[1259] I'm so sorry.

[1260] You have to ask this.

[1261] Yes.

[1262] I'm so bad for you.

[1263] And I'm like, oh, my God, this is all so twist and dark.

[1264] like this he's positioning this is like poor him he's been forced by the network to ask you about your boobs and he's getting off scot -free and even maybe people are like oh man it was so uncomfortable boy he's such a good person you're like oh it's so deep and dark it might have had to have some therapy over asking that question that didn't fare well for him in general as we found out yeah and by the way i want to also say i don't think i'm better than those people i'm sure if i was doing this job in the 90s i would have been just as dreadful i actually not judgmental of it and that I think they were evil people.

[1265] I think that's when we lived and it was wild.

[1266] Yeah, well, Howard Stern too.

[1267] Yeah, who I love.

[1268] Oh, I love Howard.

[1269] But yeah, he was pretty funny, but he's always really sweet.

[1270] The interviews were one thing, but, you know, he was always very kind to me. Yeah.

[1271] He's a sweet guy.

[1272] He is.

[1273] He's a good dude.

[1274] He's also evolved out of that, which is nice.

[1275] He's kept pace.

[1276] Okay, the thing that blew my mind that's also on the dock was you doing the musical Chicago.

[1277] It looks like you're retired when we meet you.

[1278] I mean, you were sitting.

[1279] up in the middle of nowhere, walking around a beach, planting flowers, and reflecting on your life, basically.

[1280] And then you get this offer, look, I moved L .A. to act, period.

[1281] And I was a comedian, and I was in movies and TV.

[1282] If they called me and asked me to be in a fucking Broadway musical, I'd be like, I'm afraid.

[1283] I can't, there's no way I could do that.

[1284] It's mind -blowing to me that you were like, okay, let's start.

[1285] I wanted to see what I was capable of.

[1286] I never felt like I ever got the opportunity to do what I was capable of as an artist.

[1287] and I felt there's a good way to find out.

[1288] I'm the sink or swim.

[1289] It's so brave.

[1290] Oh, my God, you show up.

[1291] It starts hitting me the amount of work that goes into something like that.

[1292] You're in L .A. just learning to dance for a long time.

[1293] Yeah.

[1294] Oh, yeah.

[1295] Yes.

[1296] And then I was like, sing.

[1297] Oh, God.

[1298] Singing lessons.

[1299] And then I was like acting.

[1300] And I said, you know, I can't do three of these things separately.

[1301] But for some reason, I could do it all together.

[1302] It was bizarre.

[1303] What was obvious is you fucking worked your ass off.

[1304] I was thinking, among all the impressive things here, I would be too afraid.

[1305] do it the work schedule and then the endurance you're not 30 you're dancing you're singing it's eight your voice and doing a cartwheel every show my god my wife's been singing since she was nine years old this is like a this is her muscle right i was the only person i think on an eight week run that ever didn't call in sick one day i got to every show but i would start talking to you like now and then i would start singing i'd be like who was that once you start really training your voice and i know and i was singing at the top of my lungs.

[1306] I was singing like I was in the shower.

[1307] You know, I was going crazy.

[1308] You latched in again to your little buddy that shows up for you and takes care of you, this girl who's somehow so confident.

[1309] On my dressing room mirror, I had one picture and it was a picture of me at five years old.

[1310] And I said, we're doing this.

[1311] It was so, it helped me a lot, not to let her down.

[1312] And to see my kids out there on the opening night and the closing night, to see them out there with so much pride, you know, and I know they love me. And I know they love me. I love their mom, and their mom's a goofy, you know, crazy one that makes everyone spaghetti and waffles all the time.

[1313] But to see such pride and actually something that I was working at, I needed to see that.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] I needed that for my soul.

[1316] It was really touching.

[1317] And just that first standing ovation when you're like, holy crap, I did this.

[1318] Yeah.

[1319] You know, and you felt rooted for it.

[1320] I was walking the park every single day at 8 o 'clock, and I have to see dogs.

[1321] You've been up for six hours.

[1322] You have to see dogs.

[1323] I actually found a dog to walk.

[1324] I actually had my assistant go to CrossFit and ask if anyone needed it.

[1325] dog walks and I got a dog to walk.

[1326] I don't know, New York, people look at you.

[1327] They're just kind of like, mm -hmm, like, they're successful.

[1328] They root for you.

[1329] They, like, want you to be successful, too.

[1330] Where I feel like more in L .A., it's like, I want you to fail.

[1331] And I had so many people outside waiting for me, just going, I knew we could do it.

[1332] Like, we, you know, I did it.

[1333] They felt like they were a part of it.

[1334] They came to see, who knows, train wreck.

[1335] I don't know what it's going to happen.

[1336] But to pull it off and do that was something I needed to see for me, too, because I loved it.

[1337] It's super impressive.

[1338] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1339] By the way, I didn't watch Baywatch, right?

[1340] So when I'm watching clips in the documentary, I'm kind of seeing it for the first time.

[1341] And I will say, look, it's not ER.

[1342] No. Yet, knowing you arrived 30 seconds prior without any desire to be an actor or training or anything, I was watching it going like, it's pretty fucking good.

[1343] I mean, all things considered out of the gates, pretty fucking.

[1344] fucking good.

[1345] I was like really impressed.

[1346] Was there anyone that you had your eyes set on?

[1347] Was there some woman that you totally admired that you thought, oh, I'd like to have that path?

[1348] No. Do you think you suffered for that, not having a target on the wall?

[1349] No, I think I just want to experience my journey full stop, not someone else's.

[1350] I mean, I was inspired, obviously, my big reader, I love Anise Nin, and I looked up to like Jane Fonda and like activists and Vivian Westwood's a dear friend of mine and people that I kind of latched on to and people that latched on to me that were similar -minded but big artists.

[1351] And I used to always say to David Lachapel, like, you're a photographer.

[1352] My friend Jesus is an acrobat.

[1353] What do I do?

[1354] And they're like, you're just you.

[1355] And I said, no, but what do I do?

[1356] I'm not an acrobat.

[1357] I'm not this.

[1358] And he goes, well, when you walk out the door, it's performance art. There you go.

[1359] I feel like, I'm sure you've been told this, but there's so many parallels to Marilyn Monroe.

[1360] I find it crazy.

[1361] What do you think about that?

[1362] How do you feel about that?

[1363] I don't know.

[1364] That's hard to ever say something like that.

[1365] Did you have any interest in her?

[1366] Yeah, I mean, I thought she was beautiful, but they heard, Bridget Bardot, Raquel Wals, all the bond girls, you know, I always wanted to be a bond girl.

[1367] I never wanted to be a victim.

[1368] I didn't play in my life as a victim.

[1369] I wanted to be the hero in my own fairy tale story, whatever it was.

[1370] That's how I played Roxy in Chicago, too, because I never saw it before.

[1371] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1372] But people told me that I was one of the first people to play her really as the hero of her own story, not a victim.

[1373] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1374] And I thought that was kind of out of my own playbook.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] Yeah.

[1377] There's a cool moment, in fact, when you're kind of getting directed to, you know, everything's about me. That's her favorite thing, me. And you're like, no, no, I don't think that's what it's about for her.

[1378] I think it's about being seen.

[1379] I think it's about being heard.

[1380] And I was like, good for you.

[1381] Fuck them.

[1382] Yeah, don't be a cliche.

[1383] That show's been going for so many years.

[1384] And people have played that role the same or very similar all along.

[1385] And I just felt there's so much more to this.

[1386] I felt like it was meant to be.

[1387] I mean, everything was just firing.

[1388] It was really.

[1389] a great experience.

[1390] Okay, my last question is when you started working with PETA, you reached out to Vladimir Putin and you succeeded in him banning seal for imports.

[1391] So I'm curious, like, first of all, A, how did you get a hold of him?

[1392] And did you ever meet him?

[1393] Yeah, I spoke at the Kremlin a couple times on environmental rights and on animal issues.

[1394] And they used to always get a kick out of me. I mean, obviously, it's a horrible time to be speaking about my Russian adventures.

[1395] But I do talk about them in my book because there was some crazy stuff where I learned to throw knives and really wild stuff.

[1396] Would he speak English to you?

[1397] No. There's an interpreter.

[1398] There's always an interpreter.

[1399] But when I went at the Kremlin, I spoke mostly with the Minister of the Environment and people like that.

[1400] They'd always tell me they're going to save the best for last because I'd be there shaking with my paperwork and my pictures of dolphins being stolen out of the ocean and then wailed, whale jail, beluga's hypothermia.

[1401] Your horror show.

[1402] Yeah.

[1403] And they would just giggle and laugh, you know, until it came to me. But it was a big deal and I was heard and they made changes.

[1404] They didn't import endangered species through Russia, land, air, sea.

[1405] And, you know, in real time, because there's no talking about it.

[1406] It's just whoever makes a decision makes it in real time.

[1407] Right.

[1408] There's no, let's put it to Congress.

[1409] There's no red tape.

[1410] So it was like that started out with just a letter to him.

[1411] I wrote to a lot of world leaders and I got a lot of funny responses.

[1412] I would love to meet Pamela if I could bring my buddies along, you know, things like that.

[1413] It seems like you were fine knowing how to leverage everything to get what you wanted.

[1414] Well then I thought whatever it takes to get in the door, we created animal welfare laws where there were none all over the world, and it made me feel good about all the attention I was getting because I was using it for something that I really cared about because it felt so superficial, and I felt, well, this is just my life now.

[1415] That's why it's so nice when this Pam and Tommy thing came out on Hulu and all these crazy things.

[1416] I was just kind of blindsided by that.

[1417] And then they said, well, you know, what she did.

[1418] She did Broadway.

[1419] That was my answer.

[1420] I heard that it was not a good representation of reality.

[1421] Yeah, I was bummed to see in the documentary that that was just yet another round of being hurt by the whole experience and now here it is again.

[1422] And I was like, oh, that's a bummer.

[1423] I guess I should have assumed that, but I didn't even think about it.

[1424] But, you know, it's a comedy of errors almost.

[1425] But the good thing is we all find the strength and we all get through our lives.

[1426] No one has an easy life.

[1427] It's just kind of a public thing.

[1428] And I know people think these things were invasions of privacy.

[1429] And now you've put all this other out and said, well, I'd rather have the full story out there.

[1430] Yeah, yeah.

[1431] Why not?

[1432] Yeah.

[1433] What's the craziest offer someone brought to your table?

[1434] And my thoughts are like, surely some Saudi prince was like, I'll give you $5 million ago on a vacation with me. I got crazy weird things in the guise of charity.

[1435] One time I went to Abu Dhabi.

[1436] There was something about I was bought for a date for the Make a Wish Foundation.

[1437] And I don't know how much.

[1438] It was like a million.

[1439] I don't know if it was a ton of money they gave to it.

[1440] So then I went there and then we were behind closed doors and he gets everyone to leave.

[1441] And then he jumps on top of me and sticks his tongue down my throat.

[1442] That was the part of it.

[1443] Yeah.

[1444] But you know, then he was gorgeous.

[1445] So it was, but still.

[1446] I don't know.

[1447] I was trying to find a side.

[1448] Of course.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] I left.

[1451] That's abrupt.

[1452] Oh, wow.

[1453] Wow.

[1454] I did all these things I just remember.

[1455] I mean, like, even when you're writing your book, what do you write about?

[1456] Like, I was writing my first memory to my last.

[1457] And then I kind of think, you know, I want to balance it childhood.

[1458] And up until now, and you can't put everything in a book.

[1459] I hope I did.

[1460] Well, there'll be multiple.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] Don't you think?

[1463] More chapters.

[1464] Yeah, who knows?

[1465] Well, the name of the book is love Pamela.

[1466] And the name of the doc is Pamela, a love story, which is on Netflix.

[1467] It's really good.

[1468] It's a harrowing tale.

[1469] the way I think some of these other now faces of survival are.

[1470] I mean, it's a really inspirational story sincerely.

[1471] I can't believe eyewitnessed it.

[1472] You live through it.

[1473] Things have just changed so much.

[1474] It's incredible to watch.

[1475] This has been a party.

[1476] Thanks so much for coming out here.

[1477] Thank you.

[1478] That was fun.

[1479] So fun.

[1480] Your first podcast that you know of.

[1481] That I know of.

[1482] Yeah.

[1483] Just to.

[1484] But if you change the name, let me know.

[1485] Okay.

[1486] Yeah.

[1487] We'll keep you in the loop on that.

[1488] send us some ideas if you come up with any yeah if we ever attend a podcast conference which we've yet to do maybe i'll bring this up we got to rebrand the whole medium really fun for me to get to meet you so good luck with everything all right thank you bye and now my favorite part of the show the fact check with my soulmate monica padman aloha aloha mahalo wikiki that's all i know i'm hesitant to this but it was said to Ryan and I okay when we were in Hawaii two years ago okay what the pod trip yeah someone asks us if we wanted some um papui and our kakuui wait they really yes and I want to know what it is because if it's a real thing I want to say it a lot well you are saying well that's true is whether or not I want to say that I'm here is the real question let me I'm going to Google it and see what happens A poohy in your cahui Who asked that?

[1489] You should see what it's spelled.

[1490] Pick up after my pooch.

[1491] Whoa.

[1492] Do you guys think that maybe you misheard would be my...

[1493] Kahlui.

[1494] Oh, boy.

[1495] Airport is the primary airport on the island of Maui.

[1496] Oh.

[1497] But I thought that you said it was cahui.

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] Kapui in your cahooie.

[1500] And what have you decided it means?

[1501] Well, I just, again, I don't know if Google knows how to translate that.

[1502] Yeah, because it's not a real thing.

[1503] All right.

[1504] Well, we're going to have to probably pause it until I get a real.

[1505] Okay.

[1506] You got to make sure it's a real thing.

[1507] Okay.

[1508] Well, I don't think it is.

[1509] It might not be.

[1510] At any rate, Aloha, back to Aloha.

[1511] Yeah, we're in Hawaii.

[1512] We're on the North Shore.

[1513] Yes.

[1514] Easter egg to interview somebody.

[1515] Yeah.

[1516] Very exciting.

[1517] It's gorgeous here.

[1518] There's a lot of hubbub right now in town because there was a big surf event called Eddie.

[1519] The Eddie.

[1520] I looked into it.

[1521] You did.

[1522] Did you see any footage?

[1523] Because we were told in the grocery store last night.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] That, they had 50 foot waves.

[1526] That sounds too big.

[1527] No, I saw one thing and it looked huge.

[1528] Really?

[1529] Yes.

[1530] That's outrageous.

[1531] And then it was won by a lifeguard on his lunch break.

[1532] Yes.

[1533] What could be better?

[1534] And it's really hard to win.

[1535] The second place person is like one of the best surfers, John John.

[1536] Oh, John John, yeah.

[1537] Yeah, he's competing in the World Surf League.

[1538] Yeah, I, um.

[1539] He was ranked number three or four in the season I watched.

[1540] John John.

[1541] I watched the first episode.

[1542] Oh, he did.

[1543] Of the second season?

[1544] No, I think the first.

[1545] You got to watch that one.

[1546] It didn't get emailed to you?

[1547] I only have that link to the first one.

[1548] Oh, well, look in your inbox.

[1549] There maybe a pah -pahooie in your cahooey.

[1550] Okay, I'll look Okay And then your friend was just over Yes, my friend Your friend Delta is here I have such an exciting event after this Yeah Ziplining with Lincoln and Kristen I know A TV riding That's gonna be so fun This place is I'm scared for you a little But I know this is my pattern But I want to move here You do Yeah well anytime I go anywhere I like is you remember I want to move here This is that's interesting I You don't Don't.

[1551] I mean, I really love it.

[1552] And we might come back.

[1553] I might be coming back in March.

[1554] Right.

[1555] For a friend trip.

[1556] Right.

[1557] Pod trip.

[1558] Yeah.

[1559] And I was like, yay, I'll be back.

[1560] That's right, right.

[1561] But I, I'm very happy in the city living in Los Angeles.

[1562] Yeah, because you need to go drive.

[1563] You make your little, your trips of Beverly Hills and you do your shopping and you eat at your restaurants.

[1564] I think it is.

[1565] You got your witch, your personal witch.

[1566] I have a grievance, but we won't go into it.

[1567] You loved her.

[1568] I love her, but it's getting really bad.

[1569] I need to comment.

[1570] Oh, we haven't even, we have not even talked about this.

[1571] In fact, people in the comments were they wanted a skin update because there was an Easter egg.

[1572] Yeah, we started to talk about it.

[1573] We didn't finish.

[1574] Okay, so as predicted by me, my skin is a fucking.

[1575] wreck.

[1576] Well, by your account, yeah.

[1577] By my account.

[1578] Which, of course, you're allowed to make an assessment.

[1579] And it's the right timing.

[1580] The birth control, okay, for people who are up to date on this, the whole reason I did not want to get off birth control is because I thought my skin was going to explode as is my experience.

[1581] And I got off in August right before the egg retrieval, which did not yield the results I wanted it to.

[1582] Correct.

[1583] So I thought, okay, I'm going to do at retrieval again.

[1584] After a real clean out.

[1585] Exactly.

[1586] Once that birth control is really out, give it a month or so, and then I will go again.

[1587] So it's been since August, so five months.

[1588] That seems really too long.

[1589] I know, but I'm scared to have an opinion.

[1590] But that feels like a really long time.

[1591] I agree.

[1592] I know.

[1593] but this has happened before.

[1594] Okay.

[1595] And it's pretty much the same timeline.

[1596] And it is excruciating one because you think you're out of the woods.

[1597] Yeah, sure.

[1598] Unintended.

[1599] That's right.

[1600] Right.

[1601] That's right.

[1602] But you're not because it really takes a long time for that.

[1603] The hormone stall balance.

[1604] Exactly.

[1605] That's where I'm optimistic for you, though, because to me it feels like, okay, so if it takes that long for it to be completely out, and then there's dips and whatever, and then there's leveling off.

[1606] I feel like I do want.

[1607] wonder if you've ever walked long enough out of the woods to see if it...

[1608] Perhaps not.

[1609] Yeah.

[1610] I know.

[1611] Skin looks great today.

[1612] I mean, I feel like this is encouraging.

[1613] Yeah, so I was in a really low place with it.

[1614] Yeah.

[1615] I felt very bad for you.

[1616] Yeah.

[1617] I mean, it's so, um, it's just so triggering.

[1618] It's all consuming.

[1619] It just reminds me so much of all your insecurities as a teen.

[1620] Yes.

[1621] Yes.

[1622] And then now anger, because it's like, how is this still a thing?

[1623] You're 35.

[1624] 35 years old.

[1625] I'm almost like, I'm almost dead.

[1626] No, but I'm like, I'm barely making eggs, yet my skin is acting like a teen.

[1627] Like, what is happening?

[1628] What is happening?

[1629] It's so it feels so unfair.

[1630] Yeah.

[1631] And so it's hard to stay in a good mood when that's happening.

[1632] But I've been trying, but it's a struggle.

[1633] Right.

[1634] I know how you felt about it, but it's not like I at any point was like, whoa, Monica's skin is messed up didn't happen for my point of view.

[1635] Other than I found out you were struggling, you know, and then I was conscious of it, but I wouldn't have been.

[1636] I was thinking of this as an example.

[1637] Because I worry about you, of course, and I want you to not feel bad about your two pimples you had.

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] But they're not just pimples, though.

[1640] They're cystic.

[1641] Look at this.

[1642] I'm going to ask you to play along.

[1643] So my, I'm getting old.

[1644] So my eyebrows are just collapsing over my eyes.

[1645] Like it's almost I have a garage over my eyes now.

[1646] So it's just sags.

[1647] So it's like it's just it's now permanently a flap.

[1648] That's what age I've reached.

[1649] No. What do you mean?

[1650] Like all this at rest is now just cascading over my eyelid because I'm an old man. I guess.

[1651] Well, just objectively that's true.

[1652] But this was my point.

[1653] This is great.

[1654] So I look in the mirror.

[1655] I'm like, holy smokes, you have blankets.

[1656] Oh, right now, look at this.

[1657] It's almost like I have an extra eyelid.

[1658] I'm sorry, listener, you can't, but it's a real mess I can see in the mirror.

[1659] No, it's not.

[1660] And this is a mess.

[1661] Look, sag, sag, sag, rinky, rinky, uh, overhead satellite view of a river system.

[1662] No. So, but the point is all that's objectively true.

[1663] Like, everything I just pointed out is there.

[1664] Okay.

[1665] But I trust that when you look at me, you don't at all, it's not in the equation.

[1666] I know.

[1667] And that's true.

[1668] I mean, it's really, if it's true for me, it's really true for you as well.

[1669] Like, sure, if you hone in on my eyes, you go, oh, he's got, looks like he's got two or three different eyelids going now.

[1670] This guy's getting old.

[1671] But that's not what you do.

[1672] You could stop and do that, but you just see the totality of me. I see the totality of you.

[1673] Everyone sees the totality of you and me. Yeah.

[1674] So, I don't know.

[1675] I was, when I noticed that I had these really bad flaps, face flaps.

[1676] we'll call them.

[1677] And then I thought, well, you just, what are you going to do?

[1678] You got face flaps and you got, I really am, almost the rule for me is like, I'm not permitted to even think about them.

[1679] And then I just got to trust that everyone just sees the whole meat.

[1680] Yeah.

[1681] You know, I, that's a very healthy way of looking at it.

[1682] I want to do that.

[1683] And I've tried.

[1684] It's so hard.

[1685] Boy, it brings me back to high school.

[1686] I remember the whole ride to school thinking, I can't arrive there with this.

[1687] business happening all over my chin and my nose big enormous nose and then when you pop some big big pimples on top of it real red and agitated irritable yeah you think i can't do it this can't the hard thing with the the cis they're not coverable like you you can't it's because it's under the skin i mean you can put a bunch of makeup on it but it's it's a bump on your face under the skin there's nothing you ever tried bondo do you know what bondo is no it's what you But you use on a car when there's a big dent and you can't get it out.

[1688] You smooth out the whole side with this putty called Bondo.

[1689] It hardens and then you can sand it.

[1690] Of course, I've had a million business ideas during this time or more pharmaceutical, you know, like.

[1691] Pharmacological answers.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] That aren't invented, but that I would like to be invented.

[1694] Right.

[1695] And the panic, it's just, there's just been so many moments that really are time travel in the worst way.

[1696] the panic, the trying to get into the dermatologist, like all of these things that I just haven't had to do, thank God.

[1697] I mean, it has brought me some gratitude.

[1698] Like, oh, wow, you've gone a while without having to do this.

[1699] That's lucky.

[1700] You do know a solution.

[1701] Right.

[1702] That was helpful.

[1703] I do know.

[1704] I know, but that's the other.

[1705] It's like that doesn't.

[1706] You can't buy your way out of it.

[1707] You can't.

[1708] No, but you can't go see a dermatologist and you can buy whatever product you might think helps.

[1709] I know.

[1710] And.

[1711] And they don't help.

[1712] They don't.

[1713] I mean, but it does help the connections and stuff because I reached out to this one person to try to help get me into this place.

[1714] And then she was like, you can go see my friend.

[1715] And that was so helpful.

[1716] So I was able to just drive to a dermatologist.

[1717] They squaws me in.

[1718] Uh -huh.

[1719] They don't ever extract.

[1720] No, she, so the reason you go to the dermatologist is for cortisone shots, which I don't like doing.

[1721] Okay.

[1722] Here we are.

[1723] And my witch would hate that I got a cortisone shot.

[1724] Sure.

[1725] So I felt really like, fuck, I shouldn't, because it might be undoing everything she's been doing for the past however long.

[1726] Yeah.

[1727] But I can't do it.

[1728] I can't live like this.

[1729] So I went.

[1730] She does extractions first and then she did the shots on the two, like active sites.

[1731] Do they have a special technique or do they just push on it like everyone else?

[1732] No, she has like a technique.

[1733] What is it?

[1734] I can't see it.

[1735] She didn't get me a mirror.

[1736] Oh, can you feel her pushing?

[1737] She has a tool.

[1738] Okay, so she's using a tool to extract all the pus out of there.

[1739] She uses the tool, sort of.

[1740] She uses the tool on them, but also on what's so crazy when you have this is the teeniest bump on your face.

[1741] That's like nothing will turn into that.

[1742] Uh -huh.

[1743] So she's like looking.

[1744] She is, and then, like, getting in these teat, like, nothings, and is pulling, like, just, this is so gross.

[1745] No, I love it.

[1746] The cores.

[1747] But it's tiny.

[1748] I mean, it's almost microscopic, but she's like, this is what it.

[1749] Does she show you?

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] Oh, my God.

[1752] I got the core.

[1753] Yeah.

[1754] She's like, this will turn into that.

[1755] Does she call it the core?

[1756] No. Okay.

[1757] It's not the medical term.

[1758] I thought I've been using the medical term for 40 years.

[1759] Well, you are a doctor.

[1760] Yeah.

[1761] And then the big ones, they're way past.

[1762] so she does she go oh this ship sailed is that the medical term?

[1763] She has better bedside manner than that okay so she like does a little I'd like look okay you're fucked there that's too late there oh I can get this oh this is we're gonna have this one off at the past that's a bad okay you're not gonna see this guy again okay too late so sorry Charlie no no no no here's one I can get rid of so it's a mix of positive and negative you're all over the place Emotions.

[1764] Yeah, yeah.

[1765] Anyway, so she does extract in the big ones, but there's not much to do there.

[1766] Then you use the cortisone and it goes away.

[1767] I have a curiosity for you.

[1768] And I don't know what visceral memory this is reminding me of, but are you kind of elated when you're in her chair and she's handling it?

[1769] Like there's a professional on it now.

[1770] I honestly was like going to cry.

[1771] With euphoria and elation.

[1772] Relief.

[1773] Yes.

[1774] Relief and gratitude.

[1775] Like, okay, at least.

[1776] something is going to happen that's on its way to better.

[1777] Yep.

[1778] And I've turned this over to a professional.

[1779] Yeah.

[1780] I don't know why I can relate to that feeling, but I know that feeling of just like some kind of euphoria that you're at the finish line.

[1781] Right.

[1782] And then, of course, she was like, this is going to be a ride for us.

[1783] She said that five to seven days, weeks, months, years, five months?

[1784] Or more.

[1785] Because of the hormones.

[1786] Yes.

[1787] And she knows what I'm doing.

[1788] She knows I'm prepping for the egg retrieval.

[1789] Okay.

[1790] There's also like topical stuff, but we're not going to do that because that would not be great necessarily for fertility health.

[1791] Oh, okay.

[1792] So.

[1793] Well, this scale knows what she's doing.

[1794] Yeah, very.

[1795] And she basically said, I'm happy to like inject every day if you want.

[1796] The problem is you can't really inject the same site twice because that will really thin your skin.

[1797] That's what they say about steroids.

[1798] I know.

[1799] And I don't want, I don't want that.

[1800] Thin skin?

[1801] No, I don't want thin skin, but I, I want pussypacadermis.

[1802] Yeah.

[1803] So what you want?

[1804] I want pussy pack on my face.

[1805] Fasial, fasgial pachydermis.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] Anyway, it's been.

[1808] I've been quite a long time since we heard from packadermis.

[1809] It has.

[1810] Anyway, and she said, Amelia, she was like, yeah, it's hormonal.

[1811] Like she can see.

[1812] She was like, that's not.

[1813] Because what I also, of course, understand, I understand this.

[1814] But everyone.

[1815] Everyone is an armchair doctor and everyone has a solution and everyone wants you to try this diet and everyone wants you to try this.

[1816] And I understand because for normal skin, those things really might help.

[1817] Yeah.

[1818] This is an internal issue.

[1819] Sure, sure.

[1820] You're not going to be able to regulate your hormones.

[1821] I mean, there's some vitamins.

[1822] I mean, I'm taking some vitamins, but like.

[1823] Yeah.

[1824] It's interesting.

[1825] No, it's just like when I had hiccups.

[1826] Everyone's got a hiccup solution.

[1827] And they all work for that person.

[1828] Exactly.

[1829] As do the treatments these people are suggesting you.

[1830] That's what I mean.

[1831] This really works.

[1832] But everyone's so different.

[1833] Exactly.

[1834] What's going to cure my hiccups is not necessarily what's going to cure yours.

[1835] Yeah.

[1836] But Hicke pops are real good.

[1837] Shout out to Hicke pops.

[1838] You loved those.

[1839] It turns out those were really great.

[1840] Do you think those will help my skin?

[1841] Yep.

[1842] Okay.

[1843] I'll try.

[1844] Just don't put them on your skin.

[1845] Still do it as the, as intended, orally, the hiccup.

[1846] I just walked around with stuff.

[1847] stuck to a lollipops all over my face.

[1848] Well, I'm sure there's a moment in time where you hate it so much and you think everyone's looking at it that you would prefer, fuck, I'd rather have people think I have a lollipop stuck to my chin on accident.

[1849] Right?

[1850] If given the option, like you meet Ben Affleck.

[1851] Oh my God.

[1852] Out at the farmer's market as you tend to prowl the Brentwood farmer's market.

[1853] Yeah.

[1854] You're out there.

[1855] Country mark.

[1856] And you've got a buster on your chin.

[1857] You got a big boy, daddy long legs.

[1858] Oh, gross.

[1859] He'll either see that or he'll see a nice fluorescent green hikipop stuck to your chin.

[1860] What do you prefer?

[1861] Real question.

[1862] This has got to be a sincere.

[1863] How close?

[1864] Okay.

[1865] Are we talking?

[1866] Yeah.

[1867] Oh my God.

[1868] So maybe you could just put your fingers on the suss stick and act like you're just kind of holding there.

[1869] He'll even be wondering, is that touching her skin or is hovering.

[1870] Yeah, I prefer that because then I'm at least like intriguing.

[1871] Yeah.

[1872] Playful.

[1873] This girl's, what's she doing?

[1874] There's a baby.

[1875] Oh, she's like up to something.

[1876] She's on Molly.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] Yeah, she's rolling at this former spark camp.

[1879] That's fine.

[1880] Just being exposed, then he knows I'm a failure at life.

[1881] And I'm ugly.

[1882] He wouldn't.

[1883] It's just not what you do is a, well, I can't speak for every guy.

[1884] Here's what I do as a guy.

[1885] This is dangerous.

[1886] But I'm just focused on things I like.

[1887] Like, I do a little quick.

[1888] Oh, that girl has beautiful eyes.

[1889] And then I'm all about those eyes, right?

[1890] All about those eyes, about those eyes.

[1891] And then, all I go, oh, that girl's got a pussy pachydermis.

[1892] Oh, wow.

[1893] And then all I'm doing is, you know, focusing on the pachydermis.

[1894] Okay.

[1895] I don't.

[1896] Scan and look for something I dislike and then stare at that.

[1897] But unless it's like so obvious, then you can't not.

[1898] Because look, I was talking to you all of this and I don't even have a mental picture.

[1899] I have no memory of any specific.

[1900] thing you had.

[1901] And I've been staring at you for the two weeks while you've been going through this in the show every day.

[1902] Can't even picture a single thing.

[1903] Yeah, but you love me and it's different than someone than Ben Affleck.

[1904] He does not yet love me. He doesn't love you.

[1905] That's true.

[1906] Well, we don't know.

[1907] We just don't know.

[1908] We just don't know.

[1909] We don't know.

[1910] Okay, back to Hawaii.

[1911] Now we're back to Hawaii and you were bringing up the potential trip in March for some reason.

[1912] Yes, because I was saying I love living in Los Angeles and I love that being my home base and I love my routine.

[1913] I do, but I love a vacation.

[1914] Yeah.

[1915] I think I would get bored down here, but this weather makes me euphoric.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] I love the humidity.

[1918] You do.

[1919] Oh.

[1920] I've said, you know, to some people at the hotel like, oh, it's so nice.

[1921] And then they're like, where are you from?

[1922] And I say, L .A. It sounds stupid.

[1923] It does.

[1924] You sound like an idiot.

[1925] Like, oh, you're so happy.

[1926] hear like you have the best weather yeah yeah we have pretty good weather we had a big got did you feel the earthquake the other night yes yes we didn't talk about this we didn't it how'd you feel oh I love it you know I woke up and the whole place is rumbling and shaken yeah and I'm like I don't care right I'm gonna go back to sleep like I don't hear anything crashing yeah and then I'm like trying to fall back to sleep and then I have a thought wow this is going on a really long time like I don't know that I didn't look up the duration.

[1927] I know it was like a 4 .2 or something.

[1928] Uh -huh.

[1929] So I know the magnitude, but I don't, at gunpoint or for a billion dollar prize, you and I are going to guess, I want to get closest to it.

[1930] I'm going to say that went on for like 35 seconds.

[1931] No. Yes.

[1932] And then there were like million aftershocks.

[1933] Did you feel any?

[1934] Okay.

[1935] That's interesting.

[1936] You might have woken up for an aftershock.

[1937] Wow.

[1938] Well, I don't know what happened, but for me, it was three seconds.

[1939] Okay.

[1940] So I wonder if I slept.

[1941] through half and then because you know I did have a big ego about it because I was like I think there's about to be an earthquake and then there was one predicted it I was not anticipating that turn that's what you thought you I felt like oh I think there's something rumbly oh maybe there's about to be an earthquake and then there was like a legit shit Wait, so what you had already, you'd already been jostled kind of out of your slumber.

[1942] I think.

[1943] And then you woke up with felt like intuition, but it was memory from seven seconds earlier.

[1944] But you weren't awake enough.

[1945] Speaking of which, now would be a good time to talk about Delta.

[1946] Okay, so you, because you're, now look, this is one of the upsides of being single.

[1947] Sometimes, you know, you pay a price.

[1948] We talk about a lot.

[1949] Yeah.

[1950] But you're right.

[1951] There's plenty of ups.

[1952] You're in a big gangster room with one big bed in it.

[1953] And I'm sleeping on a. twin or no it's a queen I guess yeah yeah twin but I'm a big daddy long likes you and um there's two queens so we each have a child yeah and I guess some backstory about Delta is she regularly sleepwalks yes and she's which is scary when she sleepwalks she's so angry and loud and then you're you cannot wake her up like there's no waking her up you just got to let her do her business and then if you can get her back into bed the second her head hits the pillows she's done she never has a memory of it whatever it's so weird so i sleep with delta night one yeah and delta's getting bigger she's eight i don't know what she weighs but i'm i'm thinking it's in the high 50 60 pounds at this point okay okay in fact you guys were canoodling yesterday and christen and i both agreed you're roughly the same size now you're almost the exact same size so i woke up in the middle of the night and Delta was on all fours on my chest.

[1954] Like a fucking ram had jumped up on the bed and landed on my chest.

[1955] And you didn't wake up until that had already, that's so fascinating.

[1956] I think I felt like, oh, someone's clawing at me. But by the time I like come to, she's on all fours on my rib cage, which doesn't feel good.

[1957] I'm like, oh, what's going?

[1958] And then by the time I'm responding to that, she's already lep off the bed.

[1959] There's two steps down into the lower area in the bed.

[1960] bedroom she fucking trips on those now she's hard she didn't hurt her head and let me explain how it starts to it starts with like like so she's on my chest already making like a cougar an injured cougar she's a grumbly yeah she's a grumbly who's been cornered by some hunting dogs and she's about ready to attack so she hits the deck she didn't go down but she somehow hits her foot going on these two stairs that she didn't anticipate then she goes and into the bathroom.

[1961] That's what it is.

[1962] She says she's waking up to pee, but she doesn't get all the way up.

[1963] And then she, I take her over to the bathroom, but she's swinging at me and screaming.

[1964] She doesn't want nothing to do with me. And finally I'm like, well, fuck it.

[1965] Have fun in the bathroom.

[1966] I'm going back to bed.

[1967] Then I heard Kristen going there.

[1968] Then she really turned on the afterburner.

[1969] She was screaming at the top of her lungs to the point where I was laying in bed thinking, security has to come.

[1970] And if they don't come bad security, like it sounds like someone's getting murdered in one of these hotel.

[1971] rooms at three in the morning and it's delta wow and then and by the way this never works i don't know why this works but i finally after a minute of this screaming from the bed i go like the loudish of my life i think the subtext was i now am a cornered cougar and i'm about to kill whatever is making this noise something primitive came out of me primal and she completely stopped down yeah Yes, from the other room.

[1972] Yeah.

[1973] We were both shocked that had worked.

[1974] Wow.

[1975] And then she got back in bed.

[1976] Went right to sleep next to me like a little angel.

[1977] You know what?

[1978] Maybe that that noise actually woke her up fully.

[1979] That's possible.

[1980] So that she then like was able to get back to bed.

[1981] Look, I'm not one of these people that's going to like subscribe to, oh, you know, we're this type of animal so we need this.

[1982] I think a lot of people are out on a limb.

[1983] We're like, we're supposed to be this way.

[1984] I always hear it from the kind of conservative.

[1985] male role model figures.

[1986] Oh, I see.

[1987] Like, women want to be dominated.

[1988] That's nature.

[1989] Oh, that's true.

[1990] So I'm just, I'm cautiously saying this.

[1991] What is also true is we're fucking animals with millions of years of evolution.

[1992] Yeah.

[1993] And there's things our brain responds to that we just don't, our frontal lobe does not comprehend.

[1994] Yes, that's true.

[1995] And it is possible that there was, that shush was like, oh, there's lions present.

[1996] That kind of thing.

[1997] Like, you're blowing our cup.

[1998] this shush from the biggest member of the group is telling you like shut the fuck up we're going to get eaten oh maybe i think there might be an off switch that is based in that of course i have decided extra fuel on the soulmate fire that we both have sleep disorders wait what's your sleep epilepsy okay my epilepsy is a sleep You have nocturnal epilepsy.

[1999] They call it that.

[2000] They do.

[2001] I love the word nocturnal.

[2002] Yeah.

[2003] And it is interesting because it's those seizures happen either when you're like coming out of sleep or going back in.

[2004] Mm -hmm.

[2005] So like when I had the one with Kristen, I had just gone to the bathroom.

[2006] So I was like half up and I was going back into sleep.

[2007] Right.

[2008] So it's kind of weirdly similar.

[2009] Mm -hmm.

[2010] Because she goes to the bathroom.

[2011] Yeah, she's half up, half asleep.

[2012] Yeah.

[2013] And then she goes insane.

[2014] I hope she goes out of it.

[2015] That makes me anxious.

[2016] Oh, it shouldn't.

[2017] It's fine.

[2018] I used to sleepwalk a lot.

[2019] You did?

[2020] I was on the ride home last night from the burger joint.

[2021] I was saying that.

[2022] Oh, I used to wake up.

[2023] My family would wake me up.

[2024] Like my brother, when we lived on Tara Street in Highland, so I was probably, I was her age and younger.

[2025] My brother lived in the, it was a tri -level.

[2026] So he lived in the, like, bottom floor.

[2027] Then there's like a middle floor with the kitchen, then a couple bedrooms upstairs.

[2028] So I would wake up sometimes in his bedroom.

[2029] Oh, wow.

[2030] And the whole family would wake me up because I'm in there trying to get to him.

[2031] And scratch him?

[2032] No. Give him some scratches.

[2033] Scratches back for him.

[2034] No, I think he's needed to get to him.

[2035] Oh.

[2036] And then I'd wake up sometimes because I, like one time I thought I had a dream.

[2037] I was in a room with no doors.

[2038] so I wake up, I'm staying on my bed like hammering on the walls, peed in my mom's closet once.

[2039] Sure.

[2040] I was all over the place.

[2041] I used to get up as well and just start moving around the house.

[2042] I wonder if it's genetic.

[2043] It would appear to be the first thing I gave her genetically if that's it.

[2044] No, that's not true at all.

[2045] Yeah, but anyway, Hawaii is so pretty.

[2046] Oh, my God.

[2047] Love it.

[2048] The waves are enormous.

[2049] They're huge.

[2050] Yeah, I really like it.

[2051] I was saying to Lincoln this morning, we're watching them from breakfast.

[2052] And I said, the ocean just never gets lazy, huh?

[2053] It's just like constantly making these waves.

[2054] And she said immediately, yeah, like our heart.

[2055] Oh, yeah.

[2056] And I said, oh, my God, you're right.

[2057] Aren't you so glad we don't have to make our heartbeat?

[2058] Well, you do.

[2059] We'd all be dead.

[2060] You're right.

[2061] No, it was like an act that you was your willpower all day long, hundreds of beats a minute.

[2062] I know.

[2063] But we do forget that what we do to ourselves has an impact.

[2064] on that heart beating.

[2065] So do the right thing.

[2066] Do the right thing.

[2067] Do the right thing.

[2068] Weird.

[2069] I feel like the skin conversation was a bit of a ding, ding, ding.

[2070] Okay.

[2071] Because Pamela.

[2072] Because Pamela.

[2073] Yeah.

[2074] Not that she's ever had challenging skin.

[2075] Not that we know of, no. Just the power of beauty.

[2076] Yes.

[2077] And I would argue the potential cage of beauty.

[2078] Uh -huh.

[2079] Yeah.

[2080] But also she doesn't consider herself, which I thought was interesting, like a beauty.

[2081] Right.

[2082] She, I think she recognizes obviously she's attractive and that like, she's, that's how that's, that's because of how she was treated as a kid.

[2083] For sure.

[2084] Yeah, she was made to have pretty bad self -esteem with all that.

[2085] I understood what she was saying.

[2086] Oh, sure.

[2087] Like, she has an idea in her mind.

[2088] It was Elle McPherson.

[2089] Yeah, like her face is not like modely.

[2090] Is that model?

[2091] It has character.

[2092] Like, it's not...

[2093] Round features.

[2094] She has round features.

[2095] There's an article on her covers.

[2096] Well, she's beautiful.

[2097] She's beautiful, yeah.

[2098] She's crazy beautiful.

[2099] Yeah, you're right.

[2100] There's no two ways about it.

[2101] Yeah, she is.

[2102] While you're really getting sucked in, I like it.

[2103] I love her.

[2104] She might look like a little bit like a Hayden Paneterist.

[2105] Hayden Panetta.

[2106] Yeah.

[2107] Public poo?

[2108] Yeah.

[2109] In panetteer.

[2110] Oh, panterre.

[2111] Panetteer, I think.

[2112] That sounds like the word, um, substantive.

[2113] Oh, that we'll never be able to say.

[2114] Yeah, yeah.

[2115] She does look like her.

[2116] Mm -hmm.

[2117] And who is a beauty?

[2118] Yeah.

[2119] Yes, beauty is a cage.

[2120] It's a key and a cage.

[2121] It is.

[2122] Golden cage.

[2123] So I guess I bring that up because.

[2124] Because I should feel better about my ugly skin and ugly face.

[2125] I'm not, at no point did you look ugly?

[2126] You don't have an ugly face.

[2127] it's not your stock in trade.

[2128] Yeah.

[2129] And if it were your stock and trade and you had a big skin issue, I have to imagine that would be identity threatening.

[2130] Like I think that is something that's worth bolstering yourself with it.

[2131] Just like, oh, yeah, I'm.

[2132] But I didn't have the opportunity.

[2133] I see what you mean.

[2134] Yeah.

[2135] Like I got these skin flaps, right?

[2136] I got too tense over my eyes.

[2137] There might be a moment where you can't even see my eyes anymore or that I have to put.

[2138] like paper clips, paperclip them to my eyebrows.

[2139] But, you know, I'll still get by.

[2140] But, okay, and not to like, I don't want to do like victim, whatever it's called.

[2141] Yes, I, no. But that's natural.

[2142] That's going to happen to all of us.

[2143] Well, no. In fact, I was just looking at our interview subject.

[2144] And he's older than me. He's two years older than me. And I was checking out his flaps because now I'm thinking about flaps.

[2145] Now my dad was flappy.

[2146] Oh.

[2147] He was flappy.

[2148] I don't know if it's genetic or our use of testosterone.

[2149] Oh, worried about.

[2150] Could be it.

[2151] Anyway, I couldn't be my stock in trade.

[2152] I would have wanted it to be.

[2153] Oh, couldn't.

[2154] We're always going to pick being Brad Pitt.

[2155] It's weird.

[2156] It never feels good.

[2157] What?

[2158] Not liking her.

[2159] how you look.

[2160] How do I say it?

[2161] Even with all of this other amazing stuff.

[2162] Uh -huh.

[2163] Yeah.

[2164] And I do have so much confidence in myself.

[2165] Right.

[2166] That piece never goes away.

[2167] No. In the very guy way, while you were wrestling the last couple weeks with it, and you were very understandably, you were just sad about it.

[2168] You know, it was making you sad.

[2169] Yeah.

[2170] And then I was thinking of all these techniques that I want to tell you, like techniques to not let it affect you.

[2171] Uh -huh.

[2172] You know, I was thinking of all these solutions, which is like you, a lot of time frame to it.

[2173] You get one look in the mirror in the morning, and then you can kind of sit and mourn it or whatever.

[2174] And then you go, well, it is what it is.

[2175] There's literally zero reason to check in on it other than I'll just focus on it.

[2176] And there's so much more I could focus on.

[2177] That was one of the things I knew better than to suggest that to you at the nadir of these feelings but well and also just like I haven't thought of that like of course I've thought I don't want to be feeling like this right you know and I do know I have no control I know all the things but it doesn't help so you were in solution mode yeah that's when I'm hating how I look at some point I just go like yeah this is what I fucking look like um and that's a wrap on that it isn't the skin is tough because it has the illusion of control Like you can go to a dermatologist.

[2178] Maybe you can change your diet.

[2179] Maybe you can do this.

[2180] Maybe you can use this skincare thing.

[2181] I don't know.

[2182] So I guess it does make it more stressful because you feel like you do have some sway over it.

[2183] Yeah.

[2184] So Pam.

[2185] Pam, man. Very sweet.

[2186] Also after watching the doc when we were talking to her, but it was hard to not feel like this heartbreak that her and Tommy weren't together, even though it was such a disastrous relationship.

[2187] Yeah.

[2188] Like, sad that her one, you know, what she thinks is her one true love that none of the others ever measured up to you.

[2189] Again, it's hard to delineate between what's like addiction and what's not.

[2190] And I say that as a love addict, so I'm not casting any judgment.

[2191] But you had to know that, no, a relationship where your boyfriend shows up on set and trashes your trailer, that's a non -starter.

[2192] And then he gets physical with you.

[2193] Like, it's all the non -s.

[2194] Yet I felt some heartbreakover.

[2195] I did too.

[2196] I had both feelings.

[2197] It made me sad that she's resigned to, well, that's the love of my life.

[2198] And, like, there won't be another.

[2199] There's not another.

[2200] And she seems to have acceptance around that.

[2201] Yeah.

[2202] Which was kind of very strong.

[2203] The fact that she never, ever went back.

[2204] I could not.

[2205] But that part was so shocking and so brave.

[2206] I really admire that.

[2207] Me too.

[2208] Especially when you grew up the way she grew up and has that low self -esteem, this person who's like making her so high.

[2209] Yeah, feel so loved.

[2210] Yeah.

[2211] That's really impossible to not go back to.

[2212] I'm so impressed.

[2213] Anywho.

[2214] But yeah, that's a objectively unhealthy relationship.

[2215] Yeah.

[2216] Makes me sad that she can't find a healthy one.

[2217] Version, yeah.

[2218] She said she tried.

[2219] She thought she had picked a boring guy and then he was not boring.

[2220] And she said the worst of all of them.

[2221] He advertised as boring and stable.

[2222] Yeah.

[2223] But he wasn't.

[2224] It's got to be so hard for her to be, I don't know what the life of an icon is like.

[2225] How anyone dates you that isn't also an icon.

[2226] Yeah.

[2227] And then that feels crazy too.

[2228] Right.

[2229] And a specific icon.

[2230] It reminds me of the last season of the crown, by the way.

[2231] Like that doctor who was trying to date.

[2232] Princess Diana.

[2233] Princess Diana, like, it's going to be so hard.

[2234] That was so sad.

[2235] I know.

[2236] I liked him a lot.

[2237] Me too.

[2238] He's kind of like my dad.

[2239] Yeah, he was like, you could see your dad ended up dating Princess Diana.

[2240] My dad would have been fine with it, though.

[2241] Yeah, he would have rolled with it.

[2242] Oh, yeah.

[2243] And it's a very specific kind of icon.

[2244] So you're attracting a specific type of icon.

[2245] Like, it's all.

[2246] Well, if you look at the other icon, got with yeah kid rock bob it's funny to hear him called bob isn't it she go bob was great with the kids i didn't know that that's kid rock yes that's what all that's talk about moving to michigan and stuff that was all about kid rock remember she married kid rock well she mentioned kid rock and i was like oh yeah they dated but i thought bob was a separate person no bob was kid rock that's right Isn't that interesting?

[2247] Holy shit.

[2248] Yeah, a plot twist.

[2249] I hated Bawatab so much.

[2250] That was the name of the songs?

[2251] Yes, and it was on TRL.

[2252] It was number one for so long, and I hated it.

[2253] Sure.

[2254] He represented everything you were afraid of.

[2255] So scary.

[2256] Like that person is dangerous to me. You know, he's from down the road from me. Yeah.

[2257] When I tell you the guys I grew up with when I tried to explain the hillbilliness, it doesn't sound right in Michigan.

[2258] You don't think of, I don't think most people think of it.

[2259] It's like Hick Central, but boy, there was a, we had a hillbilly contingent that could rival Appalachia.

[2260] He might have been a hanschal.

[2261] Huge thing.

[2262] He may be.

[2263] Oh, my God.

[2264] Yeah.

[2265] My brain knew that was a threat.

[2266] That type of person is a threat to me. That's fascinating.

[2267] It's funny when you reach a point, if you can even reach a point where you, like I had this recently and I was talking to my therapist and I said, look.

[2268] look, at this point, it's so undeniable that I'm attracted to a thing.

[2269] I'm attracting a thing.

[2270] And I don't know how or why, but it is just like, I can't deny that.

[2271] Like, that is the truth.

[2272] And she's that, too.

[2273] It's like there's.

[2274] Oh, oh, oh, oh, Pamela.

[2275] Yeah, attracts a type.

[2276] A very, and I just mean in her life, not like necessarily a partner.

[2277] but like what there's something that we're doing or we're like putting out come be with me come be near me right is interesting yeah yeah it is and that i have too everyone has it that's what i'm saying different types of attraction i think we're all doing that and it's all subconscious and it's all nonverbal and it's a strange the person i always was curious about was when i would watch you Paris Hilton dated like remember she dated that weird shipping air yeah and he like fuck he he was nuts he like was hammered drove a car into a bunch of people and was just out of control yeah and from the outside you're like why would she's got money and her own thing like why would she be with someone so dangerous yeah and then there's been a few yeah and then I mean it does make sense yeah it all makes sense ultimately it all makes sense um Okay, a couple things.

[2278] Wait, so your mom was 17 when she had David?

[2279] She graduated high school three months pregnant.

[2280] Wow.

[2281] I think she wasn't 17 when she had him.

[2282] Her birthday was in August.

[2283] His is in November.

[2284] So she was probably 18 for three months.

[2285] I don't think I, I mean, I know I knew that, but when you said it on there, it really hurt it in a new way.

[2286] Yeah.

[2287] Yeah.

[2288] Wow.

[2289] My dad did, was not good at the pull -out method.

[2290] No. To be fair, many people aren't.

[2291] And they might have been trying because my father also was, it was Vietnam.

[2292] So he like had enlisted in the Navy, I think because he had heard he wouldn't be in combat if he was in the Navy.

[2293] He ended up getting out of the Navy because David was born and no one's, everyone said they wouldn't help support my mom.

[2294] It was a whole whole racket.

[2295] So I know you don't believe in God.

[2296] Neither do I. Well, I will say I don't know.

[2297] But I do kind of believe, I mean, I definitely believe in energy.

[2298] Mm -hmm.

[2299] And I do sometimes believe, like when people say there's like someone's dead and a butterfly comes and butterflies represent, you know.

[2300] Sure.

[2301] First of all, I love that for everyone.

[2302] So I want that to keep going regardless.

[2303] But I think I kind of buy into that.

[2304] Oh, good fun.

[2305] And I wondered if you did.

[2306] No, my mom does a lot.

[2307] She does.

[2308] But what about hearts?

[2309] She believes she's been visited by both her father and Barton.

[2310] I can't, I can't remember if my dad has visited her or not.

[2311] I don't know if I necessarily see it as like them.

[2312] I don't really think it's them.

[2313] I don't really know what I think.

[2314] But it does feel spiritual.

[2315] Yeah, something feels spiritual.

[2316] I wondered if you had any, like not putting a name to it necessarily.

[2317] Like, you've been visited.

[2318] Right.

[2319] The most I can admit to on that front is I have thought this series of coincidences seems impossible, just statistically.

[2320] I thought that there's no way that that happened and the timing of it and then this happened.

[2321] It seems impossible.

[2322] Yeah.

[2323] I have that occasionally.

[2324] That's nice.

[2325] Yeah.

[2326] I think that's nice.

[2327] But I'm so, it sounds arrogant to say scientific method, but I don't also look for how often it doesn't add up to anything, right?

[2328] So if I'm like, like when it happens, it feels like, oh, great.

[2329] But then I'm ignoring the fact that like 99 .9 % of the time there seems to be zero anything.

[2330] Yeah.

[2331] So I don't know.

[2332] Well, I guess sad ding, ding, ding.

[2333] She mentioned Vivian Westwood as being one of her good friends.

[2334] And she passed.

[2335] What?

[2336] Since we talked to her?

[2337] Yeah.

[2338] Who's Vivian Westwood?

[2339] Huge fashion designer.

[2340] Oh, oh, no. Was she older?

[2341] Yeah.

[2342] Oh, good, good.

[2343] But yeah.

[2344] That was sad.

[2345] It was very sad for the fashion community.

[2346] Sorry, guys.

[2347] Of which I'm a part of.

[2348] Yes, deeply embroiled.

[2349] Okay.

[2350] Was Pam, can I call her Pamy?

[2351] Well, Pam for sure.

[2352] Okay.

[2353] Was it the most popular show?

[2354] Yes, most widely viewed TV series in the world ever at its peak popularity, with an estimated weekly audience of more than $1 .1 billion in 142 countries in 96.

[2355] Oh, my God.

[2356] One point one billion.

[2357] That's.

[2358] wow well i remember seeing a 60 minutes segment on top year the british version and that show was at a billion worldwide and it was the biggest property at that time but yeah that's that's incredible i certainly did you have that experience when you were overseas on your like study abroad and your your rail trips that it was playing everywhere bay watch like when we are at hostels and stuff everywhere we went it was on you'd be flipping through the channels i even remember I remember going to Germany with my mom when I was 16 and trying to find something on the TV and it was all in German.

[2359] But then Baywatch was on.

[2360] Oh, wow.

[2361] Yeah, but it was in German.

[2362] So I watched it because the boobs were still in English.

[2363] Although you say on here you didn't really watch it.

[2364] I didn't.

[2365] But in Germany.

[2366] When in Germany, I watched it exclusively.

[2367] Yeah.

[2368] Okay, let's see here.

[2369] She made history in January 2011 when she graced Playboy's cover for the third.

[2370] 13th time more than anyone else in the publication's history.

[2371] 13 times.

[2372] Lucky number 13.

[2373] Baker's dozen.

[2374] Yeah.

[2375] Baker's D. Okay, the O'Sho quote, which I thought that was interesting that she.

[2376] Likes O'Sha.

[2377] Yeah.

[2378] The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love.

[2379] It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not.

[2380] Hmm.

[2381] It does look paradoxical to me. I'm a layman here.

[2382] Well, I don't get it.

[2383] Yeah.

[2384] I don't either Not there yet I'm not that far up on the bridge I guess I get that like If you're content being alone Like I don't see it's correlation Of love I guess self love Self love or just like maybe like Love for the universe Yeah Okay Okay Podcast in French is Les Podcast Wonderful Yep That's easy Le podcast Jo de vie All All contrary, Monfrere.

[2385] Oh, my God.

[2386] Aaron left me a funny Monfrere message.

[2387] You want to hear it?

[2388] It would be a callback.

[2389] It will be.

[2390] Let's hear it.

[2391] Because we're bringing up Monfrere.

[2392] Let's see here.

[2393] This is Aaron.

[2394] Now, Aaron is into skiing for the first time in his life at 47 years old.

[2395] You're ready?

[2396] All right, here we go.

[2397] Shit.

[2398] All right.

[2399] See you in two.

[2400] See in two.

[2401] He's on a ski lift saying that.

[2402] Oh, my.

[2403] God, that is so funny.

[2404] Where my mom frere's at?

[2405] That's all the fackies.

[2406] Oh, wonderful.

[2407] Nice fat Hawaiian fact check.

[2408] Oh, mahalo.

[2409] Aloha.

[2410] What's goodbye?

[2411] Aloha.

[2412] Aloha is hello, goodbye.

[2413] And maybe I love you or something.

[2414] Let's be appropriate here.

[2415] Let's figure it was, what does aloha mean?

[2416] It means putting your papapooie in your caho.

[2417] Louie.

[2418] Search used when greeting or parting from somebody.

[2419] Aloha, everyone is friendly and attentive.

[2420] Love and fellowship.

[2421] What a great way to spread the aloha.

[2422] Aww.

[2423] That's nice.

[2424] Aloha.

[2425] Aloha.

[2426] Aloha.

[2427] This was fun.

[2428] And you're about to go on an excursion.

[2429] Ziplining.

[2430] I hope you guys have a lot of fun doing that.

[2431] Me too.

[2432] It's going to make a bad joke, but it's not the timing's not right about my skin no about my ziplining what you're gonna die all right what if this is the let the people are like don't do that see I already I inadvertently made it all right just cut that out I hated that okay sorry sorry I took you on that path okay love you love you follow armchair expert on the Wondry app Amazon music or wherever you get your podcast you can listen to every episode of Armchair expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2433] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.