Don't Blame Me! - BAIW: My Roommate Brought My Ex Home

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

But Am I Wrong: Melisa - Ghost Kitchens needs to disappear Meghan - Dentists: WTF? But Are You Wrong: Evil roommate situation Report a coworker for taking advantage of you But Are They Wrong Melisa - Erica Lee (spreading lies online) Meghan - People Magazine (exploiting Hayden Panettiere) Write In: [e-mail] Weigh In: vote in the weekly poll on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/by.meghan.and.melisa/ Buy Our Merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Join Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's Sliced Deli Meat products for always $3.75. And get Life Brand Pure Vita Shampoo or Conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready with a whole world and more. Hey, bitches. Welcome to a brand new episode of But Am I Wrong? Starring two people who have not once ever been wrong. Not even me when I said that January was last year. That was not wrong. It is just about perception, how you perceive things. This is a podcast where we've got many different segments. We will get into each one of them before, so you don't have to forget. But all

you really need to know is it's ethical shit talking because it's being asked for or we the people we're talking about people or places have reached such a level of um fame and celebrity or have done something so incredibly heinous that it doesn't matter that they asked for it they should have not done the thing in the words of taylor swift if boys want me to write nice songs about them if boys want me to write mean songs about them they shouldn't do mean things to me i'm bitch i'm butchering it like it's she she she's more concise than i am she's media trained me not so much so um yeah and the one of the best parts i think about this podcast is we get your participation so we go on our instagram story and we post votes a whole slideshow on our

stories of who you think was wrong on each of the topics and segments we have on the podcast and then you can click the little poll button and vote who you think was wrong and then we read those results as well as the messages you all send in in response like why you voted the way you did your thoughts your feelings sometimes people have personal experience or sometimes for our write-in segment people who have written in will like write back and we read all of that on our episode that comes out on tuesday called see you next tuesday so make sure you're following our Instagram because you know we started a new schedule so there is there is a less than the less than consistency that I have been posting on the stories for when I'm uploading those

it's out the window so we're it's a learning curve we're learning together but in order to not miss it you should follow and I always put it in the highlights but if you don't see it in the highlight and you know it already had went up or you don't see it up at all and you know that it's almost thursday which is when we record uh send me a message a dm on my personal and that will be very helpful i will not take it like i won't be offended at all you don't have to worry about that what if i said something offensive to you do you know what something offensive that someone said to me that i got a tiktok comment what was it it's crazy and maybe if i say it now i will actually because i was like i have to respond to this comment like do

a video response oh i got another comment from you didn't you that's so funny were you talking to me while you wrote the comment yes because i needed to tell you in real life but then also on the internet life yeah i want you to make sure that you have you know people interacting with you so i'm hoping if i read this comment aloud i got on tiktok it will incentivize me to by the time this is up i will have already had done a video response to this comment but someone commented on a post of mine from august 16th 2001 this was when like rush talk was blowing up and one of i was replying to someone's comment saying how did the actives pick out pnm during recruitment did you guys look for a certain type of girl or did you guys not

look for a certain type of girl and i responded saying without a doubt like that like i was one of the few blonde white girls at my school and even the smaller blonde white girls in my sorority And so I would be tasked to like talk to other fellow blonde white girls, get more of those because we had an advisor who was a white woman who was so eager to get some more white girls in our sorority, which I was like, maybe you should work at a different school because we are not the majority here. okay ma'am and i was saying that like you know it was very much about looks and then you'd like pick out people whose like personalities you vibed with but everyone wanted like the prettiest pledge class and i said that like when i when we were like afterwards when our pledge class happened and i had finished rushing and everyone's like oh my god we got the prettiest pledge class amazing and i was like oh my god that's so flattering and then i got to be older and then

i was on the other side and i was like this is actually fucking weird like that was not it was weird and someone named cherry martin who has a public account and i have you know i i love i do enjoy when people leave comments like this who have a public account because i don't think you should be able to comment if you don't and it says are you pretty i'm not being mean i am old lol i can no longer tell which younger girls are pretty dot dot dot everyone looks the same to me and i look at it and i go sherry you are an old blonde white woman we've all always looked the same this isn't brand new but also why do you care that's a great question and also not a question for me maybe you show it and again like man it's abundantly

clear that this is posted first thing in the morning and i have no makeup on like i'm not looking stunning and gorgeous but like okay mama let's research click the profile check it out and then also ask someone your glasses on and your hair tied up and you didn't take a pick them off to look like the hot girl no and like phone a friend like phone a friend to be like is this girl pretty or keep being curious keep asking questions and move on like what is it to you but i thought it was so funny like i'm not being mean lol i'm old but like why are you all coming on this when i am on tiktok and i see that i've accidentally stumbled into early 20s tiktok or high school tiktok i see things i may have an opinion but then i'm like this is not my age

group i'm not actually going to respond because i respond all day long well not all day long i have a life i've set my limit to one hour of tiktok a day but i respond to comments all the time they don't get as much because i've now privated my account not because i'm saying i still stand by everything i say but it's because of jobs yes totally but i'm saying you're not an anonymous person yeah my actual name is on my account yeah and like you can see mutuals and all that stuff but yeah like you'll never catch me i will say it i find it so fucking weird and uncomfortable when i i've like accidentally happened upon this a couple like creators i think only one or two of them who were like young girls getting ready for their bat mitzvah going to

like bat mitzvahs get ready with me and i like opened the comments and it's like people my age like commenting and I'm like no no no no even if you think you're being like supportive like it's weird because then they feel like they're performing for people who they look up to and like for the adults in their life and like even if you think you're not an issue it's the dynamic that you're making okay and that translates to their real life and I'm like no just move on move fucking along well yeah so that's this podcast you excited to shit talk yes yes I'm very excited so first up our very first segment is but am i wrong where we each pitch either a hot take a rant a lukewarm take or something that's happened in our life recently or something

we've been dwelling on that we want to know if we are in the wrong about i'm up first and my thought is that ghost kitchens need to go the fuck away and i'm not talking about the ones where like they don't have an actual storefront and this they're using someone else's kitchen because they're like their actual restaurant they just don't have the capital yet to get all their things up and running i'm talking about the ones where it is another restaurant or an establishment such as uh chucky cheese that is just selling their pizza but calling it pascal's pizza so recently i oh no order our foodie girl was a victim i ordered some chicken some chicken wings oh that's a bad one and fries and there were some other things that were in this order

and i get it and i'm looking at it and i was like this is tgi fridays where the fuck is even a tgi fridays there's one where i actually where i used to live i could walk to it oh yeah your last place yeah but closer to the on the farther on the west side because i also got a dessert and it was like a chocolate whatever i forgot like a lava or something yeah and you know i'm sitting here and i'm like i'm gonna have my gluten for the evening for the week actually two weeks my period all that yep and I'm tasting I was like this is not good and then I googled the name of it and it was TGI Fridays no I googled the address that was listed and it was TGI Fridays and I was so mad and this is not the first time that I've been duped

by one of these restaurants I also ordered a burger one time and I was like great they have a gluten-free bun someplace called the burger den it was late i want to say like 11 p.m and so pickings are slim at that point but i was like this looks fine it's a burger you can't really fuck up a burger too hard i get it and the container says denny's denny's if i'm going to denny's i do not want a burger i want breakfast did you get fries though yeah because the only time that i'm okay with a ghost kitchen is for people to understand for people to set aside their biases and understand that denny's makes some fucking killer fries they were good but they have styrofoam containers so therefore they were soggy by the time they got to me they get

damp i don't understand why we haven't had any innovation in fast food containers or just a bag just give me an uncoated bag sometimes even those get soggy the coated ones are worse because they don't have as much ventilation so like but like why don't you make a container that has vent in the container and then put it inside the bag at least some of it's escaping yeah so I'm just tired of like I think this is false advertisement it needs to be disclosed that this is not where you're actually ordering from and then I was looking up other places that are doing this there's a place called just wings or thrill cheese and it's ihop pascali's pizza and wings chucky cheese cosmic wings is applebee's the burger den and the meltdown which i see the

meltdown all the time is also in their denny's like the meltdown has very like different iterations of that but you look at the picture and it's all the same pictures and it's just like what are y'all doing should be illegal it should be illegal i feel like gavin newsom would be all over this but they've been doing this since like the pandemic no i know but i feel like this to me is like one of those like weird like things that he would he would attach on to yeah but i'm not happy and i feel duped hoodwinked bamboozled the wool was pulled over my eyes and angry you know someone else might relate to this and who else has been duped hoodwinked bamboozled who'd the original quote come from that's not that's the black people saying it's

not like an original quote from something and you learn new things every day well you are not wrong whatsoever at all not even a little um and i wholeheartedly stand with you and stand by you because i think that we shouldn't have to google the address of something to know if it's a place that we would like to be a patron at because we should have a standard a code standard and we should know that if we're going through a specific vehicle to to get this thing in this case like uber eats or postmates or whatever that they've done the vetting process right and then like if If I knew I was ordering from TGI Fridays and if I actually wanted TGI Fridays, there's so many other things I could have gotten that I would have enjoyed. Well, you're not wrong.

And yours leads quite seamlessly into mine. I love it. We're going to take a break and then we get back. Megan will get into her. But am I wrong? and we're back and it's time to get into my but am i wrong a seamless transition from melissa's and it's i don't know where to direct my anger to i don't know who's at fault i'm really quick to blame you know two parties Ronald Reagan and private equity I'm assuming it goes into the

second one but dentists what the fuck what the fuck so I haven't had dental insurance in a long time and I have a lump on my gum it is painless it doesn't hurt whatsoever there's no head to it it doesn't bleed there's like nothing there there's no tooth pain or whatever so it has not been like a high priority. But as like, you know, I've been dealing with like a decline in other health and thinking it might be thyroid or whatever. I'm going through all of the avenues to be like, OK. But even prior to that, I was like, I have to go to the dentist. I have genetically shitty fucking teeth. I've always had bad teeth. I don't drink soda. I don't eat candy. I brush my teeth. I'm like five times a day. I am flossing constantly like I am a dentist's wet dream.

And even then they go, I tell you can do so much. It doesn't fucking matter. And I'm like, I know horrible so i finally got dental insurance and um when i had made my appointment initially this was months ago i had called and asked about their covid protocols and they were like why and i was like do the masks you know that whole thing yep and i looked at the google maps view of the place and i said yeah i don't want to go there that's sketchy so i have been searching for a new dentist and so i go through my insurance and i go through to the list that they have And for the first like three or four pages of the people who are on the insurance and they are dentists in the area, they are a dental like group organization or whatever. And then I don't even look them up on Google Maps because I'm like, I know that this is a big building.

Like I know the street, like I know what this is. There's not a single building here on this street that I would go. No, I'm not getting a lot of people inside my mouth at this establishment. I call and I ask hi I saw that this these five fucking dentists out of like 20 on this first two pages all say they're accepting new patients when I would love to get an appointment and they said yeah we don't actually have any till like mid next year I'm sorry excuse me who's booking up all of these what are you talking about what do you mean that there is not an appointment for dentistry until mid next year. Who's got all the appointments? Why are you taking new? You're

actually not taking new patients. And this makes no fucking sense. So then I go to the next page and I find someone else. I click on it, not accepting new patients, not accepting new patients, not accepting new patients. And then finally, when I get to the section of, and at this point I'm saying, fine, I'll see a man. Fine. I'll let a man put his, put his grubby little fucking paws in my mouth. I start looking at the addresses of some of these places. So they go, this is weirdly close. Where would this be? Or this one is on a street that I wouldn't think. And the way that every single one of them I use on Google Earth, Google Maps view is in a strip mall with a broken sign and cardboard like over the the in the window. So I can't see what the

inside looks like from the Google Maps views, which I think is they just put it up there for privacy of patients while they're doing the Google Street views or whatever. And every single one has the worst ratings i've seen in my entire life what do you mean they extracted the wrong tooth what do you mean they didn't do the novocaine right like what do you mean that all this has happened what do you mean that i need dental insurance i need to go to a dentist but not one of you is willing to see me remove a correct tooth if i needed whatever that is and the whole shit show and then all of the other places even if they've got good reviews it's like great did have to um work with my insurance for a while because they were trying to overcharge me asking

me to pay cash not wanting to go through my insurance whatever happened to good old mom and pop humble little dentistry what do you mean i have to get quotes from multiple people because these people are known to scam you and make you think you have all these other things wrong with you what what do you mean and it's just at this point i don't even want to go to the dentist i'm sorry megan this is not not new information uh you and i have both been looking for a new dentist and a friend of mine she took her child to the dentist for the first time and this place had fine reviews but it was like in her you know insurance network she goes the people up front are nice the dentist themselves is horrible like awful and then they also miss build her

yep but now she found another place that is very gentle and her baby didn't even cry they were so nice so i will send you that information to see if it falls into your network it would be a little far for you but yeah it's just like a shit show like it's just a total shit show and the idea that like the best possible outcome of this from like the reviews i've seen of people it's like you're hoping that the worst thing this dentist is going to do is going to overcharge you and make you do all of these other things and jump all these hoops to like follow up and stay on their ass and your insurance is asked to make sure that they don't overcharge you that's like the best reviews of some of these places and like that's like the bare minimum and

i'm like why like what like and i know a lot of like dental practices were like bought by private equity and i like i know i know that and even ones that are like even if it doesn't say private practice like that those big conglomerates can get bought but like the idea that it's also like a bartering and trade system that like someone who's in a medical profession is going to like lie to me about a diagnosis or about like work that I need and doing stuff that they don't need to do to upcharge you and it's just like such a weird different vibe than like other medicine where other medicine they're usually like you're fine like nothing's wrong with you and you have to like, push for more. And this one, it's like, okay, so that whole thing of your brain that

you've trained to advocate for yourself. Now, don't advocate too hard because they're going to give you work, all this expensive work done that you don't actually need. And like, I was even reading on Reddit that people were like, make sure you get at least three quotes from different dentists. I'm like, I can't even find one that has reviewed that there's no fucking cockroaches. And the thing is that before I moved here, I've always had very positive dental experiences. And even the dentist, when I first moved here, she was awesome. But then after the pandemic and I had her for a while and then after the pandemic like she was no longer in practice or she moved I don't know what happened but she's not there so I don't know what's happened that was

the first and only dentist like first as in only as in I went to her for my regular cleanings but the first and only dentist that I ever went to here and she was awesome yeah I've only ever had one other dentist here too and like I talked magic on him because he said open your mouth don't be a girl about it and i was like sure you're five two with tiny little hands don't talk about gender roles and like he like annoyed me and i thought it was crazy that this old man had his quite literally ancient not looking on death's door his mother was the receptionist and i was like send her to boca like you are working your mother your mother is quite literally the oldest person i know like that's fucking like and this man was like 65 and his mom was 90 maybe horrible

and he was like can you go do the clean this whatever and i was like god at least call her mom at this point like this because otherwise this looks fucking weird and i would like complain about him and mott's also still like mott's like still goes to him he hasn't like done the whole process of switching and then he had like recommended an oral surgeon who like fucked this thing with mott's and then this dentist also had fucked up something with mott's and like i have talked shit on him but now i'm like dang is that the best dentist that dentist i was ever gonna have and like it sucked because i do feel like somewhat misled because like that was really easy to like get into him and like like I don't know what's changed but I was like oh here's this

dentist this is nearby let me schedule an appointment and like it was no big deal and now I'm like what the fuck is happening yeah I don't think and like sure I moved to a different location in LA I don't think there's more teeth here like I think there's the same amount of teeth and like who is taking up all of these appointments I need to know that part what do you mean you have 90 dentists who work in this massive building and none of them have a single appointment who is is it reptar like whose fucking teeth are taking up all of this so and i don't want to lie and say it's an emergency and moths was like just say it's an emergency and i was like i don't want to because like tooth pain is nerve pain and like that is like so dire and urgent that like there

are people who are calling saying that it's an emergency sure there are people who would call this emergency and it's not but like i would never want to say that and have someone who's like in pain not be able to get in because they've prioritized me because i also say it's an emergency yeah yeah the emergency is i'm impatient and this is fucking bullshit true and i'm still paying for insurance yep so if anyone else has recommendations of dentists in los angeles i don't want to go to the beach and i don't want to go to encino and if you're from here just that's what that's what you get those are my that's my parameter all right well we're gonna take a break we'll get back we'll get into but are you wrong

And now we are back and it is time for, but are you wrong? And this is when you write in to us and you say, am I wrong about this? And you do that in one of two ways. You send an email to butamirongpod at gmail.com or you send us a DM over on our Instagram account. We ask that you keep it under 300 words. It is all anonymous. So please come up with fake names. And if you want to do names that correlate with each other, pop culture wise, think it through, think it through what implications you are putting there otherwise just pick random names and let us know your age though please that's like a requirement because we need to be aging over and also sometimes if you do something at 22 it's not wrong you do that same thing at 32 it's wrong correct all right

here's the first one Megan and Melissa I'm a long time listener and excited to have a reason to write in. I'm a female, 26, she, her pronouns. I am wondering if I'm wrong for moving out on my roommate without notice. My roommate was a hot mess to put it lightly. She was not discreet in her sexual behavior when I was home. She was a total slob. My final straw was when she brought my ex home as a conquest. She saw me cry over him for two weeks after I left for cheating. they both knew it would hurt me i still can't understand what her vendetta against me was the next day i bought out my lease and left when she found out i moved out she started sending me awful messages making social media posts about me and bad-mouthing me to anyone who would listen

i know she doesn't have much money and our rent was steep was i wrong for just leaving she brought this on herself oh my god like who does this what an awful person see and at this point i would have broken into a room and been like where's the voodoo doll you have with me like this is like you're not wrong in the sense that like yeah this bitch had a full-on vendetta against you what why why why does she look like you is it like i again i'm watching greek right now and so like it's giving um patty who is the uh uh putin if i was your mom it's that actress who plays this girl who like she like pretends her bike breaks down in like front of the frat house and it's like oh my god it's like such a bad storm and like the guy is like no what a

fucking honey and then one of the other guys is like she's weird and then they realized that like she went to camp with him and like she was never cute and like then she got hot and now she wants to be with him or whatever i'm like do you do you know her from the past like what is what is this yeah i'm unsettled even after moving but also if you bought out your lease then wouldn't she be set on rent until your lease is up i think depending on where you're at it might be like your half of the like you might have two separate like leases or something i don't know though like i don't know i'm sorry that you're going through this i'm sorry that she's a complete asshole i'm sorry that she you fucked your ex that you cried over for two weeks i'm sorry you got cheated on i'm sorry

that she's making video and social media posts about you and talking bad um anyone that believes her or or is okay with her side of the story was never your friend to begin with just block her everywhere and like your real friends will be there to you for you yeah bitch yeah i would like not to be like extreme i would like cut off any mutuals that you have with her because like to me this is like super unstable like this is like are you gonna show up where i work like how like what what is all this animosity that like if i had any friends that were like friendly with her and it was like well she hasn't done anything to me i like that to me i'd be like no we're fucking out like i'm already out with people like that but like this i would draw such a fucking hard line

that like if you know her even if you follow her on instagram like if you're any sort of like connection nope nope nope nope yeah you're not wrong at all i i hate to call someone specifically a woman uh following into like the trope of deeply unwell this is deeply unwell this is fucked up yeah like this is like i don't have sisterhood with you like no longer like there is none no no this is i'm watching my fucking ass it's so pointed too because like if she wanted to fuck him she could have just went to his place and fucked him she brought him back to your home and she found another person who also hates you for what they did to you yeah like and so like that's like really like deeply intentionally malicious evil it's just yeah evil this is an

in the words of olivia colpo this is evil you are an evil person okay hey queens i'm writing in for a but am i wrong i'm wondering if i'm wrong for telling my manager i know my co-worker lied about being sick and actually went to a concert so backstory my co-worker and i used to be really tight we worked for the same company but not on the same team we recently were moved onto the same team by chance a few months ago. Since then, I have seen how absolutely lazy she is. I've had to cover for her so freaking many times. It took a toll on our friendship because I called her out for it. Needless to say, we aren't friends anymore. So last week, I'm off on Friday. I took a day off just to relax because I had the PTO to spare. My manager called me in a panic saying my co-worker

took off sick and could I please log in and take their place in a big meeting. I'm pissed because I know that they're not sick. While we're not friends anymore, I'm still on their close friends on Instagram where they posted that they got last minute tickets to a concert three hours away. There's no way she could have gone to work and also made the concert, hence why she is quote unquote sick. I logged on and took her place for the meeting, but I also screenshotted her story as well as the stories throughout the whole weekend of her being out and about and very much not sick. I submitted it all to my manager and they are looking into it. Now that the dust has settled, I feel like I may have been wrong to take it that far. Here's the thing. I would never do

this because I would fake sick to get out of work. Now, if you are not someone who's going to do what she did, for sure, go for it. If that's you, if that's the code of conduct you hold yourself to and expect other people to, that's fine. I will complain and bitch when other people do it. And I will also do it. So like, I'm not going to fucking say anything about that because it will come full circle for me, but maybe not for you. The thing for me is that you are constantly picking up her slack at work and she's like lying about things. But then if I would have been at work already and just had to be in a meeting, fine. But now you're off work and I'm already off work on my paid time off and I have to get up if I'm in a meeting. Now I've got to get up,

get ready look good for this meeting and give a fucking presentation to some people so now you're cutting into my time if i wasn't if you did this and it was not cutting into anybody else's time i'd be like no don't report them yeah it would have been none of your business but yeah she made it your business by cutting into your time off i'm pissed for you i'm also pissed at your boss and also again i don't know what your job is but like i would have been like like I hope that you you got a whole new PT like a whole other day like I hope this didn't count as like half a day yeah exactly and also like I hope you were allowed to say no and you opted to say yes and then you can work on a people-pleasing kind of tendency and like a needing to over

perform at work kind of tendency and not like you had no other option than to do that because like I think one person should be able to lie about being sick and another one should have PTO and the company shouldn't burst into flames but it might be a small business yeah exactly that but like no i don't think what you did was wrong because i'd be pissed i'd be pissed also be smart she should have been smart about her lie and removed when you stop being friends she should have been removed from being on your close friends list or at least for the weekend yeah like she's gone and doing this be pointed about what you do what you're posting on social media don't post things here's the thing would i lie about and have i lied about being sick to get out of things

without a doubt do i immediately remove anyone from said close friend's story who might see it or i don't post yeah so like she's dumb she yeah i think like what she did and letting you know i think the right thing to do is to report her i don't think that i would have probably done that unless depending on how long we've been working together and how much she had personally pissed me off but uh i think it's the right thing to do because at a certain point like if she continues to do this kind of thing and like skirt by with you picking up all of the slack at one fucking point you're not going to be able to do two people's work for one and then it will fall on you'll both be at the consequence of not disciplinary but like your boss of like if

this isn't getting done to like the caliber or whatever like they're not really going to divide you up of like who's doing what if if it's a team like that so i think if she is a liability for you being able to perform well at your job she probably shouldn't you probably she shouldn't be your co-worker also don't answer the phone when you're off work don't answer the phone for people you work with. Don't do that because then you wouldn't have to be in this position as well as this is why I say don't be friends with people you work with because there's always some type of competition even if you're working in the same department. Don't do it. You can be friends outside of work but don't bring that to work or like you're like this person is cool this is a

person that I you know have lunch with and then when you move on from that job y'all can become actual friends but like don't actually be friends with people real friends with people you work with friends enough to be on your coast close friend list i think that like you can be friends people you work with and you talk about work things together but i think the second you start talking about personal things and work things together it muddies the waters like so quickly and then they have their hands in both sides of your life and like that to me just feels like too exposed too much too much but i love screenshotting and i love when you get to use those screenshots receipts always have them so many i want an update on both of these actually

oh desperately uh but we're gonna take a break when we get back we'll get into butter they roam all right we're back and it's time for but are you wrong and that's when we pick somebody from the news from real life from any type of media and point our finger at them and say you are wrong boo you suck and my pick for this week is erica lee she posted in facebook group called springfield ohio crime and information and she said warning to all about our beloved pets and those around us my neighbor informed me that her daughter's friend had lost her cat she checked pages kennels asked around etc one day she came home from work as soon as she stepped out of her carved looked towards a neighbor's house where Haitians live and saw her cat hanging from a

branch like you do a deer butchering they were carving it up and eating it I've been told they are doing this to dogs they have been doing it at Snyder Park to with ducks and geese as I was told that last bit by rangers and police please keep a close eye on these animals and then within days this claim that she made have been passed around the internet and over 67 million people saw it and then it got taken to the national stage during the debate where trump brought this up that in springfield they're eating dogs after he and jd vance posted on their social medias about it as well and as they did during the debate they fat checked him live and they're like there's no evidence that this ever happened so vance then followed up with another post saying in short

don't let cry babies in media dissuade you fellow patriots keep the cat memes coming in springfield the public official said in the last several weeks my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of springfield who said their neighbor's pets or local wildlife were abducted by migrants it's possible of course that all these rumors will turn out false that's what jd vance said that the springdale official said but it never actually happened it never happened he lied so then this erica lee lady she's 35 she should know better and she should know how social media works i know it sounds like something an old person did right someone needs to do an inspection of that home because that is lead paint behavior and it's way

too young for her to be just showing signs of that so she sat down with the local NBC news there about her role in spreading the information and the false claims and she said it just exploded into something I didn't mean to happen she never imagined that her post would ever get the traction that it did and expressed regret in her interview with NBC at the harm that her post caused and then she of course said i'm not racist and of course she has a daughter who is half black and um she said that she was a member she erica lee said that she was a member of the lgbtq community everybody seems to be turning into that and that was not my intent she had to pull her daughter out of school because she's worried for her safety and the attention that her family is getting

She said that she was also concerned about the safety of the Haitians in the community, which she did not intend to antagonize. And then she said, I feel for the Haitian community. If I was in the Haitians position, I'd be terrified to worry that somebody is going to come after me because they think I'm hurting something that they love. And that, again, that's not what I was trying to do. That feels like a threat. like that feels like a you should be afraid so despite the facts that everything that the city officials in springfield that they're saying that none of this is true trump and vance keep keep pushing and saying that this is happening and then at a press conference in florida trump declined

the chance to walk back his claim when asked by a reporter then earlier in the press conference he said that he might make an appearance in Springfield in the future to talk about the influx of Haitian migrants that the city has seen. And then Erica Lee said, I didn't think it would ever get past Springfield. And I just want this to be a lesson to everyone. Before you post or repost or retell a story, please check the facts first, because you can take something as small, it seemed like it was something small that was just happening in a community page on Facebook that only people in this town saw. And then it blew up to be something

that is now being debated. And Haitians are getting attacked for this. Somebody, a Haitian woman got acid thrown on her car. And so stop spreading lies. Look up information that you think might sound suspicious and then share. But like, if this actually happened, don't you think that the city officials would have posted it

and you don't need to be the person that is running and telling the information if this is in an actual crime don't you think the person who is the victim of the crime would be talking about that like i think about that all the time when people are like well i heard this thing i go don't you think if those people existed they would we would know who they are like don't you think that and if you know that means we you would know from them and we would know from them like they wouldn't be hiding in the shadows because now people who don't even know who the person is but know that it happened you would know like that's a game of telephone that again you have access to the same public thing if you don't

know this person personally we all know this person the same way you do like it's crazy and another woman made a report to made a police report about like saying that her Haitian neighbors ate her cat and then this is the other part that's important of reading the news reading the news the next day checking it up looking it up the next day after that after that after that so you might have seen oh this woman reported her neighbors for eating her cat you know what that woman said oh oops found my cat it was in the basement sorry you have to look for the follow-up too not just like someone's cool anyone can make a file a police report for quite literally fucking anything can you like get a false report like knocked off you sure but like your your your cat was

at your house yeah where was the corpse where was the video evidence of this where was all of this and also where were the non-doctored ai images that are clearly ai of these things going on and happening and it's just so remarkable that you would think that if all of these people know this thing to be true and it's such an obvious fact we'd have no issue proving that and there would be no issue releasing footage and verifying all of those things yep and then people talking about the influx of Haitians is because people in Springfield they're filling jobs that people in Springfield didn't want and that's why they moved there it's just like mind-blowingly simple once you ask yourself two questions like one or two questions all of it unravels and that's

the part that I get so heated on is that like you just want you want angry headlines you don't want anything else you don't want to read anything else you don't want to follow up you don't even want to actually know more about the thing because if you learn more about the thing it's never going to sound as salacious or wild or as horrible as it is it's like you just they just collect these these just sentences about these things and there's no desire to deep dive into them and that's when it feels like so fucking hopeless so yeah i have had such a fucking hard time even opening instagram on anytime anyone makes any commentary about like because no one i follow was posting the that being a legitimate thing with people being like holy fucking hell how to

be how are people saying this or on tiktok or whatever all the comments you're like i've seen it and i'm like you quite literally have not like yeah okay well mine is pop culture and i would like to nominate people magazine people magazine uh just released their i don't know if they're calling it a cover star i don't know how they go with it for except because they they don't do monthly they do weekly bi-weekly almost every other day but um from the september 30th issue hayden panettiere is on the cover and i've seen a lot of people talking about this and i'm so glad that people who like work in pr have been talking about this because like i noticed this immediately but most of the time a people cover story is a paid opportunity and as in they're paying you

for your story and so when you see someone who's like on the cover of a people magazine and like that's why you'll see things that range from celebrity their baby like oh we brought our new baby into this world or um like human interest stories like octomom or whatever like it is a paid opportunity so like why the hell is angelina jolie showing her baby on people magazine this isn't vogue it's a paid opportunity and for a lot of celebrities who take the paid opportunity to do so it is getting ahead of things or if it's in terms of like a baby, the paparazzi cannot then sell it off

to the highest bidder, that they can actually be the ones who are getting paid instead of paparazzi getting paid for, like the first look at so-and-so's child. And that's thankfully is not, there's now laws against that, but just so people know.

And so the most of the time, very rarely are you going to find a paid for cover that is not exploitative in any sense, whether someone is exploiting someone else or people magazines exploiting someone who has gone through something horrible and tragic or is dealing with something

and they're an everyday person and they need this money and they know they need this money and they're just sending them out to get absolutely shit on by their audiences. So she has very publicly, transparently, candidly gone through things but also talked about the things

that she's going through as she's gone through them afterwards, all of these things. This is not like a situation where someone is struggling in the public eye and we've never heard them speak about this. She spoke at length about her issues with substances, with addiction, with her relationship with her ex

and the custody issues between him and her and their daughter. And she is, I would consider her, I mean, no, I don't even consider her. She's a child star. So she has been around for an incredibly long time. She's been making money for a really long time. And I think a lot of people forget that she's a child star and they don't give her they don't give her story the same acknowledgement that they do with drew

barrymore that they do with people who we know very publicly have been child stars she has been a actress since she was a child and a working actress like in things you've seen she's the kid in what's it called that movie mott's loves to cry too oh uh what sunshine remember the titans yeah yep yeah she's a little girl that and that's not her first role so she has also opened up she was on nashville and something that i think is really fucking heinous is they wrote a substance issue addiction storyline with her character in nashville while she was going through it in her personal life and they knew that yuck fucking shitty and she's talked about this so this is not someone who it's like oh we've never heard her speak about this before but basically um they did

a cover story with her and the title of like on the cover I'm starting to feel like myself again after getting sober and preparing for a comeback the actress and mom was so debilitated following the sudden death of her brother that she was afraid to leave the house how she's facing trauma and finding strength it's an entire story where they've positioned for her to talk about sobriety her issues with maintaining sobriety losing custody of her daughter and her brother's very recent death and they have posted these video interviews with her and from a human level the way that if i cut the cameras immediately cut the cameras immediately the fact that this was not only shot filmed edited approved and posted maintains up with comment sections open and

they're racking in the fucking views of this knowing that there is so much speculation on it And like the part that I find like it's disgusting on every level of exploiting someone who is emotionally not not in a good space. She's like not in a good space to be talking about all of this trauma. You're asking her, hey, tell me about how your brother died. Like, tell me all about it. It's so raw. It's so horrible to get to ask her to kind of do this and talk about this. all the while you are now opening up for speculation about her the state that she is in

while she's in an ongoing custody battle and this video could be used by her ex to maintain that she does not have partial custody of her kid in so in the video she's just talking about things that you know she's talking about her brother she's talking about how like she'll never get over that death like she's like I'm never going to be the same how her when her daughter was born all of these things and people are accusing her of being high people are accusing her of being drunk saying that she's relapsed and the very small minority that I agree with that is not being pushed out because it's not as salacious is there is a likelihood that after all of this horrible pain suffering and trauma she has been through she is getting help for her mental health and the

medication she is on for helping her mental health is working and helping but she should not be doing an interview she should just she shouldn't be doing an interview and the idea that like it is in my opinion far more likely that's what's going on then she's drunk or she's abusing a medication that she is not prescribed and is not needed it's not under the guise of a doctor that to me is far less likely and now you have someone who is being completely torn apart and ridiculed for seeking help for their mental health and working on that and treating that and then we like further the stigma of mental health because hey sometimes getting treated for intense trauma doesn't look like everything's fine doesn't look like everything's totally cool and back together

sometimes you need things that are different medications at different times and the fact that her PR was OK with this, the fact that people was OK with this. They've left the comments on. They removed it from like the grid, but it's still on the reel and it's still over on their TikTok. And it's so exploitative. It just feels like it should be illegal. And like the same way that when you're on certain medications, you shouldn't be allowed. You're not legally you're not allowed to drive. I don't think that you should be allowed to do interviews. I don't think if you had signed a contractor he'd done something you know like it's this is i'm not saying that this is what she's on because this would not be applicable in the situation but there are people who take

prescribed ambient for insomnia and other medical conditions and when they do things while they are on the ambient like there are there are like that will be brought up in court is like are they were they mentally fit to be held accountable for this crime to this extent because they were on a mind altering substance prescribed by their doctor like it just makes me so mad and I find that I don't know like I find that like I I know that people want to say like Hollywood and LA is like so corrupt and everybody's like so fake and backstabby or whatever and I like don't agree with that like fundamentally as a whole I think like organizations and companies can be bad but like I don't find people inherently bad but I find people magazine inherently bad at this point

and yeah just that the journalistic integrity of this that someone felt comfortable and like we look back on like old Diane Sawyer interviews and we go oh my god how the hell could people ask that our old David Letterman stuff and like this to me is we're not just making fun of a woman we're not just like sexualizing her or slut shaming her whatever it's like we're giving a woman an opportunity to be absolutely ripped to shreds talking about the death of her brother the loss of custody of her child her addiction all the while people speculating that she is not sober she's not doing well first of all of course she's not fucking doing well but that the high likelihood that she's just being treated for her mental health and then she's gonna go well I don't

want to do this then if I if this is how it comes across and then it's which side do you pick do you pick treating your mental health or do you pick the the career and what people are going to say what people are going to support and knowing that you can't trust anybody it's horrible it's it's I've never seen a worse video and like I don't know who does their what journalists they hire because most time journalists are freelance and I'm not even saying like oh well if you were in the situation straight up I would refuse I would quite literally the second I got there she opened her mouth I would refuse I would not even give them an interview and hope that they're going to not post it i'd be like no no i will not participate in this and to me like i i don't

like to judge people who like you know you have to put food on your table you have to do jobs you have to do work that you might not always stand behind to me this is like a hard line in the sand for everybody like i think everybody should have walked upset i don't care if you were lighting i don't care if you were sound like i don't care whatever it was like this to me is like it crossed the line so fucking hard it makes it where people people it's in people magazine although they like they do swarmy things they're not exactly a tabloid well they position themselves as being like we're not like them yeah but then you do something like this and it's like no you actually don't have any actual journalistic integrity yeah it's fucked it's so fucked so i hope by the time

that this is out that they've taken those videos down yeah yeah i haven't seen any of them but this sounds awful and i also wonder if she's trying to have a comeback could jeopardize her jobs that she has lined up yeah doesn't she have a movie coming out right now maybe but here's the thing i don't know because it's overshadowed by all of this and like the part that like makes me like so mad about that like she's really trying and she's been trying for a long time and she's been trying publicly vocally like she's really put herself out there and in the line of fire for like ridicule and criticism over women's mental health post she had a really fucking hard postpartum like all of these other things and like this is how this is how we treat someone who has been so so generous

with sharing their life in the public eye and their struggles in the public eye and they're learning and growing in the public eye yeah yeah she has a Lionsgate movie coming out on the 27th Lionsgate sue people sue them sue them all right well that's the end of the episode thank you so much for joining. You can participate by sending us an email at butamirongpod at gmail.com. You can also vote when the votes go up. When that is, who knows? And then you can also join our Facebook group. It's free. You can join, but you got to fill out the information thoroughly. Please do not just put one word or one line answers these are essay questions or short answer not essay short answer questions um you can also join you can also join our patreon uh the current tiers

as they exist now will no longer exist next week prices will be going up so this is the last time for you to get in there at this rate. So join us tomorrow for See You Next Tuesday, Thursday for Don't Blame Me, and Friday for Fisting Friday. We will circle back. Oh, we nailed them. We did.

But Am I Wrong is a production by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production by Coco Lorenz. and production assistance by Melanie D. Watson.