Behind the Bastards - Part One: Wim Hof's Surprisingly Deadly Story

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Robert sits down with James Stout to tell the grisly tale of Wim Hof, who got famous for teaching celebrities how to hyperventilate and has a much darker backstory than you'd guess. (2 Part Series)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is where we talk freely about all the stuff happening in the world. You can keep Meghan Markle for all I care, as long as I get to take Harry to a weekend in Vegas I'm happy. It's employees only! courtesy of Ron Howard, the new podcast from Imagine Audio, pretty fast and I Heart Media. Listen on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Behind the Basterds, the podcast where I Robert Evans and Polina Power move on Sophie with the script of today's episode again. You want me to send it, Sophie? You excited?

I don't know. Do you want pain and suffering? I will drive to your house. I will literally end this Zoom call. Yeah, yeah, you might, you might, you might. People can't see, but Sophie has an axe behind her. I do. I got her that axe.

Probably a mistake. That would be pretty ironic. I'm so nervous to open this. Uh huh, I know. It's a Schrodinger's script. It could be a fake again. It could be the real script. It's a Schrodinger's script. It could be a fake again. It could be the real script. It's the real script. It's the real script. It's the real script because you're a fucking coward. That's why. Well, you don't want to do it every time. I'm not going

to do it two weeks in a row. You'd expect it too much. Respectfully. I'll low you back into a false sense of security and then I said me the right script. You motherfucker. This is the one used for chat GPT. I may have it right, a fake script that looks like on the surface like it could be real and then send that to you some week and see how long it takes before you get really angry. I got to be honest, I've read the first two sentences, chat GPT can write that shit. You are an artist.

Thank you. Thank you. Speaking of art, our guest for today, James Stout, a man whose life is a work of art. James, how are you doing today? So much benefit for that, Robin. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry, your spear gun triggers not working ideally.

Yeah, it's so optimal. So look at it. Yeah, I'm gonna make it work. It's okay. The joy of building weapons for yourself is the long period of through which they don't work. You figure out what anything you've gotten wrong. Hopefully not when it discharges into you.

Yes, it's not because you don't point it about yourself. Yeah, they are fun and rewarding. And part of the world is the plan is key. You know what else is key, James? What is that, Robert? Breath control. And it's true. Yeah, yeah.

Today we're talking about a guy who has gotten very probably rich, I don't know his exact necked worth, but certainly extremely famous. For teaching people a series of very specific breathing techniques, a fella that you may have heard of that most of them. I'm going to guess a lot of our listeners have heard of named Wim Hof. James. Yeah, you're aware of, you're actually the guy who suggested this episode.

So why am I, what am I fucking around pretending like James, what do you know about Wim Hof? Yeah, you know, you know, he's a dangerous grifter. Yes. I think that's fair. I'm gonna guess most of our audience don't because I really didn't. For me, Wim was a guy who, he was on the scene, he's now spent a lot of time

in Joe Rogan's show, he's been on the Goop podcast, and he's working on a TV show with those people. But prior to that, he was also pretty prominent. Back when I worked at crack.com, like 10 years ago, we featured him in an article for some of the stuff he would do and broadwim is a guy who like uses a series of breathing and meditative techniques that he claims basically renders him immune to the cold and capable of extreme feats of here to forethought impossible athletic prowess. He's been studied and by scientists

and a number of occasions, there are some things he's done that are impressive, although we'll talk about it, not in the way that he claims usually. But, I was somebody who I read about, I saw this video of him submerged in ice for a crazy long period of time or hiking up Kilimanjaro in short. I was like, that's impressive. Cool. I said, I figured out some new endurance techniques, nifty. I kind of didn't think

about it much more than that. It wasn't one of those things. Wim was not initially claiming, I have cured cancer, or I've got like, you know, you don't need vaccines, just do my exercise techniques. He was just a guy who was like, you actually have more control over your body's reactions to cold than you think. And here's how to do it, which didn't seem to me on the surface

to be something particularly sketchy. And I'm gonna guess most people were kind of in that broad bucket where you were like, you saw some video of him, you read some articles, you're like, oh, neat. And then you went on with your life. The truth is that he is, in fact, a rather dangerous con man. Now, since Mr. Hoff is a bit of a fame hound, it's not hard to find interviews with him. And nearly all of them summarize his career in similar ways. To set the scene, I'd like to read an excerpt from an article in the mirror, which is a shitty

tabloid, but reasonably representative of the tone a lot of websites use when talking about Wim Hof. That's why I'm quoting it not because the mirror is a reliable source of anything. Prince left-wing press. Yeah. Quote, a Daredevil record holder dubbed the Ice Man showed he can keep a cool head after scrambling to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in record time. Wim Hof 55 holds a whopping 26 Guinness World Records for extreme sports challenges, including running a full marathon above

the Arctic Circle, wearing only a pair of shorts. But father of five Wim from Citterd Holland proved he has ice in his veins after his 18 strong climbing groups scaled Africa's highest mountain in a record time of 31 hours and 25 minutes. Now James. That sounds like chat GPT. I'm sure that that one wasn't. I am absolutely not sure that could have been chat GPT, but it is if it was it's because they cut up a bunch of other newspapers talking about Wim. They all use that kind of tone. Yeah. Now James, do you want to guess what percentage of the claims made in those three sentences are true? Zero? Zero. Every single thing I just read you as a lie. A couple of them I heard. I was like, that doesn't sound right. I'm not sure about that. You will see those not just repeated by the mirror.

For example, the Guardian pretty well respected paper, not someone something would consider just like a tabloid generally. And here's their summary from a recent article about the Ice Man. Wim Hof is known as the Ice Man. He earned his name after setting 26 Guinness World Records, which includes swimming under ice, running a half marathon above the Arctic Circle bear. Submerging himself in ice for an hour and 52 minutes and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and just shorts and sandals. Now This will tell you something about like what good journalism is worth versus bad journalism because

the amount of things that are correct in that sentence is higher than 0 percent, right? That's good to hear. Yeah, there are four claims in there, and one of them is accurate. Okay. So that's good. Yeah, well, we strive for a little more. You can say two of them are accurate, but not in a meaningful way. We'll talk about it later.

So, man, check. This is probably a significant surprise to most people who have kind of casually heard about Wim because for seven or eight years he's been very good at not just performing feats of endurance, but doing it while hooked up to equipment monitored by actual scientists from like reputable universities who have confirmed some of the health benefits of the breathing techniques he claims to have pioneered. But the real story behind Wim Hof breathing and the man himself is much shadier than that.

Now, given that he is a semi-beloved figure too many, I wanna start us off by making the states clear, the states clear, because the breathing techniques that Wim uses, he did not really invent, but they're not bad, right? He's not like lying about it. There are uses for these techniques. They go back much further than Wim Hof.

We'll talk about the origins. And like the ice bathing stuff that he does is not inherently bad. There are some potential health benefits to cold water exposure when you do it in certain controlled ways, right? Again, the way he tends to teach people about it is pretty reckless, but fundamentally,

there are aspects of the things he teaches that are not inherently toxic. However, I want to start again by making the stakes clear, which is that there are multiple allegations in court that the irresponsible training methods by WIM and his organization, Inner Fire, have led to the deaths of between 12 and 15 people.

So, we are not talking about, well, he's just like bullshit around. We're talking about like, there's a body count for this episode, right? That's what we're talking about the guy. If he was a dude who just got like some rich people from Santa Monica to like, do ice baths and like pretend, right? I have a lot of respect for that. Yeah, that's fine. Take their money and I'll give a shit. Yeah. I have a lot of respect for the guy on the one wheel who gets rich people to crawl on their back so long train tracks, so I'll shout to them.

Absolutely, absolutely. Like, I got no problem with those guys who do those like fake Navy SEAL trainings that convince like, I don't know, finance bros in their 30s to like, yeah, crawl backwards over train tracks. Like you said, like, yeah, that's fine. That's whatever. It's praxis.

They're willing to spend 10 grand to do that for four days. It's the best thing they could be doing with that time and money if we're on this. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Wim Hof was born on April 20th, 1959 in Cittard, Limburg, the Netherlands. He was one of 10 children and is also a twin. In his book The Way of the Ice Man, he claims he came out as something of a surprise, quote, after his mother had given birth to his twin brother, Andre,

no one noticed that a second child was on the way. When the doctors had left, his mother started to feel contractions coming on again. His mother, a Catholic, prayed the second child would also be born healthy. She expressed the hope that if it were healthy, the child would grow up to be a missionary. Wim's mother told this story regularly and Wim believed the circumstances of his birth and his mother's strength had a great influence on him.

So that's his claim, right? Born to be a missionary, you know, his mom prayed him into being divinely chosen. Yeah, I don't know that. That just strikes me as something that someone who's praying to bullshitting might say. Yeah, it does seem like that might be the case with whim. So he's not a great writer. In this book, the way of the Ice Man, he is credited along with Cohen De Young.

I don't know, you know these names, it's Danish names, like I'm doing my best here, whatever. As the author of this book, and I guess the safe assumption is that neither of them are good at writing books. His stories about his early life are inconsistent, although not necessarily conflicting with the stories that he gives, like the stories he gives in this book,

are inconsistent with stories he's given in interviews and on podcasts, but they don't necessarily conflict. It's just he tells weirdly different stories each time he's asked about his background. It's not one of the with a lot of grifters. It's like, oh, these are all clearly lies because all of these things can't be true. With women, it's more like, why did you ignore that detail that you included in your book in this recitation of your background? Like, that seems kind of confusing to me. In some interviews, he claims that his father died in a mountaineering accident when he was a young boy and says that this made of confusing to me. In some interviews, he claims that his father died in a mountaineering accident when he was

a young boy and says that this made him determined to conquer the mountains. Bad lesson to learn from your dad dying mountaineering, by the way. The lesson you should learn is respect the mountains. Mountains are very dangerous. You can try and conquer them, but they might fight back. They are much older than you. They've seen a few people come and go. Yeah.

Including his dad. Yeah, including his dad. In the way of the ice man, though, he gives a different story as to why he decides to get into conquering the mountains and doing weird cold weather stuff. Hoth was fascinated by the cold from a very early age. One freezing winter's night when he was seven, a neighbor found him in the snow, strongly attracted by the white landscape. Hoth had climbed out of bed, crept outside,

and fallen asleep in the snow. If his neighbor had not discovered him, he probably would have frozen to death. I'd know, man. Why? Yeah, that seems... It's definitely a normal behavior there. Seems like congenitally bad risk assessment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's something in the water in the half house hall, which is to make poor choices. Yeah, something in the half, in the male half brain that does not want to pass on their genes. He does not mention his dad dying at all in this book, though. In fact, I didn't really come across, I'm not going to claim I read this thing like fucking Ulysses,

but I did not come across him even talking about his dad here. One thing he is consistent about is that he experimented a lot with the cold as an adolescent. He does bring this up in every interview that he discusses. This started with him sitting in the snow for hours and hours at a time, sometimes sleeping outside in the winter without a tent or a sleeping bag. We don't know how much of this is true, but as we'll discuss, he makes other claims later about his fascination with enduring extreme temperatures. When he was 13, Wim claims, he spent his fall holiday

reading a book about psychology and later wrote, the psychological terminology gave birth to my inquisitive mind and the urge to philosophy everything around me. It was then that I began to see the world in a different light. All at once, I wanted to learn about different cultures, traditions, and new languages.

Now, in the way of the Ice Man, he claims that this process started when he was nine, and that his interest was sparked by his older brother who had hitchtiked around the Middle East and the Far East, and came back with strange and wonderful tales. Wim goes on to claim that he was so impressed by how his brother had changed, that he stopped listening in church and focused instead on meditation techniques that he've learned from Hindu and Buddhist texts. He went to school only with a healthy reluctance. He then has his autobiographer describe him as, quote, a self-willed clever and cheerful young boy, which I do find a little bit off-putting when you're clear writing this description of yourself.

Please make it up as a quote from someone else, bro. You've gone down that right by the hall, like just to continue to fabricate. Yeah. So the specific meditative practices that Wim was drawn to most is called tummo meditation, TU MMO, sometimes G-TUMMO, G-TU MMO. These are a set of meditative breathing techniques that are part of the Vajrayana tantric Buddhist practices. Considered in their full context, tummo, which translates to inner fire into betten, is

a meditative technique that goes along with visualizations and rituals that are believed to help alleviate mental and physical pain. Tumbo breathing has been studied by researchers and has been shown to allow practitioners to increase their body temperature. And for a long time, it has been associated with at least temporary relief from a number of ailments.

Western researchers have been studying Tumbo breathing since the early 1980s, but the practices themselves go back a very long time. These are basically different kinds of hyperventilation techniques, right? So these are things, these are things that go back a long time, this kind of breathing techniques, and there are certain physiological changes that are that can be useful in some ways that they are tied to. In most versions of this story, Wim will say that his journey from being a guy or two being a guy who spends all

of his time in the cold started when he was 17 and he found himself possessed with an inexplicable urge to dive into a half frozen canal and Amsterdam. Here's how he related that story to the Guardian. I was quite a thinker, a philosopher, but one day I felt attracted to the freezing water. I jumped into a canal and Amsterdam and thought, this is it. That deep connection I felt that day was the starting point. Every day for 45 years, I've gone into the cold. And this is more things that are a little bit weird because these don't necessarily conflict that like in the earliest versions of his story, he would just say like, yeah, when I was 17, I just felt this urge to jump into a canal and that got me started doing these cold weather exposure, you know, experiments.

But in the more recent stuff that he's written or said about his background, he claims that like, oh, I was like eight or nine and my neighbor just found me sleeping outside in the snow. No one could explain it. Like he keeps pushing the timeline back. Yeah. And like going from like, yeah, like a lot of us, when we are 17 year old boys feel nerd to do stupid shit, right? It's kind of the sine qua morn of being a 17 year old boy

in many ways, but to take it from birth, I was attracted to the cold, because I'm such a little bit kind of, my version of this is that when I was 17, I felt an overpowering urge to pour an entire pint glass of a fucking gym bean and see what happens if I drink it all at once. How did that go if you were a bit?

You know, I developed a new set of meditative breathing techniques that I can teach you for just $12,000. Yeah, do you breathe from the stomach upwards and wait a little bit until I'm at it? Shallily on my side while coughing up vomit. That's the real technique. You will not notice if you're in the cold. Deep, it's true. Yeah, once you're drunk enough.

Once you've alcohol poisoned yourself, it becomes the second reason. Alcohol poisoned yourself to better health. That's my breathing technique. So he goes into a bit more detail about his journey here in a discovery magazine interview from a few years ago. Even today, he has a difficult time explaining the impulse. I felt this attraction to the cold water, he says.

And then, after I went in, I felt this understanding and inside connection, it gave me a rush, my mind was free of gibberish. It was so good, in fact, that he returned the next day to take the plunge again, and he continued through the winter and beyond, along the way evolving his breathing technique, which is based on the centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist practice known as Tumoh meditation, but features none of its spiritual trappings. Now, this canal story is present in basically every interview where Wim talks about his past, but oddly enough, he doesn't list it as part of his journey in the way of the

Ice Man. There he goes for a more exotic story, claiming that he traveled to India as a young adult to find a teacher who knew more about what was really important in life. His biographer insists to us, he was looking for a deeper spiritual understanding. And I feel like I have to read the next couple paragraphs of this to you verbatim so you can truly appreciate how insufferable this man is, James. It flew to Karachi and took a train to New Delhi, in search of Yogi, he slept in the enormous Berla Mendi or Temple Complex. He met the owner of a T-house and the rebellious son of a

carpet magnate there. These two men persuaded off to accompany them to Rishikesh and Badranath, two places of pilgrimage on the Ganges. This colorful trio set off together, a strong, bearded sea-curanity house, a black sheep from the carpet industry who could get anything he wanted. And he was fed up with the corruption of his world and hoff. They thought hoff was crazy because he went swimming in the gongies a couple of times a day. Hoff even swam across to the other side, no mean feat given the strong current. He was also impressed, he also impressed them with the acrobatic yoga exercises he could

do despite never having had a yoga lesson in his life. In India, Hoff discovered that his auto-diagnetic approach had already brought him a long way. He could already stand on one leg and put the other leg behind his neck, a position many people left to practice for years to master. His traveling companions remained behind in an ashram, but Hoff didn't feel at home there. He didn't like the clingy cozy atmosphere of the foreign participants, and although

many of the yogis had learned very special techniques, he didn't like the way they profited from them. He also discovered that he could not learn much from them. As he had already mastered their tricks, he continued his travels alone on foot. Just the best. Why I went to India, but I knew more than all of the teachers and they were, they were doing it for money, which is bad. Unlike me, who's, I am pure and celebrity guru now. Yeah. I'm soiled killing people and that's when it pulls. We've all met this guy as well, right?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Anyone who has left the United States has encountered this guy in some place in the global South, and they are insufferable. Also I love that he's like, they were mystified that I swam in the global South. And they are insufferable. Also, I love that he's like, they were mystified that I swam in the Ganges. I was like, man, I've been to Rishikesh. I have swam in the Ganges in the Rishikesh.

I know exactly where he did. So, not that you gotta be careful, right? Sometimes the current is too much, right? So there are times that you don't want to be swimming in the Ganges, but like Rishikesh is up in the far north that's in the Himalayan foothills. It's relatively clean. Lots of people swim and raft in the Ganges, but like, Rishikesh is up in the far north, it's in the Himalayan foothills. It's relatively clean, lots of people swim and raft in the Ganges up there.

Not weird to see people doing it. No one's going to be like, oh, white man swimming in the Ganges. Like, we're not talking about being like, down like fucking South of Delhi, where you've got a lot of a fluvia in it, and it's a lot like less safe to swim in the Ganges, because like you've got cities and stuff. fluvia in it, and it's a lot less safe to swim in the boundaries, because you've got cities and stuff.

You are talking about a place where a lot of people do this. Anyway, whatever, Wim, come on. The Hoth. Yeah, the Hoth. Let me use this last name, the Hoth, giving yourself a little bit of stoning Hoth, Vada. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So in this version of events, Wim describes feeling an overpowering urge to leap under a massive waterfall.

But water was so cold, it stopped him from being able to think. Quote, the sensation of a strength and power greater than himself took hold of him since then he has loved ice cold water. So now we're at like three or four different stories about like how he came to experiment with ice cold water and I will choose, I guess. Yeah, it does clear the mind. I wouldn't like. I remember. Sure.

I think I have plunged into the waterfall he's talking about. If it's the one that's a little north or rishakash. Right. He just didn't turn into a giant grift. My first experience with extremely cold water, I think, was I was pack-rafting in Alaska and we'd stopped on a chunk of an iceberg and because I'm a boy, I pissed from the top of it, right? Because it's a standard operating procedure.

And then from there, I jumped off it into the water, having not done the relief zipper on the dry suit. And it's only clear as the mind when you hit water, which is just above freezing. And yes, I'm sure it's a bit dangerous too. You know, as it felt dangerous. You gotta be real careful with water. In that moment, it felt pretty dangerous.

I didn't want to go back. That's smart, James. But you know who can never die? Elon Musk. That remains yet to be seen. But our sponsors of our podcast, all of them are willing to fight Elon in a steel cage at that house. Yeah, at their house, if you're in. Also, I am, by the way, Elon, let's go. Oh, buddy. The god that has been thrown down. Yeah. Yeah. to your Buffalo to-do list. Enjoy the thrill of gaming and gourmet cuisine from small plates to fine dining.

Unwind at one of our lively happy hours and take in the stunning cityscape from our patio with incredible sunset views. Plan your visit at Seneca BuffaloCreatCasino.com. Seneca BuffaloCreatCasino. Nothing else comes close. This is In Retrospect, a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped us.

I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed. Yeah. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author. I'm Susie Bette-Kerrem, an award winning TV producer and filmmaker. Every week we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student teacher relationships, and one, very memorable red swimsuits.

I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand with these moments taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay.

And that's not a long story. It's not a love story. It had been branded on the uteruses of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the iHeartRadio app app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Sferas. I'm a film director. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career.

He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Ivers. I just said, okay. Let's meet him. And even hosted LA Night Cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory. The crowd started getting bigger and bigger and then there was Beverly Damzellon. There was John Baloozy.

But then it all went to hell. It was murdered. Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3, 1983. And it raised a question that 40 years later, we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers? Listen to Peter and the Acid King on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to NPR's Black Stories Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration

of the hosts in journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience, and stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I would bet on you. Thank you. Yeah, me too.

Thank you, Sophie. I would also bet on me against Elon. Would you do it like full dual style? Would you like let him the weapons and then look, because if you issue the challenge, he should be picking the weapons, right? Sure. Why not? What if he chooses Teslas? Oh, then we'll both die. Yeah.

That's what you got for children or athletes. Oh, yeah. Fine. You'll go down a hero. Yeah. Yeah, the way I always wanted to. So soon after, which again, if you're taking the claim that he encountered cold-water immersion in fucking India, then soon after this, he decides to go home, having learned everything he can

from from from mysticism in Southeast Asia, and decided to go home and devote himself to unlocking the powerful spiritual benefits of being in cold water. He returned home to Amsterdam at age 20 and he sets up in a squat with about 90 other people. By his own description, he ate very little food and mostly did yoga, avoiding the drugs the other squatters did. Now, I might say that starving yourself and doing yoga for 20 hours a day, could theoretically be less healthy for you than just doing some fucking K and eating shwarma, but that's a personal choice. People are allowed to do whatever. So he seems to have basically spent this time busking by teaching yoga in the park, which is again

fine. And one day while he's doing this, this thing that he had also criticized these Indian yogis for, by the way, kind of worth noting. Taking money. Yeah. He meets his future wife, Olaia Fernandez. She moves in with him and he claims for a year they didn't have sex, which I was not going to ask about. Yeah, don't point it in the book. But he wants us to know.

So now we have to fucking interrogate this. Yeah, let's go. He says he does explain why they didn't fuck. And it's because, quote, off-swat life was devoted to yoga. And his Spanish girlfriend respected that. And I always find it a little weird. It's fine if you're like, he met his wife, you know, a bass woman from, you know, Spain or whatever, okay, like that's fine.

For whatever reason, just like the way, just like describing her as his Spanish girlfriend, I do find slightly off-putting. Yeah, I can't exactly tell you why. Yeah, she's like a bit character in a story he's telling about himself. Yeah, we'll be talking about her a bit. So she goes home after they're together

for like a very sexless year according to Wim. And the next thing that happens in his life that he talks about in his book is a bike trip to Senegal which is very spiritual to him. I don't care, it's very boring James. His spiritual journey is boring as ass. I try much prefer like, I don't know, Elrana Hubbard's. But he claims after Senegal, he goes back to India and he studies under yogis. This time, I guess he finds some ones that have lessons to teach him still.

No, I'm prophet yogis. Yeah, non-profit yogis. We have no idea, no way of knowing if any of this is true, but given how inconsistent his story is, I'm going to throw serious doubt on this next passage. Quote, he trained his body in mind under extreme conditions. Sometimes he spent several days at great heights while enduring temperatures of negative two degrees without food, negative two degrees Celsius without food. He discovered a new way to survive the extreme cold, controlling his breathing. With breathing exercises, he could transform his fear and the negative experience of the cold into a powerful form of energy.

He saw his body in a new way and learned that breathing is an important instrument. This was also where he learned his breathing exercises. So, I don't know, I don't believe that, but that's one of the claims that he makes about his background. He tells different stories in other mediums. In some interviews, the claims that he makes about his background. He tells different stories in other mediums. In some interviews, he claims that he learned to control his body temperature through diving

in the freezing canals and other cold weather exercise in the Netherlands. I'm not sure that's how that works. It is not how that works. But here's how he made it. I want to read a claim that he makes in a Reddit AMA that I found. Yeah, this guy sounds powerfully Reddit. That's a good thing. Yeah, it is.

He makes some fascinating claims in his AMA. Yeah, great. So here's, here's Iceman Hoff. Because our natural ability to withstand cold mix is not able to freeze and not go below zero degrees. If your cells go below that temperature, you get a reputable damage. If you exposure that cell for that temperature, your body knows what to do to not freeze. The body is able to

go to the extremities besides the core, which remains 37 degrees. I can do all that stuff. I trained with Kung Fu Masters in Beijing, and they respected me very much. Kung Fu Masters in Beijing? Oh Kung Fu masters in Beijing just throws that out there in the reddit AMA I haven't seen that elsewhere But I guess in between the yogis in the top of mountains he went and trained with some kung fu masters to Did me very much fuck me the Orientalism is so profound. It is Out it is outstanding, or even capitalism. You have to travel to the 1840s to get the Orientalism like this normally.

Yeah, this guy could have crushed it in like a label. He would have been huge. Yeah, like he could be an unsurpassable Arabia shit. But, no, he would have been almost a god until he died of fucking tetanus at age 37. Yes, yeah, yeah. Back to real infection from the 10s, trying to show off the breathing technique.

And it's very, so he says that, like, I tried with Kung Fu masters, they respected me very much. The response, the one Reddit response from Jay and Brooklyn is just very inspiring. Thank you. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, sometimes someone's hot. Yeah, fuck me. He's really getting high on his own supply here.

He's really, oh, how kind of a show. Oh, how kind of a show. And it get, yeah. So one of the things I find intriguing about whim is that this is not the kind of situation we see all the time where a grifter kind of workshops a version of their life story and there are inconsistencies in the past, and then they pick a story and stick with it, right?

And if you dig into it, you can find, like, oh, they used to tell a different story. But they tend to, like, when they get famous, stick with a version of events, right? Because that's the smart thing to do. What's interesting to me about what he's so inconsistent, still to this day, with, like, his exact journey, and, like,

when he had his revelations and when he got inspired to do what, just very interesting to me how kind of him. He has drunk guy to bar energy. He's not like experienced grifter energy. Yeah, which I think is probably part of what works for him is that he does seem a little bit less polished than some of these more explicit con men.

Yes, he's not like, and he doesn't look like, like he's not like, people are watching, listening to this and like they haven't looked at Wim Hof, you wanna look at Wim Hof because it's not the extreme mountain athlete you're probably thinking of.

No, no. He does kinda look like a normal man in his 50s. From, you know, this part of the world. Yeah. So up to the present day, he continues to give different anecdotes about his path to figuring out his special breathing techniques. The way of the Ice Man came out in 2017,

but you can find articles from the 2020s where he tells the canal story instead. I do find that book to be the most interesting version of his backstory, and part because of how badly written and off-putting it is. So after his time in Senegal, Wim breaks up the narrative with a message to the reader, which basically says, hey, we know you're probably wondering why we're giving all these bullshit stories about spiritualism and shit and a book ostensibly about breath control

exercises. Don't worry, we'll tell you soon, but first quote, we must share the sad story of Wim's wife, Olaia. Buh! Oh! You ready for this, James? I don't think I am!

You are not ready for this. It's impossible to be ready for this. Hit me with the, yeah. I'm gonna hit you with my best shot. So fire away. That is a peculiar way of introducing what will prove to be a very dark story. So before going back to India to study with yogis, maybe, Hafer term to Amsterdam and met with Olehya, they got married and they had a son in 1983, presumably after he got back from studying in the mountains with yogis, although he doesn't say.

They had two daughters soon after, but it was too cold for Olaia and the Netherlands, so they moved to the Pyrenees and William got a job teaching English. Now, Wim claims that he took to mountain climbing up in the Pyrenees with basically no gear. He'd go up in like shorts and shoes and nothing else and stuff as a hobby, right? So that he could, he could just feel alive. He's got to like go up there with that proper safety equipment otherwise he doesn't. Yeah. He's not on the edge.

He's not alive. Now this pisses off his wife because they have free children together. And she's like, you are taking dumb risks with your life for no reason. And like, we have kids that we're responsible for. Ha ha ha. When you get as a fact criticism. If you're just a dude and your hobby is risking your life in unnecessary ways, you got a right to do that,

you know, to a point, as long as you're not endangering other people with it. When you have three kids with someone, you are kind of a dick for kidding. Yeah, you do that. That is a douche booth. Yeah, like you have a responsibility now. You gotta at least get those kids out the door

before you go back to your suicide. Yeah. How did your father die? Well, he was hiking in his box of shorts in the parody. He was in a dumbass and so I hear him every day by continuing his legacy. Being a stupid asshole in the mouth.

That's why I like to go through my car. Yeah, exactly. Now, you say that, James, actually, you may be unaware of this. Ghostwriting, the whip, is the most reliable way to treat chemoresistant forms of cancer. Oh, fascinating. Yeah, doctors agree. It's really the most antioxidant, rich activity you can engage in. Ghost riding your car.

Thanks. Yeah. Bigger the car, the better. Just rent an 18-wheeler and just fucking get that thing going downhill and then just tuck your roll, baby. Okay, you actually, okay, you don't go through right on top of it. You know, that is actually more terrorism actually. Hey, this bit.

Yeah, when I think of it like that. This bit is bad. Shut the fuck up. Uh huh. Uh huh. Is that a bit sofy? You don't like ghost writing? You don't like ghost writing.

No, I don't like fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, Oh, I love a good fake cancer cure, Sophie. That's like our bread and butter. Yeah, yeah. You know, none of us would have jobs if people didn't have fake, fake, fake, fake, fake, and so Sophie, anyway. That's like our bread and butter. Yeah, yeah. None of us would have jobs if people didn't have fake cure for that.

So Sophie, anyway. Yes, yes, but no. Okay, well, Sophie doesn't like my retirement plan, but that's not going to stop me from retiring. So, where were we? Just like I was going to stop that 18 wheeler, Robert. So, Robert's got the energy of a loose truck barreling down the freeway.

Well, they get spisted in for risking his life when they've got kids together, pointlessly. And eventually he agrees to stop doing his suicide climbs and instead devotes his free time to learning how to hold his breath underwater. Eventually he gets up to six minutes. Now, when I first read that I was like, that sounds like bullshit. I don't think people can hold their breath that long. Turns out they minutes. Now, when I first read that I was like, that sounds like bullshit.

I don't think people can hold their breath that long. Turns out they can. Yeah, dude. It's what's actually totally doable. When I was looking this up, you know what the longest anyone's ever held their breath for you underwater? Eight minutes, 24.

Four. Now, that is the longest anyone's done it with oxygen pre-breathing, right? Okay. They're not like raw dog in it, right? They're in Haley and Pure O2 before whole. But still, anyone's done it with oxygen pre-breathing, right? Okay. It's not like, they're not like raw dog in it, right? They're in hailing pure O2 before whole, but still that's fucking wild. That is wild. That's like whale numbers.

A half man, half dolphin. Yeah. Without pre-breathing, the record is 11 minutes and 54 seconds, which is fucking nuts. That is so long dog. A long dog. Yeah. The board. Like you got to work on some mind exercises or a thing of sudoku down there or something.

Do you taxis? Here's some shit. Yeah. So it's plausible. We're very likely probably can do something like this, given some of the other stuff I've seen him do. So I'll give him that one. In the way of the ice, man, he claims that around this time while he's spending, God knows

how long preparing the hold his breath underwater, his wife starts disappearing for periods of time because she is severely depressed and she was regularly threatened to commit suicide. He says that they returned to Amsterdam because he no longer felt safe with her in their farmhouse, which is very sad. Some of this, this is to some extent true. They have another kid though, while this is all going on. And then after they have this last kid, Olehya abandons them again for a period of time.

Now, in numerous other sources, sources, he says that Olehya was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. This includes in 2017 in the way of the Iceman. He also will sometimes just say that she was depressed. Obviously, both of those things can go together. She does eventually commit suicide. And this is very bleak. I want to first read to you how that story is related in a 2017 Rolling Stone article. And then I'm going to read how it's related in his book because the differences between the two of them

are fascinating. So here's that Rolling Stone article. OK, hit me. One day in 1995, after kissing her four children, goodbye, she jumped off the eighth floor of an apartment building. A bit later, Hoff had a vision in which he saw how his breathing technique

could help people like his wife. I can bring people back to tranquility, he once said. My method couldn't give them back control. So that's it. Yeah, very separate. That's a paragraph. That's just a choice. That is a series of choices he made there.

Yeah. I didn't think I'd write that. Yes, fucked up in my mind, but you know, whatever, not worth getting into too much there, my judgment on the matter. But here's how he relates the same story in his 2017 book The Way of the Ice Man. One day, when Hoff was alone in the mountains,

Oleh jumped from the eighth floor of her parents' house in Pamplona. Oleh was dead, and Am isabel, Laura, and Michael lost their mother and Wim lost his wife. He felt guilty and the children were devastated. Hough to voted himself to caring for his children, occasionally retreating to be alone with nature to recharge his batteries. In those years, he was a well-known figure in the Vondelpark. With ropes and ballet equipment, he showed young children how to climb the highest trees. The children learned that they could do more than they thought was possible. Hough enjoyed

the natural surroundings, even in the heart of Amsterdam. Later, Wimry married and had another son. So that's also a paragraph. Quite a, quite a page or whatever. I'll just get to cross first how odd reading Wim's different life stories can be again. They're not necessarily in conflict with each other, but they all are so different in terms of what is emphasized

and claimed that it does feel peculiar. And spoilers in both of those versions of the Wim Hof story, he leaves out some very fucking important details, which we are about to get into. But James, you know, we're going to get into first. It's it. Some some advertising. Oh, we are sure going to get in some. James, you know, what I love about capitalism. No, actually, no. Is it some some advertising? Oh, we are sure gonna get some some James You know what I love about capitalism. No, actually no, please enlighten me. Oh, man. Oh wow first off

The fact that content can be supported with ads That's wonderful. Which is a sustainable Situation I was just thinking the other day. You know it'd be a great way to run newspapers Making that and that's supported. That's a stable way to make sure people have access to the best news at all times. And it helps because they sort of the press holds people in power to account. So it's important that there's also advertising. Yeah, yeah, critical, critical. So be a part of that by buying whoever it is you hear from next, you know, if it's a Reagan coin, it's the Washington State Highway Patrol, send them money. Just send money to a random phone

number on Venmo, you know, what type numbers in the Venmo? Yes, it's pretty much. Spread some joy. Spread some joy in the world. I would rather you do that than the Reagan guy. If you've got a pot of money and you're thinking about what to send it, random Venmo. James, I don't think it's responsible to advise our listeners not to invest in Reagan coins because they will be quadrupling in value.

I'm sure. Is it a crypto type coin or is it a physical? Probably. I don't know. There's a physical coin. I skipped through that shit. You didn't read the PDF. Hey, here's an idea. How about people don't do that? And they, they, they subscribe if they are able and want to to cool it as a media, and then they don't get any

ads. Wow. Alternatively, these drawings of monkeys that you can buy on the internet, that's a great thing to spend your money on. No, James. No, I have reinvested the whole company pension plan into. Yes, because we have, we totally have that. And that's why our motto is fast diet equals on me. I got an incredible deal on Jimmy Fallon's monkey drawing. This is it on the boat. Yeah. It could be on a boat. That's up to you. You can take it. Can we all go right to your monkey drawing? Nice. Anyway, get an MS paint and update that bad boy now products When they come to take what's yours?

You're ready. Let's go. The only option. We're gonna hate this next part is to fight option. We're gonna hate this next part. It's to fight. Renée, bring all with me. From director X. We take back what's R and give what we steal to our people. All right, let's see what you've got. A classic new toy. Three were unstoppable. A legend. We born. You wanted me? Right? Robin Hood, new series Wednesday, ten Eastern on global, also available in Stack TV. This is in retrospect, a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped

us. I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author. I'm Susie Bette Karam, an award-winning TV producer and filmmaker. Every week, we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student teacher relationships,

and one, very memorable red swimsuits. I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic, as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand what these moments taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic.

Okay, not a love story. It had been branded on the uteruses of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Sferas, I'm a film director. I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career. He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Ivers. I just said, okay.

Let's meet him. And even hosted LA Night Cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory. The crowd started getting bigger and bigger, and then there was Beverly Danzola. There was John Balooferi. But then, it all went to hell. It was murdered.

Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3rd, 1983. And it raised a question that 40 years later, we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers? Listen to Peter and the Asset King on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to MPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration

of the host and journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience. And stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back! So, I've just read two different claims or versions of the story of Wim's wife, Olaia's suicide. And this brings me to a fella named Scott Carney. Now in addition to having a funny name, Scott is an American journalist. He is an author and anthropologist who in my opinion made some serious moral lapses

as a reporter when he started writing about Wim Hof. We'll be talking about that in more detail in part two. He says that he met Wim while working on a book about the Enlightenment and the Spiritualism Gryft industry. This is a critical book about like Guru Gryfters, right? Like the guy in a guy that Wim Hof is, right? He's writing this book, but he becomes kind of enraptured with Wim, and particularly with how well his breathing technique works. So he writes an article and then eventually a book on women and Scott's work like writing on women is a big part of like why Wim Hof becomes famous, right? He's got plays a significant role in sort of the birth of him as a major media figure.

He has come to regret aspects of the role he played here, largely because of all those deaths. Well, the people definitely died. It's alleged that that Wim Hof's training has, and there's four cases currently continuing. So he seems to have come to regret some of this. And he wrote a blog post recently called The Rise and Fall of the Wim Hof Empire, which we will be referring back to several times in these episodes. That article includes a very different story about Olaia's death and particularly what happened after. So again, in just going back to the book, he says that he was devastated obviously after his wife committed

suicide and he devoted himself to caring for his children and like teaching other kids in the park and whatnot in order to deal with his grief, then later, when we married and had another son. That's the version that the book gives broadly in line with what he usually says in interviews. Most versions of the Wim Hof story make a big deal about the fact that his wife commits suicide and he is left to raise their four children alone as a single father. Obviously, that is a noteworthy thing about anyone's life who has a similar, I can imagine very few experiences or situations

more difficult in demanding than being left as a single parent to raise four kids alone. That's a very difficult thing to deal with, very much worth mentioning in someone's biography. I would say much more impressive than hiking up a mountain in shorts. Yes. Perhaps we'll benefit beneficial to the world.

Yes. Now, in a video interview with WMX presents currently at about 2.1 million views. Wim says this about his wife's death. For children, I had with my wife and I was to be with her forever. She was the love of my life. She died. She suicide. It's a black hole within yourself.

It breaks your heart and you don't know why. But the train of daily life is going on and you've got to catch up otherwise she suicide it. It's a black hole within yourself. It breaks your heart and you don't know why. But the train of daily life is going on and you've got to catch up otherwise you lose it. So I had to be there for my children. And yes, we created a new nest. My children made me survive in that time but nature healed my wounds. So again, very focused on the idea

that he bravely takes on his kids and they help each other heal after this. That is not the version of the story that Scott Carney gives in this write-up. Quote, after his wife's death, he began a relationship with a woman in another city and left his kids to survive alone in a squat house in Amsterdam. The eldest, Anam, was only 15 years old when he became the family's surrogate dad. Eventually, Hoff's relationship with the woman ended and he found himself with a 30,000 euro tax debt. That seemed to be the impetus to reconnect with his family.

Oh, there we go. There we go. Now we got some of that classic bastard banning your family and then coming back to get it, pay your tax bill. Uh, there we go. There we go. That's that good shit. You feel that deep in your, that's like, that's like the spiritual equivalent of a nice bolaga spacho, right? Where you just feel it filling you up, nourishing you. Yeah, that's it. No, no, no, no, no, no, I love it.

That's, yeah, that's what I think about when I think about someone abandoning their children. That's the exact noise I make. That is why I do this podcast. Yeah, that's the joy that Spock's in your eyes who's really made it for me. Now, that's bad person shit, right? Yes.

Look, a douche move. I have a lot of empathy for someone who loses a spouse. There's a lot of bad behavior even that can be justified by just the madness of grief, but abandoning your children to go shack up with somebody else and leaving them alone in a squat with your 15 year old Acceptable behavior You have a responsibility to do better than that for your kids

Wow, yeah, and then just admit that from all his own Yeah, yeah, we saved each other Yeah, man, you were fuck you bounce to me now It gets even weirder than that, though, because once he decided he needed to get back in touch with his family, he asks his second oldest son, because his oldest son is pissed about being made dad suddenly. Yeah. He asks his second oldest boy, Michael, to meet him in the Vondle Park in Amsterdam. Quote, Hoth arrived early and went for a swim in the park's pond while he was waiting.

He peddled out for a fountain and positioned himself over the spout to give himself an inema. He thought would cleanse out all of his indebtions. Or is he often likes to say, get the shit out? Well, yeah, first off, you're a bastard for doing that in the public fountain. You don't give yourself an inema in a public fountain. You're going to get your shit everywhere. That's a basalt. That literally hurts everyone involved. Like what? Who does that? A fucking piece of

asshole. A bastard. That's not a normal maneuver. I'm going to continue that quote. Play recording of one of our conversations in 2013, Hoffra counts that he had done the park found an animal at least 100 times before. But unbeknownst to him, the park service had changed the spigot on the fountain to create more best spray. The narrower gauge, some water cutting through his intestines like a knife, filling his bowels with dirty water.

He managed to make it back to store to shore. Well, blood and feces leaked from his rectum. Hoff's first words to his son in a decade where that he needed to go to a hospital. Oh, I wouldn't have. Oh, I wouldn't have. Oh, I wouldn't have. Oh, I wouldn't have.

I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have my life at that point. I'm just gonna say that. No! Walk away. You're dead, bounces to shack up with somebody you don't know and leaves your 15-year-old brother in charge after your mom gills herself.

And the first time you see him, he's crawling across the ground, blooded shit in the kingdom because he gave himself a fountain in him up before hanging out. Yeah, better off done. Like, just walk away. I love thinking about out. Yeah, better off done. Like, walk away. I love the, I like even the yourself to hospital, bro. Yeah, this is all you, buddy. I love the, the Dutch Park Service employee

who saw this 99 times in real life. No, it wasn't gonna be 100th. He put it into that shit immediately. I do love, yeah, adding that story. Yeah. Yeah. Someone do a PRA for the man who replaced that spigot. He's coming on cool people next week.

So Scott claims that he pressed Wim about like, why did you really decide to give yourself a fountain in Emma, right? Like because Scott doesn't believe that he would have accidentally hurt himself on the fountain without knowing it could be dangerous. Quote, I asked off if he had an inclination that the fountain maneuver might hurt him. And whether hurting himself before meeting his son might have been a way to show his remorse for abandoning his children for a decade. You get the feeling that you want to kill yourself and want to end the story, not deliberately but unconsciously. Stop this shit even if you have to die.

Something like that was going on, Hoff said. So, either... If you take kind of what they're saying, he felt so bad that he felt like he had to do this to kind of like express the sorrow in his heart and because he was so guilty for his failures, I kind of think maybe he knew that his kids had very valid reason to be angry at him

and he fucking decided that he, the best thing he could do was injure himself in order that they would feel bad for him so that he wouldn't have to deal with the actual guilt that he has for failing them. Like I kind of think this was another emotionally abusive thing by him, where he's like, well, if I fuck myself up, then they can't be angry at me, right? Because they'll have to be dealing with this health problem.

I kind of think that's why the methodology is still fascinating to me. Either way, yeah, it's not good decision making. Nobody's gonna claim that. You could get your foot run over or something, he he had options to the bit. He sure did. So I was curious as to whether or not Wim had discussed his fountain injury with anyone else during his many, many precedents. And I found a terrible article in my research from a website called High Existence by John Brooks. It is a listicle titled 13 Crazy facts about Iceman Wim Hof that nobody talks about. The cover image is a crude Photoshop of Wim's head on the Night King from Game

of Thrones. Now, cool. I hate this. I hate this article and I hate John Brooks who wrote it. But it is useful for our purposes because it is written by a weirdo freak who's obsessed with Wim Hof and has spent more time listening to his podcast appearances and video interviews than I ever will. Here is entry number six on that listicle. In the Becoming the Iceman subreddit, a user asked how Wim got the scar over his belly button. He received this reply. About 15 years ago, Wim was swimming at a fountain in Amsterdam and decided to give himself an inema on the nozzle of the jet. He says he has done this before, but a few weeks earlier, the city altered the jet to have a more powerful spout. So when he sat on the hose, the water cut through his colon and intestines like a water knife. His son, Michael, who he was meeting at the park took him to the ER. We miss a pretty good ability to resist pain so the hospital did not treat him to surgery immediately because they

didn't understand how serious the injury was. After a few hours he fainted and they realized how bad it was. The doctor stitched him up but rightly feared the risk of sepsis. It took him a long time to recover. He says that he used no antibiotics during recovery. Oh, he's a chance for a grift. I do love that. He was like, yeah, all they say about the fact

that this was their first time meeting in a decade is his son, Michael, who he was meeting at the park. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. What an amazing way to turn the L into a dub. Just by being like, yeah, I owned the self-inflicted cone on injury. And here's the thing, the story we just read

about him doing this after abandoning his family that comes from Scott Carney's recorded notes, right? Scott also wrote the subreddit post that I just read you. Yeah, so here's what follows that version of the story and that post on the subreddit. How do I know this? I'm Scott Carney, author of a book about whim. I didn't include this story in the book because how on earth do you tell it and not lose track of the main story? Uh, that's why you fucking get it right, isn't it? That's why you get it right.

Yeah, you don't just abandon the fucking story. Like, and again, he's not, in the subreddit, he's not saying I hid the part about him abandoning his family. He's saying I just didn't tell about him getting his guts cut up by a water knife, right? But the reality is he hid both of those things, right? Scott hides the fact that Wimabandans, his family, and the story about him giving himself the death enema. And this is why I think Scott's one of our bastards here, right?

Yeah. Obviously, the true story, if the version that Scott is now giving is the true story, right? We are, I have to, I assume it probably is because Scott is claiming I have this recorded. And if he was lying about this, that's a significant legal liability, right? Because Scott's not, he's putting this up on his blog. He's not publishing this through an outlet even who would be, you know, and would come it upon them to represent him. So he'd better, you know, have some kind of beer. Yeah. I mean, yeah, this, Connie's

journey is kind of fascinating. And like, I don't know if you can ever tree him as truly credible because he has his own kind of oriental origin story that he tells as well. Yeah. And I, we're not going to get as much in there. We'll talk more about him in the next episode though, but like yeah The truth assuming that the version he is giving now is a true story It paints a story of whim as a profoundly unbalanced man who Whatever else you can say about him should not be the source of health and wellness advice Remember one who is habitually giving himself a public inema in a public fountain.

That's a man you shouldn't take. Health advice from. Yeah, you can be involuntarily constrained for doing that kind of thing, not that that should happen to him. I'm not saying you should be, but you shouldn't be a health guru. Yes, yeah. I think if you continue to do that after the first time, you're not giving good advice for the old health.

You are not someone who can be taken seriously on this sort of thing. Maybe if you try it once when you're a dumb and young and you learn what a bad idea it is, 100 times? Yeah, 100 times. We've only got a 1% fail rate. Yeah, really can go forward not to.

But yeah, I think it is kind of damning because it's got article to debt. Like the one that he's written out, I think is a reasonably good article. It does answer a lot of questions about whim. But the fact that he hides all this is really fucked up. And he, I think why he does this is that the business that he knows when might do is a wellness influencer is too enticing to risk fucking up by dropping this story. But here is how Scott explains why he had this. The story of Hoff abandoning his children and his near fatal in-em, I never made it into my own book because both my editor and I wanted to protect Hoff's reputation from evidence of his own madness.

It's a role that many other journalists have also fallen into when they might have otherwise doubled down on their fact-checking efforts. And like, this is not a fact-checking issue, Scott, because he admits to doing this. You just have to tell the story he's telling here. Like, they didn't have enough time and money to fact-check it. And then he's right that other people should maybe have fact checked it. But I'm sure everyone else cited him because especially like health and wellness journalism, let's face it, like this people aren't fact checking.

No, and it's, yeah, I think bad of you, Scott. Yes, I think we can agree. So not a good thing to do. Yeah. To make the claim that other journalists are just as irresponsible as Scott, his next series of quotes from a Joe Rogan interview, and of all of Scott's sins, that may be the greatest, but we're getting ahead of ourselves

because James, right now, you know what time it is. And a time. Oh, James, we could do an Inema right now. Let's do it meet in the pop. You know what? Yes, James and I are gonna could do an enema right now. Let's do it, meet you in the pub. You know what? Yes. James and I are gonna go do an enema in a public place. Yeah, I'm dangering other people.

And you hang out until Thursday. You know, you get your own enema. You know, find a fountain out there. Go to Disney World. Yeah, I was like, I was like, wait a minute, go to the Aria at Vegas. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. The big, yeah. Yeah. The big, yeah. Where those musical founders, I'd have in Moinsh week, if you're in Barcelona, they can go to musical founders. Absolutely. Go to Dubai. Give yourself a fountain in Dubai. God.

I bet the police and the Emirates will like that. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that will not end well for you. You get any of the fun? You get any of the fun, James? What have I got to play? It's interesting. I am, despite my better instincts still on Twitter.com, which, you know, James Stout is

my name and also my Twitter handle. I do a podcast with you and some other one for people called it could happen here. Really? Yeah, it happens every day here in your telephone. Wow. Oh, iPod, yeah. And so if you sometimes join us, we talk about sheep and chickens and also turkey stront strikes in the autonomous area of North and East Syria, all kinds of things in

that broad area. Yeah, so you should listen to that. I'm writing a book for AK Press, but I'm still writing it so you can't buy it, but I'm buying some other books for AK a press to every nice people. Yeah. Yeah. Alright everybody. Everything's good. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website CoolZoneM.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. When they come to take what's yours, you're ready? Let's go! The only option we're going to hate this next part is to fight. Bring all with me. From Director X. We take back what's on and give what we steal to our people.

Alright, let's see what you got. A classic, me told. We were unstoppable. A legend, me born. You wanted me? Right. Robin Hood, new series Wednesday, 10 Eastern on global, also available in Stack TV. Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect.

Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student teacher relationship on our favorite show. We're Suzy Bannock-Harem and Jessica Bennett, posts of the new podcast in retrospect. Where each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us and probably you to try to understand what it taught us about the world and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years. Listen to InRetrospect on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm the host of a new podcast about the life and death of Peter Ivers.

Peter was the host of a TV show featuring prominent LA punk bands until he was murdered in 1983. 40 years later, we dive into that music scene and the mystery of his passing. Listen to Peter and the acid king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to NPR's Black Stories Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the hosts in journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black experience, and stories should

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