Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Elizabeth Smart

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Elizabeth Smart (Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart) is a child safety advocate and founder of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation. Elizabeth joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why advocacy became her opportunity to let other victims and survivors know they’re not alone, growing up not thinking her life would be in any way extraordinary, and details she remembers of her kidnapping at knifepoint in the middle of the night at age 14. Elizabeth and Dax talk about how her perspective on her experience has evolved now being a parent herself, the twisted, manipulative history of her abductors, and the ways her brain grasped for hope in such a dire situation. Elizabeth explains how she outsmarted her captors leading to her rescue, her challenges with the justice system, and her approach to protecting her family today.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert. Experts on expert. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, happy 1,000th episode. Can you even believe it? I can't believe it. I think of it very much like AA, which is like you can't stay sober for 30 years, but you can stay sober for a day.

Yeah. And then you can kind of blink and it is 30 years. Yeah. It's like, if you told us like, okay, man, you're going to, you're going to do a thousand. I mean, that's two. We can't do that. We can't. We're not capable.

Yeah, but look at it. And one episode at a time, we got to a thousand. That is very exciting. I'm proud of us. Me too. And what an incredible episode to have for our thousandth. Elizabeth Smart, which, you know, I think if you were on planet Earth in 2002, you knew about Elizabeth Smart. But you could be like me.

Yeah. And knew someone was abducted, but that's where it ends. Yeah. This story is so unbelievable in so many ways. And there's an incredible doc out now on Netflix called Kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. And it's incredibly well-made documentary. This is such an interesting conversation and very meaningful and heavy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sometimes hesitant to give trigger warnings for all episodes. But boy, boy, this one warrants a major, major trigger warning. Yes. Obviously, there's abduction. There's sexual assault. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of darkness.

story, but I think you, like us, will find Elizabeth smart to be impossibly well-adjusted and driving. Has a positive outlook. Yeah, it's remarkable. So, so, so, so grateful to her for telling us her whole story. It's a hard one, but it's a great episode. And we're thankful to the Arm Cherries for sticking around for a thousand episodes. Yes, yes.

We love you guys so much. And even the ones that came in COVID, if you're around for 500, A big high five. If you're around for one, we'll take it. We'll take it. We'll take it. All right. Please enjoy Elizabeth Smart.

Hi, we're back right after the intro. This is very special because it's our thousandth episode. Yeah. And you wanted to commemorate it. I did because it's really special and it's really rare. It is. And it'll only happen once. Monica, this will be the only episode that's one thousand.

That's right. And I am very proud of us for just sticking. to it for this long, but mostly just thankful to the arm cherries because without them, we would not be able to still be here. Yeah, they've really hung around for a lot of them. They've been on the ride with us, and it's so, so fun. So I want to do something special and do a little, very small merch collection to celebrate the thousandth episode.

So there is a T-shirt on the site. That's very fun. It requires fast math, which is- That's right. It made me happy. That's for you. That's for Dax. And on the back of that shirt, it has all of the thousand guests, which is very fun.

Yes. And then there's a really fun sweatshirt and another sweatshirt too. I'm not going to give it all away, but go check it out. And a pair of engraved brass knuckles. Nope, that's not a part of it. No, that didn't make the cut. The switchblade in there? Nope.

That also. Okay. We're sticking with the classics, the clothes. So go to armchairexpertpod.com and go to the store, and it'll be there. It'll be there and go. ahead and get on the list and you'll get your thousandth episode merch and we're happy to have you

and on to the episode he's an object man he's an ultra best you want to shake hi I'm a hugger I welcome so I set the bar you always do that to me and then I look like a pervert

what nicknames did you grow up with no Beth or bit we have a friend named bit, which I think is so cute. I loved a girl across the street for me growing up named Betsy, and I think her name was Elizabeth. Oh. I could see. I mean, I've heard.

People go by Betsy. Yeah. There's a lot, Lizzie. Sky is the limit with Elizabeth. It is. But my mom was always like, you are Elizabeth. You will go by Elizabeth. Yeah.

And so that's just what I've always been. Now, I'm lazy. If someone has more than two syllables in your name, I'm like, we got to get down to one. Really? Because I'm Dax. Yeah, you're just projecting. And Manny, I'd prefer just Mons. That's two.

Probably. You could have done Mons. Mons very popular. Monica. Too much. That's a lot. Too much. Is Elizabeth 3?

Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Four. But Elizabeth is such a pretty name. I understand why not wanting to shorten it. I like the name Elizabeth. When is the last time you did an interview? Right before.

Right before. Oh, okay. You came from one. Are you exhausted? No, I'm good. Okay. What was the other one? It was just in-house at Netflix.

Oh, sure. I watched Kidnap Last Night, and I made a really kind of questionable decision. I was like, I'm going to watch it with my daughters. Oh, I was wondering. So I watched it with my 11 and 12 year old, and we all snuggled on the couch, and ultimately, I'm really glad I did. It started a lot of conversations that I think are really good to have, and they got to see me ball at the end excessively, and they love that.

The end fucked me up. I'll get to specifically what that was about it. But I guess first and foremost, I was aware of all this and yet at the same time not. This is 2002. Mm-hmm. So I was 27. I just wasn't dialed into everything that was going up. But you and Monica are the exact same age virtually two months apart.

I was very aware of it. Did this give rise to your unnatural fear of being kidnapped? Would you credit Elizabeth? So I think I already had it. I don't feel like. people these days talk about kidnappings a lot, but it was being talked about back then. It was like a fear. Do you know anything about the statistics?

Is it more or less? Does it change? I couldn't tell you if it was more or less now, but I know a person goes missing about every 70 seconds. Wow. And every nine minutes, that person's a child. Wow. Oh, my God.

Every 70 seconds. So that means by the end of this, 110 people. have gone missing is crazy. Let me ask you first, your comfort level with talking about it seems high, but I definitely wanted to talk before we got into stuff. I would never want to be going in any direction or anything that you wouldn't want to go in. Am I right?

You seem pretty comfortable. No, you could ask me whatever you want. Okay. You can also tell us if you're like, actually, I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. I've been talking about it a long time. Yeah. You can ask away.

Also, I've learned over the years how impactful stories are. We can sit here and chat about statistics. Actually, I'm not that great with numbers. I forget them, kind of easy. But I remember stories. If someone's story is really meaningful or impactful, I'll remember that a lot better than if it's just like a fact. And so I guess for me, I also saw this as an opportunity to reach out to other survivors, other victims, to let them know that they're not alone.

Because, again, I didn't feel like I heard people talk about rape or sexual violence or abuse as a kid. And I definitely didn't hear anyone saying, well, that happened to me. I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment around what had happened and took a long time for me to get over that. And then as I started kind of in the advocacy world, I mean, it was the same story everywhere I turned.

So much shame. So much embarrassment, so much guilt, even though they're all victims. And so I also just felt like this was an incredible opportunity to be on a stage that I could never imagine being on. Yeah. A universal one. Yeah. And just be able to hopefully reach out to other people to let them know they're not alone. So personally, and I do not want to compare at all apples to oranges because mine's far less severe.

But I was sexually molested, and I talked about it quite openly on here and some other places. And I have my own baggage with all the things that come with that. And similarly, I wasn't having a lot of people come up to me and go like, me too. But I would say over the years, that has happened more and more and more. And it's a nice feeling, I think. You're alone and scared. And actually, maybe this is a hot take. But I think one of the saddest things I see is that when someone dies or heaven forbid is murdered, that's it.

Their life is done. But when I see too many survivors of sexual violence, they're alive, but they stop living. Yeah. And that loss of life, I find heartbreaking. That's so true. They have to be present for their own death in a way on earth. Yes. Yeah. So let's go before 2001. Let's start in 87. You have what seems at least from the dock to have a pretty idealic childhood up to 2002. Where are we? Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City. Okay. Yeah. Great. Mormon family. And in a very nice federal heights. Is that the name? So a very, very nice, affluent area of Salt Lake City.

Brothers and sister. I'm second of six. Nice. Yeah. You rode horses. Yeah. You played the harp. Yeah. You have a bachelor's degree in playing the harp, yeah? Well, I studied it. I just studied it. I actually didn't graduate. I actually had two professors pull me out of class one day, and they just said, Elizabeth, what are you doing?

Why are you here? And I was like, what? And they're like, you don't need a degree for what you do. We'll still be here in five, ten, fifty years. Go do what you're doing. and come back when you are ready to be done with it. And I was like, wait, you're my teachers. I'm pretty sure.

You're the ones supposed to be encouraging me not to drop out of school. Yeah, and they're incentivized for you to stay financially. Well, that's why you know it's real good advice. I ended up following it, and I don't have my degree, but I don't regret it. So prior to 2002, what kind of sites had you set for your life? I don't want to sound like I didn't care about what happened in my life, but I couldn't imagine that my life would be that remarkable or that interesting. I mean, I thought it would just kind of be run in the mill like I'd go to school,

I finished high school, go to college, eventually get married, have kids, maybe teach harp lessons out of the house. And that would pretty much be it. So I didn't think anything could ever happen to me. So you shared a room with your sister. Mary Catherine. So Mary was nine and you were 14? Yeah.

And you shared a bedroom or an actual bed. We shared an actual bed. Oh. Yes. So what happens that night as you're sleeping? You know, the night started off totally normal. I mean, it was a little bit chaotic because my grandpa had just died. My mom's dad had just died.

And it was the end of the school year. And there's a lot of us, right? Yeah. There's a lot of things going on. Was it a weekday? Sorry, I don't know why that meant. matters to me. No, it was a weekday. Like, the next day was a school day. It was still like a pretty normal day. There was nothing bad about it. There were no, I don't know, feelings of foreboding or anything.

Yeah. No omens. I remember just going to bed and the next thing I remember was waking up to a man standing above me, knife at my neck, telling me to get up and get out of bed. Don't make a sound, go with him. Oh, my God. How detailed is your memory of all that? Yeah, it's pretty detailed. For all of us, this isn't happened to you. Try to make a You imagine yourself in that situation, which I guarantee your imagination is not going to do it justice. But first thoughts? You're like, this is a dream? Prank or horror or...

No, just this can't actually be real. Right. And I mean, I remember as a kid, I chose to sleep closest to the door because I was like, oh, if anything ever happened, like, it's my responsibility to watch over my little sister. I'm older than her. So I'm going to sleep next to the door. Never actually thinking anything could happen. Right.

The movie that scared me most as a kid was the never-ending story. Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, I hated it. You hated to tray with a huge dog? I mean, honestly, I haven't watched it since then, so I couldn't even tell you it. Oh, wow. It's a beautiful story about a little boy on an adventure. I just remember being terrified when I watched it as a kid.

And I remember thinking that was more likely to pop out of my nightmares than to have someone break in. That was never even a thought. Yeah. could break into my home. And so I'd imagine there's enormous confusion about what's happening. And you're very quickly on the move out of the house, obviously. Yeah. Out the front door, out the window.

So I was on the top floor of my house. I was probably in like the highest point of my house. So we had to obviously come out of my room, come down through the big flight of stairs in the middle of my house. And then we went out through the back kitchen door. And do you remember on that walk hoping someone. would hear you guys. Oh, absolutely.

And then because they didn't, I remember then thinking because nobody woke up, is it because he killed them already? Sure. Yeah, how could you know? Is that why? Because, I mean, it felt like whenever my older brother and I tried to sneak down to see what presents were for Christmas, my parents always caught us. Right, right.

So how did they catch us then and then not wake up now? And, of course, he explicitly said, if you scream, I'm going to kill you, if you don't I'm not going to hurt you. Yeah. So I love how the doc is structured. It's a very, very compelling story because we really are going to talk with your sister for the most part of the beginning of this story, which is apropos. She's the only person who has any idea what has happened. So she heard this go on or was she sleeping through it?

Also, did he have a mask on? Sorry, I have so many detailed questions about this. She heard it, but she didn't open her eyes. He's like wide because she didn't want him to know she was away. You try to pretend you're invisible at that moment. Yeah. Yeah, but she said she was like kind of looking through her eyelashes to try to see him. So, I mean, she gave the police a description of him.

But when I later read the description of him and then obviously knowing what he looks like, I was like, that's not right. But like if you're a nine-year-old girl, like, and it's dark in the room. Just like looking through your eyelashes. Yeah. Would you? No, I don't think it's possible to register it. In nine years old.

I mean, that is so, so tiny to be giving a detailed account of what happened. Yeah. But the police obviously questioned her. And the first really compelling thing is that she recognized the voice. She said she knew the voice. She couldn't place it immediately. Yeah. But she knew the voice, like she recognized the voice.

Once you were out of the house, I guess she ran into your parents' room. So we have an alarm system, or we had, none of us live in that house anymore. But we had an alarm system in the house. And so she was waiting to hear the alarm system go off to know whether or not it was safe for her to get up and go wake my parents. But as luck would have it for whatever reason, I feel like someone explained to me once and I could be totally wrong. But when an alarm system goes off, it's because there's a magnet set in the frame and a magnet set in the door. and when they disconnect, that alerts the system. Yeah, breaks the circuit.

Sounds like you know what you're talking about. I don't. Yeah. I think the magnets had fallen out of the door frame. What? And none of us knew about it. And so when the back door opened, it never went off. So my sister was lying in bed, and she never heard it go off.

And so she waited and waited and waited. I think she probably waited about 45 minutes before she went and told my parents. But, like, that would have been terrifying for her. I would have taken a lot of courage for her because for all she knew, we were still in the house. Exactly. Yes. And if she gets up now, she's next. Or he could kill you.

I mean, there's just a million bad options. Yeah. Yeah, it's unimaginable. What is painful to watch, but of course, absolutely required. And you, again, you would know you work in this space. Sadly, most of these cases are family-related. I mean, like a pretty high percentage. Yeah, really high percentage.

Obviously, the police have to begin trying to clear your family. And there's a lot of you. Yeah, there is. Also, there's press. So what is it like for you? Because, of course, you were not present for any of this. But when you have since seen everything they went through for the next few days after your disappearance, what are your thoughts? I mean, it depends when you ask me.

Like, when I first was rescued and I saw glimpses of it, initially, I was. I was just like, you guys didn't have it that bad. You're all there together. Like, you're not alone with, like, these monsters. The bad things aren't happening to you. You're on the good end. Now as a parent myself, I'd gladly go through it again to make sure it didn't happen to my kids.

Yeah. And so now as a parent, I don't know whose was worse, but I know I would do whatever it took to protect my children. Yeah. Well, as a fellow dad, watching your father at speak about your primary job is to protect your kids and your little girls in the amount of shame and guilt and self-flagellation, I'm sure, about failing at that job was rough. But additionally, Uncle Tom's a character.

She has an uncle. Is he the oldest? He feels like the oldest. He got wily in these interviews. I felt blessed by the fact that I hadn't followed all the twists and turns. So really, if I wasn't interviewing you and my children, kept asking, is she alive? And I'm like, she has to be. I'm interviewing her tomorrow. But beyond that, I don't know. So stop asking me questions. I don't know entering the dock.

I forget a lot, too. I think a lot of people forget. I entered the dock not knowing if it was a family member. I'm along for the ride the way America was. And I got to be honest, I'm watching these interviews. And I'm watching Uncle Tom. And Uncle Tom goes on this kind of weird path about how everyone is flawed and everyone has secrets. And I'm like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? It's like you. I would say for sure. I don't take this moment to be honest about the reality, the complexity of life. What?

So we're watching that and my kids are like, oh my God, he did. Right. I know. It seems crazy. And then, of course, it takes America by storm. And so you have all these different pundits now evaluating every sentence that's said. First of all, my uncle is one of the best people you could actually meet. Yeah.

That comes out in the wash. By the end of the doc, you're like, I fucking love Uncle Time. I mean, all my uncles are the best people. And I believe it was after that interview because sleep deprivation was at an all-time high that family members had to enact certain rules before family members went before the media. So they didn't come off sounding that way. You need media training, but you're going through this crazy fear and loss. I mean, it was the most intense.

worst thing my family had ever experienced. He says later in this doc, he had been awake for about five and a half days at the point, because he also took a polygraph that was inconclusive, whatever that means. We had Amanda Knox on, and similar, you end up doing things and saying things because you're just being put through the ringer. You've been interrogated for 36 hours, and then you're expected to give a cohesive. Normal. Be normal.

Yeah, yeah. So we're watching that. And then my kids are like, he did it right. And I'm like, well, he's in the dock. So no, I would presume he'd be in print. Like the weird detective we were trying to do. But then you're also seeing all of these things that really end up frustrating me when I see investigations. And look, these are people are not sent down from heaven.

They're human beings doing the best they can. They're scared. Everyone's scared. They're being relied on to have the answers and they don't have the answers. But some of these immediate things that are coming out are very frustrating, which is the attacker, put a chair against the wall and then cut a screen and then climb through a window. That's how we got in. And the detectives look at this and say, there'd be a scuff on the wall.

Yeah, this is... These kind of like, I know this would happen. Those things are very frustrating. Yes. And I suppose that is how they work, right? You're just trying to knock down things that don't make sense. But at the same time, it's like, what are we talking about? And then people saying your father, Ed, on TV and the interviews, didn't have real tears when he was crying.

Like this micro examination of what someone's supposed to be doing. I can guarantee. I don't have to be there to know he would have been crying. He cries every time he gets emotional. Yeah. You daughters do that to us. I mean, Jesus. I didn't cry before I had them and no I can't stop.

But also, even if he didn't, the fact that that then means is a problem. We all have these ideas based on movies. Yeah, how you're supposed to react. In trauma. and it's like everyone acts differently in trauma and you can't just make an assumption. It's really bad. Yeah.

Here's my great curiosity now that I know the end. So the whole town activates. It gets an enormous amount of coverage and really everyone shows up to try to find you. There is a point where they bring up the Basset hound dog and it gets the scent of you and it leads them for a very long time in your neighborhood, but then it stops.

Do you have an explanation for that? I always wondered that too. I always thought they'll bring dogs because I never got into a car. And they said the scent stopped at the street. But right across the street, it's like a pretty popular trailhead. Go up it. Yeah. Yeah.

And they just said it just stopped, which I don't understand. And so they conclude, oh, they went to here, got in a car, now the car drove away, and that's why the scent's going on. And then I remember, I mean, it rained, not like a huge downpour, But it rained the second or third day that I was kidnapped. And I remember thinking, oh, maybe that washed the scent way. But then I assume this is correct, but I'm not an expert. I asked a dog handler years later, while it rained, did it wash the scent away?

And they're like, no, that actually enhances the scent. Like reactivates it? Yeah, that makes sense. And I was just like, okay, well, I never got in a car. Well, once we find out in this doc where you are, it's absolutely maddening. That's a heartbreaking bit of information. You were not that far. I wasn't, but I hiked back up there just this past October, and it is not easy to get to.

Like, I've run marathons. That's harder. Oh, wow. Really? When you were on that walk, were you even aware of how hard it was, or you're probably just such in a state of shock? I had, like, so much adrenaline just pumping through me. I had no idea just how far back we were. I thought I was a lot closer to the city than I actually was, which, I mean, again, when you think, oh, three and a half miles.

three and three-fourths of a mile, that's not that far, but straight back into the mountains, that's a decent distance. Yeah, it's like 20 miles on flat ground, maybe. Feels about like it. So you walked the whole time in silence? Pretty much. I remember asking him a few times, why are you doing this? Where are you taking me?

Why are you taking me? I remember asking him questions, but he'd always kind of shut me down. He'd say something like, oh, I'm taking you hostage or all will be revealed in due course. Oh. Was he already in biblical speech or was that later? I'd say he was in and out. Will you tell Monica this horrendous thing you had to ask him and why? Well, I asked him if he was going to rape and kill me.

You're like, what is this about? Yeah. We didn't have enemies. Never started a feud or hurt anyone. But you didn't recognize him? Not immediately, but I did recognize him once we started getting up further into the mountains. And I was like, why are you doing this? My parents tried to help you.

But you had asked if he was going to rape and kill you because this is so heartbreaking, but also so pragmatic of you, even at 14, you wanted it to happen close to the house if he was going to do it so your parents could find you. It's not that different from here. There are mountain lions. There are coyotes. A 14-year-old has a pretty active imagination. I was like, oh, my gosh, if we get far up here, these coyotes are mountain lions

are going to tear apart my body and then I'll just vanish. and no one will ever find me, which it could have happened. Just this last time I hiked up there, I saw some entrails on the way up and that was it. Animal. Yeah, I know, I know. But still, the fact that you have to think like that is terribly adult kind of a thought to have. And the first few days of this is 40,000 leads are phoned in, so what they're trying to sift through. And ultimately, the family is cleared.

How do we get to Risi? How did he come to be a suspect? My parents had built the house that we were living in, and they really project-managed the whole thing. My dad was in there laying tile with everyone else and painting walls and doing all the things. Well, Lin-O-Work was your dad in? He was a mortgage broker, so he would contract out with people, or he went to, I can't even remember exactly what it's called, but basically the Mormon church services where they try to connect people in need with. with work and they had recommended this Richard Recy to my dad.

And because it came from the church, my dad was like, oh, he's good. He must be fine. So he brought him to our house, had him working on and around the house. And neither of my parents knew that actually he was a convicted felon. And he had a whole history. So when the police were asking for a list of everyone who had been to our house before, his name was on the list. And then, of course, they're like, oh, well, he's a felon.

He had killed a cop in a armed robbery gone. Yeah. So obviously for them, they're pretty excited at that revelation. How could they not be? Yeah, they're like, it's him in. And they bring him in. And he's a wild dude. There's a lot of footage in the dock of them interviewing him.

Again, he's also presenting as someone guilty. He's very combative. He will not explain. Your father gave him a car, right, a Cherokee? Yeah, so it was in exchange for some work instead of money. He would rather have the car. And so that was the deal. But then I'm not exactly sure on the details.

But I don't know if he had completed all the work or there was something. It didn't end well. Yeah, that they were like he was supposed to follow through. It was like a weirdness. I mean, he ended up stealing some of my mom's jewelry as well. That's another thing. They go to his house to arrest him. And when they gave a warrant to go through everything, they find stuff he's stolen from their house.

Oh, my God. Yeah, if you're them, this is looking more and more promising. Yeah, it feels like a bull's eye. And then even crazier, somehow they deduce this, and I don't know how, but he had put a few hundred miles on that car that was given to him the night of this abduction. Yeah. And we never found out what it was for. He refused to tell. But everyone thought it was like he drove out to the West Desert and buried me out there.

Right. That's kind of a natural conclusion. And if you're the police, you're like, oh, my God, now we have a radius of 150 miles. Good luck. Yeah. Oh. And he won't tell them anything, and he's really, really combative. And they decide, let's offer him an immunity deal, which is as so long as it has nothing

with a murder or some other very serious thing, you can tell us where you drove and we won't care about the crime. Right. And so as that's being pitched and they're evaluating whether or not to take that opportunity, he dies in his jail cell. My other grandpa, my dad's dad. He was a doctor. and at the time he said,

Elizabeth hit him over the head and he had a brain aneurysm and that's why he died. Oh, wow. I'm glad he thought that, but that's not what happened. So he did. He had an aneurysm.

He just, like, healed what? Yeah, and the doctor, like, stroke or aneurysm, I don't know if it was ever decided, but you're still missing. This is like a string of impossibly bad luck things to happen, that nobody woke up, that the magnets on the door fell off. that this guy just dies out of nowhere.

What? That's so crazy. No, right? How is this even my life? Right. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. We are supported by Allstate.

Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking your phone's battery before heading out. That'll get you every time. Of course, your phone dies on the way to meet someone, leaving you wandering around quietly panicking about being in the wrong spot. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.

You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Co. And affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by Intuit Turbo Tax. You know that feeling when you drop your taxes off with someone and then nothing? You're just sitting there wondering if they've even started, if there's a problem, if you're getting everything you're owed.

It's like sending your car to the shop and never getting an update. That's what I appreciate about TurboTax. With TurboTax expert full service, they've completely transformed that experience. You get matched with a dedicated tax expert who actually does your taxes for you. And here's the part that changes everything.

You can get real time updates on your expert's progress from start to finish. You can literally see when they're working on your return. No more guessing, no more waiting by the phone. And if you have questions, You get unlimited help from your expert at no extra costs, even nights and weekends during tax season. They're focused on getting you the best possible outcome in every dollar you deserve. My dad loves TurboTax, and he's a meticulous man.

He doesn't cut corners. If you're not going to trust me, trust a show. That's right. Visit turbotax.com to get matched with a TurboTax full service expert today. That's turbotax.com, only available with TurboTax full service experts. Real-time updates only on iOS mobile app. How long had you been gone when Recy died? At the four or five month mark?

Oh, that long already? So you have been gone for four or five months. And so obviously, national attention's dying down. The police department's running out of people to talk to. They have this guy. They thought it was it. He's dead. I don't want to say they said it was over, but kind of it was over for them.

But that leaves your parents with where is she if that's what happened? I mean, just the agony of that being the conclusion. Yeah, I mean, everyone was like the secret of what happened to Elizabeth has gone with Richard Recy to his grave. We will never find her. We will never know what happened. We can only assume she's dead. Okay, now tell Monica this crazy thing that happens to Mary Catherine waiting for dad to come tuck her into bed. My sister, she's just randomly looking at the Guinness Book of World Records, and she said she turned to this page of this extremely muscular woman.

I know this day she's like, I have no idea. The mind's weird, isn't it? That's what jogged. No idea. But as she's looking at this page. This muscular woman in the world. The name comes to her. No.

And my dad comes in to tuck her in and she's like, Dad, I think I know who can. kidnapped Elizabeth. I think it was that guy Emmanuel who came to our house and did some work for you that one time. You guys had originally seen downtown, right? Yeah, I'd only seen him once. I was out school clothes shopping with my mom at the beginning of the year. And I mean, he only saw me like one time. And just that one time, he's like, yep, she's the one. I'm going to kidnap her. And he was a homeless guy who was preaching his own version of the scripture. I mean, at that point in time, he didn't preach to my mom. His, spent a lot of time talking about his twisted past. But he basically found that the best way to manipulate people and get what he wanted was through religion or if he needed to justify

something, just blame it on religion. And so he had done that for years. He'd done it to his family. When he married my other captor, that was, I think, his third wife. Then, he had, And he and his third wife, they just fed off of each other. But they had both used that tactic for years and years. However, I think if you look at that time period, you know, he saw me in like September, October maybe of 2001, right around 9-11. I think any form of extremism, people just pulled away from. Frowned upon you. Made people very cautious.

So he had stopped wearing the robes. he usually wore and he had stopped kind of pushing that facade as much. So when my mom saw him, I mean, he was clean shaven. He had clean clothes on. He just kind of looked like a guy who had hit hard times. Not necessarily like your average homeless person. Yeah. And he didn't even ask my mom for money straight out of the gate.

He asked her for work. When you were out clothes shopping. Yeah. And so my mom was like, well, I don't have any work, but you can call my husband. And he only asked for work because he saw me and wanted to find out where we lived. And so from the time he saw me back in September, October, all the way up until June was when he kidnapped me. He planned it. What the fuck?

Okay. So Mary Catherine knows it's a manual. And then we bring in a sketch artist. And they do a sketch. They want the police to release this sketch. and they do not want to release it. I can't remember the reason they were. I mean, they just thought it was Richard Recy.

They just didn't think that it was this other guy who came to our house one time. And they said if you put this out in public, then if that person does have Elizabeth, now you're in danger. Right, right. This is the rationale. It's not insane.

But thank God your family grew so frustrated and hopeless, I imagine. John Walsh, from America's Most Wounded, had become a huge support to my parents, so my dad had gotten pretty close with him. And my dad had told John, Mary Catherine, thinks she knows who took Elizabeth. And we've gone down to the police station, and we've had like a sketch artist come in and sketch this guy. She thinks that's who it is. And John was like, well, you've got to release it. And they're like, but the police don't want us to.

And so actually, John went on Larry King Live. back in the day, and he actually released this sketch on Larry King Live. Wow. Good for him. Yeah. As it turns out, great for him. Yeah. Because pretty quickly, the brother-in-law of Emmanuel... In quotes, it just did quotes.

I did quotes, if you're listening to not watching. Emmanuel, in quotes, his brother-in-law calls and says, I think I know who Emmanuel is. He knew that was the name that Brian Mitchell was going by. So now we... know who it is, but now where are they? Okay, so now let's go back to walking. As you just said, there's a second person involved who goes by the name of Hepsibah. Hepsaba. Hepsaba. Yeah. What happens when you get to the end of this three and a half mile hiking trail? He had said while he was taking me up into the mountains that we were going to his wife. And initially,

when I heard that there was going to be a woman there, I was like, it's going to be fine. I tell my kids, find a woman if you're lost. I know, yeah, right? Women can be crazy too. Now you should tell them, find a woman with kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We go step one, find a police officer or a woman with kids, and then next best, yeah. Yeah, it's a list. It's terrible. Ending with man. Yeah, and so, like, initially I was the leap because I was like, nothing that bad can happen. Plus, I mean, I could tell that he was older.

I feel like your brain goes in so many different. ways to try to protect you, try to make you think, okay, or at least mine does. The situation is not as dire as it seems. Like, it's going to be okay. There's a woman there. Maybe they're just kidnapping you because they want a daughter really bad. That's what I was honestly just thinking. I was like, is that why? Or maybe their daughter died or something. And like, they're just heartbroken. Well, you're grasping for any ray of hope. Exactly. So we get back up into the mountains to like this hidden mountain camp. And sure enough, there's this woman. I feel really, really. Relief had seen her.

She comes up to me. She hugs me. But at the same time, the hug was, I don't know. Is there such thing as an... Yes, there is such thing as an aggressive hug. Sure. Or a possessive hug. Yeah, a hug is like domination kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm claiming you. And she's also dressed in my... Sorry. Yeah, no, you're right. A crazy outfit. She looks like she is in a witch movie or something. She has like these long sort of tunic-like robes on. All white.

Just different. Yeah. So she hugs you. She hugs me. She leads me inside of the tent. She sits me down on an upturned bucket. And I need to add, it is a camping tent. Yeah, it's a camping tent.

You get no illusions of grandeur. This is a three-person tent. It's probably like a six-person tent. You're right. Let's be fair. It's a six-person tent. Okay. But that's where they're living.

Inside the tent, there's just bedding on the ground. And there's this one upturned bucket. That's what she has me sit on. She brings in like this little small blue basin, has water in it. She like takes off my shoes, starts washing my feet, goes to reach to unbutton my pajamas. And I was like, what? And I mean, I was shy, kid. I'm a late bloomer in lots of things.

So I hadn't really hit puberty yet. And I don't know anyone who goes through puberty gracefully anyway, not me. No, it's not easy. I was, I could not, of course, help, but imagine my own 12-year-oldness. the situation and it's just devastating. It's fucking devastating. Yeah.

So, you know, she's like trying to undress me. I just remember like grabbing hold of my pajamas. The last thing you want to be is naked in front of anybody, much as strangers. No. Who knows what's going to happen when these clothes come off? It's very scary.

Yeah. So did she let you keep them on? No. No, she's like, if you don't let me take them off you, I will have a man you'll come in here and he will rip them off of you. And I remember just being like, I shower last night before. I went to bed. I'm not dirty. If you want me to change, I will change myself. You don't need to

touch me. So she finally hands me a robe, like the one she has on. I remember pulling on and then taking my clothes off underneath the robe. And she scoops them up and she walks out of the tent. And you're just sitting there. I'm just sitting there. Yep. I could hear them right outside the door. So the woman walks out. I honestly don't know how much time passed. Could have been 30 seconds. could have been 10 minutes but not too much time passes and the man comes in the tent and he's changed out of like the dark sweatpants and sweatshirt and stocking hat that he wore to kidnap me in and he has on these long ropes like the woman and he comes in and he kneels down next to me and he starts speaking to me and at first I'm really not paying attention to what he has to say and then I have a

thought that maybe I should because maybe there'd be some reason why he was kidnapping me or what was going to happen next. As a religious person, did you think at any point, oh, these are satanic, some kind of devil worshipy people? At that point, I did not realize he had already mentioned God, but because I grew up in such a religious environment, that didn't just automatically make me think, oh, crazy person. Right, right, right, right.

But then as I listen to what he says, and he's like, I seal you to me as my wife before God and his angels as my witnesses. They're getting married, Monica. Oh, my God. And is it at that moment he tells you you are one of seven, I will be? He doesn't tell me right at that moment. But, I mean, he does tell me later how I'm the first of seven wives. So he had this whole set of books that he viewed as scripture and he called them the seven diamonds plus one. because the seven books, it was like the Old Testament, the New Testament.

They were books. I don't know how standard all of them were, but they were published books. And then his plus one was the book he wrote of like Revelations. His book. His book. Because he's a prophet. He's not just a prophet. He's the Davidic king.

I know. Like half of these things I'd never even heard of before. That was like the same thing how he viewed. me and the future six other girls he was going to kidnap. So we were going to be the seven wives plus the one and the one was Wanda Barzee, Hepzabaw. And she was like the queen that would reign over us all. She was the mother of Zion. That's what she claimed.

Boy, you think about all the psychology that goes behind a master manipulator like that and how offering her that high status role somehow made all the other. This dude obviously wants to be with a ton of women, but I've anointed you. This is the salve I'm going to put on that is give you super high status and hope you're good with that. She had a prior marriage as well. She had six kids from her prior marriage.

That makes it even darker to think of someone who has children. Has kids? Could do this. Isn't it? I feel a little bit torn because on one hand, I don't want to be like, you're not totally at fault because you are. But at the same time,

I don't think she knew what a healthy relationship was. and she probably had quite a few struggles herself in life. You must be in a very complicated situation when it comes to her in particular. Because she is your predator, your oppressor, and you're smart enough to know she too is caught in some web of oppression herself probably, yeah? Or no? There is definitely a cycle. And I think she probably was so desperate for love.

She wanted to feel special. She wanted to feel like she was important. because I think she probably had never felt that in her life. And so he is there telling her, you know, you are my queen, and you've experienced all of these hardships because God was testing you, and he has found you worthy. You are going to be the mother of Zion. And even though you've had a hysterectomy and you're 58,

one day you will bear me a son who will be the future Davidic king. I mean, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, part of me is like, you were a mother or maybe you just gave birth six times maybe you don't understand what it is to be a mother because a mother would never harm a child yeah how and it's mind-blowing to me that even another woman because we've all been through puberty you know we've all been through that awkward kind of miserable time in life why would you exploit a young girl probably at her most vulnerable why would you sit aside and

encourage her to be raped. Yeah. And watch it. And what kind of bizarre psychology to watch someone you're married to rape somebody? Yeah, she must have really been so sick and manipulated that she had to probably believe. Because if she didn't. Yeah, exactly. You can't live like.

Then she's triple monster. Or conversely, maybe she's an equal monster. I don't know. That's what I'm kind of asking. Like, are you even able to evaluate that? That's why I go back and forth is because sometimes I'm like, was she in such a bad place herself from her whole life's past experience that she just was so desperate for love for the feelings of wanting to be special that she allowed this to happen? It was just easier to believe and go along with than to stand up and be like, no, you're sick. That's this wrong.

And did she ever crack and show signs of jealousy? Oh, yes. Yes. So she was probably cruel to you at times? She never stood up for me and protected me. But I not only was supposed to be his wife, but I was supposed to be her handmaiden. So I was supposed to like wait on her. And so I felt that it was better for me to support.

her claims because then sometimes her jealousy, it would be so much that he would come out with a new revelation to try to placate her. So he'd come out and he'd say, oh, God has said that your glory is like that of the sun. And so I can only be with you when the sun is out. And me, that I was just more like the moon. And so he could only have me at night. I never wanted to be raped. But then If I supported her in that, at least I'd know I'd have a reprieve for 12 hours, 8 hours, however long the sun was out. I would imagine if I were you, and I could be wrong, that I'm in survival mode. And I would recognize that if I could convince her I'm loyal to you, that that would help me later. Yes.

And probably playing this bizarre game where you're trying to make both people feel like you're loyal to them. And so they would have massive fights, like screaming at each other, which my parents disagreed, but I never saw them scream at each other. And so watching them just be straight up nasty to each other and scream at each other, I was like, oh, my goodness. And would you be ever hoping like, oh, good, I hope they break apart? That'll help dissolve all this. If she goes somewhere, she maybe will tell someone. That thought crossed my mind, but it became pretty quick. apparently apparent that she wasn't going to betray him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, one time she did actually leave the hidden campsite, and I was just left alone with Emmanuel Brian Mitchell all day. She went down into Salt Lake because she was really mad at him because, I mean, food was always scarce, water was scarce. And so she and I would be up in the mountains starving, and he'd go down to Salt Lake, steal food. While Elizabeth was in the camp, he got arrested in Salt Lake. for stealing beer.

Yeah. He actually got arrested a couple times. Oh, he did a couple times. Yeah, he got arrested in Salt Lake. He got arrested in Lakeside where he was held in jail for almost a week. I thought I was going to die of starvation. Okay. Now, this wasn't in the dock, but just occurred to me, this is insanely boring, too.

I mean, you guys are sitting in a fucking tent for months. Do you remember the tedium of that? Yes. Yeah. Was there a TV in there? Not for, I would just mean, more just to see the news. Were you seeing yourself? There's no electricity.

There's no water. There's nothing. They had their scriptures. They would pray. When they'd pray, it would be like an hour. So long. My family prayed growing up, but it was like 90 seconds. Yeah.

Two minutes at a stretch. Reasonable. Yeah. My average day would be like, wake up. And they'd like, well, actually, he'd probably rape me. and then he'd pray for like 45 minutes, an hour, and then he'd want to read sometimes whatever scripture he chose, but most of the time it'd be like what he wrote, which that would take.

I don't know, an hour and a half, two hours. If there was food, then I'd be allowed to eat something. I mean, I'd be given what I could eat. I just couldn't take whatever. And then they'd mostly just talk all day. They're both crazy. I mean, he's two crazy individuals. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know what was worse sometimes.

Just listening to them talk or actually being raped. Yeah, you said that. Yeah. I stand by that. Yeah. Not to be salacious, but I think it's relevant. It's that first night he rapes you. It's unimaginable, obviously.

You're in so much pain. You're bleeding. And then the next day, multiple times. Yeah. And then that just continues for months. Yeah. I mean, forced me to grow naked. He was like, oh, we know.

need to be like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I must have just been so hard for you. And so we're going to go naked all day. And then a wife needs to know how to make love to her husband. So we're going to demonstrate you need to watch. And then it'll be your turn. And if you don't watch, you won't get any food. You won't get any water.

You won't get your clothes back. Won't be able to go to sleep tonight. Nothing is going to happen until you do this. Oh, my God. Now, the other mind-blowing part of this is you were also going into. town. Not right away, but yeah. How far into captivity before you guys all go into town? Probably about three months in. So he takes them to town in their, in the white outfits, and both of them have their faces completely covered, other than the eyes. They added like a sheer veil for the eyes as well.

He took you guys to a kind of illegal nightclub. I mean, it was just a house party, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the way that the guy who hosted the thing described it was in 2002 in Salt Lake, you have a very obvious Mormon culture, and then you have a pretty thriving counterculture. And there would be these kind of off-grid after-hours parties where people did drugs and did whatever. So he comes to a place like this. And the man offered you a beer, or all three of you, a drink. And Emmanuel said, the ladies are not allowed to drink, but I can drink. And then the man said to Elizabeth, this guy seems kind of.

of controlling and then Hezbo or Hezbo. Hepsaba. Hepsaba. He says you can't talk to her. Think how closest is to being. I know. I bet that guy when everything came out, he probably, I'm sure, was like, oh, my God. He's in the dock saying he feels terrible that he didn't like push harder. But the one that is absolutely, you hear these stories about, I don't know if it was Dahlmer or one of these serial killers were one of his victims got away and the cop brought him back to the house. What? Yeah.

So tell us about going to the Salt Lake Library. Winter is coming on and there's just no way we could have survived like a northern Utah winter. There's no way we could have gotten enough food or a tent. We would not have survived. Yeah. And so they're like, we need to find somewhere to go. We need to find somewhere for this winter. So it was decided we'd go to Southern California.

And they're like, okay, we need to find maps of the area. We need to figure where to go. in Southern California. So we went to the public library. They had maps spread out on the table. They decided we'd head to San Diego. They were like looking at the maps of San Diego. There was a place called Lakeside, which is like, oh, lakeside.

That sounds kind of remote-ish. There must be a big lake. So there's probably a place to hide somewhere around there, which is actually kind of funny because it's a man-made lake. Oh. Surrounded not by rural areas. Yeah. It's decided that's where we go.

So they're looking at the map. and all of a sudden this guy starts walking towards us and he gets closer and all of a sudden he flashes his badge and he says, I'm a homicide detective. We've gotten a call and I just need to talk to you because there's a girl who we're trying to find. We just need to verify that she is not that girl. Oh, wow.

Really quick, before you tell the outcome, do you remember what was happening in your body as that was happening? Shock, adrenaline, fear. Wanda Barzi, her hand just clamped down on my thigh. And I was just... Paralyzed? Yeah. It was like being kidnapped all over again.

It was like reliving every bad thing that had happened to me. And it just made me feel, like it reminded me of how invincible my captors felt to me. And that they had the control. and not me, and they'd gotten away with so much already. Who was this police officer that he thought he could protect me when no one had found me? Oh, wow. So, I mean, I just was frozen.

Everyone has kind of heard of fight or flight or freeze. And I froze. Yeah, of course. I mean, it wasn't even like a conscious decision. All of us would freeze. We'll get to that. But Emmanuel, he explains to the cop that their religion forbids her to show her face that the only people that are ever allowed to see her face are her father and her future husband.

Okay. And the police officer said, fine. I mean, he pushed. He was like, well, can I just convert to your religion for a day? Oh. Like, if you just let me see her face, anyone else who calls, I can assure them that she is who you say she is. I mean, he did push. He did try.

Wow, but that's so hard for me. Now, that's the guy who I imagine has the most amount of guilt, way beyond there. I actually think. He's passed away since then, yeah. But, I mean, I saw him during the trial. Devastated? Yeah. He just apologized so much.

But I think that also just goes to show what a master manipulator. It's very Charles Manson. There is some Svengali quality he clearly had that he could not panic in the face of this situation he was in and then stick to it and get out of it. I mean, it was also really interesting during the trial. The prosecuting team, like, found. so much stuff about it. And it was interesting because the defense team even brought up a lot of stuff that the prosecution was like, we were thinking about bringing that up. And then we're like,

we don't need to, but this is just like another nail in the coffin. So why not? And one of the things they brought up was a letter that Brian Mitchell had written, I think it was to his mom or someone, but talking about what a good actor he was and how much he enjoyed acting and tricking people and convincing others of whatever he felt like. Oh, my God. Can you believe that? So they take a greyhound or you take a bus, you had a lakeside. You're there.

And now I think this is a very savvy moment for you. What it tells me is, as frozen as you were, many times that were terrifying, you also hadn't surrendered. You had hope? Because there's moments in the dock where I wonder, do we ever get Stockholm syndrome? me. Is there anything happening? I really can't fathom what happens mentally. Do you know that Stockholm syndrome? I am well aware of it, but no. I'm not sure that I even really believe in Stockholm syndrome. Yeah. I feel like it's actually, as we just mentioned, fight, flight, freeze, but I think there's

another response, which is appease, which is basically, which I don't even like the word fawn because that makes it sound like you're flirty. Oh, it makes it sound like you're fawning. It makes it sound like you're fawning over someone like you're flirting like you're looking for attention that's true it does kind of say but you're just satiating someone's ego is what's happening but basically it's just doing whatever you have to do to survive so if that means going along with them then that's what you do yeah but you do get this pretty clever idea because you know the further away from salt lake city you are the less your chances of getting found are how do you plant this seed i'd watch them do it for nine months how they'd get away with

whatever they wanted by claiming God commanded them or saying it was part of their religion. And I think you'd find with most rapists it's not so much the uncontrollable need for sex. It's the power and control over another person that they want more than anything. And that's what they wanted was power and control. So I remember just thinking, well, if they can do this and get away with it, why can't I? I can only try. What's the worst thing that can happen? I guess they could kill me.

At least I wouldn't be with them. Right. And so I thought, I'm just going to give it a try. And so I went to him and I was just like, oh, I just have this feeling. I know it sounds so crazy. God would never speak to me. I am so sinful. I am just so filthy.

He had forced me to drink so many beers one night, not that far away from this day that I'm talking to him, where I'd ended up throwing up because I was a 15-year-old girl at this point. And he just left me there. And so, like, I woke up the next morning. My face was all crusted to the ground and throw up and it was all in my hair. So, I mean, I'm going to be like, you know, I'm just nothing that showed my true spiritual state. I am just faced down in my own vomit. But I keep having this feeling like we should go back to Salt Lake.

But I know God would never speak to me. So do you think you could ask him because I know he would tell you? Wow. You are his prophet. And I know he would tell you. So could you please ask him? And I think for him in that moment, not that he didn't already do everything he wanted to to me,

but I think he felt that was like him getting full control. He got you. Not only had control of my body, but my mind too in that moment. You are now a believer. Yeah. And so that's when he was like, oh, I think you're right. Wow. I think we should go back to Salt Lake.

The sketch is out. They know who they're looking for, but, you know, where are they going to find this guy in this huge country? Do you think he had been following the case at all? I wouldn't say he was following it per se, but sometimes when he'd go down into Salt Lake, he'd bring newspaper articles back about the search. Or he'd talk about how every tree in Salt Lake had like a light blue ribbon tied around it and how every window in Salt Lake had a picture of my face in it. How did that make you feel when you knew everyone was thinking about you?

It's one thing to say that, but to see it or I guess experience it. I mean, I only experienced after I got home. And in like the days and weeks after I got home, the post office couldn't put mail in our mailbox. They brought it up to the house by the box full. And I remember at one point, there were so many flowers in our house that even the countertops in the bathrooms had vases of flowers on them. I could never imagine. I mean, even now, we all know like the number.

Oh, there's seven billion people in the world or however many. I mean, it's one thing to say that number, but then to actually even begin to realize just how many people that actually is, to put faces, to put bodies to that number is overwhelming. I mean, I didn't have seven billion people sending me stuff, but however many people it was. The whole country was aware of. Yeah. Was overwhelming. Did it buy you a little hope to know that everyone was paying attention? Yeah.

It was comforting to think that there were people looking for me because who was I? Why would people look for me outside of my family? My vision of it would be my parents calling the police, my family, and the police looking for me. Maybe one new story, and that's it. In my mind's eye, it was like my mom driving her car through neighborhoods looking for me. Now, probably my most hated part of the whole story is something I've also experienced, which is after the first rape, you know virginity is cherished. What were your thoughts after that?

I thought I was ruined. To the point where you didn't even know if your family would want you back. Yeah. If I managed to survive this, if I ever made it back to civilization, would I just become a pariah? Oh, my God. Like, how could anyone have anything to do with me once they knew the truth? Did you have any fantasies of, like, if I'm returned, I'm just going to pretend this part didn't happen? I wanted to, but then also what would happen if I ever got married and on my wedding night, my husband's like, what the hell, Elizabeth?

Like, you're not a virgin. Right. So you felt like there's no escaping this? Now as an adult and someone who's been in this field now for a long time, unfortunately when you do hear about a kidnapping, you just automatically assume they've been raped. And at the time I was like, oh, no one's going to know, right? Yeah, yeah, of course.

But that was probably naive of me to think that. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Okay, so you return. Turned to Salt Lake and pretty quickly upon arriving, someone spots the three of you in these crazy outfits and calls the police. I mean, actually, at that point, we weren't even in the robes. Oh, you weren't? Because we hitched hike back from California and my captors were like, no one will pick us up hitchhiking if we're in the ropes. Oh.

It looks like children of the corners. We need to look a little more normal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so then you hitchhiked back. It was right after you guys got there. Yeah. It was the first day we were back in Utah. And you're on foot and a police officer pulled up in a car?

I mean, it was multiple. This is the part I could imagine. It just felt like getting suffocated. This moment that I would think in a movie, you're going to run towards the cops. But there's no way that's what's going to happen. I mean, it was like the library all over again. Yeah, exactly. You have to assume he's going to get out of it.

You're going to be with him. And if you do something wrong, he's going to be going to. punish you. That has to be your assumption. Or he could kill me. Or he could go after my family. And I mean, I had a captor on either side of me, like physically touching me. It's not like I was just hanging out by myself on the side. Yeah. So like, again, that threat was very much in the forefront of my mind. And I absolutely knew what my captors were capable of, but I didn't know what police officers were capable of. Well, yeah, so far, they haven't been able to do anything. Exactly. In my mind, And in that moment, it seemed safest to turn to my normal survival instinct, which was to do what they said.

How did it unfold? Yeah. My captors had the whole backstory prepared that they told me to say if we were ever questioned. The police officer showed up. I don't honestly remember how many there were, but it felt like a lot. were there questioning my captors and then they started to question me. They were aggressive. They weren't kind and polite or comforting in any way.

So that was intimidating. That was scary. It felt like I was receiving scary from both ends. Yeah. And my captors, they were adamant about who we were. And police officers tried asking me questions. I gave the answers I'd been told to give. They were much more aggressive this time than any other interaction would ever had with police.

And finally, one of the officers was like, we need to separate her and talk to her alone. Yes. This is a good instinct. Yeah. But they weren't like, well, no, it's against our religion. We weren't in the robes or anything. And so they actually didn't say that. Wow. Maybe they knew at that point, like, the jig is up.

Yeah, I don't know. So they took you aside. Not that far. I mean, I was still in view. It was like just a few yards away from my captors. And again, this officer was very aggressive towards me in his questioning. And I just remember feeling scared. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was like no. Like you're in trouble. Yeah, exactly. There was no softness or comfort in any of this situation. Yeah, he kept on questioning me. He started saying, you know, there's a girl. She's been gone now for a long time. Her family's never given up hope.

Don't you want to go home? I mean, of course I wanted to go home. Of course I wanted to be back with my family. But everything that had happened was so extreme. How did he phrase it? He's in the dock, the officer, who ultimately got it out of you. He said something like, I need to ask you. Yeah, he is like, are you Elizabeth smart?

And you were kind of frozen again. Because on one hand, my captors, once we were in the camp, they didn't speak with you, yours. It was always like, thee, thy, thine. Oh. It was all the thous. So I didn't know how much my captors could hear from where I was at. So I felt like I couldn't just say, yes, I'm Elizabeth Smart because also they had given me a whole different name while I was with them. I was told, you're not allowed to speak about your past.

Your name's not Elizabeth. They had tried to strip me of my identity, everything. And so when the police officer said, you know, are you Elizabeth smart? I just felt like I had to speak the way that I had been told to speak, hoping that maybe my captor hadn't heard the question, so that if some way he had been released, which had been the norm, I wouldn't be in trouble. And so I responded with thou sayest.

Think if you're the police officer. I know, I know, I know. He's like, what? Does that mean? 14-year-old girl, if she's Elizabeth's smart, And she says, thou say yes. I know. So that means yes.

They put you in the car. They handcuffed me. Handcuffed. Jesus. Yeah. Okay, guys. Do you remember a point where you actually felt like, oh, my God, it's over? When did that moment happen?

I mean, honestly, it wasn't until my dad was there. They had handcuffed me. They brought me to the police station. I'm like, if you thought I was innocent, like, you would have taken me home. Isn't it my right to have a phone call? Like, I remember being a kid going into my parents. room at night and they'd be sitting there watching Perry Mason. I was like, I swear I get a phone call.

I saw that off Perry Mason. Yeah. I didn't get a phone call. They didn't take me home. How far is Sandy, Utah from your family home? 20, 30 minutes. Okay. You didn't have to wait an eternity for dad.

No. Okay. So they called your parents. Monica, there's footage of him coming into the room she's being held in and hugging her for the first time. Oh my God. I mean, it wasn't until then that I was like, it's going to be a, Like I still honestly didn't even know if I was in trouble or not, but I was like, my dad's here.

He's not going to let anyone hurt me. Yes. Like these two people have hurt me. Like it's going to be okay. Oh. Kind of insult to injury. It takes eight years for this trial to happen. I know.

Everything so, it's like very broken and disappointing. We don't have a justice system. We have a legal system. Yeah. So then what's happening in that eight? Are they in jail? They are in jail. Well, I mean, they're in the state hospital for some of it.

They're in jail for some of it. The statute of limitations comes up in Utah. It has to be moved to the federal courts because otherwise he's going to walk free. What? Yeah. I'm going to fast forward to he's in prison for life. Well, I like that. And she got 15 years, she's out.

But what is not in the dock and I got left with so many questions is, when do we dare return to school and what on earth is that like? I mean, this recovery process has got to be so challenging. I was rescued in March. I remember my parents asking like, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to see my friends. I want to go back to school. I had a lot of FOMO. Parents were like, you can't go back to school yet. So I went back to school in the fall. Were they also like, you're not leaving our side ever again? Yeah. I would never, I'd be like, I'm going with you for the rest of your life everywhere. My mom basically said that.

Were you offered immediately therapy? I was offered everything, but I did not know what therapy was. I'd say it had like a pretty negative connotation attached to it. That's what New York liberals do. Especially back then, too. I just knew it was something that psychiatrists did, and I had such a bad experience at the Children's Justice Center with psychiatry. A few days after I was rescued because we were told if I talked to them, they could stand as proxy for me during the trial. That, of course, did not happen.

But I'd just been kidnapped by a middle-aged white man claiming God commanded him to. And then I was being very intensively questioned by two middle-aged white men, clearly religious. Yeah. I was very sheltered as a kid. My parents didn't call a penis a penis. It was like your privates. I had to go down the whole pathway. I'd be like, oh, he hurt me.

Oh, he messed up to me. Oh, he raped me. Oh, well, he stuck himself inside. He forced his penis inside my vagina. I had to get to that level of language. With the psychiatrist. With the two psychiatrists. Must have been so uncomfortable.

That I was like, this is the worst thing ever. I never want to talk about this again. Yeah, I don't want to think about this anymore. And if these are psychiatrists, I am not going near anyone ever again. And now in retrospect, do you think you would have benefited from the right therapist at that time? If I really understood what it was, it could have benefited me, but I will forever be grateful to my parents because they were understandably panicked

when I was like, nope, I'm not doing this. My parents went to therapy, and their therapist was like, if she doesn't want to talk, it's okay, it's not going to do her any good if she doesn't want to. You need to let her make her own choices, and you just need to make sure you. you're taking care of yourselves because whatever she's been through will have been awful. And you need to make sure you're both in a place that if she wants to talk to you, you can be in a place to hear it.

I am so grateful that they gave me that choice. Well, for all of you guys to heal from this, your father has to accept his own shame, forgive himself, move beyond that. You have to deal with your shame. Everyone's got to get their shame out of the way, kind of, before we can, possibly process all this and talk about it. This is dangerous emotion and feeling to be carrying, and I bet everyone was carrying a good deal of it.

I actually asked my mom if she ever felt guilty about the window being left cracked open. It wasn't like wide open. She said no. Oh, that's good. Because she was like, I didn't invite him into our home. He broke into our home. He violated our home. Right.

That wasn't because I said, here, come on in, take my daughter. That's so healthy because when these bad things happen, I start blaming myself. My guilt and shame over my situation was so different from yours, obviously. I wasn't abducted. I was lured. I had bad feelings in my stomach. I ignored those at times. Mind you, I was eight.

But I had to really reckon that, yeah, I didn't listen to my gut. I know I didn't. I feel so guilty and shame-ridden about that. And at some point I have to go, and you were eight? I mean, even if you were 50 and it happened, like at the end of the day, so like my foundation, the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, one of our main programs is called Smart Defense, and it's a holistic approach to self-defense, trauma-informed,

but it's a combination of Muay, Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But my director, she is a five-time world champion in her weight class for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But she'll tell you, even with all of her training, She could still be raped tomorrow because at the end of the day, the only way for sexual violence to end, for raped, and is for rapist to stop raping yet. To put the onus on the victim is a little crazy. It doesn't matter.

How old you are, who you are, those details don't matter. Well, the part that was healing for me, Elizabeth, that sent me fucking bawling is at the end you say, you change your story from you should have done this or you could have done that. to you can finish this. You're strong. Keep going. You can survive anything that comes your way.

And there's some pride to be had in that. Because you can kill yourself with, I should have done this. And why didn't I say to the cop? And why didn't like the self abuse you can give yourself? Because you didn't act like a fucking hero in a movie. But that a hero's something that can survive and make it today. It's fucking so beautiful. I really appreciated that.

I mean, each one of us has survived our worst day. Yeah, that's the fucking victory. You're a hero if you survive. There have been times in my life where I hate where I'm at or I don't like what I'm doing or I willingly signed up for a marathon and I'm at like mile 18 and I've hit the wall and I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Why am I here? Why did I pay to torture myself?

Yeah, what's wrong with me? Yeah, exactly. And then I'll be like, no, if all these other people around me, can do this, I can do this. I survived nine months of being tortured and kidnapped. If I can survive that. And all these other people haven't experienced that, not to judge him, because I know everyone has

a story. No, you can say that. You're a bad motherfucker. They probably haven't done that. And so if they can do this, I can do this. That's right. You can do anything. Oh, man. How was having your name, how did that play out? Everywhere you went, you were Elizabeth smart. You went to college. You went to BYU.

What was the weight of that? And did you ever consider changing your... Do you have any design? Do you have any desire like I don't want to be Elizabeth Smart the girl who got kidnapped. I would assume you understand there's Elizabeth Smart who everyone thinks they know and then there's me. Right. Well and then how do you do with pity? Because I bet a lot of people even upon meeting you have this like oh maybe you're fragile or how do you deal with that? I mean the people that have pity for me they don't know me. Yeah but that's so healthy to know that. Do I want people's pity? No but if it helps them feel better just to be like, I love you, I prayed for you.

I'm so grateful you're alive. I followed your story. I can listen to that. But like, I feel like if you get to know me, then you're like, oh, she's fine. You can kind of separate them too. So it wasn't a burden for you to have been so well known and then tried to carry on with a normal quote. I'm quoting again, Monica, here quotes, a normal life. No, it was hard.

There definitely have been times where I'm like, I am sick of being Elizabeth smart. Where is the benefit in all of this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or what about when you fell in love? Did it re-ignite that cycle of I'm damaged? This guy's got to know this about me. Or you had worked through all that by then? No, by that point, I was like, if anyone ever judges me for that, they're not worthy of my time.

So healthy. Good. My husband, he didn't know who I was. I mean, he's from Scotland, born and raised, had no clue who I was. If the Scots are anything, they are stubborn. So he was never afraid to push back. or tell me exactly what he thought, which I still appreciate it. But back then, I was like, thank you, because I felt like everyone just would tell me yes

or go along with whatever I said, probably because I thought I'd break or they didn't want to hurt my feelings or something, but he was like, nah, I don't think so. That's good. That's a good partner. I love that about him. Yeah, some days. No, I love that about him. What did it do to your relationship with religion?

It's so funny, Monica, I was just about to say, the one thing that was really not addressed in the doc, it seems crazy to me that we're not addressing it is exactly that. How do you think religion is intertwined in this story? Too much. Too much. It's a huge part of it. I have seen enormous, beautiful, positive outcomes of religion.

It's working for the vast majority of people, and it's a gift to people's life, and I see that. And I also want to say, I'm in AA. That's my religion. There's fucking knuckleheads in AA. And if they go out and they kill someone in the name of AA, that's not AA. That's a fucking knucklehead who wanted to use that. So I'm going to recognize all that.

I don't want to disrespect anybody when I say what I'm about to say, which is the three Judeo-Christian Old Testament religions, the prophets are all male, the apostles are all male, the characters are all male. if you're inundated with that and you are a little bit off, I think if you're a male, you think you are entitled to a lot of shit that this thing said. Well, clearly, only the men talk to God, only the men leave the people, and this entitlement. And then also this historic thing with child brides and multiple brides,

it's all religion too. And without religion, the scene doesn't work at the library. Why on earth would this person honor that? That's for pastors. When it goes bad, this is the part it goes bad. And I'm just curious, what did all of this do to your feeling about religion? And are you scared to even say it?

I am so grateful for the values that I was raised with. I am grateful for the importance that family played in my life, for the belief that God is kind and loving. And he's merciful and not vindictive and a harsh, cruel God. I'm so grateful for that. But now as a grown-up and looking back on everything that happened and honestly looking at a lot of things in this world, I think it's too easy for a religion to, again, I agree with you, there's many beautiful things. I'm grateful for all of those things, but also now as an adult, just because someone tells me something that doesn't mean I believe it. and it sounds maybe like I'm cynical,

but also I just know how quickly people take religion to fanaticism. When someone thinks they're talking to a supernatural being, this is dangerous because that supernatural being has the ultimate morality and the ultimate everything. So your justifications are so built in. It's hard for me to get into Brian David Mitchell's head and find out if he really believed all of it. But if he really did believe all of it,

And he is receiving what he thinks is these messages from God. Then the laws of the land mean nothing. The police mean nothing. Your judgment means nothing. That's a dangerous tool for a megalomaniacal narcissist to have. What about your dad leaving? My dad leaving the church as we're talking about? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was that part of like, so your dad came out as gay. And so he left the church. So I have a really great friend who was raised very, very religious. And she had her struggles with it. But what for her was the breaking point was her brother came out as gay and the family was like, no way. And she was like, hold on a second. There's no fucking way that I believe in a God that doesn't love my brother as much as everyone else. I'm out.

If that's what you're saying, it's about, then I'm gone. And I just wondered if anything with you and your dad. I mean, he called me. It was like six or seven in the morning. It was really early. And I was in such a sleep deprived state because my baby wasn't sleeping. I swear I was up all night. So you see a phone call.

at like six or seven in the morning. You're scared. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah. Who died? Like, who's in the hospital? What happened? They don't draw the lottery winning ticket at 6 a.m.

It's not like he's called him with great news. No. No. I mean, honestly, I thought my mom was in the hospital. But it's like word vomit. He's just like, Elizabeth, I'm leaving the church. I'm divorcing your mother and I'm gay. Like a run on sentence.

Just like, blah, blah. Wow. And I was like, what? I'm sorry. I haven't had my coffee yet. Did I come again? Sorry, what did you say? And he just like kept going and.

going and going, I was like, what? All I could think to say at the end was, well, you're still my dad. I still love you. See, what I was thinking was so weirdly unique about that situation. And why I bring it up is not to be salacious, is you had this thought that I might get rejected from this dirty secret I have and I would no longer be loved. And your dad hugged you in that police. station, it was very obvious, that would never be the case. And then you're weirdly in a situation where he's

got this shame in guilt. You get to be the person that also would never, ever abandon him. Yeah, he'll just never stop being my dad. And actually, over the years, it's not that my dad and I weren't ever close, but it was almost like, because I was so close with my mom, I'd call my mom and my dad would be in the background. So I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to call my dad, because he was like next to my mom. Dads mostly pick up the phone and say, I'll put your mom on. Pretty much. Or like if I went to my parents' house, I'd mostly be there to like hang out with my mom

and my dad would be in and out and be like, oh, hi, dad. So then when this happened, something really nice that came out of it was that it made me really established my own relationship with my dad and not just piggyback it off of my relationship with my mom. When I talk to him now, it's very intentional and not just like, oh, hey. Yeah, that's lovely. I think you're astounding. I can't believe how well you have managed and healed from this insane once in a generation story. And as you said, it's happened a bunch of times. So I shouldn't say that. But the fact that you've not only succeeded and kept moving forward and built a family and a life that you also started your foundation and you've been very active and you've been to Congress and you are on it, you took the worst situation and seemed to have made the best possible. possible outcome from it.

Well, thank you. It's very impressive. It is extremely. And I really, really appreciate how openly you talk about all of the shame and guilt in the experience in the doc. I think it's enormously helpful. I'm glad my daughter's got to see that. I actually asked my daughter if she wanted to watch it with me.

And she was like, no. How did they compute what happened to you? They don't, right? Because you're just their parent. They only had one and that parent got abducted. That's how parents are. They know what happened. I mean, they don't know.

like details. Yeah. But they know I was kidnapped and they know I'm like, no sleepovers ever. Totally fair. Because of things. And whenever I say no to something, they're like, why? And I'm like, you know one. Yeah.

It's to keep us safe. That's so cute. Oh, safety. I'm like, that's my job. That's right. Yeah, what's the tension? Like, because I have this with my wife. I'm like, I don't like that dude.

Why does he take so many pictures of kids? Why is he a youth sports coach? She doesn't have kids. I'm like way hyper vigilant about it. all of it. And I think my wife is generally pretty tolerant of it. Occasionally she's like, you're being nuts. How does that play out? Do you guys have these kind of debates? I say I'm pretty cautious. I also remind myself, not only is it my job to keep them safe, but it's also my job to like prepare them for when they leave home, make sure that they know how to trust their gut and

work through their emotions and figure out their own problems. And so my natural instinct is to always like intervene and hovering around them. And so I would say I fight a lot against my natural instinct. Yeah, that's hard. Which it is hard. But does your husband ever have to say, Elizabeth, we're good? I'd say we're a lot on the same page. Like my son decided it'd be a good idea just to go to his friend's house for Halloween

instead of coming home first. And we didn't know. Oh, no. And that's it. No, thank you. So we were like calling the school, like calling all of his friends. And I mean, we found him. And then my husband's like, I'm coming to get you right now.

Yeah. Can you not do a Scottish accent? I would assume if you live with a Scott. That's great. Oh, that's good. Well, again, thank you so much for your openness. I appreciate it. Coming to see us.

We really appreciate it. Yeah. And the documentary is outstanding. It's incredibly well made. It's flawless. It's so good. It's called Kidnapped Elizabeth Smart January 21st on Netflix. I appreciate it.

And good luck with everything. Oh, where should people go for the Elizabeth Smart Foundation? Yeah, just go to Elizabeth Smart Foundation.org or we're on social media. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Hi, there.

This is Hermium Permian. If you like that, you're going to love the fact check, Ms. Monica. Okay, so we heard back from the New York Times, big deal. Because last week, we were talking about... Monday. Oh, yeah, Monday. We were discussing the armchair expert on connections. Yes.

And I said, you know, we don't know for sure if it's about us or if it's just a phrase. But I took matters into my own hands. I posted and tagged Wino, which is why we're here. They reached out. Hi, Rob. Hope you're well. I'm on the PR team at the New York Times and work closely with Wina Lou, the creator of connections. Actually, Wineloo.

We know that that's actually how her name is pronounced, but we just keep saying it wrong. Yeah. I saw Dax's recent Instagram story about connections, which inspired me to reach out. We're huge fans of armchair expert, and knowing that Dax is a fan of connections in New York Times games more broadly made this feel like a particularly fun and natural overlap. Anyway, they're going to send us some connections to New York Times swag, which is exciting. I think we can conclude from this that we're right. I don't know. I just don't, I need to hear it, I need proof.

I'm a fact checker, so I need to hear it from her. The horse's ass? Yeah, from Winnah herself. Well, first of all, Winnah, um, hearted it. Great. Confirmation number one for me. And then this is like, it's a done deal. I think it would, for me to feel good, it would need to be armchair expert podcast.

Okay. That's asking for, I might as well spell out our name. Well, she can only be so blatant about her. Why? Fandom, she has ethics. No, she spells out, there's, there's stars on there. What would be fun? A, I want to talk to her.

So we're going to try to talk to her. We're going to try, yeah. Second, I wonder how many other things she's a fan of that we're missing. I want to find out her list of her little fun hobbies that she's winking at. Like, how many people is win a winking at? She winks. The win a wink, they'll call it from now on. But this, okay, so this is to my broader point.

Like, sometimes she'll do categories and it'll be like, you know, What will end up being is like movie stars in horror movies. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. I don't think that means necessarily that like she's a huge fan of those people. No, for sure. If she's just trying to do a person and connect through four projects.

Yeah, yeah. But this isn't that. Maybe she thought we'd win. And so that's why she had that set. Um, maybe she went out money. She was like, e-h. She's like, how do we change it to good hang? Yeah, she thought it was going to.

be a celebratory wink. Yeah. Anyway, we do love connections. So it's just... If you had to pick between a wink from Wina on Connections or a Golden Globe, what's your pick? Oh, Winna. 100%.

Yeah, a thousand percent. Yeah. Because I like, it entered our other life. Like, it entered our real life. I know. That was our real life. It also entered our real life. It entered in a way that was like, we engage with this.

We like it so much to feel like, oh, maybe she... likes it would be great. So that was fun. Did you have a post show come down? Yeah. I think of my adren- I had an adrenaline dump, but also as I keep saying,

but I keep cutting, my mouth really hurts very badly. And when your mouth hurts... Uh-huh. And you use your mouth to make a living? Exactly. Like a prostitute or a flute player or a podcaster. Oh, I can't imagine me a flute player right now.

What about a prostitute? No, I could just use my hands. No, you have to use your mouth. No, I'm going to use my mouth. Really insist. Trust me. They would not want me to use my mouth if they saw the inside of my lip right now. It looks gross.

You're overestimating Johns in general, and that's kind of you. You are never judgmental. Yeah, but your mouth, you know, you used to talk, used to eat. That's when it's really activated. To drink, which is why I'm extremely dehydrated. Uh-huh. And because it gets so much action is. just not healing. It won't heal.

I keep biting it. It won't heal. But you had a huge output. I just want to acknowledge because I was with you yesterday. And I was like, I can tell she's had a really busy week. Like you were at, you went to six events. Lots of events. Different outfits and the stress of the interviews and the picture.

Like, I can tell yesterday it was like, oh my God, what have I been through in the last six days? But it is. It's a mixie. And I was doing that with a flu. as well. Yeah. It was a mix because it was. It was a lot of events over the course of the week, which were fun. Like, they're fun. But they, you know, I think people, I'm just going to get, you know, people look at celebrities, movie stars mainly and TV stars and stuff. And they're like, what do they have to complain about? They just go and get their makeup done and their hair done. And they wear cute outfits and they take pictures and like, like annoying for you to complain, which I get. Yeah. But it's not that easy to like, it takes a long time. These glam routines take a long time.

That's your dude. Yeah, exactly. If you're a woman, it's hours and hours. And if you have a job, as I do, you don't have other things fall by the wayside. So then there's like stress building because you're like, oh, I'm behind on this, not behind on this and I'm just sitting here getting my makeup done like, eke. Yeah, I don't think being prettier is going to help with the edit. Exactly. And then the main thing for me, and this is, this is weird because it's normally not very

cold in California. It was cold last week, very. Chili. It was cold. I was outside in a, you can't wear a jacket. Right. You're not allowed if you're a, if you're a woman. No. To wear a jacket because there are pictures. You have to stand on your tiptoes. And your purse is a fucking joke.

I was thinking this, because I'm always in this sitch with Kristen. I'm going places with her and she has this clutch. It's a joke. It's not even a thing. And so I'm holding all of her stuff. Your phone won't fit in there. You know, the fucking nicotine spray won't. So, you know, come multiple spray.

And I'm just like, why is a bigger purse ugly? What the fuck? Exactly. Why can't you have like a normal size purse on the carpet? And like in life, like you, there are big, my purse is enormous and it's, Very cute. I love it. Your medicine kit. Yeah, I have a full pharmacy in there. Your apothecary. But I can't. No, you can't. That would be a big, like, bad thing to do faux paw to bring a big purse. You bring a tiny purse. You can't wear a Coke because that covers up your outfit. And so you're also freezing cold, but have to act very, very comfortable. Oh, but I just had a breakthrough idea for you for your first billion dollar business. Okay.

You need to design a very elegant handbag that has like it's designed to hold your pharmacy. Oh, like it has individual compartments. You know, it's got like pill packets that come in there and like little sleeves. Like you put a Coke can in, but it's for pill size things. And it because generally it's just sloshing around. But if you have the whole inside was lined with like little railings to put all your pills and your bottles. I like that. And you somehow do a play on apothecary.

I don't know. I don't have it yet, but it's like apothegary, you know, it's a bag of gary or something. Bag and apothecary are mixed. Okay. And that's your new billion dollar idea. The problem is I only want one 100 million of it. Hey, this one, a little 100 million of it. I'm a person. The issue is, although I could do a good marketing campaign and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

But like, I'm the only one walking around with a pharmacy in my bag. Is it maybe as complete as yours? As complete. You know most women, when I say I need something, they have like, they have fucking Advil in their purse. Yeah. They have stuff. They have the basics. All you women have medicine in your purse.

Yes. To varying degrees. Okay. But people have the basics. But mine is extreme. And it comes. I know because I'm with other women. And people would be like, oh, I'm.

Wish I had a might all. Yeah. And then I'm like, I have it. And they're like, I didn't even know they still made those anymore. And it's like, I have it. Right. It's old, but I haven't. There's a spill.

And I'm like, here's my. tied stain stick. No one else has it. You know, I have it all. Yes. And so I need to figure out a way to convince the world that they need it all. I can men get on board too? And it's like there's also a man bag. We don't believe in medicine or carrying medicine. You know that. You know that. I know. But I've also provided from my pharmacy to men because they're like, they're so injured and hurt. I'm all over the place. Sorry, ADHDing out. But this hit me as a theory of the other. I was reading an article about that sad seasonal affected disorder. Effective.

Effective disorder. Yes. Which I suffer from. Women suffer from five acts of men. I just read this two days ago. And I started thinking, of course it is because y'all were gatherers. And you're gathering when it's sunny. And in the wintertime, there's not much to be picked.

Now, grant, I understand when we're doing a lot of other stuff. But the trips out, the exercise, the walk. the gathering, the chatting that happened in hunting gathering. All that stuff is diminished during these cold and non-harvesty months. And I think there's some connection there. That's my new theory. Okay. I like that theory.

Now, when did daylight savings start? It started, I want to, I'm going to guess, Rob, you're going to look it up, but I'm going to guess it started at the 50s and it has something to do with farming. Oh, right. Yeah. It is. Something to do with farming and some, oh, something to do with kids working before school. So I think when school got mandatory, you need a daylight to get the kids to be able to work a little bit before they went out.

What is it, Rob? All right. It was a wartime measure in 1918. For seven months during World War I, it was added in the interest of adding more daylight hours to conserve energy resources. Oh. Wow, I fucking got that way wrong. Why do we both think that thing I just said? Yeah, I heard that too.

Maybe you told me. urban legend. I think either work. Okay. No, we're here for facts, Rob. Early 70s, there was another energy crisis, and they passed a bill in Congress to make it permanent. And then Arizona said, fuck that.

And Hawaii said, fuck that. I know. And I wish California had said, fuck that. We already said fuck it. I don't know why we can't enact it. It's, we looked it up once, I forget. But, you know, I've changed my tune on it a little bit. Oh, I know.

Don't do this to me. And you may too, as you. age because I now get up earlier. And I love my favorite thing is I'm on my bed meditating. And quite often I start, it's dark. And then at the end of that 20 minutes, I open my eyes and I can see the hillside of Griffith Park is now lit up. That's nice. And I love that.

And right before daylight savings kicks in, I'm doing that whole thing in the dark. And I'm like, I'm up and it's depressing to be starting my day in the dark. But you sleep a little later. So you're never dealing with when it's dark. It doesn't get light till 7.30. You don't really know. Okay. I've been wanting to bring this up forever.

Okay. I wrote it down in my notes of fact check stuff. Great. About a month and a half ago. Okay. As you know, I cut my hair. Uh-huh. And my bathroom isn't backlit.

It's all frontlit. Uh-huh. So when I work out, I get this crazy view of stuff going on behind my head that I normally can't see. Yeah. And so I have moved to such. of scissors into the gym. Right. And so you might know that.

I trim my hair while I'm working out pretty often. I'll always trim it in two different spots. And then I get the vacuum out and I vacuum where my hair fell. Okay. But as I'm doing that, I realize I'm seeing your guys's hair everywhere.

Oh, no. Yeah, like you guys are just dumping fucking hair everywhere. And it's long as hell. And you guys never think I better vacuum that up. So I'm seeing in the gym, there's just like long hairs laying everywhere. And then I think, why can't I just leave my cuttings on the ground? But isn't that funny?

But if you think about it, there's more y'all's long, crazy hairs than my little short trimmings. But I would feel insane to leave those short trimmings, which you probably can't even see. But it's different. Why isn't it the same? Okay. It's different because our hair isn't falling out in like a big clump on the ground and there's just a big clump there. It's like one, like probably just fell out. And then, like, later over there, one will fall out.

And then after a week of that, if I look across my gym floor, there's long hair everywhere. You actually can't see any of my trimmings. But you can't. I'm not going to get a vacuum to vacuum up one hair. Thank you. You're right. I know you won't. And none of you will.

But it's insane. It's insane that mine's, like, tinier. And I'm like, of course I'm going to clean up the hair that I put on the ground. Okay, but if like when I get my hair cut, I clean up that hair. Right, because it's an enormous pile. Well, because there's, it's, it's in a pile. It's not like it's scattered around. But let's not use hypotheticals.

Let's use the one that's happening in my gym. So there's these little tiny, like I'm cutting, you know, probably a quarter of an inch off in places. But how much? Like how much? You can't see it. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Like eight hairs? You know, whatever.

I just do a snap. But my, here's my point. We're missing where we've missed the force for the choice for the, trees or whatever the same is. No, these are important questions. You can't even see where my hair is on the ground after I trim. Okay. And yet, I know I would feel insane to not get the vacuum out and vacuum where I was

standing. Because I know he just cut my hair over the floor. So are you suggesting women should carry a vacuum? A little mini vacuum. I'm just every time. Let's see how your bag turns out. If you can figure out how to get a dust buster in there without a big bulge in it, so it doesn't look like you're carrying around the.

Well, the cumulative length is probably similar, too. It probably lost, Rob. What did you say? What did we say? The cumulative length of Dax's hair versus long hair. That's not how it works. It's like if you walk through and you see a big clump. But you don't.

I just want to see it for myself to see what the, what, if I can see the hair. This is where I'm going with all of it. I'm not asking you to do anything. Okay. Okay. I'm trying to see if I could just unethically cut my hair in there and just forget about it. because there's already fucking hair everywhere. And I can see the other hair.

And no one seems to care about that. So why am I so worried about my little shavings that you can't even see? I'm questioning. I was like having a moral dilemma up there. Wow. Wondering if I'm free to just cut and run. It's your house. You can do whatever you want.

I know, but I wanted your opinion on it. I mean, look, I guess if you can't see it, you could live it. And we're living with the other hair that's very visible. Until the whole space gets vacuumed, right? Like, that's the thought. You shouldn't probably never vacuum. Well, no. But I guess then, sure, I guess you could leave it until the weekly vacuum.

I just was vacuuming. I'm like, this is kind of crazy. Why do I even do this? I can't see my hair and I see all this other hair. I have a question. Now, if you're cooking and little, like, you know, I don't know, salt gets on the floor or something, just a little bit, like a one or two. Do you vacuum it up?

Not for two grains of salt. Right. Exactly. So it's kind of like that. Like when you're cooking, it's like sometimes things get on the floor. I don't vacuum after every time I cook. I know, which we probably should, I guess. But then yeah, by the end of the week, it's like, yeah, the floor is dirty. It's crunchy. It needs. You walk in there barefoot and you've got basically seasoning, like season fries. So I think if you're comfortable with it and your family's comfortable with it, you can wait for the weekly vacuum. Oh, man. It just felt like a pointless endeavor when we were already accepting of all this two-foot-long hair that's everywhere. The issue is I think the women probably, unless it's like how I imagined it in like a big clump. Yeah.

That's bad, right? But if it's like you're saying you can't see it, I don't think I have a problem. I don't think anyone has a problem with it except you. You should see what I pull out of our drain. I call it fishing. Sure. And about once a year, I'm in the shower and I'm noticing, huh, the stuff's starting to back up a little bit. Like, the water's not flowing the way I should have time to go fishing.

And I have a fishing rod off created. It's a, it's a coat hanger unwound, and then I bent up a little hook at the bottom. I can get it down in the drain and takes a bunch of, and then I twist. Oh, yeah. And then I get it out. And Lincoln generally will join me because she likes a good, because what gets pulled out of there? I know. A whole possum.

No, it's a mouse. Like back to your water. Fear. Yeah. It's a mouse and it smells so gross and it also turns into like oil. Like somehow it's decomposing. It's always like in a black tar. I know.

I don't get that. But let me tell you something. I think you need to teach the girls in your house about hair walls. No. Yes. No, because they're not going to then clean the wall. No, they have to clean the wall. They have to, but they're not going to.

I'm like trying. There's like what they should do and what's going to happen. Okay, but would you? Okay, so then would you Dax rather have hair on the wall or the drain for you to have to pull out as a rat? If I have to pick between cleaning the wall every time I shower, no, my resentment would get. It's like, motherfuckers, you put your hair on the wall, take it then to the trash. Like, it would be a daily resentment probably. Oh, wow.

Versus once a year, I go fishing. Oh. And there is, I must admit. You like it. Well, there's a reward. Like, when you pull that rat out of there. Yeah. You're like, oh, my God.

I'm so glad it's out of that. It's the same thing. I don't understand what's going on. I need to talk to an evolutionary biologist. When you pop a great pimple, the amount I think about the moment it popped for the rest of the day. Oh, I don't have that. You don't? I just keep going back to back to the moment.

Like, there's such a wave of relief you've gotten that out. Yeah. And I'm talking to pop like a satisfying moment. It's like, oh, thank God I did that. Usually you regret it. You're like, I shouldn't do this. But occasionally it goes really well. Yeah.

Just went really well for me at the hotel. Oh, that's nice. Night before Golden Globes. And I just kept thinking. I was even thinking about it two days later. Like I just want that moment to keep happening over a pop, poop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Don't say that because then you don't, but you don't. You don't want your skin to be bad enough.

See, I think this is skin privilege personally because I don't have that because it happens enough. Like, it's not like if it goes... But still, do you not get that huge wave? In the moment, it's like, thank God it's out. Thank God. Okay, great. We get that. Yeah.

But it's the recurring thing that I think is skin privilege because, like, I know that's coming. I'm doing the opposite. I'm like, I just like hope I can get a lot of time in between the next time I have to do that. Yeah. I don't want more. But I love that moment. Interesting. So much.

There's something going on. Yeah. It's like, this isn't supposed to be here and I got rid of it. Yes. And now I look better. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. So, wait, what were we saying before? Skin.

Oh, the rat. Yeah, okay. So hair walls are great for the listener. You wash and like when you condition and it's like it's coming out. You know, it's coming out. You feel it in your, you're shedding. And you like grab it in your hands and you stick it on the wall. And then you do that throughout the shower.

It's important. This is important stuff because then you're not clogging your drain. But do you take it off the wall? Yes. Sometimes I, okay, sometimes I don't. But I live by myself. I get, that's my privilege. Did you rub boogers on your headboard?

No, I don't want to talk about burgers. I did not. I hate the hair wall too. You hate it. But you put boogers somewhere around? A Kleenex. Oh, fuck, we didn't have Kleenex. What are you guys were Rockefellers?

I would, you know what I would do? Kids, one of the kids I knew they were just rubbing it. I know. They're disgusting. I would lean over and put it on the metal railing under my bed. I don't ever see it. I want to cut this because this is so disgusting. And yes, I did that.

Okay. You put it under the railing? I put it like under the bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every kid in America must be doing this. I bet every kid's bed is just full of the book. I just flick it on the carpet. Yeah, some people do carpet.

I never did that. I wonder what age you outgrow the booger under the booger under the booker. the bed. When you can afford Kleenex. Oh. But I don't have Kleenex. I do have Kleenex by the other side of my bed, but I don't use it. Like I don't.

What are you doing with your boogers? I don't do that anymore. I don't get nearly enough boogers. I miss them so much. When you're kidding, you have boogers all the time. I never have boogers now. Maybe it's because you're, it probably is because we were picking them out. And so it was creating like more and more and more and more and more.

Like my throat clearing. Yeah. And now when you don't touch it, it's just like it's fine. Once in a blue of mind, I'm digging around. because, God, I inspect all the time. Oh, you do? I'm constantly in my nose, like, looking for one. There's never any.

Yeah, it's often on camera, by the way. And it hate me looking. You do touch your nose a lot. No, I don't. Yeah, stop. Well, my fucking nostrils, like, no, what, you know, I can put two fingers in my nose. There's no problem.

That's really, yeah, I can't do that. Well, I can almost out. I mean, I have the biggest nostrils. You remember my people, teen people magazine shoot when I was, yeah, skydiving. I looked like porky the pig. You told us about it, but we never, we couldn't find it and we shouldn't find it. No, I hope. If anyone has it, please burn it.

Yeah. Or tuck it under your booger railing under your bed. No, don't. Guys, I don't want to talk about boogers. For some reason of all, I know. For some reason of all the things, we talk about so much gross stuff. And I'm actually, I'm fine with all of it. But there is something about boogers that is disgusting.

to me. To you, yeah. And I don't know where that line is drawn. Like, why? Yeah. Probably because when I was a kid, like, boogers are the thing that makes you gross. Yeah, they're disgusting on other people, but that's just like farts. Reading so many new articles that it's really good to smell your farts.

I sent you on it and said you're going to die. No, it didn't. Not to smell them. What did it say? No. It said the gas is good for your body. To really, it says it's holding in farts is bad. I say you another one.

one. You did? Yeah, there's some chemical compound that they have figured out is good for you to breathe in. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I said you're going to die if you don't start farting and breathing them. I'm not doing it. I'd rather, I'd rather die, I guess. Oh, my God. This is where we're at. I know I've already told this, but it reminds me of the time I went to my brother's field hockey game and I was like six and I was sitting on this log. And in fact, it was a telephone pole laid on its side that was a makeshift bench and field. And I'm sitting on it and I'm watching. my brother play field hockey. Another little boy sat down next to me. He was my age. He's probably watching his brother. Yeah.

And then out of nowhere, and Robles just looking forward. And he goes, you eat your boogers. Ugh. Just, that was the icebreaker. You eat your boogers. And I didn't. I'm not judgmental of it, but I didn't eat my burgers. And I was like, no.

And he's like, no. And I'm like, no. He goes, I do. Oh. Like, he had to get it off his chest or something. Maybe I've always, Monica, I'm about to compliment my Oh, God. I've always had the skill.

Maybe people just want to tell me. You always had the skill bringing out people's vulnerabilities. I didn't even do anything. There's just something about my face where people like, look this piece of shit. I'll tell him anything when he's not going to be judgmental on me. Maybe it's your nostrils. Ding, ding, ding. Could have bad.

But what a great moment in childhood. I like that boy because you know what? After you said no, he could have said me either. Right. My brother does. That's what I was asking. Yeah, he was so into it. He was probably like, I can't wait to talk about the joy of doing this.

I can't wait to find out. this guy's doing the same thing. Like your joy of pulling out the rat from the drain. It's weird. But anyway. I do want to show you a picture of the rat. You don't want to see it. I don't like rats.

I know. No one in my house wanted to see the picture either. I was so bummed. Because I want to, that's like the closest I can get to going and killing a gazelle. Like I want my family to reward me that I was willing to do the gross thing because that's the guy's job is to like handle that stuff. So if I do it, I want everyone to go like, thank you, dad.

We didn't want to touch. that but you're brave enough to do it you know what what they would do that for what they would say thank you for is if you clean the hair wall every day okay you're still on this hair wall yes the hair wall is is important and um it's it preserves the drain sometimes it's cool like at the end of the at the end of the shower you're like oh my god like so much hair yeah and then you're like oh no i'm in perimenopause because all this hair is coming out and then you forget about that the next day and then happens again. Once you have your period and it's healthy and heavy.

Well, you still have your period during period. I know, I know. Anyway, hair wall. Do you think I could, okay, maybe I could have a product, a new product. Well, I was just going to say, why don't you have a suction cup with a little bucket on there? Right. That you put the whole hair in there. Yeah, it's just like more fun.

Because it's not even about, it's efficient. It's efficient because you're just like, you're doing this. And then you just- She's running her hands through her hair. Because my eyes are closed because of the water. Uh-huh. Are you going to have duck and do this in your new fancy bathroom? Of course.

Oh, my God. I'm not going to clog up the drain in my new fancy. That's true. And the primary bath has blue tiles. So I bet my black hair on that blue tile would be so nice. Oh, yeah. Really nice. I have a humongous thing.

I have to pause this. I thought we were doing this tomorrow. So I had prepared for this, but now I'm remembering. I have something enormous. Can you give me one second? Yeah. Okay, I'm back. Okay.

Groot. What happened? Got fan mail. Oh, wow. Hi, Gru. And Delta is so pumped. Oh, my God. She's becoming a sketch mom.

I came home yesterday and I said, where's Delta? And Kristen said, she's upstairs because Groot got fan mail. And they were up there going through the fan mail together. What is it? Groot was sent by Joseph Lopez a book. Oh, wow. Yes, it's called Mave and Charlie Meet the Neighbors. It's about a dog and I guess that's a squirrel or chipmunk or ring-tailed lemur.

I'm not good at the lesser panda. As you know. But he got his first bit of fan mail. Was there like a new letter than you? And now Grut is, he's famous. Oh, my God, Groot. And he hasn't acted the least bit different, but this book has been dedicated to Groot. It says for Gru, much love.

That is so cute. Joseph Lopez, thank you. That's so sweet. This made everyone's day. This is so sweet. I am a little, I'm concerned. I already predicted this in my head. What's your concern?

He's a kid. He's handling it so well. He doesn't act it entitled at all. Not yet. completely humble. He's humbled by the gesture. He's more humble post-fan mail than pre-fan mail. Okay. I just, you know, it's like child stars is a tricky thing. It is a tricky thing. But if you've got great parents who have been through this. That's true. That's helpful. You mean great-grandparents. Grandparents. I'm his grandpa. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, his grandpa who he lives with, though.

Right, but you're his grandpa. Okay. I'm his only male in his life and he really looks up to me because he's a boy and tree. I mean, I guess since you did drugs, maybe you could talk to him. Yeah. But like I just, what ones are good? See, that's my worry. No, he's not, as you know, he has a lot of different challenges because his cardiovascular system is half tree, half boy. Yeah. He breathed carbon dioxide and oxygen. Yeah. So I don't think he should inhale anything. Yeah. I want him to do anything. I wouldn't mind that he does mushrooms and expands his mind. As a kid. As a kid. No. When he's an adult.

I know. So you need to talk to him about that because he's going to have the opportunity young. Because he's famous. Yes. And drugs are going to come to him. But he's not Drew Barrymore. He's not going to nightclubs. He just is here at the house.

I'm just worried he'll start sneaking out. Hanging out with other celebrity kids. Celebrity kids now. I feel like when we were young, there were so many celebrity kids. And I don't feel like there's a lot now. Yeah. There were the stranger things kids. Yeah.

But now they're adults. You're right. Do you say you saw one that he was hot? Yeah, he's hot. Fuck. Yeah, he's not a kid anymore. He's 33. No, the adolescent boy, the boy from adolescence.

Yes. He's a child star. A kid star. I think he's won every award they make. Exactly. Yeah, who else? What happens is a few child stars go AWOL and then we just think all child. But look, I was friends with Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo.

All the ones I knew have done. done just fine. Yeah, that's true. Okay, this brings up my last point. I'm done with points. Okay. The more that the film business has eroded, which it has so dramatically. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The Oscars means less and less and less. I was even thinking, like, who even comes now? You got like two good movies that I remember, or four good movies. Well. It's really like more and more that show's going to mean nothing. Hmm. Because of the movies that are getting made, they're like big spectacle movies.

And then there's a couple movies no one sees. There's not like this huge, you know, treasure trove of $35 to $60 million movies that were made. You know, your Michael Clayton's, all these incredible movies that we all love. They don't exist. There's really tiny independent movies. And then there's a couple big movies. And just all in all, it means less and less. And yet that's still somehow got the most cachet.

And it makes less and less sense now. Like, are they going to use, are they going to incorporate TV or what? Well, no, I still think it used to, it used to still kind of be that. Like, there would be indie, there'd be, you know, critical darlings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then one or two, like, big movies. And I think that's going to happen, that's going to happen this year. But the point is, is in 2004, there were 35 movies that all did well that everyone saw, that big stars were in.

Yeah. And now there's about five. I mean, just really has just quantity has shrank by 85%. And it was a real shootout. It's like right now it's like, you know, it's really between a couple movies. There's only a couple of big great movies. It means less and less. But it's, I guess then it's like getting into that club, like being a critical darling.

But at what point do we're like, like certainly viewership, like no one's even seen the couple movies that they're going to have up there. You know, back then, you like, you had a bunch of favorite movies. You saw 10 excellent movies that year. You wanted to see which one was going to win best picture. And it's like, right now, it's like you either want Marty Supreme or one battle after another. Like, there's your 50-50 shot.

Well, no. I mean, Hamnet won the Golden Globe and people really like that, but also is supposed to be so sad. Yeah. And, you know, train dreams. People like it. It's just, well, also, Train Dreams is on Netflix.

So it's like that's confusing. Will that be at the Academy Awards? I don't think so. No, of course. Yeah, it was in theaters. But again, it's a, it's a, it's a joke release to get to qualify for that. It's just not, it wasn't in 3,000 theaters the way it would have been in the early 2000s. I don't think that matters necessarily.

Like sentimental value also will be nominated. Great movie. No other choice. Yeah, I haven't seen that. This amount of movies came out in one month in 2002. Right. Like from September to December, there was 15 well-funded, beautifully shot, podium-seeking films. And so are they going to either invite in what people are watching, which is TV?

Oh, sinners will be. Sinners, yeah. That's true. That's a good one. You know, will they, will they widen their neck? Because they're getting less and less relevant. Maybe. People aren't gathering around talking about movies.

Like Hamnet's probably amazing. People in Oklahoma are not at the supermarket chatting about it right now, guarantee it. But people were at the supermarket talking about many of the movies that were coming out in the 2000s. The way they're now at the supermarket talking about Stranger Things. Right. And every other great show that's out. Yeah, maybe.

I don't know. I don't know. What's the most popular movie box office-wise this past year, 2025? Wicked. Right, which we'll probably get a nomination. Sinners. What was in the box office category? They have that now.

See, they were smart enough to add that. They're like, okay, this thing has changed. So we've got to recognize what's working. Whereas to me, the Academy Awards is just like, no, we're this thing. It's very prestigious, but it's meaning less and less and less. And I just wonder if they're going to evolve. Minecraft, Lilo and Stitch, Superman, Jurassic World, and Zootopia, too.

So all franchises virtually. Superman, good for our friend. James Gunn. Friend of the pot. Yeah, I like James Gunn. Yeah, that was a great episode. And the Emmys now, people want to know the Emmys. They have 10 favorite shows.

Right. The Emmys is what the Academy Awards was. You said 2004 Oscars. Yeah, what do we got? Let's look. Okay, best picture nominees. Master and Commander. Huge movie.

I didn't see it. And original. Not a franchise, not ice. P. Master and Commander the far side of the world. I have to sneeze, but it's not coming. Sea Biscuit. Oh, original, huge. Movie stars. Losson Translation. Oh, Bill Murray. Scarjo. Okay. What a movie. These are all so low, though, on the box office.

See? No, not the first two. 33 for Master and Commander. Okay. What was the second one? Sea biscuit. Sea biscuit. Two hundred million dollar movie. Okay, so one. See, Biscuit did not make $17 million. No, no, it made $120. 17th rank-wise.

17th in the box office that year. Still, hundreds of millions of dollars globally. But he's saying on the lit, like, it's not just the best, the biggest movies. It's usually not correlated. You're just saying more people saw it. It's more than that. The movies were well-funded. They're visually stunning.

The craftsmanship they have the budget for. The quality of the movies has fallen. I disagree. with you on that. I think the movies that were nominated this year are very high quality and good. Whether people see them or not, I don't know. But they are good movies. What's the budget of Hamnet? See if you can find that. Or any of these, really, other than one battle got a budget, and that's because of Leo. 30 to 35 million. For Hamnet? For Hamnet, yeah. That's not tiny. That's not terrible, but it's not great. I mean, generally these.

These high-end dramas were like 40 to 60. It doesn't matter. Okay. Anyway, also Lord of the Rings is on there. Okay. I mean, come on, Lord of the Rings. And then Mystic River. Yeah, Sean Penn.

Fucking Clint East. No. Yeah. Yeah. But they were like, yeah, people went, just people went to the movies more. Yeah. And so people were invested. So, like, they had fallen in love with that movie.

And then they want to see if it's going to win. But I think with Netflix and stuff, like, people are still seeing it. They're just seeing them in their house. And great. Yeah. So what I'm saying is instead of doing this like fake, we're going to release it in 13 screens for one weekend so we qualify.

That's just a loophole. We would acknowledge. The real distribution is on Netflix. Sure. So just if you're the Academy Awards, even if you don't want to include TV, forget this fucking distribution thing. Right. Include the ones that there's other great movies on other streamers that didn't do the theatrical distribution.

Amazon wouldn't put out Roadhouse on Five Theater so they could be, you know, there's a lot of these movies, but they're not even playing that game. Yeah. So it's like Academy Wars, how about you fucking get over this distribution thing? So just to get more, I mean, if they want to save this thing. Right. I guess that's true. I, um, but I like that they're putting movies into theaters. I, I saw a, I saw a fair amount of movies last year.

Let me be clear. I wish everything was, I wish it were 2000. Yeah. But because it's not. Yeah. That's not what's happening. Why watch the Academy Awards? Yeah, they're probably going to need to...

That's my whole point. Add in the streamers. They're going to have to do something, yeah. Yeah. Okay, I just look up 2000. This is like now fun. Okay, yeah, what's happening in 2000? Okay, cider house rules.

Great. I didn't see that. 45th. Toby. But again, Rob, even 45th is 60 times more box office than any movie that's nominated other than one battle. Do we have that? And Marty Supreme's doing well.

It is because of that kid. Right. Timmy. I admire how much he worked to get that movie to work. He did. He pushed hard. Then we have Green Mile. Great movie.

Tom Hanks. Sam Rockwell, friend of the pot. Yeah, he was great, crazy. That's a great movie. Sixthense. Oh, my God. Great movie. Breakthrough movie.

Such a good movie. The Insider. Oh, yeah, Michael Man. I didn't see it. So good about the Philip Morris 60 minutes debacle. I'll watch it. Can you guess?

Can you, okay, I'll give you a hint. Okay. See if you can guess the last movie. It's all, it's, this is a, this is a tough year. They were all tough. That's my point. I guess you're right. I guess you're right.

This movie is scandalous. Oh, eyes white shot. No. It has, it had someone in it who's now been canceled. Kevin, whatever his fucking name is. Spacey. Spacey. The big one.

Seven? No. No. Usual suspects. No. Scandalous. Is this where he got sexually harassed at work by Demi Moore? No.

That's Michael Douglas. There's two women. Oh, sexy women? And, well, there's three women. Are they also? I think I know what it is. You know what it is? What is it?

American Beauty? Yes. Good job. Great movie. I love that movie. What about 98? God, did I love American Beauty? That is such a good movie.

Oh, oh. Oh. Oh, God. Okay. We're going to have to cap it here. I want to do one more. I know. Maybe this will be a runner we do. Okay, but can I do one more? Yeah, yeah, do one more. That's why I said here's where we cap it. Okay, because I just did a random year. I didn't even think about it. Go to a hunting. Oh, I know this. I should know. This is 96. This is 98, which I also thought was too late. God, I thought I... I know. It's weird. I'm very confused by that. Okay, hold on. Let me now. Now I'm nervous, but this is. what AI. No, 98's right. Okay.

This year, this year is so hard. Goodwill Hunt team. Titanic, as good as it gets. Oh, James Al. A. Fucking great movie. Yes. The Full Monty.

Oh, show it. An L.A. Confidential. Fuck. This is a... Man, Russell Crow was on fire. Yeah, he was. This is an impossible year. I guess he was.

God, you are, you're right. All these years we're putting in, all the movies, at least three movies are like, nail bites. How will we know? I know. Yeah. Yeah. It's different.

It's insanely different. And now you're like, I don't know. Yeah, there's. Because even if you want, like, I want it to be sentimental value because that movie is so beautiful. And there's also a movie called Sorry Baby that I think is incredible. But they're smaller. Like they definitely, yeah. The things that would have been at the Independent Spirit Awards that year.

And they would have been in the smaller, you know. Or they might have made it in, but it would have been like, wow. The point is there were studio movies that were phenomenal. Now there's only indie movies that are phenomenal. That's the point I'm trying to make. We got there. Oh, God. Love you.

Let's do some facts. Okay. This was wild. Yeah, it's one of those. We have like five or six a year where after the interview, every single person that bumps into me is going to hear the entire story. Because I think, like, most, I don't think we were alone and not knowing all the twists and turns of this case.

Yeah. I mean, the fact that she interacted with law enforcement, he got arrested while she was in captivity, all this stuff is like, if you were watching it in a movie, you might call bullshit. I know. I've also since watched the dock. Uh-huh. And, you know, we talk in depth on the episode, which is amazing, but there's a lot more

in the dock, like, a lot more little pieces where you're like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah. So, like, watch it. Oh, God. watch that. It's, it is so... You need to see all the visuals.

Like, them in the white outfits is so creepy. Oh, my God. I was talking to my mother, because I was very inclined to share her parting message in the dock. Mm-hmm. As my mother is also a survivor. And so she's laying in bed with her boyfriend, Dan, when I'm FaceTiming her.

And he's like overhearing me talk about this whole thing. And she, and he goes, because he lived in Salt Lake during that time. Oh, my God. And he said, my ex-wife and I saw them. No. Yeah, we saw the three people in the white outfits.

And we were like, what is wrong? What's going on? Stop it. Yeah. I wonder if I saw them if I, I mean, no, but like, what are you going to do? Call, what are you going to do? Call the police every time you see something that looks a little weird. Like, you can't.

You can't. You can in this city. Yeah, it's a tricky line. I don't know. No, I'm not going to act like I would have somehow done something. But the thing I get yelled at a lot for, if there was a girl missing, I saw a girl covered head to toe. I think I would, you know, like, I think I would because I don't mind confrontation. Right. But you know what's weird in that picture? Rob just showed a picture.

And like, because she's so covered, it's hard to tell that she's. a young girl. I don't think it is. I mean, all you see. It's just so useful that I, that whole eye section, forehead without a single wrinkle. I mean, I bet there's a lot of people insult, like, that feel bad that they saw them around. Well, that was about to be my question. Do you think Dan's like, oh, fuck.

Like, I wish I had done something. But you can't do that because, like. No, well, I don't think he thought Elizabeth smart as much as he thought, who are these freaks in our town? Exactly. That are walking around like it's the 1600s. Exactly. He didn't connect the dots like, oh, that might be Elizabeth smart. Because then maybe he would feel.

Anyone who, look, any human with a conscious that then learns what happened to her that knows they could have intervened is going to feel guilty, I think, some level of guilt. Yeah. But you'd have to have the inclination that like, oh, do we, do I think maybe that's that girl? Yeah. Okay, I guess I won't think about it again. Then you'd feel bad. But I, what I'm saying is in this city, for this was happening now and it was this city.

Yeah. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. There's so many people looking crazy. I mean, just being honest. Like, I wouldn't know what was what. I wouldn't. I don't, you know what I mean.

I do know what you mean, but for me, this is different. This is, when you cover a woman's face, oh, you're not Muslim. But I guess we might have to assume they like are. Well, they don't wear all white. That's true, yeah. So, and there'd be. white. I know, but people convert. Yeah, people convert. That to me looks pretty distinctly different. That to me looks like when I went to Colorado City, Arizona to a Warren Jeff's

fundamentalist compound, you know, I went there three times and drove around that thing. And it's, it's immediately wrong. Yeah. The women are dressed as like pioneer people. The the rate of kids that have genetic issues is so unignorable. Yeah. It is like a movie. Yeah. And it's not my place to go into their community per se. But yeah, for me, if women are being subjugated, yeah, I'm like, it's on.

And I think if you're walking around with one dude and he's got four women covered head to toe and they're not Muslim, I'm not cool with that. I'd have to hear the scenario where everything was honky dory there. Right. I've yet to hear the scenario where that was like a good thing. This harkens back to our last fact check, which is like, you have an idea of what's right and wrong for you. Uh-huh. But we can't really put our right and wrongs on other people unless someone's being hurt. That's right.

Which she was. That's right. But Hezabah wouldn't say she was being hurt. She wouldn't say she was being her, but she was being her. By our standards. So this is where things get very slippery. Well, they get into autonomy and liberty. Yeah.

You have the liberty to be subjugated if you choose, which is interesting. Like, yeah. But I mean, yeah, if you can tell this as a kid. But at the same time, to pretend we can't delineate the difference between these things, I think, is also a lie. Like, I think when men are abusing people, I'm, I don't. think that's terribly subjective. I don't think clitorectomies are subjective. I don't either, but I think you would say in anthropology in areas, like that is a part of their culture, and you can't really have a judgment on that. And this was my pretty big issue by the end of

my anthro degree is I was like, I think it serves an incredible, an imperative tool to walk in without any goal of judging so that you can actually learn and understand. But we have learned and understood now what the clitorectomy is about. Yeah. And that is to deny women pleasure so they don't cheat on their husbands. Yeah, that's horrifying. And you can suck a dick. I have no, you know, I can't, I'm not a moral relativist when it comes to hurting little girls.

Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's like at what point is it like once they turn 18, once it's like, you know, again, there's some blurry weird it's hard it is obviously yes i mean i think i think that children have to be protected to the fullest extent but i don't know if you saw that if you're just like that's i don't know it's so crazy it's so horrible i can't believe she was just walking around and people were walking around she was stuck like that and so scared to like oh it's horrible i think a tricky could get into is when I look back at myself at these different ages, I think I'm older than I was.

And I think that's pretty common for people. You're kind of using your modern mind to think about what you were. But because I have a 12-year-old, it is just crystal clear to me what that experience would be like for her. And it's so gruesome. It's just terrible. It's so terrible. That's so terrible. Yeah. But she's amazing. No, the fact that Elizabeth is, functioning and walking around, and not only functioning, but thriving and as a family, as productive, is like so one in a million for this scenario. It's so aspirational and admirable and, yeah. Okay, a couple facts.

Also, you asked me, you were like, was that part of why you were so scared of kidnapping? Yeah. But when I was thinking about the timeline, no, because she's my age and that I was in... You're done with that by 14? Yeah, or I was still scared, but it's... it started when I was five or something. But you know what's also really upsetting is like when I was first scared of kidnapping and it was in my prayer and stuff, robbers and kidnappers.

I like Polly Class that she was one of the first ones that was kidnapped and that I was young for that. I don't recognize that. Oh, it happened in San Francisco and she was kidnapped and it was, I think like a birthday party or something. Yeah. Horrible. A slumber party at 12.

Yeah. My mom was like obsessed with the polyclass thing. So she was a little infected too with the fear? Yeah. She was scared. And then it, you know, came trickled down effect. Sure. Trickle on economics to me.

It works. And then we were in San Francisco for my mom's work and like there were signs for her up. Oh boy. But I was so, you know, you do forget to your point when you're like, you think you're older. I didn't know about rape. Looking back, I can only assume that I just thought, like, they just take you and keep you and you're their kid now or something.

Right. Maybe they spank you or a lot or something. Yeah, but I had no idea what it really meant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the kidnapping's really just. The beginning. Yeah.

Ugh. Okay. Now, okay. Kidnapping Statistics, 2012. two versus now. There are many factors, stats involved in this that it's hard to find a simple answer, but from AI, kidnapping statistics, particularly for children, show that while public perception in 2002 was heightened due to high-profile cases, the actual number of abductions by strangers

has remained relatively low and stable or even decrease over the past two decades. I think social media and smartphones has to have an impact on the decline. I don't think you could get away with it for as long. That's what I said after she left. I was like, I don't think that could happen today in the same way. In the same way. Okay, so total missing children reports in 2002, around 725,000 children were reported missing annually to law enforcement.

And then in recent years, approximately 2004, missing person files for all ages in the U.S. in 2024, although this is still under the children thing. And also missing persons, like, your kid didn't come home from a night out and you report it. It says it's over 533,000. The FBI reported a 40% drop in total missing children cases between 97 and 2014. Okay. Also, could you type in what percentage of kidnappings are from a relative or known person, friend or? A significant majority of child kidnappings involve family or acquaintances, not strangers,

with older data from the Department of Justice showing 49% by family members, 27% by acquaintances, and 24% by strangers. That's actually higher than I thought. It is higher than I would have thought, too. So almost a quarter. Yeah. I bit my lip yesterday really, really bad. And so now it's like, it's like so huge.

And now I'm talking about. You're upper or you're lower. Lower. Interesting. Because I was looking at your upper lip and I was like, did you get a little injection? Oh, no, I did not. Oh, wow. Congratulations.

That's the goal. Like I saw in a comment, some woman wrote, you have to stop wearing eyeliner. You? Yeah. And I wrote, I don't wear eyeliner, but thank you for the compliment. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, you said alarm systems work in doorways, windows using magnets.

Yeah, when the contact of the magnet breaks, it sets off the alarm. That is correct. Well, those are the facts. Those are the facts, Jacks. Well, that was an incredible episode. I'm so, I'm so grateful she came here. Me too. And, oh, my God.

And she's just able to talk about it and help people. Like, it's so helpful. And, you know, we have a handful of people like that. Like Amanda Knox and even, like, Monica Lewinsky, who are just, like, decide to put their own trauma kind of aside for, in order to help other people. And it's like. It's not easy. No.

And it's, like, we. have to just be so grateful for it. Yeah. All right. Love you. Happy thousandth. Happy thousand. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.