Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Eva Benefield (on surviving the Black Swan Murder)

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Eva Benefield (Ghost Girl: Surviving the Black Swan Murder) is a writer, entrepreneur, and founder of Ghost Cowboy. Eva joins Armchair Expert to discuss growing up in the Charleston Lowcountry, finding her mother dead at 14, and losing her father in the notorious Black Swan case. Eva and Dax talk about reclaiming her story through darkly funny TikToks, building an apparel company one drawing at a time, and writing a memoir while still living through its aftermath. Eva explains why humor can be a survival mechanism, how creation became her answer to destruction, and why she couldn’t depend on a verdict to give her closure.Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/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. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today we have Eva Benefeld on and she is a true crime survivor, author, influencer, and founder of Ghost Cowboy Apparel. She has a new memoir out called Ghost Girl Surviving the Black Swan Murder. So Eva is the daughter of the victim of the Black Swan Murder.

This is a wild story. The wildness had begun long before the official wildness. Yes, and you get to hear all about it. She's been through everything. Please enjoy Eva Benefield. Thank you. I'm Dax. How are you?

Thank you. Sorry, I know you were early. Sorry we've made you wait. I was like early once today. I was late to the airport this morning. Oh, no. My layover was 10 minutes. Oh, no.

I don't know how it happened. It said 53 minutes. I was like, okay, I have time. Oh, that's so stressful. I wasn't stressed out until I realized that we were boarding when I got there. And then I was like, well, I'm not going to be stressed anymore. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, geez. Yeah, I woke up late this morning and New York wasn't bad. LaGuardia wasn't bad. And then I think I flew into LAX maybe once before. Oh, really? Yeah, because I used to go to San Diego a lot, but I haven't really spent a lot of time here. Are you going to be here for a little bit? No. Go back to Charleston tomorrow.

We don't get to play around. Did I miss? Did you fly in today? I flew in today from New York. I flew into New York yesterday. Okay. You flew Charleston, New York yesterday. Here, Charleston. What time did you take off? I took off at five, no, we boarded at $5.50. Oh. New York? That's $2.50.

This is miserable. Do you feel terrible? So I woke up at $4.15 yesterday to get the airport to go to New York. Okay. I got to bed at like $10.30 last night. But I woke up at 4.15 and I was like, I have 20 more minutes. I'm just going to sleep until, you know, the driver texts me. Did not. It was 5.15 because I was waking up all night like, oh, my God, I have to go.

Yeah. I hate that feeling. And you recently slept in past jury duty, too. That was a couple years ago. So you did your research. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you kind of have a pattern of, yeah, yeah. Actually, no, I don't.

I wake up at 5 or 6 every day. Wow. I do? My hatch alarm clock. Yeah. Oh, and it looks. It gets me up. What's a hatch alarm clock?

It's life-changing. Tell me about it. Let's do an ad for them, right? Yes, I would love that. It's just an alarm clock, and it's a sound machine, too, because I love my rainstorm. Yeah. And then it lights up over the course of, like, 10 or 15 minutes, and it gets brighter and the music gets louder and louder, and then you wake up.

Gently. A gentle wake up. Well, my fear would be the proverbial frog in hot water being brought to a boil. You know that old adage? Yeah. That if you slowly and incrementally raise the loudness, I might just get used to it as I was sleeping. Does that make sense? Yeah.

As opposed to being like hit and shaking out of. I know, but it's bad for your system to get like woken up. Oh, I'm scared. You know, wake up with some of cortisol. Sometimes now I wake up before it starts really going on. Oh, you do. I'm used to it. Do you pick a song or is it a sound you wake up to?

It's a sound. I have retro alarm clock. Oh, nice. Oh, okay, so it is a little. Yeah. Yeah, it'll get your attention. Eva, right? Yes, Eva.

I'm dyslexic, so I'm like, yeah, that's definitely Eva, but then I'm like, also, who knows? I just don't know. I get all variations. And when I see Eva, I hear Eva. Did you like that? That was a big elementary school thing. Do people plague you on the playground with saying Eva like that? Oh, yeah.

They did. Yeah. This is like Monica was trying to hide her Indianness, and then Beckham came out, which you're two and all about, but it was a huge movie about a young Indian girl in England learning to play soccer. And it really exposed me because it was like, oh, she looks like that girl, so she must be Indian. She wants to be a great soccer player. Yeah, obviously. So you grew up in Charleston.

You're born in 2001? Yes. The book, one of the characters is kind of the low country is what we call it. Yeah, yeah. Explain the low country to us. Have you ever been there or anywhere in the low country? I've been to Charleston solo so long ago, but yes, I've been there once. And it feels like you're time traveling.

It's like the most charming. It does. It's kind of like the beach, but we have the beach there too, but it's marsh. It's not rocks. And the only rocks we have are the jetties, and that's for sediment moving and stuff. And then you smell pluff mud at low tide. You can hear little fiddler crabs rolling around everywhere. And you'll see mud minnows.

And it's just serene and quiet and peaceful. and hot and humid and it's beautiful. And historic as hell it's probably like among the oldest cities still thriving. Oh yeah.

Is it Is it? Is that near it? Is that near it? Yeah, that's where I live. Oh, that's where you live. You live there. Yeah. Where does Danny McBride live?

So he lives on Sullivan's. My favorite restaurant's on Sullivan's. He also frequents there so I'm seeing him all the time. Is it exciting? Kind of. I mean, everybody that's local like, oh, it's Danny.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you know Bev and Bob Miller? No, I don't think I do. That would be so cool. I mean, they live an aisle of palm. I feel like I'm saying it wrong. Welcome to my word.

I know. Every time I say a word. You can say IOP and I'll know the reference. IEP. Okay, perfect. Yes, that's one of my best friends growing up parents and they moved there 10 years ago. They love it so much. I'm sure if I was running around, if you showed me a picture, I would see them.

Yeah, because it's small, right? It's small. and I'm an avid runner, so I will run into people in like Mount Pleasant or downtown. And if I talk to them, I'm like, oh, yeah, I live on all the palms. We're like, oh, my God, I've seen you running out there. I'm like, yeah, that's me probably. You're like the local forest gum. I think so, yeah.

So you have a pretty idyllic childhood at the start, yeah? Yeah. Tell me about your relationship with mom and dad. I know they differ, but yeah, just tell me about that a little bit. Brought up like any other southern household. It was loving. It was my mom was just a sweetheart and gentle and kind, wouldn't her to fly. And she talked a lot.

My dad was very quiet, very chill. So she was talking all the time, and he would just let Renee talk, church every Sunday. And just, you can't complain. Brothers and sisters? Two half-brothers. So they're 14 and 11 years older than me on my mom's side. Got it. So she had already had a marriage?

Yes. Again, I didn't grow up in the South. I grew up in the heathiness North. Divorce was like, who wasn't? Was that an issue? I think so. My mom's side of the family didn't really like the idea of it because divorce is just not, especially when you're a very avid churchgoer.

It's kind of frowned upon. And I also still, to this day, don't really know all of the things about that marriage, about what they thought of my dad. I also don't get to see them very often. They're upstate South Carolina. But I also, I think it's just been kind of hush, hush. Nobody wants to talk about it. So it's just the elephant in the room sometimes.

Yeah. And you were so young when she died that I'd imagine, too. There would have been many, many conversations about her previous life, in her opinion when you were old enough to, like, understand all those details. Right. But also in the South, you don't really talk about your dirty laundry. I'm from Georgia. There's just a lot of, like, we're sweeping that under the rug and not really, back then anyway.

It's still now. When I was young, my mom, she was very picky about the moms that she would hang out with. And I would always ask why, because I would have friends, and she really wouldn't hang out with their moms. She was like, you'll get to an age where you'll understand. And one day I got to the age where I understand. It's like once everything happened with my dad, I could hear the parents talking. I could understand and pick up on, especially in Charleston, South Carolina,

it's a little pretentious sometimes. Yeah, totally. We can sweep things under the rug very easily if we have to. Yeah. Okay, so tell me about the morning when you're 14, you're fixing to go to school. And you and mom have a little disagreement. Tell me about that morning. So I was a brat.

Okay. I was a wheel. Yeah, I mean, I was 14. I was moody. My dad was out of town. My mom was taking me to school. She was a talker. And I just did not want to talk.

So we were in the car and I just was kind of being a brat. And she dropped me off and I got out of the car and she was like, love you. And I slammed the door and I walked inside. And I also now realize I had very bad anxiety going to school. I didn't know that it was anxiety until later. But every morning it was like a stomachache and kind of shaky. and I didn't realize until now. I'm like, oh, that was freaking out a little bit every day before school.

So I was just kind of in my own little world, slammed the door, went to school. That was that. What was happening at school, do you suppose, that was giving you anxiety? So I just switched from a smaller school to it's the second largest school in South Carolina. Oh, wow. So it was a big culture shock. I was private up until middle school. I went into a smaller public school for middle school, but it was still just a huge change seeing all of that.

So I think it was that a little bit that just kind of threw me for a loop every day. Yeah, a humongous high school. Yeah. That is scary. So after school, you're expecting mom to pick you up. That was the routine. And she did not answer her phone. I was waiting at the carpool line and she has a tendency to be late.

She could have been late to her own funeral and it would have been normal. So I was like, I'm going to give her some grace. But then 30 minutes went by and still nothing. I tried calling her. I tried texting her and just nothing. At no moment where you're like, oh, I slammed the door, she's teaching me a lesson. Was there any part of your brain that was like, oh, maybe she didn't pick me up on purpose? No, my mom was never one to hold a grudge.

I probably had texted her earlier that day. I know I was texting in the group chat with her and my dad first period that day. So I didn't think she was holding anything against me for that moment. Right. Yeah. So how did you get yourself home? A friend from the private school, she switched to that school too. I was like, hey, can you get me right home?

because my mom's nowhere to be found, so her and her mom took me home. And when do you start getting nervous when you get home? I show up to the front door because I didn't have my key, knocked on the door. She didn't answer. And every spring and every fall, she loved fashion. She had so many clothes. She had two of the same item and almost every single thing. Some with tags on it still, like a problem.

Was her name Monica Padman by chance? Yeah, exactly. Switch her closet out. She had a huge walk-in closet. it and then she'd put everything in tubs and she would be up until two, three in the morning. Yeah. Switch your closet out. Yeah.

It's almost wintertime. We got to get the fur out. Oh, yeah. So I was like, okay, maybe she's just sleeping because she's not answering. And I went knocked on the door, didn't hear anything back. And at that point, my friend's mom was like, hey, let's just go get some dinner and then come back. So we went to Chick-fil-A, sat down, got some dinner. Wow.

You left. Mm-hmm. Went back. Still nothing. And the house, their room was to the left of the front door behind some. behind some bushes. So I went and I crawled into the bushes and their lights were off, but also still not that unnormal because my mom hated overhead lights. She liked natural lights. So I was like maybe it's getting darker out. So she just wants a circadian rhythm. And I saw kind of

a silhouette and I didn't really want to make anything out of that. But I went to my friend's mom and I was like, hey, something's wrong. I think we need to get in the house. I mean, it was just us three girls. So we went across the street to the neighbor. And the neighbor he and his wife came out and he's a huge, tall dude, and went and just busted the door down. Are you first to go in, I'd imagine, at your house? I went in briefly, and I kind of looked and I went back out and my neighbor went back in. My dog, Sully, he was the sweetest golden retriever you'll ever meet in your entire life, was mean. He was being mean to my neighbor. So he came out and said, hey, Eva, you need to come get Sully.

He'll bite me. Oh. And so I went and I got Sully, and that's when I saw my mom. So I took Sully out and my neighbor. I waited a few minutes. My neighbor came back out and just shook his head at my friend's mom and his wife. And so that's when I kind of knew, okay. Something happened.

Things not good. Oh, no. How sweet of Sully, though, that he was like, she can't protect herself right now. I kind of keep everyone away from her. I've never seen him like that. And to this day, he's never, never been like that again. Yeah. So what is it like to find mom that is terrifying? Is your first hope? Like, we just need to get her to go to a hospital. Did you like run in when they were shaking their head? No, I didn't want to see that. I just knew, you know, at that point.

If you hadn't answered anything, if she was even mildly unconscious, she probably would have came to eventually. Right, right. I had a gut feeling and I knew. So I just kind of got up because instinctually, I think everybody started calling my sister-in-law and 911 and everything. I was like, I know what's about to happen. I don't want to see the gurney. I'm going to go to the other house. Yeah. Yeah. So, went across the street, sat down.

Oh. Had she had any health scares prior to that? No. You know how greens powders are a big thing now? Yeah. She was on that in the 90s. Oh, really? She was healthy, always working out, always going on runs and walks, drinking her protein shakes, you know, like the Quest chips.

She was having a special order those from the old brand that used to own it. Oh, my gosh. She was into Quest Chips back then. Yeah, I remember I was like five or six. She was going on Advocare.com and getting Quest trips from Advocate. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Yeah. Always very, very healthy. Yeah, crazy unexpected. So that was just the furthest thing from what I thought would happen. And she had 75% blockage in an artery. Is that the conclusion? Yeah. So she had a heart attack and died. Yep. And you're 14 and you're at a new school and your dad's out of town. How long does it take for him to get home? He got home. He got home. It was middle of the night that night.

It was the same day. Yeah, my sister-in-law and my mom's ex-husband came to pick me up. And so we went over to my brother's house, and I did my homework and went to bed, and then my dad woke me up probably two or three in the morning. Were you in a state of shocked at that moment? I think so. I don't think I really ever had, like, a full grief moment. I think that I was just so shocked.

And I was out of school for three days. That was a Wednesday. I was out Thursday, Friday, went back Monday. Wow. Just tried to get back to normal. And were people urging you not to do that? Not really. My dad and my brother and my sister-in-law were just kind of like do what you want to do.

Yeah, right. And how was your dad taking it? He, I think, held it together for me. I didn't see him really break down until her funeral, which was a couple days later. But that was the only time I saw him break down. And he would console me when I came to him about it. and just say, I miss her too. I don't think that he wanted to show me that he was mourning.

So I think he wanted to stay strong. Yeah. How did you and Dad's relationship evolve after? So we were already pretty close. I was always kind of tagging along the lows and helping with house projects and doing whatever. And we just got even closer. That was like nine months of pure fun.

He kind of did whatever I wanted to do. Yeah, you kind of have leverage at that point. Yeah. So, I mean, I remember I had been begging to go to say. San Diego for so long. And I think a month after that, he was like, so guess what? We're going to San Diego. Yeah.

No way. He's like anything I can do to help cheer her up. Yeah. And also just let's live life. Were you carrying any guilt over your last exchange? That weighed on me for a little bit. And I mean, the more I talked to my dad about it too, because he knew that was something. I can't keep a secret.

I can't tell a lie. So I just immediately went to him. I was like, this is the last interaction we had. And he was like, you know that that is not what. your mom would remember you by or you should remember your mom by. That meant nothing to her. Yeah. And as a parent of teenage kids, that's standard biz.

Yeah, exactly. They're just randomly like terrible to you for no reason. It's just the way, yeah. You quickly go like, did I? And you're like, no, I didn't do shit. This is just happening. Yeah. When did the Bible verses every morning start?

I think it was towards the end of my high school career because I could drive. I was out of the house a lot. He mentioned it a couple of times that it hurt him a little. little bit when I got my first car and could get out of the house because I was never around anymore. That was something that he brought up in two different conversations we had about Ashley, which was like, you're never home anymore. I miss you. As soon as I gave you your car, you were just gone. And so I think that was kind of his way of connecting after that. Well, sorry, what is the Bible? I don't know, what is that? You just did it every morning together. Every morning he sent her a Bible verse.

She always woke up to a Bible verse. Three years. Yeah. That's lovely. Okay. Yeah, which later comes into play. Okay, got it. Yeah, the circle moment. Yeah. So during that nine months after your mother died, you did specifically ask him, do you think you'll ever remarry?

I asked him the night that he came home after my mom died. Wow. That was like my first question. You know, he gave me the whole spiel of like, I've seen a lot of death, and I'm here for you, and we'll get through this together. And then I asked,

are you going to get remarried and have kids? And he said, no. I mean, it was like probably three in the morning. Yeah. flown in from Texas, and he was like, I don't think so, no. Do you understand what his job was? He was a consultant for defense contractors? You know, like what was?

Kind of. I think. Yeah, it seems like an abstract job to have your hands around as a kid. He had some crazy technology. He was a brain guy. Encryption was his forte. So he was doing a lot of encrypting on some crazy government projects and kind of consulting the military and just anything that needed protecting.

He'd have like prototypes of stuff I'd go to his office. And I was 10. I didn't really know what I was looking at. But I remember some of it. I can't even wrap my head around it now. So nine months later, he's in Florida, right? Where he meets Ashley? Yes.

Yeah, they did meet. He was at a dinner or something. Yeah, something in Palm Springs. Palm Beach? Palm Beach. Is that it? Palm Springs is here. Palm Springs is here.

Okay. But she was working for the Trump campaign. Yeah. So definitely she was probably in Palm, or not doing she was probably in Palm Beach. That was definitely it. Okay. So they met.

Now, this is crazy, right? This is a little chunk is wild. Yeah. They met and then 13 days later, they got married. Yeah. And she's 24 and he's 54. Yep. And you are 15?

15. Okay. Explain the first time you are made aware of Ashley. So we were in the car. He was picking me up from school because I couldn't drive yet. I was 15. And so he picked me up. And he always had his conference call.

was on speaker. And he picked me up from school. We were on the way home, conference call on the speaker phone. And I hear them talking about this conference that they were going to have the next weekend in North Carolina. And they said, Doug, are you going to bring your girlfriend? Oh, boy. And I was 15.

So that week or two prior, I had seen him kind of at night in bed on his phone, like sitting a heart emoji here, you know, like a kissy face. So I just kind of put two and together. And I was real quiet at first when he got off. And he said, what's wrong, Eva? I said, what are they talking about your? girlfriend. He said, oh, they got me confused with another guy. It's not me. I said, well, I saw you texting a heart emoji to someone last night. He was like, it's not my girlfriend. We're just friends.

I said, well, have you gone out to dinner? And he was like, yeah. And I said, well, have you kissed? And he was like, yeah, I said, so you're dating. Yeah, like, so that's more than a friend. So it's exactly what they said on the phone. Yeah. So I was like, okay, that one, I didn't really know what to say. I was just like, right, I trust you. If this is making you happy. Right. Because you don't have any idea she's 24. You don't have any idea anything about her, right? Kids have varying opinions, right? I've talked about this when my own daughter's like, okay, so if I die, was mom allowed to remarry? Funnyly enough, the verdict was mom can remarry, but I can't. Okay. So I don't know why it's that way. But at any right, also between the two of them, there's a much different reaction to that. So I'm wondering,

would it have been your wish that your dad never dated again, or were you like, he needs a date and not be lonely? I don't even know where I stood at that point. I feel like I was annoyed, but I didn't think that it would go any further than that. One second, he's single. Next second he has a girlfriend. It wasn't introduced in any sort of slow way, like, you know, start bringing her over and this is a friend. And then it was just kind of like boom, we're dating. I think that if it had been that way, I would have been a little more pushing against it.

Like, hey, no, this isn't cool. Yeah. But just because I had no choice but to kind of react, I mean like, oh, okay, I didn't get a chance. Well, in none of the scenarios I modeled out with my own children was anyone allowed to date within nine months. I think even with mom being allowed to remarry, it was like after X amount of years. I haven't even registered that she was dead yet. Right. Exactly.

That's a lot. Yeah. You're dealing with such upheaval. This is interesting. I have a friend who has been through a similar thing. Her mother died and then her father remarried very, very quickly to also kind of like a pretty young. very fast, sort of random. It's more common than you would think.

I've heard a lot of stories since then, and people would be like, yeah, men just remarry a lot faster. They can't handle it, yeah. What's funny is as I'm learning this story, because by the way, I didn't follow any of this, right? Like, I wasn't aware of the Black Swan murder. Okay, yeah. That missed me.

Yeah, I don't watch any of those shows. I don't watch 48. Now I've seen 48 hours researching you, but I had no clue that that had happened. So when I'm first finding out that your dad married this woman 13 days later, I'm going, I need an explanation. Right. My conclusion, tell me if I'm completely off base, which is like, she's sending him naked

photos and stuff. She's very sexually engaged and he's very religious and he can't have sex with her if they're not married. So literally this thing is like fast past just to have sex. Well, so here's also something. I don't think that she was as religious as she made out to be to my dad. I think that she just was like, if that's what it's going to take, then I'll get married right then and there, you know, like in her head.

She wasn't safe, but outrely, she was like, yeah, well, I'm a Christian too, so we have to. Oh, geez. Well, it only worked to her benefit to fast-pass it, which, again, I try to resist my poking at religion, but therein lies one of my issues, like, what are we talking about? You got to get married and you've got to make some crazy decision to appease. When people do it that fast, because I have friends that are getting married now, I'm like, we're 25. Yeah.

There's time. There's time. You don't know these people. Exactly. You don't even know you yet really. Yeah, our brains are just starting to develop. Exactly. When did you meet her?

The next day. After the wedding, the secret wedding. Wait. Yeah, so I wasn't even at the secret wedding. They were dating, and then the next day, they were still dating, but I met her. And then the next day, to my knowledge, they were married. So it was like three days, you know, about the introduction, and then the next day, yeah. Yeah, explain the introduction.

I think you said, but you anticipated them going like, okay, so we're going to be dating. And then your worst case scenario was like, God, did he propose to her? Yeah. So the next day, he was like, actually, she's in town. Let's go pick her up from the airport. I said, okay, so I went and got in the truck, and we went and picked her up from the airport. And he was just kind of making the small talk for us. He was like, she's a ballerina and teaches children, and she's done this and done that.

I was like, okay, cool. Were you shocked by the fact that she was nine years older than you? I didn't know the exact age. It just kind of went over my head at that point. I don't really remember the rest of that day. I know it was just kind of small talk, and I think they went and did their own thing, and I went and hung out with my friends. The next day, I was getting ready to go to my friend's house, and my dad came upstairs, and he was like, you need to come downstairs, and we need to have a family chat. And it struck me a little weird that he said family chat.

Yeah, why don't you get the non-family member out of here and we'll have a little chat. You mean me and you? Yeah, we can do that. Totally. And he said, no, I think, like, we all need to go downstairs and talk. And I said, I don't have anything to say to her. y'all are dating good for you yeah the only thing that i would go and sit downstairs for right now with her is if you were going to say you want to propose and those words came out of my mouth and then

the next second he said we're married so i wasn't legally allowed to drive my car without an adult with a full license yet so i got in the front seat made them both get it was a two-door jeep wrangler so they had to like go crawl into the back seat and they sat in silence like this and i was angrily driving over to my friend's house. They took my car and I was just at my friend's house. Oh my God. This is a lot to process. Had your dad displayed any previous kind of rash impulsive decisions or is this completely

out of character? That was so out of character. I mean, he was usually very slow and meticulous and thought about everything. He's into encryption for Christ. Yeah. The biggest life lesson I learned up until that point was measure twice cut once from him because I was always doing home projects. So he was always very meticulous about decision making.

Whoa. Yeah. Simultaneous to this, this is also interesting, your friend moves into your house. Yes. Tell me about that. So that was in the fall, right when school started when I found out about Ashley and my dad, she moved in that December right after Christmas. I was at a lacrosse kind of showcase thing up in North Carolina.

Carolina and my dad and Ashley were there. We all went together. And I was in the middle of a game, but I stepped out off the field. And I saw that she had texted. She was like a friend that I had in school, but never out of school. That was freshman year. So we were in sophomore year now. And we were still in touch, but never really hung out. And she had called me a bunch of times and text me. I called her back and she said, hey, this is really last minute and random, but I need somewhere to stay. Could I stay with you? And I say, yeah, sure, why not? So I asked my dad. My dad was like, I mean, we have three extra bedrooms upstairs. Y'all have at it.

So we went and picked her up. She moved in. Wow. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door.

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You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and Roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club, incorporated an all-state affiliate. After the kind of shell shockness wore off,

what was your assessment of Ashley, your new stepmother? What were your first impressions of her? I could tell she was kind of fake nice and not smart. It was kind of like talking to an airhead all the time. I picked up on it as time went on and I got older as well, that she was just kind of acting super smart, but you could tell she just didn't know anything about anything. And you were feeling the manipulativeness?

Yes, that was pretty quick, I would say, that I started realizing I didn't have her way, so she would go to my dad, and my dad would be like, well, you've got to do this because Ashley, you know. And your dad wanted her to step in and be a motherly figure because you didn't have one anymore. Right. But she wasn't a good match for that role, right?

I mean, again, she's nine years older. Exactly. He was eight years older. Both my brothers are married, and I'm very close with my sister-in-law, my oldest brother's wife. She had moved in right after my mom passed to kind of help with the house stuff. And my dad was out of town a lot still traveling. So it was me and Bev. And, you know, she taught me everything that I needed to know at that point in my life.

And I was like, you know, I'm good. I don't need another 20-something-year-old. I have Beverly. So I was nice to Ashley. But as soon as she started to put her foot down about certain things and say, well, no, I'm going to tell your dad. or you have to do this or I'm going to take your car away. The first time she threatened the car, that pissed me off. I was like, no, we're not doing that.

And were you afraid of confrontation or no? Not really. Okay, so you would fight back in those moments. Kind of. I'm not a confrontational person, but I will get my punches in when I can, you know? Yeah. So I— You're not a pushover.

Yeah. So if she said something, I'd try to be polite about it, at least, until if she kept pushing, that's when I'd just kind of be like, no, I'm not doing that. Yeah. And as this wild experiment is running its course, what are you noticing in the nature of their relationship? Super all over each other, lovey-dovey at first, very much PDA all the time. It was disgusting. Yeah.

Yeah. As time went on, it was Ashley just bitching about something constantly. And my dad just kind of sitting there and taking it and listening. Eva said this or somebody said this. And my dad was quiet and chill, so he'd just kind of take it and not say anything. He's like, get me back to my encryption. Yeah, exactly. I'm back to my office.

That's why he's out of town all the time. Then she started going with him. What was the event that led to him firing the gun in the house? I wasn't home. Neither was my friend that moved in with us. I think what had happened was she was upset about something. And I mean, when she got upset about something, she was in his ear just nonstop. And I think at that point, from my own.

understanding it was out on the counter or he was cleaning it or something and she just would not stop and he got frustrated and just shot it up into the roof and that shut her up part of the thing they bonded over monica when they first met is they both love guns she had like multiple guns on her the night they met publics one time just me and her and she made a comment about a gun and i was like are you packing and she pulled up her shirt and showed me i said we are in public yeah and mount pleasant South Carolina. There's nothing here that's going to harm us. It was just kind of a weird flex.

I think she thought it was cool. Like tough or something. She's campaigning for Trump. She's really kind of the prototypical. Yeah. She's a chicken all the boxes. Trump girl. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Love's guns has multiple guns on her at 24. Okay. God, I would, of course, love to know her entire childhood how we end up as her. I know. It's so tempting the whole time I'm learning about her. her to really assign her a lot of different personality disorders I know about.

She feels very, very borderline personality. I think it was either that or history on it. Uh-huh. It was whatever Amber Hurd has. It was the same is what we discovered. Because she either thought your dad was a savior or that he was evil. Like evil killer out to get us all. Yeah, those were the two options on the table.

He's everything or he's nothing. Okay, so in 17, so at this point, they would have been together for, I guess, a year and a half or something. Yeah, something like that. She has to have a ballet studio. Right. Which again, this feels very transparent. I hate that sounds so judgmental, but it's like she wanted to open an international

ballet company that would be really inclusive, meaning it would have all these people that normally wouldn't have gotten taken to a ballet company, i.e. she never got to, you know, it sounds like she's trying to figure out a way where I'm going to create a version where I would have been there. Yeah, that was exactly it. She wanted that. I think she didn't make the cut for ballet. Yeah.

And so she wanted this ballet company. And my dad wanted to give her the entire world on a silver platter. It was like, okay, let's make it happen. And he was smart and he knew how to pull together investors and make things happen fast. So that's what he did. Wow. Yeah. So they start this ballet company and lots of ballerinas fly from all over the world to come audition and become members of this.

And she's like running it. No. Yeah. But she mostly doesn't even show up. She was very there the first few months. It was towards the end when she wasn't showing up as much anymore after they announced the pregnancy. So that's when she was starting to have a bad pregnancy. And so she wasn't showing up to the ballet things anymore.

Another thing that I think happened is some of the investors and my dad probably, and I also, you have to take this with a grain of salt because I tried to stay out of it as much as possible. I'm sure. But from my understanding, my dad and the investors realized, hey, she kind of acted like she could run this entire thing, but she can't. Let's pull somebody down from New York that actually knows what the hell she's doing. So they pulled down this woman who started running things appropriately and trying to get things pulled together more properly than she was. And I think that she did not like the power being taken away from her.

So she started acting out. And that's when she just vowed herself. At this moment, and you're getting older and wiser and more savvy, right? Are you assessing this as like, oh, yeah, this is just a gold digger using my dad to execute all over dreams? Yeah, kind of. I mean, there was a day that my dad came home with a duffel bag of cash. And I just kind of looked at it and I asked him, I was like, what's that? Where did you get that?

And he didn't say much about it for the ballet. I said, okay. And then he said, just don't take snapchats of it and show your friends. We don't want people knowing this is in the house right now. Oh, geez. Yeah. You're like, what? Yeah.

Were you like, get me out of here? It's time for me to be out of here. I was just so enthralled in my own life. Yeah. Yeah, I just was kind of letting them do whatever they wanted to do. And then I was trying to make it through high school. Yeah. And do you think you were running as fast as you could a little bit to stay focused on things that wouldn't have you thinking about the fact that your mom died?

Yeah, I was always out hanging out with friends or at lacrosse practice or just doing anything that I could to get away. I started going to the gym every morning before. school and then had lacrosse practice after school and it was always something. Yeah, you didn't want to be there. It's funny and sad that your dad would accuse you of kind of deserting him when in fact he brought a force into your house that would make you leave. No one's going to hang around and sit around a table and act like this is the dream family scenario. Yeah. And I was holding a grudge against my dad for so long about that. And he would always deny, deny and I'd be like, well, you left me or you're resenting my wife. So he used that line a couple of times. Well, you're resenting.

I'm resenting my life. So, you know, why should we do this or be nice to you or whatever? Not that my dad was ever mean, but why should she be nice to you if you're resenting her? Until it was after she left that I think he had come to a moment and was like, oh, Eva, that must have really hurt. Because he eventually came to apologize and that's all I was looking for. Yeah. It was some sort of apology. He got sucked into this vortex out of very vulnerable time for him as well.

Yeah. It's another high horse I'm tempted to. sit on, which is like, I watched the Anthony Bourdain documentary, and it's so heartbreaking. Yeah. And, yeah, he falls in love with this really young women. He gets really insecure. It's a very bizarre relationship. I've seen so many men, older men, who get with young women, and they can't handle it.

Yeah. It's not good for them. It's just like a distraction, the honeymoon stage. And, you know, he was like, this is great. Nothing's wrong. She's hot. And then he's in too deep. And he owns a fucking ballerina company all of a sudden.

Right. Yeah. Like, what the hell? help. Yeah. So the pregnancy, did they wait a while to tell you about that? Or how do you learn that she's pregnant? And I can't imagine you are excited about that. Yeah. Because that means she's around permanently in some sense. Yeah. So me and my friend that had moved in were sitting in my bed and they came up into my room and they were like, hey, we have an announcement. And my dad framed it, like, you are going to have a baby sister and y'all are going to share birthdays because her due date

It was right around my birthday. That was the worst way to tell a teenage girl. That was so male of him. He didn't realize like, no, I already feel less important because it's right. Now my birthday is not my birthday. Oh, my God. This is great news. And we're naming her Eva.

Yeah. And you're going away. And actually, you're being sent off. Yeah. You don't exist anymore. You don't need this anymore. So after she got pregnant, this kind of escalates the craziness. Yeah, getting pregnant.

Mm-hmm. I guess in order, I think. what seems most relevant plot-wise is she moves back to Florida with her mom at some point. How do we go from getting pregnant? We have an announcement to her moving down. She was going back and forth a little bit more just because she was having a bad pregnancy. And then eventually, one day I asked, where's Ashley? And my dad said, oh, she's having a really bad pregnancy. We decided that it's best for her to be taken care of by her mom. Because my dad was traveling so much still. She was just down there in Florida. And that was that.

And then I came home one day from school and her car was gone and all of her weird little hot glue sea shell pictures off the walls were gone and I know it was on the bed. And what the non-say? I have no idea. I just remember my dad reading it and looking crushed and just going silent. I actually left the house when I found all of that and I was going over to my sister-in-law's house because I was like, I don't want to be around that. And she said, no, turn around, go be with your dad. So I went and I turned around and he just, he went very careful. quiet. Were you like, what happened? I don't even remember if words were exchanged other than

she's gone or she left me. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, so at this point, I'll add that the ballet companies now gets shut down. It costs Doug like a hundred grand. Yeah, something crazy. She now lives with mom. And she's pregnant still. Yeah, she's pregnant. And now she starts this narrative that she's pretty convinced Doug killed Eva's mom. Yes. Oh, Oh my God. Yeah. She did that along with he's out to kill me and her and he's beating me and he's beating her and he's beating her and poisoning me.

Yeah. He's like figured out in her mind that he had poisoned Eva's mom. And so, oh, now he's poisoning me. She was pulling medical records from my mom. She was trying to get the grave dug up. No. Yeah. I didn't know that again until after.

But I knew about the poison stuff. It was like a really weird thing while she lived with me was. They were obsessed with teas. We had a tea drawer. And I was an avid coffee drinker with my dad for so long, which was another weird thing that I picked up on because it was always coffee with my mom every morning coffee. And then all of a sudden the coffee's gone, the teas there and every kind of eclectic, weird tea you can get. And he would send her boxes of tea down to Florida or take them to her. And so she eventually came to the conclusion, oh, these teas must be what's poisoning me.

That's why I'm having such a bad pregnancy. Oh, my God. So she started going to the doctors. in Florida and they would run all these tests and they couldn't find anything. So she would go from doctor to doctor to doctor and try and get them to run more tests and do more labs because she was convinced until one of the doctors fired her as a patient and they said, get out of my office. Nobody was fitting her narrative and her agenda.

So she was getting mad. Would you agree that she's now significantly less stable than she was when she arrived? Yes. So did you have any kind of theory on what was the catalyst for that? Do we think it was like being pregnant? and hormones. Now, more than ever, I think that she just stopped getting her way as much. And you can only play that part for so long before you start to get frustrated with the

outcome. And so, I mean, it just happened to her in prison. She got put into, what's the word? Solitary confinement. Yeah, because she assaulted a cop in prison. And then they moved to a new prison in January. So I think she was probably playing, like, pretty nice girl and then wasn't getting her way still and got frustrated and assaulted a cop.

Same thing. Oh, man. Okay, so now it's getting really, really dicey for your father because she's starting to accuse him and call people and child protective service is now getting involved. And your father's under the weight of these accusations. She has the baby, and Monica immediately starts hyperbaric chamber treatments to rid her and the baby of the poison that her dad.

It would like 25 treatments or something. They let her do that? 26 consecutive days, 40 hours of treatment. With the baby. Yeah, there's this video of the pictures of the baby in this hyperbaric chamber so that she can get the poison out. It almost sounds like psychosis like Cohen. We had someone on who is, he has like a schizophrenic adjacent disorder and led to all the psychosis.

It kind of sounds like that. Yeah. Well, that's what these situations leave all of us with is how much did she herself believe? how much was just evil calculation? I think it was both. I think it was evil calculation to start, and then she just got to a point where she started to believe it

because she said it so much. Yeah, you can convince yourself. Her ultimate goal was, oh, I'm going to get a divorce and I'm going to take his money? I don't know. I think at that point, he did not have a lot of money,

and it was becoming very apparent. He had just dumped a ton on this ballot. Yeah, I mean, at this point, he was still paying the medical bills for the kid. He was paying for her. he was paying for her mother and for me. And then for himself, he was just spread so thin. I'm trying to think of the different things that happened during this time,

but he wants to see the baby. She will not allow that. And then there's a hearing. And in this hearing, he has to basically prove he has not been poisoning her. And then none of these allegations are true. And in fact, that is the outcome. Thank goodness. Yeah.

What grade were you in at that point? Are you like a senior maybe? I was around junior or senior year. As your senior father go through this stuff, how is it landing on you? Are you urging him like, just let this go? It was back and forth for a while. He kept me out of a lot of it because I didn't find out that there was over 10 allegations made against him in this time.

There was a period where CPS did get involved and I moved out into my brother's house for six months and then I moved back. That was right at the end of my senior. year and I moved back in with him and he was just keeping me kind of out of it because I had asked him to at that point I said I don't want to know what's going on they were trying to reconcile and they'd be together at one point and then she would do something again and cops would show up at the door and you know another allegation he called me at one point and he was like hey I just need you to kind of I had to speak to someone on the phone just to give a character reference you know

this is my dad and he's a great guy and he would never hurt anyone. Right. He did that one hearing. I don't know if that was senior year. I think it was. And the judge said there's not a scintella of evidence that proves that Doug is guilty of any of this. This is ridiculous. Yeah. He was probably pretty embarrassed by all this too. I can't imagine he wanted you to know. He knew he married a girl after 13 days. Right. He knows what a disaster has been. And he doesn't necessarily want you to know she's now accusing him of trying to kill her. It's kind of embarrassing, basically. Right.

So I went and visited at this point. He had met the baby. They were back together. He was living in Florida. This was the second semester my senior year because he got me an apartment in Charleston. And he moved to Florida. So there was Christmas where he asked me to go meet my half-sister for the first time.

And I went down there and I stayed with him in his apartment. And I met the baby. And so this happened twice. We went to church. and she was wearing a body con sparkly sequin dress that went up to her butt cheeks and stilettos into the late night service in Sarasota, Florida. And her mom and the baby and my dad and I walked in.

The baby started crying. I was overwhelmed. I had to go step out in the hallway. And her mom and her followed me out there and cornered me, and they basically were saying, why are you crying? Did your dad do something? You know he's out to kill us.

Oh, my God. The mom was said, here's my number. I'm writing it on. piece of paper. Don't put it in your phone because he can hack our phones and he can get my number and he'll kill me. And I literally looked at her and I said, fuck off. Good. At that point, I had had enough. I said my dad is not a killer. He didn't kill me. He didn't kill my mom. Went back into the service, finished the service, went to bed. And I told my dad at that point, but I don't think they had really registered what exactly, because I was kind of just like they

just were being really weird annoying. Fast forward to Easter of the next year, he asked, me to go back to Florida again, so I did. And we were all shopping before dinner. And Ashley and her mom pulled me into a corner of the store that had a huge speaker. So I guess nobody could hear them. But again, same thing. Your dad tried to kill me. He tried to kill your mom. He's going to kill us all. And again, I just said, leave me alone. Yeah. I don't know. So the next morning I told my dad, I said, hey, I can't do this anymore. This is the second time they've tried to convince me of that. I don't want to be around them anymore. And he said, he was like, that's it, I'm done. I have tried again and again and again to show this woman that I love her and

there's nothing wrong with me. I'm going to pack up my car and I'm leaving too. And I said, no, dad, the baby is about to be here to open her Easter basket. I don't think you should leave. You need to have that experience with her. She's old enough to remember that. So I told him to stay. I said, I'm going to go to Charleston. You can come back tomorrow. And he stayed and he didn't come back. So that was like a moment that I could have been like good for you leave and I didn't. But your reasoning was so kind and generous. Also, even if he had come back with you that weekend, he would have been back. Yeah.

Yeah. There was no breaking this cycle without something radical. Yeah. Were you feeling abandoned? I mean, you're in high school and you're living in an apartment and your mom's gone. Not really. I thought it was cool. You had an apartment.

Yeah. That is kind of cool. I had a triple early out, which meant I only had one class. Oh. So I actually almost didn't graduate because my attendance record was so bad that year or that semester. But at the time, it was in Mount Pleasant. It was in the neighborhood that my best friend and my boyfriend at the time lived in. And so, I mean, everybody would just come over after school.

My dad passed through a lot. So I would see him once or twice a week going to North Carolina and home from North Carolina. So I didn't feel too abandoned. And I also, I mean, I texted him all day every day. I called him all the time. He was still my best friend. Yeah. So we were always talking and hanging out.

You know, I was still super close with them. God, have your own apartment and a boyfriend. It is exciting. Let's go. Yeah, at some point during this, I guess, post-Easter, she decides, okay, we're going to be together. We all need a fresh start. Let's all move to Maryland. Yes.

So that was my freshman year of college, actually. You have the worst first year of college of anyone have ever heard because it's 2020. So that was going into my sophomore year. I graduated high school 2019. I didn't continue college after that because I told my dad, hey, I'm not letting you pay tuition for me to cheat online school. Like that's not going to happen. I didn't know what I wanted to major in yet.

Yeah. It was going to be a gap year. COVID hit right at the end of my freshman year. So they have this plan that they're going to move to Maryland and your father goes over to the house to help pack? Yeah. The Florida house? The Florida house.

He had his apartment. He packed it up. She was living with her mom. He went and packed up their house and had a big U-Haul in the driveway. She had three guns loaded, one in the pantry, one in a laundry basket down on the floor, and then one in a closet in different rooms. And there's a baby. There's a baby walking around that is a toddler now and can reach into a hamper.

Oh, my God. The stupidity of it. of that is fucking ghastly. He was in the room and she just shot him and killed him. She shot him, didn't hit him enough to kill him immediately. I think he hung on for about two hours before he fully passed, but she waited 15 minutes. She went over to the neighbor's house. There was like 15 minutes in between him getting shot and the cops getting called.

So before the cops even arrived, the detective arrived on scene, her lawyer was already there. and she just kind of left him to bleed out. I think she was hoping that he was going to bleed out so he couldn't say anything. Yeah, so he was shot through the leg and the arm, but the one through the arm had entered his body and went into his chest. Yeah.

And then she went over to the neighbor's house and basically tells the neighbor, oh my God, he was assaulting me. I had to kill him. It was self-defense. Now, this feels very calculated. I don't think she wanted to be evaluated waited with her delivery on 911.

So she delegated it basically. So now the neighbors got to report what happened. Right. And 10 minutes before it happened, the mom and the baby went down to the little park nearby right before it happened. Oh, wow. I mean, all these guns around. And I mean, the fact that it wasn't premeditated, it's hard to believe. Everybody knows you keep your guns in your safe.

The safe probably should be the first thing to go in the U-Haul. So it's like, why was there one in a backpack in the closet? That is so crazy. I will add this. We left one detail out, which is your dad at one point at the height of this did write a letter to the sheriff's department accusing Ashley of having a split personality. So it seems like there was a moment where he kind of accepted what he was dealing with. But then, of course, they reconciled.

Yeah. And he always had the most positive attitude, too. Whenever I was dealing with anything, he was almost projecting his false positivity onto me. So I think he just wanted to believe this isn't happening. Yeah. Denial. So you start getting concerned, obviously, the following morning. Because normally you would have woken up to text of some scripture.

So the night before I had texted him around five. And I had said, hey, like, we're out at the sandbar. I sent him pictures of what we were doing. We were all in the boat. And the next morning, I went to go text him or check his text and talk to him. and he hadn't sent me a Bible verse. So I thought that was kind of weird, but I also knew some mornings he woke up at like four and started his day at four o'clock and had a meeting at five or six.

So I knew that happened sometimes, and he would always get back to me and say, I'm sorry, I had a meeting. There was a couple times. He's like, I did a double workout today, so it was a couple hours. I was like, okay. So I didn't let it get to me at first, and then another hour went by and still nothing. I still have all the texts on my phone. If you kind of pull it to the side, you can see 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes,

and then the text start turning green. So I knew something was wrong. I started Googling car accident. I texted Ashley. I said, hey, have you heard from him recently? I haven't heard from starting to get worried. God, the trauma of for this again. No, she didn't.

I don't even know if it went through or not because I remember feeling so stupid for even reaching out. I tried to deleted it. But I called my friends and all of my friends are like, Eva, you have anxiety. You do this when we don't answer fast enough. You know, it's probably just your mom. I called my sister-in-law and she lived five minutes down the road from the job that I was supposed to start that day. And so I went over to her house to hang out,

and I was telling her, and she was like, Eva, you have nothing to worry about. Everything's fine. He'll get back to you. And we were sitting in there in the living room, and I got the call from my uncle. And I was both of my uncles on the phone. I don't know if they were together,

or they had just patched each other in at the same time. Yeah, he said there had been an accident. And I said, what happened? And he said, your dad's been shot. And my initial reaction was he's dead, and she killed him. And so that's what I said. I was like, is he alive? He said, no.

And I said, she did it, didn't she? And he said, yeah. Oh. So that was that. Oh, my God. Okay, now, well, that's simply not enough for you to go through. So now we've got to have a media circus. Yeah.

What do you do with that? Is it this same kind of shut down? I really can't even process what this is. In that moment? Yeah. My uncles were talking and talking and talking. And I said, hold on. And I set my phone down and I looked at my sister-in-law.

They had their newborn. And she put the baby down on the couch and I crawled up into her lap. And I just looked at her. I said, I don't have parents. And she said, I know she was crying. I wasn't crying. I was in shock. But I had friends down the street because it was in the same neighborhood that my apartment was into.

And we were all going to hang out after my shift. So I called my friends and I said, hey, are y'all still there? I drove over there. I couldn't even get my foot to fully step down on the pedal because my foot was shaking so much. I sat down on the porch and my friend, he was like my best friend and he said, what happened? And I said, she killed him. And everybody just kind of looked at me. They said, all right, what are we doing tonight?

You know, what are we going to do? We had plans tonight. Are we going to continue the plans? And I said, I would like to continue the plans. I think that it's about to get pretty hairy with the media. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy. I mean, by the way, at 19, this would be my solution.

Like, I don't even know what your solution, but I would have been drunk very quickly. Yeah, I was drunk shortly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just too much. And I'm like, okay, let's add. Way too much. Let's add that to the mix and see if that helps. Okay, so how soon after does the first bit of media attention start?

I mean, within a couple hours, there was the local news doing the estranged wife shoots husband in Sarasota, Florida. And then a few weeks later, maybe we got some calls from some bigger media. Then it just kind of snowballed from there. Some part of me, that would be exciting in some way. Like, oh my God, news are calling me. That would be an exciting element for me. Having had nothing spectacular happened to me, I might have initially been like... I don't think that I ever felt excited about it.

I just kind of said yes to everything. I didn't ever feel nervous. So I just kind of kept doing it. And, you know, I think that my family, my dad's brothers and my family were just kept saying you're doing such a great job. You know, you're so well-spoken. You can really hold your own for your dad. And that's when I was like, you know what? Yeah, people need to know that he was a good guy and he needs to have some justice.

And this doesn't make me nervous. So I'm just going to keep doing it. Yeah. Yeah, you're representing your family well. Right. So this turns quickly into, yeah, media attention, TV specials, tabloids, social media scrutiny. Yeah. Like the full storm takes off.

And I think you can sense people, they want an emotional performance from you. Yeah. Because it was very tabloidy. It was very... Yeah, young woman, older man. Yeah. And the daughter that's left alone, there's always these tear-jurker questions. I could sense that they wanted some sort of emotional reaction online for the clickbait.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and did you feel like stubborn? Like, I'm not giving them that? Not really. I just can't cry in front of people. Yeah. I'm so...

I wouldn't say numb to it, but it doesn't really phase me. I can talk about the most gruesome things I've dealt with this entire time. And I think the other side, the media likes that. because everybody wants to know. I wasn't intentionally feeding into it. I'm just like, well, I'm an open book, and I don't have an issue talking about it. Yeah, but it's also a very heightened experience

to turn on the TV and see yourself on it. Yeah. Well, it wasn't weird. I remember the first, it was a CVS 48 hours that I did, and it came on the TV, and I was like, the camera does add 20 pounds. That's all I can think about it. So, honestly, it wasn't really exciting for me

to see myself on TV. I was more annoyed at some of the media it was still trying to paint my dad in this terrible white. So I was like, okay, I have to keep going. Right. Entertaining the notion that it was self-defense maybe. So was she in jail? Was she that?

She was on house arrest. Oh. Yeah, she was in jail for like 10 days or something afterwards. She got put on house arrest. When do you start making TikToks before the trial or during the trial? That was 2020 when it happened. I started my first TikTok that I made about it was December or January of 2020. 2020, 2021-ish.

I woke up with millions of likes, thousands of comments, millions of views. Wow. And then within a week or two, I had 200,000 followers. And explain the TikToks you were making. At that point, I wasn't really doing a whole lot of talking on TikTok, but I had used a sound or two that just was fitting of like,

mom died, dad remarried, boom, dad murdered. So it wasn't a lot of context. And I think that was just enough for people to comment, what the fuck? Right. know, what did I just watch and then replay it and then the algorithm picks up on it. So it just got very widespread very quickly. Yeah. And you are mostly exploring some dark humor throughout all this.

Oh, it was all jokes. The only time I didn't joke about it was explaining it. But even then I just joked about it. So what else am I going to do? I feel like I'm watching a playbook of exactly how I would have handled it, to be honest. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, my immediate reaction to heartbreak, sorrow, everything is a joke almost immediately.

I'm almost in the middle of watching something horrendous and I'm already, this is my defense mechanism. Yeah, I crack jokes all the time about things I probably shouldn't, which is not great. But my friends and I, I stayed over at my friend's house for probably a week after all of that happened. The night we got drunk and then we just kind of continued the party for a week after that. And at that point, the orphan jokes started rolling around because it was like, well, you visit it like our orphan. She's just hanging out on her couch. And they didn't care.

They wanted me to. But the orphan jokes came on within days. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you need to do to survive something like that. Yeah. Like, no one can judge it. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

We had the most horrific event happened in our respect for the people. involved, I won't even detail, but suffice to say we had roommates and I was with three of them and we got this completely tragic bit of information. I received it first and I had to go tell my other two roommates who were with me out of town and at the end of explaining it to him, I already had the punchline. Yeah, I had a joke. And then they're all so fucked up too because we're all from fucked up houses. They were right on. It's just like that's just how we did it. It's funny. I mean, you have to laugh sometimes. Yeah, that was my approach. But I, I also would be juggling with that often feeling guilty that I wasn't having the reaction everyone thought I should.

I did. That happened with my mom too is I never really had this breakdown. And I think after the murder happened, I was kind of waiting to see, am I going to crack? Because I immediately, my first reaction was, oh, my God, my parents are dead. Second reaction was, oh, my God, rent's due in three days. So I immediately had to start thinking, how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to do this? The house mortgage fell on me.

There were so many pieces to pick up that I was just left to deal with that I didn't have a second to sit down and think, oh my God, what just happened? Yeah, you're 20 years old. I was like joking and then somebody was trying to serve me for the mortgage on the house. So it was like I couldn't, you know, have a second. Yeah, you didn't have the luxury of really wallowing in it while another parent nurtured you and let you. I couldn't afford therapy. So I just kind of did what I had to do. I think I always had a suspicion that if I were to let it break through, I would never recover.

That's why I haven't to this day gone to any sort of therapy. I went to a psychiatrist for like two weeks after the pretrial because I think that messed me. I couldn't sleep for days after the pretrial. But I was almost scared. Everyone kept saying, well, maybe if talk therapy isn't for you, EMDR might, because that's what, if you just can't get it out, it's subconscious. And that is I had a lot of like nervous system issues after that. It was coming out in different ways. So I thought maybe it is just a nervous system thing.

But I didn't want to tap into that because that's a can of worms. I don't know if I open it, what's going to come out? Did you have any autoimmune stuff? Yeah, I had some autoimmune stuff. I had blood sugar dysregulation. I had just like the most random things, a lot of hormonal issues. The body knows. The body doesn't get with the plane.

Like, oh, we're going to ignore this and focus on something else and run faster forward. Yeah. The body's like, no, you're not. No, so that's what really got me into like the health and wellness. and exercise and just nutrition because I had to figure out how to fix all of that too. So what was it about the pretrial that was so disturbing? So it was only one day and it was basically whether or not it was going to go to trial for murder if it was out of self-defense or not.

But it was one day and they had all these, it was mostly evidence just thrown up on the screen. And so all day they were going, this is evidence picture number this. You're about to see this and they would put it up on the screen. And then halfway through the day or so or towards the end of the day, Suzanne O'Donnell came up to me and she said, hey, what we're about to put up on the screen, some of it might be graphic.

If you don't want to see it, we don't have to show it up there. But if you want media to see it, we have to show it. I said, well, I want media to see what she did to my dad. And there was, like, a couple times that I had seen a few more graphic pictures, but it wasn't anything with my dad in it. Yeah. But I think something glitched or they didn't announce it because I thought, well, if they announce it,

then I can just look down before I see it. They didn't announce it and just boom, dad's autopsy pictures, like chest up, eyes open, blood on the face, like literally out of a horror movie on the screen, big screen. And so I looked at it and it was almost like I couldn't look away. And then I looked down and then I sat there for a second. And then I just looked at my best friend and I said, I have to go outside.

I thought I was doing such a good job keeping it in. But there was kind of a door and then a little space and then another door out into the hallway and I like wailed out and before I could get outside. I told her like a day or two later I was like, you know, I think I really held it together. She said, no, everybody heard that. It's okay that they heard that. That's the reaction of someone seeing their dad in that state. I did go to a psychiatrist for a couple weeks after that because every time I closed my eyes for weeks after that, I couldn't fall asleep. Oh yeah. You should never ever have to see. Oh my God. Somebody loved injured like that and hurt. How soon after that is the,

the trial? One year exactly. So that was July 2023 and then July 24. And in the book, that's kind of more agonizing than anything else, yeah, the whole waiting for justice. Yeah, the trials, it was also around the time, I don't know if you all are familiar with the Murdahls. And yeah. So that happened around the same time is my dad's stuff. And so, but that was going to trial a lot quicker. So I kept thinking maybe this is going to go to trial pretty quick and I can get justice. And it just kept getting pushed. and pushed and they would file something else. And she switched lawyers, so they have to refile this. The pretrial finally happened in 2023.

And then it was a year, which is typical, I think, for the justice system to have a year later after the pre-trial. So it wasn't too far. But yeah, it was four years of waiting for this, which was gruesome. You just were like, I've got to know she's going away. Was the anxiety of that? Like, I must know she's going to pay for this. Kind of at that point.

I don't want to say I didn't care, but it had taken so long. and I had finally gotten my feet back on the ground and my life set up. And I was heading in a good direction. And I was just like, you know, she goes to prison. She goes to prison if she doesn't. I think that's what I told myself also subconsciously. I was kind of hoping it would kind of just be over with. But it was also this weight on my shoulders of knowing it was going to happen.

Yeah. And anticipating the outcome. Talking about anxiety. Yeah. It was just like a mental every day I would wake up and think, oh, it still hasn't happened yet. You know, what's going to happen when it does? There's no closure. Right.

Do you start between the pretrial and the trial? Is that when you start your company? Oh, yeah. I actually started Ghost Cowboy in 2021. It kind of just took off very fast. Tell me, how did you get the idea for it? It started randomly. I was working, doing social media for a company based out of Charleston.

They had all in-house productions. They had the T-shirt printing machine. the embroidery machines, the shipping. I had a couple of funny, there was like memes. It was back when Kanye and Pete Davidson had their rivalry. Oh, uh-huh. So I hadn't, yeah, I hadn't had the website set up yet, but I had this idea for myself too.

I wasn't going to make a T-shirt and sell it, but I was like, I'd wear a funny T-shirt with. It was like Kanye holding up stick figure drawings and he had crossed out Pete on it or something. I put that on the T-shirt and I wore it in a TikTok, and it went crazy. I mean, it was like 120,000 views within a first couple hours. So I told my boss, I said, hey, should I put it up on the website?

They had like an old website that they weren't using. He said, yeah, why not? And it did great. And I said, okay, if I do that again, he had thrown me like a grand or something. And I saw the sales. I was like, and I know what kind of brand t-shirt we were using. Like, that blank was cheap. You know, he threw me chump change.

So I said, if I do this again, I want 50% of the profit. Yeah. He said, okay, if you do it again. And then I did it again. And then the third meme t-shirt, went super crazy viral and at that point I said okay I kind of want to just have a stab at this t-shirt thing and so I set up my own website ghost cowboy has no meaning behind the name I actually don't love the name of it but you know it's just so random and people liked it we have a catchphrase in our

description that we can't stand anymore oh yeah bestiness of being human yeah we don't like it yeah yeah but he's got low it yeah it's too cute yeah something about it got too cute so I was an artist And I didn't want to get known for the pictures taken off of the internet and memes and stuff. So I just started using my TikTok every day for 60 days. I drew something. And I think that people really liked the fact that I could draw it and then immediately go put it on the printer and print the shirt. And then put it up on the website. So people would comment, you know, you should draw this or you should do this kind of shirt.

And this kind of color or you should do this on a hoodie or a crew neck. And so for two months straight, a new shirt every single day. And that series started picking up some heat, and that's just what took the company off. Wow. And now you do all kinds of goods, yeah? What other things do you guys? I do sweatshirts, t-shirts, crew necks. I do hats occasionally.

It's kind of whatever I'm feeling. I do a new design every week. And, yeah, it's just me back there in the warehouse because I split from that guy. We become business partners over a handshake. I was young. I was 21. I didn't really know what I was doing. And eventually I just was like, you know, this is all my.

art, I'm doing all of the work for this. I was giving him overhead to pay his employees to do the production for me. So I was just like, I'm going to step away and do this all by myself. And there was a little bit of a backfire on that. He said, no, and you're an employee. I said, no, I'm not. Yeah. So I had to take some legal action, which took about a year. So I wasn't ever able to really get into the lawsuit details, but I came home from the murder trial and immediately had to to get on call with my two attorneys because I was still dealing with this lawsuit. Oh my God. I was paying myself nothing because I had to afford this lawsuit.

Yeah. And eventually it settled and that was kind of that. It's back. But I lost all of the employees. I had to start fresh with the production. So I got things back to like the volume that I was doing sale-wise. But it's just me back there. So now customers still think that it's like a full-blown production team.

No, it's just me doing it in the back of a week. warehouse printing out the order. Wow. Well, you have this theme recurrent in your book, which is creation is the best response to destruction. Yes. My dad taught me how to paint and to draw. As soon as I could hold a pencil, I was drawing stuff. And I was always upstairs in my room painting something or doing a craft or that was just kind of how I like to spend my time as a really young kid. And then I got into middle school and I realized, you know, I actually am kind of pretty good at the portraits So I started doing more portraits. And my dad was a phenomenal artist.

I mean, could paint anything you asked him to. It was insane how good of an artist he was. And he taught me how to do all of that. And then it was an outlet for me. I would either go on a run or I'd go paint something that kind of just got myself out of my head. Yeah. So the trial, A, in the trial, when that finally happened,

did you guys ever have moments? Did you guys lock eyes ever? No, she didn't look at me once. I think the first time I saw her was in the hallway, and I lost it. Because at that point, I hadn't seen her in so many years, and I had to run into the bathroom. I cried. I came back out, I was like, all right, let's do this.

Ever since then, that entire trial, I was trying to stand right there and make her look at me. Her eyes were glued to the floor or glued to her little notepad in front of her, and she was just scribbling away. Even during the victim's impact statement, she wouldn't even look up. There's demonstrations going on outside the courthouse. Oh, yeah.

The purple people. They were all in purple because purple was the women's survivor, like the domestic violence survivor color. That was a funny story, the last day of the trial, which obviously I support women and I want to get women on domestic violence situations. But we were against those people that were wearing purple and protesting the entire two weeks, blaring Christian music. They had her child, my dad's child.

out there with a picture of her on a t-shirt screaming, free my mom or something like that. This kid is six years old. She doesn't know what she's doing. And some reporter shoving a camera in the kid's face. It was ridiculous. But yeah, the last day of the trial, my uncle wore purple to the courthouse.

We're like, are you joking? Like, really. Yeah, just on accident. Yeah. Is he colorblind? Did you learn on that day, maybe? Yeah, I guess that might have been his excuse that day. But no.

So good. What are you talking about? This is right, no? Yeah. Isn't that so frustrating when you're, you're like, I'm on your side technically. It was so hard to navigate that because at that point, like I had my own platform. I didn't want people to think that I didn't.

Reddit was not a nice place for me. It's not a nice flight. Yeah. Instagram and TikTok were great. All the comments had been so kind. But Reddit and Twitter, I could not. No, those are more toxic. People were saying I have my dad's eyes, but there was one that was like,

she's going to turn out to be an abuser just like her father because they have the same eyes or something. I was like really, you're really going to say that. What is wrong with people? Also, a lot of church supporters. I don't want to say that they had faked being friends with those people to kind of gain support in the community, but I kind of feel like that's something they would do. But yeah, I didn't want to look like a bad person bashing. Yeah, you're going up against like a woman's defense fund league coalition and the church.

And then you're the victim. It's really upside down. Yeah. Did you learn anything in the trial that was upsetting or you wish you just never learned about your dad because part of the defense is going to be them trying to paint your father as this terrible person and then you're going to inadvertently learn all kinds of stuff about your dad that maybe no one needs to ever learn i didn't really not know anything you know everything was kind of already made aware to me before there were text messages between them some interesting sexy text

messages that you'd rather not see she's like oh gross but yeah like there was a couple reports where they talked about like choking and all the sexual stuff they want to do. I'm just gross. But there was one thing he texted Ashley at one point that he had said Renee doesn't exist to me or something. Because she kept bringing my mom up. And he had said that she doesn't exist to me anymore. Because he's got to pacify her. Yeah.

That was a little gut-wrenching. Yeah, of course. I mean, I've always known my dad to just love my mom to pieces. And it wasn't true. It wasn't true. Yeah. Of course it's hard to see that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, what did you learn about the power of charisma during that trial? I mean, everything. She just had her agenda set, and she just would do anything to try and force the agenda. Like the alligator tears on stand, that's what everybody said when she was crying, and she looked worse on certain days, and she was dressing just the whole thing. She was playing a role. She's kind of built to play that.

Yeah. Well, she's been doing it. She's been playing a role for years for the whole life. And that's what I put in my impact statement. I said, you know, this is a role that you finally thought you were going to get and keep or something or the best performance of your life. That's what I said. And, you know, she tried. Now, post-trial, you have some, like, reckoning to do you've got to kind of figure out what's ahead.

And I'm curious. She's convicted. She got found guilty of manslaughter. So she got 20 years plus 10 years of probation, but obviously that could be shorter. It was five to one at first with the due. jury. She was going to get murder two. But then all five came down to meet the one at manslaughter. I don't know the reasoning, but that was really annoying to hear. I thought it was murder one. Yeah, she was premeditated. There was also reports that came out during the end of that that two

different people had said that she had reached out about hiring a hit man. But it wasn't enough evidence to back it up. Yeah, to submit that. So were you expecting some closure? or sense of relief once she was convicted and found guilty that did not come? Or did you not even expect it? Or tell me all the wave of emotions post-trial? I was relieved post-trial for sure, ready to get out of Sarasota and never have to go back. I kind of had done a really good job of giving myself the closure. So I wasn't looking to the verdict for validation, you know, because it was like, well, whatever she gets,

my dad's dead, there's no bringing him back. And I already have everything that I need at this point. So I just need to figure it out on my own. But it did feel good to have that behind me. And even the next summer, because I had two summers in a row of anticipating some sort of trial, I was anxious for a little bit. And I couldn't figure out why until I realized, oh, this is the first summer that I'm not dealing with my business in a lawsuit.

I'm not dealing with a murder trial. It's just quiet. Yeah. And I don't have to deal with anything anymore. But that can also be scary. Oh, I was freaking out. My roommate at the time was like, well, maybe it's because, like, you just are not used to being comfortable. Yeah, just your arousal setting and the nervous system and the cortisol.

Like, he had been living in a very, very heightened for years now. Yeah. You've got to, like, figure out how we're moving forward. And I know many of the reasons, but tell me some of the things that you focused on and became your path out of this whole chapter. I knew that I had built my platform up to this point. And when I had started posting, the reason I kept posting was I wanted to help people because I'd get so many comments and DMs and people coming up to me in grocery stores saying, hey, I'm dealing with this and you helped me laugh about it or you helped me look at it in a different light.

Or I got a comment the other day that said I'm dealing with something and I'm going to start referencing your videos anytime I start to feel. alone. And that just made me feel so good because I had felt so alone. Sometimes I still do. None of my friends are doing the things that I'm doing right now or I was doing. And it's kind of scary being like, I don't have a fallback plan. I'm doing this on my own. I don't really have a reference for this. Yeah. You talk about how isolating the experiences. Because yeah, who on earth can relate to you really? Your boyfriend of three and a half years was urging you to like get over yourself. Get over it. Yeah. Get over it. Which ended that relationship. After my dad passed, I realized that, yes, it was very isolating.

And first of all, I mean, it was like a high school into college relationship. But he's told me when I was like, get over it. And I realized we're just on different paths right now. You have your parents. You have your fallback plan. This is my plan B. This is my safety net. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was just like, I just need to figure out what I'm doing. And it really just made me think, okay, we're just not meant to be together right now, you know? And I just need to figure out my life. Also, I didn't handle it with grace. I think I was like black. out, not drunk, but just in a daze of what is going on with my life right now. Yeah.

I started posting on social media and just realizing I can help people feel less alone because I needed a me in that moment and I didn't have a me. So I just kept doing that and I built this community that made me feel less alone. I helped other people and I wanted to finish the book and get that out there. Well, you have really good habits. You have art. You're creating nonstop. You have your business, which is great.

Sully's still with us? Oh, Sully? Yeah. The dog is still with us. He's 13, but he acts like a puppy. Oh, my gosh. He's been through a lot with you. I say that if he could write a book,

he would do a lot better than mine. Yeah, tell me how the ocean and Charleston and all those elements you've come to lean on and how helpful they've been. So right when I started writing Ghost Girl, I had just moved into my house on All Palms. I started going down a really dark path. I mean, I was going out every single night. I had started my business.

I was making money. I was doing on my own. I was drinking. I was partying. And then I had one terrible, terrible, terrible hangover and realized that I need to stop doing this because it is not the correct. I'm blowing money. I'm waking up at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. every day or 1 p.m.

Like it's not good habits. And I found this house and I moved out. And I had always, my parents sang growing up, you know, we're going to move to the beach one day. We were always at the beach. We were always in the marsh. We were always doing something outside. And so I saw this house.

I had bought a 1978 F-100 that I was rebuilding. And I sold that. Great choice. Thank you. I loved that truck. But I sold it so I could afford two rents because I had my apartment in Mount Pleasant. And I found this house and I had to have it.

I'd sold it so I could afford the two rents to get rid of my old lease and move into this beach. house and I went dark. I got back to my old self of waking up early. I was getting back into shape. I was running all the time. I had solely. I had my business. And I just kind of had a few friends in my roommate and I just was out at the beach every single day. And I had the luxury of my own business. So if the UV was high, I was going to go tan. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Your Instagram is Beach, Beach, Beach, Beach, Beach, Beach. I can tell that's like a huge source for you. Yeah, tomorrow the UV's in 11 and I'm not there. I'm flying home. I'm not. I'm flying home. I'm

I love that you're chasing you. But here, it's hot here. It's nice out here. Oh, it's so nice. I'll be on an airplane tomorrow. So I wish I got to experience the outside today. It was great. But yeah, no, I saw a post on Instagram today, and it said the UV is my stock market.

I'm checking it every single day. I tie my mornings if I don't have to go to the warehouse. I'll be like, okay, wake up at five. I was up until recently training for a marathon. So it was, you know, an hour and a half every morning of running and then lifting and then doing this. So I'd be like, all right, if I can finish all. all my things by 11. I can be on the beach by 11.30 and then I can go to the warehouse at three.

That was like my summer schedule is in. This is a good existence. Yeah. Did you run in the marathon? No. So this happened to me last fall, too. I had a different race. And I was actually supposed to be in Ventura last weekend to run it.

But I tore something in my glute and it caused IT ban syndrome. Oh. Yeah. And I got to a point where I could run on it, but not well. And at that point, I think I was so emotionally. Work is busy. the book is coming out. I have too many things going on.

And my PT said, I can expect you to run it, but come home injured even more. I said, why would I do that? Yeah, exactly. So I have a fall race that I'm planning on now. Nice. I love the voice of your book. It's very young. And I say that as a compliment.

That's kind of the biggest thing I get. I really, really dig it, though. I'm really glad you aren't trying to purport to be some 50-year-old looking back on your life with all the answers. Like, there's something about all the current vernacular you're using. And just the way you're talking is very, very youthful book. I think, like, young people would love reading this book. I also started writing it in 2021. So I moved into the beach house and then I started writing it.

I mean, I was younger. And so I've kind of grown into it. And it's interesting. So I'll go back and read some of it and be like, I wouldn't say that now. But it's good. It's of that moment. It really captures four years of my life and into now. It's almost impossible to believe that you're doing as well as you are.

I mean, it's like, I feel like a one-intech. 10,000 people all these things could happen to and he would still be functional and building and creating. It's crazy. Well, so my mom and my dad always said everything happens for a reason. And I had so many weird instances where that just kind of came to fruition after the fact that that was the biggest thing I just I told myself for so long. Like everything happens for a reason. It sucks, but it's supposed to happen. My brother, ex-military, I had him kind of in my ear, almost like David Goggins in your ear just like suck it up, get through it.

I did have this kind of war path of, you know, I'm just going to have relentless positivity. Yeah. And that's just what's going to get me through. And then, I mean, obviously, eventually I did start getting into the neuroscience of it all and just how you can really train your brain to get through and stay positive. We're insanely resilient. And you're a premium example. That is fucking crazy. Yeah.

I really hope everyone checks this book out. And I hope if you have a young girl in your life, you buy the book for her. It's called Ghost Girl Survival. The Black Swan Murder. Eva, is a real pleasure to meet you. Yeah, thanks for coming. Thanks for being willing to tell us the story. This is great.

Yeah. All right, let's get you some UV. Let's try to get a 12. What's the apex? Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks. Two peas in an hour, Monica. I'm actually concerned.

Oh. A little scary. That's a lot of pee. A lot of pee. I only pee once a day. Once a day. I know. I mean, in two in an hour, you're like,

some would think that's scary, but. Initially, that part's scary, but then you get used to that. That's right. And then it's scary if she goes twice in an hour. Yeah. Well, I did think for a minute that I was getting a UTI, but I'm not. Okay. Okay.

It's my mom's fault because she. She gave you dirty underwear? Yeah. She does my laundry. No, she takes cranberry pills. She's been taking them for a long, long, long time. And she, like, swears by the cranberry pills. And so I started taking them for a while.

And then I stopped. And so when I was home for Christmas, she was taking hers. And she said, are you still taking your cranberry pills? And I said, no, I'm not taking them anymore. And she was like, why you should. Yeah. She's like, why, you should take them. Whatever.

And I was like, I'm not taking them. And then on New Year's Day, I call it. and we were talking about her resolutions and she said, what are your resolutions? Cranberry pills. And I was so annoyed. Wow. No, I'm not doing it.

Like three or four days later, I was like, I think I'm getting it. Great. And I had to go pick up some good old cranberry pills. She'd be so happy, right? How could she not? I just told her, I'm back taking the cranberry pills. I didn't tell her that.

No, I didn't. It was under duress. I did not. Well, I'll just say in a forthcoming episode soon next week. Yeah. We have a guest on who's talking about throwing a birthday party, and I went on and on about how I don't want a birthday party. Half the episode is about how I don't want a birthday party.

And we walked out of the garage from that interview, and I was like, that's weird. Kristen's got a man over in the swimming pool. A big man. Yeah, I did not notice it was Aaron at first. I was just like, oh, she's got a man over. I saw a little bit of, there's a woman in the mix, and I'm like, oh, these are her singing friends.

Friends over, yeah. Yeah. So then I come around the hedges, and I see my son's here, Sharon Beasley. Yeah. And I go. He's in the hot tub. My very first thought, not to get too dark for the cherries, but this is our past. I'm like, the only time Aaron has ever shown up in California without letting me know he was coming

was the day I opened my apartment door in San Monica and Aaron was standing man. It looked like he had been drugged behind a car for a week. And he had been smoking crack for five days. Oh. In a tiny moment of I think I'm going to die or go get on an airplane and fly to my dad. He got on an airplane. So you thought something bad was happening? Oh, no.

I was already sober for a year maybe at that point. Yeah. I just got a bit of a PTSD. Like, why would Aaron just be here without telling me he's coming? But did it make you feel better that he was in the hot tub and laughing? Well, I said some. surprise. And he goes, are you coming off of crack again? And I said, I'm here and I'm healthy. Oh, good. I mean, I didn't really think that. And Ruthie was there too. But you never know. She might

have been like, we got to get Aaron to Texas. An intervention. Oh, God. It wasn't that really deep as I'm saying. I just had this really weird moment where this has only happened one other time. So Kristen at that point had to acknowledge you're having a surprise party. I've planned a party and I brought Aaron and Ruthie here for the party. And then I was really excited. Good. Because I didn't have to ask anyone to come. I didn't have to get scared about that.

There wasn't a bunch of time for me to worry about who's not going to show up because it was just going to be the next day, which was last night. It was perfect timing. She planned. She knew she was going to tell you, which I thought was a good plan, that there wasn't going to be a real jump out moment. And also Rob and I did great acting because during that interview, we all knew. You already knew.

Of course we knew. Did you feel so bad for me? Like, what a dumb dumb. He does. He's digging himself deeper and deeper. No, it's just like, oh, this is going to be a funny moment. Yeah. But then I also was like, if he is then up mad that this is happening or anxious, we had an interview

scheduled the day of your party, which was yesterday. Yeah. And it was scheduled for 2 o'clock. The party started at 5 o'clock. Yeah. And I was like, oh, no, okay, I think we should probably move up the recording. When is she going to tell him because he needs to have enough time to do his research? He's going to be mad if he doesn't have enough time to do his research.

And if he already doesn't want the party. I'm going to react to everything. I'm learning terrible stuff about myself. He doesn't want the party to happen. He's going to be even more mad about it. He's going to hit the children. But you are very happy. Hey, my son's there.

So I'm happy right away. Aaron's here. This is unexpected. I had just seen him a couple days before in Detroit. I mean, which was a surprise. Or it was last minute. Last minute. And so exciting. I was like, oh, I get to see Dad. Twice. And get to pretend that it's our last night together. Yeah. But Aaron's only been here for 10 minutes, but boy, we've already had a very eventful trip. Yep. So yesterday, before the interview and the fact check that was moved up, I said,

you want to go for a ride than the new station wagon, which Aaron was like, absolutely. So we went for a little rip around town. It was so fun. And then I was like, let's quickly, I think we can, before the fact check, we get some eggs. So we stop at Cafe 101.

We parallel park the wagon on the street. We go inside. We sit down. We're there for, I don't know, a minute and a half. And a stranger walks in. And he looks at me and goes, white car. And I go, yeah. And he goes, it's on fire.

Horrible. And I just... PTSD. Oh, my God. Too many fires in this city. I sprint out of the restaurant. I'm fully expecting it to be engulfed in flames. So we sprint outside, get to the wagon.

Sure enough, there is smoke coming out of the hood, pull the hood pins, open it up, a wiring harness is on fire. There's flames. I don't know how this worked. Did you see this happen? The spit? Yeah. Yeah.

I just went, I spit as hard as I. I could. I fit at the fire and it went out. It went out. I might have a superpower I didn't know about. I was just grabbing a fire extinguisher. I couldn't figure out how to pull the plastic pin off. By the time I got the pin, I was watching him, and he went, and the fire was gone.

It's just smoldering. I don't know how that worked. I do worry about that with fires about using the fire extinguisher, because it's not something you can practice. Well, you should, I guess. I guess. I realize that. Yeah.

I should know how to do this. Yeah, I know. I have one by my bed and I look at it a lot and I think I don't really know how. You should get the safety off and everything. Yeah, exactly. It seems really simple. And then also when you think about it, it seems really hard. There's a video of Taylor Swift trying to use one in her kitchen.

And she's also like, what the fuck? She didn't do a good job. She did end up doing good job as she always does. Good job. Yeah. Was something on fire in front of her? Yeah, in her kitchen. Oh.

Yeah. And someone was running video. Yeah. And then I'm piecing together because there's now a woman behind the car who I guess was either parking or got in her car. And then what became obvious is she must have got the hotel guy. But I do wonder had we not just had the fires if like she would have been so incredibly, she might just saw smoke coming out of a car. I'm like, it's not my problem. Exactly.

But yeah, everyone's on such high alert that I think she immediately went. I think that's right. She's like this whole area is about to like ignite. I was then thinking like, oh, my God, what if I had set another round of fires in Hollywood? You finally got Los Felas. People have been like that entitled bastard. Why is he got to have these cars that catch on fire? These old new cars that keep catching up.

Yeah, he can afford a new one, but he bought an old one. He should be driving electric. That wouldn't get caught on fire. You went near the end of it. Yeah, but you can drown in them. I shouldn't say. Well, when they catch on fire, you can't go breathe anywhere near them as we're now finding out. That's the crazy part.

But also, you know, that horrible story. And I don't know all the details. So I don't. And it's very sad. But Mitch McConnell's sister-in-law. Oh, drove into a pond? Yes, and a Tesla and, like, couldn't get out and died. Ooh.

And I think it might have to do with that Tesla. It probably shuts down and water. That door opens electrically. not mechanically. Or I think I don't want to be sued. I think there's a release on there as well. If you had read the manual and practiced like a fire extinguishing. It's in the,

it's in the door, though. It's in the door, though. It's right there. It's right there in the door, though. Oh, okay. Well, apparently people, like, came and try and they were there and they couldn't. Yeah, I'm vaguely aware of that. Yeah, I probably talked about it before. I think you did.

It was when you were wanting everyone to have a window smash or. Yeah, now I have a little smash. Oh, nice. Aaron, I have an update for you. Oh, please. I think one of the last times you were here, we were talking about my running. Yeah, I remember this. Yes, and I want you to know since then a sign has been put on the yard, not by me, that says no, it says no dogs allowed slash no trespassing.

I forget to what it says. It says something explicit, like, no more of this. So it was solved for me. I thought you were going to bring up his chest hair. That's where I thought this was going. Oh, no. The last time he was here you talked about having shaved his chest hair, how sexy he felt. Okay, so what's the update on that?

Well, I just had my back shaved again. Are you making cashmere? I should because it's an enormous amount of fur that comes off. Aaron. I've never let you feel this. No, but I've seen it. Very select group. Go ahead and touch that.

Be really careful. Give an honest what you think about that. Oh, my God. Is that not the softest thing you've ever felt? Can I sleep with it tonight? Do you know a blanket made of that? No. So you can make some, I know.

You've got to be careful. That is. It is Casimir, isn't it? It sure is. There's no tonight. Wow. And you know, now Delta's leg hairs are in here, too. Oh, yeah. So we're getting it, we're harvesting from my back and her legs.

No, my whole family. Maybe it can be a joint, Aaron's hair, because then we can really get some movement on it. At the risk of hurting Aaron's feelings, Aaron has had dense body hair his whole life. He's a man. He's always been a man. I'm not, I've always not been a man. I've always felt like a preteen or a woman next to him. And he's always had a gorgeous Bert Reynolds' chest hair since we were 17. Okay, so you think it's coarser. I think it's coarser. Would you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, um, yeah, all I'm saying is the amount. Yeah. Okay, well, you don't have to have cashmere. We can do mohair for you. So, Ruthie just shaved me again with the dog. You know, it's got a vacuum. I may have said this before, but it has a hose and you watch it accumulate in a chamber.

Oh, wow. And this is so fun because that's why I realize. I'm like, oh my God, I have so much hair, like this much. Wow. Whoa. A Ruthie's super gross, though, by it. Well, she can't touch the cash near then. Yeah.

I know we're both getting hair now everywhere. It's maddening. But have you noticed, we've already talked to about our armpit hair? Have you noticed your armpit hair is like, will be two feet long sometimes? If we haven't talked about it, yeah, I've been chopping mine. With scissors? Same. I now give myself

like a haircut in my arm hair. Me too. And then I have this very weird I want to do you have this where it's like I have it in my mind it's supposed to be some length

or else why would it be that long? Sure. Because I'm tempted to just like cut it as close to the skin as possible so I have to do it less but then I think aren't you supposed to be some length? I wonder that too.

Can you just keep like grow it out just so we can see how long it gets? You're right. There should be video evidence of some of this. You know why I had to finally confront it. Other than, like, maybe my kids pointed it out and I was embarrassed. But also, you can't even get your deodorant to the skin anymore.

Because it just clumps up in your hair. And then you have dingleberries in your arm kit. And you're like, what the fuck is going on? Why am I a mess like this? Redlock. Well, 50, you know. Not Aaron. Yeah, not yet.

Not even close. Six months. So I was like we're a party. Okay, great. How about you guys? talk about my party. Oh. It was a yacht rock theme. It was a yacht rock theme. It was at my favorite roller skate rink, Moonlight Roller Way. Yep. To name drop, Kimmel made the playlist, as he's made me many playlists in the past that I love. And Kristen enlisted him to do that. Tons of blast from the

pass. A lot of my groundlings friends, just an incredible, perfect group of people. My dad came all the way out from across town, Tom Hanson. Adam Perry Lang made barbecue. Adam Perry Lane cooked. It was incredible. Yeah, did you get on both of the meats? I just had the pork. The pork ribs.

Yeah. So insane. How good were those? They were so good. And the cornbread was so good. Oh, it was damp as a mother freak. It was like a, what do you call it cake? A spout.

Pound cake. Yeah, it was delicious. I was really excited about the. Adam Perry Lane of it all because most of my friends that were there didn't know about him. And I don't know what their expectations were at a roller skating rink. How good the barbecue is going to be. But he is one of the best barbecue. He does these pop-ups around L.A.

And there's fucking lines around the block. Yeah, and he's just there cutting ribs. At a roller skating rink. Yeah. He's really sweet of him to do that. He's a very nice man. He is incredibly nice. I've also enlisted him to teach Kristen how to make crate.

Oh, right. For Christmas one year, her birthday, I forget, and, like, got her all the machinery and stuff, and now she knows how to make crepes. She's stuck with it. She goes through little phases. You know, there's no crepes for months and months and months, and then there's crepes 10 days in a row. She could cook some compulsively. I hope there's crepes tomorrow. Well, exactly.

Oh, you should bring that up. She would love to. I thought, I had a craving for crepes, like three days ago. And it was 9 p.m. So I didn't think it was possible for me to get it, but I wanted it so bad. And then the next day I told her I was craving them. She said, I'll make them for you. And then guess what the word was on wordal today?

Crapes. Plural or singular? Singular. Singular. Isn't that weird? That's suspicious. So normally this is Delta's birthday party is here every December. And we always get the rink for two hours.

And it's always my commitment to skate as long as possible because it's such a unique opportunity. But the window of this party was 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. And I was like, I don't, oh, I got to back up. One other thing that happened, because I didn't know I was having a party, is that day before I rode the furthest I've ever ridden on my new road bike. Oh. I told you, I passed your house a couple different times. Aramcherry sent me. I was even paparazzi.

I didn't know it. Oh. Yeah, I went everywhere. I was down in the L.A. River down, past spoke, then out in Glendale, then back into Silver Lake. So that whole day when I came out and. and he saw him in the pool, I was like, I went too hard. I can barely walk. Then she said five to ten, we're skating.

And we got five hours of skating. And we're going to skate. We're going to skate hard. And oh, one thing I got to add is people really went for it with the yacht rock theme. Aaron had an incredible outfit. He really did. Turnkey bought off of Amazon. It was perfect.

Yeah, it was white. It was white. All white. Unwhite. Hat. Pipe. The pipe really pushed it over. I don't even know why it makes sense.

It doesn't, doesn't. I don't know. I can't like, I'm racked my brain of where I've, this is some famous image of a captain with a pipe. I love boat or whatever. But again, I don't even think on love boat that was happening. What's the other one where they're all shipwrecked? Gillian's Island.

Yeah, Gillian's Island. The Skipperdin Smoke a pipe. Did like Gorton's fishermen have a pipe or something? Oh, yeah, but again, that's a yellow rain slicker. Mandela effect, we all just think we know these captains have pipes, but none of them do. I don't think any of them do. And how long have been since you skated, Aaron? Probably seven years.

Seven years. I was a lot heavier, and I, and, um... You were at 3.20 at that point. Yeah, and I remember for really, because I was like, I'm going to do this. And, um, and I was real wobbly. And then after a few laps, I was expecting everyone to be watching. watching me because I thought I was that good. So fucking stupid.

I'm like, oh, really? I'm just a fat guy roller skating and I'm old. But you're waiting for them to notice how fucking cool you look. Shit, I didn't know your old man ripped. Yeah, everyone's going to high five my fucking kids. To hoist you up on their shoulders. They probably got beat up the next day. Well, despite that, you did.

quite well. And Monica, let me thank you in public. You have sat out the last two skating. I have. But then it was your birthday. And so I thought, I got to do it for your birthday. It was so sweet. And did it, you did it.

I did it. You did quite a bit of skating. I did like 12 laps or something. Maybe more. I think more. I was saying, yeah. I want to say you were out. You had three different sessions, didn't you?

I have multiple sessions. I even after eating, I put them back on. And I learned today, earlier today, that you actually had gone out by yourself to do a little trial run like the garage in Tennessee. I did where I learned to ride my bike. Yes. Yeah, I got a little nervous not having been on them for a couple years and I was first to arrive at the party. And so I just went out on my own and did a little practice. Yeah.

Found my sea legs. I'm not good on them. And I don't. Ryan tried to help me. he was like, you know, go more side to side. I go more front to back, I guess. Yeah. And sort of my proprietary move.

So I'm just not very good at it, but that's fine. It's hard for me to not be good at it. But yes, you kill it. I ate shit, though. Let me say that. And by the way, on the way there, I said to Aaron, okay, if you haven't gone in a long time, a prediction for you is you think you're going to be bad. And then you're going to get out there and go, oh, my God, I'm actually quite good.

And then you're going to get overconfident about 15. minutes and then that's when the big wreck comes and I had been skating for a good hour and a half two hours at this point I was very loose I was feeling very confident and I decided you know what as I skate by joy because she was high-fiving people on the sidelines I'm like you know it's gonna be radicals I'm gonna blow by shooting the duck oh is that we were trying to do oh did you think I just fell out of nowhere I knew you were doing something with joy but I didn't know that was so for people don't know shooting the deck you like you get on one skate and you bend down I can't even been down on one leg if I wasn't wearing his skates, especially with the biking from the day

before and the two hours skating. And I got halfway into this commitment and realized I'm going down and I went down pretty hard on my hip. Yeah, it's scary. Luckily, you were on the rink at that moment. I was. And you were right behind me. So you saw the whole thing. I did. Made it loud enough noise that I think most everyone looked. I missed it. I don't think so. You missed it? I was, I was skating, but I missed it. Yeah. I don't think so. I'm not sure if I want. I wish you had. Well, I wish I had, but you've skated up to me and you go, the fucking duck bit back. And I was like, I was like, what? I didn't even know what that happened.

You got up really fast. You didn't look hurt. That's the goal. Yeah, but I knew you were. And then you didn't, you hadn't seen, you were, you hadn't seen Fall Guy. Right. And so, have you seen Fall Guy? I did, yeah.

Oh, what a movie, right? So good. every time this stunt's over, they give the thumbs up. Like, I'm good. They're not good. Their back's broken. They're like, so then I was like, I gave the thumbs up and for the people who had seen it. But you hadn't seen it.

And then I felt compelled to try to explain to you my joke. So I was in a good deal of pain and I had given you the thumbs up and I needed you to know. That was a nod. I was making a joke. Yeah, I said, are you okay? And then you gave the thumbs up and I was like, no. And then you had to come back and tell me what, in fact, wasn't okay. It was not okay.

But I kept going. I was like, is it fraught? Is my hip fractured? Maybe it's fractured. Let's just keep going. There's nothing they can do for that. So you can put a castor on your hip. This is why it's really roller skating is so tricky because you have to commit if you're going to have fun and if you're going to be good.

But then you will fall. So you're choosing. Especially you try to show off like me. Well, once you're feeling it, like everyone's going to try. And that's what I don't do. I just do half because I don't want to fall. And I don't fall, so that's great. Yeah.

But then it's that. There were very few falls last night. Right. In fact, kind of a shocking few falls. Yeah. Because at Delta's party, the first few years, people were going out really bad. They were. They were.

They were. They were. It was like 20% of the dads were fucked up the next week. On it fell last time. Yeah, she went down pretty hard. I saw that. Kind of great though. So you see it and then you just like,

You kind of look away, let people recover on their own. Well, no, so that's a great, as you know, I like getting embarrassed. And when I fell down at the movies, you know, I was laughing hysterically. But the pain was so sharp. Like, I wanted to laugh because it's just embarrassing. I tried to shoot the duck. Joy watched the whole thing. Her friend's watching.

She doesn't know me. So there's a new person. At least Joy is my, like, sister. Yeah. I've known her for 12 years. It was painful enough that I couldn't actually get to the laughing part. I just got. You were smiling pretty big, though.

I was performing. I came on a retirement from acting and put on a real good thing. Then gave a thumbs up, and only two people got it because I thought everyone saw Fall Guide and they hadn't. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare. And then, Kristen, somehow, I haven't even asked for the logistics, but our favorite treat in the world, for Michigan is Saunders Bumpy Cake. For people who've never had Sonders Bumpy Cake, it is a chocolate, damp devil's food cake base,

and then these huge ribbons of twinkie filling all covered in a fudge icing. Did you try it? Yeah, I did. I hadn't had it before. Did you like it? Yeah, I loved it. You're not, that's not your thing?

Oh, fuck it. Oh, okay. Now it is. Yeah, okay. It was really good. We were kids you didn't love chocolate. Right. Yeah.

Right, right. I do know. I had some for breakfast. Oh, you did. And I fucking went nuts. I had my immune suppressant before the party because I knew we were going to have bumpy cake and I ate way too much. Wait, so I coupled the hip pain with like, I made myself sick. But then I was like, you must get out and push through all of this.

Did another couple hours of skating. It was a fan. It was a great, great party. It was a lovely party. And as I told you, what was really kind of. novel about this party because I've had them in the past. I'm always, I get feeling really guilty like Tom Hansen. He drove 50 miles across town through rush hour traffic to get to the party.

And he's older. And then I'm out skating the whole time. And the whole time I'm like, I got to go sit and talk to Tommy. He drove all the way here. And virtually everyone that's showing up, I feel like I should be talking in them for a half hour. And then I had this light ball moment. I was like, everyone here is a blast to talk to. When I look around, everyone's quite happy talking to whoever.

I'm not needed here. I can stop feeling guilty about that. Yeah. Did you have the moment where you were like, oh, all these people I've collected? Yeah, I tried to have that moment. I did. I was in the bathroom and I actually even did my mantra for like two minutes. I was like, I really, I really want to, yeah, have that moment and see that.

And then Tom Hanson, who knows me so well, he hugged me and he said, are you able to let any of this love in? And I said, I'm trying real hard. But also I'm pretty sure everyone's here just because Kristen invited them. Like, if I'm being honest. So silly. That's so unfair. That's so unfair to all of us. To you.

To anyone who went. I don't know. Still, my residual low self-esteem or something. I don't know. It was the funnest party I've ever been through. And there's no fucking booze there. That's saying something. I mean, I'm still riding on it today.

I got to push back a little bit. I guess you're not counting your birthday parties because Aaron's birthday is July 2nd, which becomes a 4th of July Aaron's birthday spectacular. It was often at his dad's farm. And it would be like a three-day party with 50 people camping. Those were fun. Fucking awesome. Those were damn good.

Those were good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I'm happy you had a great time. But I fucking have fun, man. So much fun. It was really fun. So much fun.

And I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I felt very loved. Good. Yeah. I mean, when you were blowing out your candle, I looked around and I was like, oh, this is so lovely. What would I thought many times is like, this is, you'd be a hard press to find a better group of 40 human beings. So it was a really good group. I felt lucky that I was in, I had been collected over the 50 years.

I was happy to be there. Did you have a favorite conversation with anyone? I had so many. I had one I can't repeat. Oh, okay. That was the most memorable. It was with Eric. Yeah, it was naughty.

Oh, okay. He's so open, though. He's so provocative. I can't because it's not about him. Okay. I can't wait to hear that. Jesus. He never fails.

Yeah. I think I know every, I think there's not one thing you can say that will get me. And man, man does he. I got to talk to Joy. I ate with her. And that was so nice. I hadn't talked to her a long time. That's what I was excited about that.

I was more looking around seeing people I love talking to each other. And watching you guys chat, I was like, oh yeah, my sisters are chatting. Yeah. Yeah. And she was wearing all day glow yellow like full. Oh yeah. She looked amazing. Yeah, neon fishnets.

So awesome. We came up with my superhero name because we were, of course, talking about spades. Uh-huh. And her friend she was with was black as well. And she's like, this is the upside downworld. They play spades. We don't play spades. And then her and I came up with that.

My superhero name is the appropriator. And my catchphrase is, I'll take it. I see something from your culture. I like, I'll take it. The appropriator. Oh, that's funny. Really fun to talk to Nate and see Nate in such a long time. Yeah, again, if Nate talks at a party, what am I worried about anyone finding someone to talk to?

How about you? Did you chat with anyone new that you? We're like, oh, that's weird. I loved catching up with all the, yeah, like the old groundlings, your crew from back then. Like, I hadn't seen Ben, Tim loves to, that. Yeah. So that was all very fun and super comfortable. Like, we all just dove into conversations that were fucking great.

Yeah, Ben sent me a text. Like, I talked a lot with Air Weekly. It was so fun. Yeah, it was great. And that vaccine, of course, probably stole the show. he was the same white outfit Aaron had, but his was short shorts. Oh my God, yeah. And he was very sexy on those rollerblades.

He was so athletic. He was so good on those. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, best party I've ever been to. Oh, man. It's kind of your birthday, too. You get to take. You guys get to share birthday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it. Yeah. Kristen did a damn good job there. She really did it. And she was very worried. She said, um, I, boy, he's really been talking a lot. and that he's very grateful he didn't have a party.

And what a load off? I think she had heard me say like four times between my birthday and yesterday. I'm so glad I would hate a surprise party. And the poor girl had planned a surprise party. But what do you think now? And now that it's happy. I'm so happy. Yeah.

And that just goes to show I'm known better than I know myself in a lot of domains. Like, yeah, I was delighted. As long as I didn't have to go through any of the anxiety of it all, it was absolutely delightful. Would you have been upset if it was a real surprise? I don't think so, but I just don't know how you get me to the roller ring. Exactly. I think she would have had to. I'm just so annoyingly curious about why would we be doing.

Yeah, because Penae wasn't going to take you to the roller ring. The only thing that had been planned and I had been tricked on is that Penae and Nate and I were supposed to have dinner that night. That was the big plan. Oh. And even like on Monday, I asked Kristen, can I go to dinner with Ait and Panay? And she's like, yeah. I'm thinking she must have been laughing her buns off. The plan was coming together perfectly.

And then so I was both really excited about the party. And then I was like, oh, man, I was really looking for going to dinner with Panay. And so we just decided we will also go to dinner next week. Were you guys going to Martins? I hope. Hope we bring George Kittle with us. Aaron and I decided the best compliment you could give any guy is to say like, oh, I'd love to go to Mortons with that dude.

Like if you don't know him, but you've seen him from afar and you go, fuck, I'd love to go to Morton's with that guy. I mean, he is a great guy. I like Dan Campbell. Can you imagine going to fucking Morton's with. He goes directly to Martins.

Don't stop. You guys wouldn't even have to say it. We get there and the food would be on the table. Oh, goodness. What's the equivalent? Is there equivalent of that for the gales? Oh, like the spa? No.

Because there's no chatting. Yeah. Actually, the mall, I guess. Oh, yeah. Shopping. Yeah. Go right to the mall with her. I'd go shopping with her.

Like, what do you want to do with Ashley and Mary Kate the first time you hang out? Besides tour. So my pants just fell out. Exploded. My underwear fell off. I don't know if I can go shopping with them. That's confusing. You be.

I am a. Imagine it. I would be self-conscious if I were you. Because I'd be afraid everything I said I liked, you'd worry they didn't think it was good style. I guess we would go to their store. Okay. And I'm thinking, what do you guys think I should get? I'll pay.

And they'll be like, I know you'll pay. We don't give discounts. We don't fuck around like that. And then they'd pick out some stuff for me. And then we'd all go have martinis. They would smoke cigarettes. I wouldn't. Oh, maybe you would.

No, I've never done it. And even for them, I won't. I'll roller skate for you, but I won't smoke a cigarette for you. So we go to bed early. Super early. Right away. Anyway, well, it was lovely. I hope you feel a little happy today.

Oh, I do. Just I took my immune suppressant and I think I have a cold that came back and I think I have a fractured hip. But also just be mean with gratitude. Yeah. I felt hungover this morning. In fact, so many times, I don't know if you remember this. Do you remember I got like a really cool sweatsuit for Christmas in a watch? And I was at your house.

We were in the backyard. And I somehow fell in fucking split my lip like wide open. When you were little? No. And I was like home for Christmas. And our Christmas started at a certain time. And then we had stayed up till nine in the morning the day before. And then so I didn't wake up to five.

So I got to Christmas Eve, our big family tradition, quite late. And I just had this enormous bloody scab on my mouth from the night before. And we had a lot of those. So anyways, when I woke up, I was like, I have a headache for me and all the cake. I'm sick and my hip hurts. I feel like I was in Arizona. 99 or something. Okay.

Should we do a little, just quick facts? Some fackies? Yeah. This is for Reed Hoffman. Okay. You said that Martin Luther raised literacy rates from 3% to 95% according to AI. Okay. While there isn't a precise percentage readily available to quantify how much Martin Luther

raise literacy rates, historical research indicates that the Protestant Reformation, largely driven by Luther's teaching, significantly increased literacy levels across Europe, with some studies showing a difference of nearly 20 percentage points between predominantly Protestant and Catholic regions. Essentially, areas with the larger Protestant population, had substantially a higher literacy rates. But there's no percentage. I'm clearly way off given that percentage. But you got it from weirdest people on Earth.

Joseph Henrik. Friend of the odd. Joey Hendrick. Go back and listen to that one. Is our unemployment rate as low as it's ever been? The unemployment rate was 3.4% in January and April, 2023, the lowest in 55 years. 55 years.

The last time the unemployment rate in the U.S. was this low was in the first five months of 1969. the average unemployment rate during the Biden administration was 4.1% really low. Yeah, very low. A lot of countries have 10% and above. Yeah. 1984 did come out in 1949. But we think he wrote it in 1948.

Yes. But he had said, read our guest, no, it was 48, which was clever because 1984 was a flip of 48. Yes. And we still think that's true. Yeah. But it did not come out until. 49. The price of Bitcoin today is $104,627.70. Wow, wow, wow. Aaron, did you watch that greatest high stock on Netflix?

Not yet. Okay. Well, in a nutshell, these two incredibly weird people, I don't feel bad saying that. Their names are Ilya Dutch Lickenstein and Heather Razelkan Morgan. Yeah. So a bit of a clue in their names and they stole stole I always say stole that's one of my things they stole 70 yeah there they are oh man boy that photo of him on the left he might have stockholm this yeah this makes me feel sad actually oh it's not yeah you are not happy for either of them but they stole 72 million dollars in bitcoin that they really couldn't unload so they just held it. By the time they were arrested, it was worth $4.5 billion. So it's the greatest theft in the history of the world.

Oh my God. No, I haven't seen this. Now worth $10.8 billion. Now we're $10.8 billion. What? What? It was stolen from BitFinex or BitFinex. I don't know. And it's a Hong Kong-based virtual cryptocurrency exchange. Mm-hmm. So that's yikes. We've had friends that were involved in. some thefts of that right? Yes, we did. Well, that was of... We have a friend that's a victim of... A victim, that's what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yikes. A lot of money. Which I can only imagine when it's worth now because that was, what, five years ago? Yeah, it was, yeah. Oh, I have a thing marked here. So you made a car.

You designed a car using AI. Yes. You decided you wanted to show it. I would love to. Wob, you want to put it on the TV because you're so good at that now? Yep. You email me it?

Oh, and I'm going to send you. one picture after that of a Ted Seeger's poster that I, well, there's two, there's three actually that I really like. Let's see. Oh, I'm going to send four things. Oh, my God. Because then I did something for our show. Exciting.

All on AI? All on AI. I played around with some merch stuff on AI. That was fun. Ooh, okay. Right. So for the listener. Yeah, so I want a 15 passenger van for Nashville because I assume we're always going to have

so many people staying with us that anytime we go to dinner, we're going to need, like, tons of seats. So then I was like, well, I want a 15-passenger G-van, a Chevy. But I want it to be John Player paint scheme. I want a wide-body. I just said, like, not a ton of things, and it spit this one out. It spit three amazing ones out. Did you say black and gold? Yeah, that's the John Player livery famous paint scheme.

Isn't it interesting how they fuck certain things up? Like, look at the grill. It's kind of going to say Chevrolet, but it doesn't. Yeah, yeah. It's weird. And then like there's normal letters on the tires and then weird abstract. And that's the third one. Look at that.

Dude. Fucker. Can you imagine if I can. Here's a weird thing I did. Look, and I'm only noticing now that it's blown up that big, it's got two gas. Oh, it does. Yeah. Two fuel doors.

Yeah. That's weird. Right? You see that money? You need a lot of gas for that. Well, probably knows I'm going to be. I have my foot in the kitchen the whole time. Okay, now go Rob to the other.

What is John Player? It was a cigarette brand that sponsored Formula One and racing, and they have this signature black and gold. Okay, so I said, make a poster for a beer brand named Ted Seeger's in the style of Miami Vice. Yeah, I love this one. Isn't that great? That's really cool.

And again, what does it say? It doesn't say Miami beer, but it says, like, NAMU beer. Almost makes you think it's like a Thai beer or something. Underneath it just squiggles kind of like hieroglyphics. Yeah. Get that Egyptian. Okay. Now, yeah, I said, give me a beer brand, you know, Ted Seger's.

I want a muscle car, a motorcycle, and a muscular horse. This one is a little. The fucking horse. That thing is ripped. Oh, this is so funny. All right. And then I was like, what if a beer brand named Ted Seeger's sponsor, uh, um, hydroplane race, boat and it made that.

This is incredible. Yeah, but what's on the side? Did you... I think it's a... I think it's barley or hops. Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

Okay. All right. And then... Look at this beautiful. That's pretty. Get that out of here. What'd you say? A crow with a cherry?

Yeah, a crow with a cherry and it's beak. Okay, but... I had to do many to come up with this one. Yeah. Took a while. Did you see this? What's this? That's your...

Oh, that was your invite. for the party. Oh, I didn't see that. It says, you're rock, rock. Right? Yeah. That's not an H, it's an R. It's Y, R-A-C-H.

And Captain's questionable. Oh, he's got sneakers on. Yeah, he's a jacked crow. No, I hadn't seen that. That's great. Look, that vascularity. Oh, my God. That crow is a fuck.

I was scared is that other crow that's flying in the background. He's probably flying to get the fuck out of there. I didn't really she used AI for. It must have. Well, that's that. That was it. Those are all the facts. That was a fun AID to her. Yeah. Unless you're listening. I guess that'll all get cut out if you're, I was just thinking if you were listening and you couldn't see any of this. Go to YouTube and watch it. Y'all. All right. Love you. Love you. Love you.