Everything Is Content - Salt Path Swindlers, Queer Ultimatums & Brad Pitt's PR Machine

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Happy Friday EIC-heads, we're back with another dose of content.On Saturday The Observer published an investigation by writer Chloe Hadjimatheou into the bestselling book The Salt Path and the couple ...behind it. The film adaptation was also just released about 6 weeks ago and stars Gillian Anderson and Oscar Isaac as the couple. The book has been billed by the Guardian as 'A beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance' 'Luminescent. A literary phenomenon' by Mail on Sunday and “a beautiful story and a reminder that humans can endure adversity' Stylist. But as Chloe Hadjimatheou discovers, it may also be a little too good to be true...Next up, Ruchira's been utterly obsessed with Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Queer Love series 2 or what everyone actually calls it i.e. Queer Ultimatum. The series brings six couples together. Each of these couples have one person who desperately wants to get married and one who doesn’t. The latter have been issued an ultimatum by their partner I.e go on this show with me and by the end if you don’t change your mind we break up. We discuss!And lastly, we need to talk about Brad Pitt. Allegations against him have been in the public eye for years now, so why is he still, Hollywood's golden boy?We hope you enjoy, and always, thank you so much for listening. O,R,B xxBeth's been loving: Here Comes The GuillotineRuchira's been loving: The Rehearsal Series 2Oenone's been loving: NYT GamesThe real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were spun from lies, deceit and desperationThe Ultimatum: Queer LoveBrad Pitt's Fooling You Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Beth. I'm Rachera. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, your one-stop shop for worldwide web analysis, culture picks and celeb gossip. Books, films and your latest weird crush, we've got you covered. With a shaken-up can of pop culture, spraying you with a crisp fizzy drink of good content. This week on the podcast we're looking at the real salt path, a queer reality TV show
Starting point is 00:00:30 and Brad Pitt. Follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod and make sure you hit follow on your podcast player app so you never miss an episode. Before I ask you both what you have been loving this week, we as a podcast would love you if you gave us a review on Apple or Spotify or both. We're an independent podcast and reviews make the world of difference for us. They help get us on the charts and keep us going and growing. Thank you so much to everyone who's done this already too. We love you. So girls, what have you actually been loving this week? I have rekindled a previous romance of mine with the New York Times games app and I have
Starting point is 00:01:12 actually started playing Wordle again, which I hadn't done for a very long time. I'm playing Wordle, I'm playing Spelling Bee, I'm doing the crossword. They're the three I choose, but that is what I have been loving. I have to let you know, I'm a gamer. I'm a gamer girl. That is so fun. I tried doing the crossword over the weekend on the New York Times app and that's not easy. That is a difficult game.
Starting point is 00:01:36 Well, the weekend crosswords particularly hard, but also, because I used to do it, I used to do it every single day last year. I was really addicted to it, but the hardest part of it is it's loads of Americanisms. So that's often what will catch you out is actually that it's not that difficult. It's just, we don't use that word
Starting point is 00:01:50 or it's like spelled slightly differently. Once you get into it, once you get into a rhythm, it does start to get slightly easier. But on the Saturday and Sunday, particularly, I do have to, I fill in everything I can and then I turn on auto-check and then I play kind of cheating, which is where it like shows you what's right and wrong. But the Monday one I do it like I do it as a time
Starting point is 00:02:08 against myself because the Monday one's really easy so you can always get that whole thing. But Saturday, Sunday are much more difficult. Do you feel sharper for having done like I remember doing I want to say Nintendo DS like brain training or something and I think it did genuinely I mean I mean, I was 14 years, probably younger actually. I was probably 11 years old. So my brain was probably quite sharp already. But I remember thinking like, I'm working out my brain. Does it feel like that or is it just for the sheer joy,
Starting point is 00:02:34 the love of the game? I think it doesn't, do you know what makes you feel like that is like a cryptic crossword in a newspaper because then you'll actually feel like a detective because you're like putting clues together. This is not really cryptic. It's more just guessy. I don't think it, I'm sure it's better for you
Starting point is 00:02:50 than other phone-based activities, I think. But whether or not I'm getting sharper or learning anything apart from, you know, what Americans call certain things, I'm gonna have to unfortunately say I don't think so. But it does make you feel quite smug because it feels like a good thing to do on your phone. So I like that.
Starting point is 00:03:11 I think that is a good thing to do on your phone. You're definitely better than me. Oh my God, thanks. What have you been loving, Majira? Okay, so I have jumped straight into the world of the rehearsal series too. And I can confirm it is brilliant. It is so, so good.
Starting point is 00:03:27 And even as somebody who, I guess, has mild flying anxiety, I would say it's about a two out of 10. It crops up now and then, but it's not, you know, it's not every flight. I can watch this and I can get through it, but I do want to say, if you do have flying anxiety, this might set you off because it is very heavy on flight crashes, details of pilots' personal lives and
Starting point is 00:03:53 how that might affect them on the job. So go in with this warning. Do not watch this if that could trigger you. That is a very serious disclaimer I'm going to put out there. But if you can get through it, I think you're going to love it. It is so insane. It's absolutely batshit. More batshit than the first series, I would say. There was this awful, horrible simulation that he did that should have been laughable. But by the end of it, I felt moved to tears. I can't really explain to you why without you having watched it. But it's just like complete Nathan Fielder exceptionalism in terms of both making you want to cry, laugh, making you reconsider life itself all at once. And there's just micro second.
Starting point is 00:04:39 It's so bizarre. So that was my first thing. My second thing is, did you see Ayo Adabiri and Claryo on the side of the Sabrina Hyde Park concert over the weekend and them doing the Apple dance? Yes, so iconic. Yes, I did see this. Very cute. Yeah. I don't really have loads to say about it other than I just, I feel like now I've
Starting point is 00:05:02 maybe sharpened my feelings around Ayo Adabiri and I might be in love with her. That's it really. I'm not gonna lie with you, I did think you were in love with her already. Yes. Oh. Because I think she was like, I'm not what I've been loving, maybe it was,
Starting point is 00:05:16 but like this was podcast when we were, I think it was like at least a year ago, maybe over a year and you were like, you brought her up at the beginning of an episode once and I think maybe it was like what I've been loving and you're like my queen, I had a berry. So you have been, I'm sorry to break the news, but you have been in love for some time now. Oh, I mean, you know, I'm not going to lie, this isn't the first time other people have told me who I'm in love with. Can I ask you on the flying anxiety things? I'm now way more of an anxious flyer than
Starting point is 00:05:47 I ever was when I was younger. And it seems to be a lot among my friends as well. Is that do you think you just get more risk of us when you're older? But like, I can get quite scared on a flight in a way that I never really used to. That's interesting because I feel like I've gone the other way. I think I had a really bad period maybe like a decade ago and I've come out of that. That's sad though. Yeah, I wonder what's made that happen for you and your friends. What do you think, Beth? I think it's risk adverse as you get older. I think it's something develops in your brain and you realize how dangerous life is. You lose that youthful feeling of like
Starting point is 00:06:24 everything will be fine. And I'm kind of very important in the universe. And of course, I've never been a plane crash. And you're like, I could. And I'm similar. I told everyone for a long time, I'm not at all scared of flying. And then I was like, but I do cry now
Starting point is 00:06:35 every single time it takes off. I was like, it's a little bit housekeeping. I just do a little cry and then I'm fine. Once I'm up there, I'm like, I'll take my gin and tonics and I'll be on my merry way. But on the way up, yeah, I definitely have locked into a fear as I've gotten older. It's a real shame. This is, I don't know if this is a good thing to say, but I always do a prayer before when it's taking off and I'm not religious and that's my ritual. And I feel like I have to
Starting point is 00:06:59 do it every time because every time I've done it until then, nothing bad has happened. Oh yeah. I have so many things like that for myself. I don't say pride, but just rules in life that I've done it once and then it's like, oh, now I can't not. My friend's dad does this where I think he changed his shoelaces or something before a match and then they won that match. So now every single time he goes to watch this football, he does something that's actually not that easy to do because he's like, if I don't do it, that might be the reason why we lose, even though I think they lose all the time, even when he does. So relatable. Okay, Beth, what is your favourite this week?
Starting point is 00:07:32 So quite unusual for me, what I've been loving is a podcast. It's Here Comes the Guillotine, which is I'm sure you both know, it's a newsy slash entertainment podcast that's been about since 2024, I think, and Scottish comedians, Frankie Boyle, Susan McCabe, and Christopher McArthur Boyd discussing the hot topics of the day. It's so funny. It's really dark because the news is so relentlessly dark, and also they are Scottish comedians. So what do you expect? But I'm finding actually, it's quite uplifting to have people joking around about the state of the world from a position where it's obviously care very deeply about justice, but also like shit's funny. They'll tell the truth about it, but
Starting point is 00:08:14 they will also make joke after joke after joke. And I have gone back actually just to get a sense of, I went back to the first few episodes because I wanted to grasp the format and the format seemed to be there's to be, there's no format, there's no theme, they just talk. Which seems an odd thing to do for a current affairs podcast. I'm like, these are just affairs, they're not current. But it's really funny. It's really funny how they are making a podcast and they're very clear on this is going to be almost impossible to sponsor this because they're slacking everything off. They're telling the truth about global affairs in a way that has
Starting point is 00:08:45 become in this post-truth world, quite unfashionable and not sellable at all. In the very first episode, if you've not listened, it's a long discussion, very funny discussion about Frankie Boyle's online, fresh on slash relationship with a suspected female neo-Nazi. You just don't get that with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, which is a shame. But yeah, it's a friend I'm listening to who's not aware. It's like liberal leftist politics, world events, and a lot of personal anecdotes from Frankie Ball, who you will know, Christopher McArthur Boyd, who's a early 30s male comedian, and Susan McCabe, who's like a 30 something, early 30s male comedian and Susan McCabe who's a 40 something Glaswegian lesbian, I believe. And I'm hooked actually. And if you don't listen to this,
Starting point is 00:09:34 I'll be surprised. Ruchira, I don't know if this will be your thing already. I know I've not even heard of this, but this sounds really funny and I definitely want to listen because what you said about it being like truly unfiltered I'm actually fascinated with now I need to hear what that sounds like. Yeah I need to listen to it, I don't listen to it but I'm actually literally going to follow the show right now. I do love Frankie Ball although once I went to see Frankie Ball with an ex years ago and I found it so extreme that I actually couldn't laugh and I was just getting offended the whole time because I am unfortunately of the snowflake generation but I think I've kind of grown out of And I found it so extreme that I actually couldn't laugh and I was just getting offended the whole time.
Starting point is 00:10:05 Cause I am unfortunately of the snowflake generation. But I think I've kind of grown out of that now. What was the level of humor? Because I saw him once as well and it was quite a lot of pedophile jokes. And I can't, yeah, that's what I remember of it. Yeah, I think it was the same. I think it was around 2000.
Starting point is 00:10:21 It would have been like 2018, 2019. It was definitely pre-pandemic. And I think it was, it was just stuff where I was 2018, 2019. It was definitely pre-pandemic. And I think it was, it was just stuff where I was like, I don't think I can laugh at this. Cause there's certain things I think you can laugh at when they're either about the person, they're taking the piss out themselves and they're giving you license to laugh at that,
Starting point is 00:10:35 like thing that you couldn't normally. But yeah, when it's jokes about like paedophilia or I don't know, like child trafficking or something. Yeah, I just, I struggled to, took a fall at that, but maybe that's a weakness on my part. I don't think so. I think it's also like, it's for some people, it does feel like galvanizing. And I think for them, that's exactly what it is. It's like, they care very deeply. It's from the angle of like they are, like the world is fucking shit. These people are dreadful.
Starting point is 00:11:04 But if you can, and if you can offer that, great. But at the beginning is fucking shit, these people are dreadful. But if you can, and if you can offer that, great. But at the beginning of the episodes, early episodes, they're like, this podcast is not suitable for all viewers, which they later changed because it sort of sounds like they're saying like, this is for no one, but it's very much like an adult podcast. Dip your toes. Some bits I think you'll be like, ooh, but it's clear what side they're on, which is like the side of goodness and justice. But some people would be like, no, no, no, because it's not it's not snowflakey. It's not woke for the sake of being woke. It's very much here's what we think.
Starting point is 00:11:32 Nothing's off limits. You will wince at a few things. That's my disclaimer. That's good. I do think I'm ready for that more now. I think when I was younger, I almost wasn't like evolved enough to be able to. I was very more black and white. Sounds good. I've already, I just followed it on my phone. So I'm down. So first up, a long and twisty story from the world of literature. On Saturday, The Observer published an investigation by writer Chloe Hajimathay into the bestselling book,
Starting point is 00:12:04 The Salt Path and The Couple Behind It. The Saltpath is a 2018 memoir about a middle-aged couple called Rainer and Moth Wynn, real names Sally and Tim Walker, who claim in the book to have fallen on incredibly hard times following a failed business investment with a friend who then takes them to court, which results in them losing their family home, becoming functionally homeless just around the time that Moth slash Tim is diagnosed with a terminal neurodegenerative disease. The book follows the pair over a year or so period as they use their meager remaining income to walk the 630 miles southwest coast path, camping along the way and learning a lot of themselves and humanity as they rely on their own grit, relationship and the kindness of strangers.
Starting point is 00:12:51 Since publication, The Salt Path has sold over 2 million copies and author Raina Wynn slash Sally Walker has written two sequels and has a deal with Penguin for another. The film adaptation was also just released about six weeks ago and stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs as the couple. The book has been billed by The Guardian as, quote, a beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance, by Mail on Sunday as luminescent, a literary phenomenon, and stylist as a beautiful story and a reminder that humans can endure adversity. But as Chloe Hajamathai discovers, it may also be a little too good to be true. Former colleagues and acquaintances of the couple say the account is exaggerated and
Starting point is 00:13:35 in part entirely false and misleading. According to Wynn slash Sally, she and her husband lost their home as a result of their generosity being abused by a friend in business. A different former acquaintance though, Ross Hemmings, alleges something quite different saying that Wynne slash Sally is a thief who stole around £64,000 from her husband Martin Hemmings while working for him. And after the police got involved, she vanished only getting in touch again via a London solicitor who forged an agreement stating that Wynn slash Sally would pay all of the money back so long as Martin signed an NDA and agreed not to pursue a criminal case, which he did. The money that Wynn slash Sally would use to pay the Hemmings back would come from a
Starting point is 00:14:18 high interest loan from a relative of Moth slash Tim's. This seems to be where things got really bad for the couple and the people that they owed money to as this debt was subsequently transferred, the loan was called in and when they didn't pay they were taken to court and the ruling was pay £150,000 or have your home repossessed. What seems to have followed this again is quite convoluted. It involves rumoured attempts to recoup this money that may or may not have been totally above board and don't paint the couple in a good light at all. And it's a really explosive piece for something that feels quite quaint, bucolic, not explosive at all. It's so well reported on as well. And I just really love this piece. I will say I did have to read it a couple of times to make sure I was fully following it, but it is
Starting point is 00:15:05 well worth the time. It's great reporting. And we cover literary drama on this pod whenever it arises. How did you both react to the details and the allegations of this article? And did it seem like a juicy story or was it kind of a little bit winding, meandering a little bit too long? I just gasped at nearly every paragraph. It got worse and worse and worse the more you went through the piece. So I was on board. I did find it very detail heavy in the sense that because it's quite legal, things like that really jumble my head. It takes me a few reads as well to get my head around what exactly is happening in the different names, especially because I hadn't read the book, I've not watched the film yet. But I wonder if I'm going to do that now retrospectively,
Starting point is 00:15:50 almost going in with these glasses on with my eyes sharpened to what the real case is. It's absolutely crazy that this story that won the hearts of so many people where this couple who had fallen on hard times, according to this piece are allegedly the villains, IRL, not the victims. They're the people who conned this other couple out of the money that they claim in the book and the film is the money that they were conned out of. It's absolutely mental. And Oni, have you seen it, read it, read the piece? I was really looking forward to watching this film. I've actually listened to Jason Isaacs being interviewed about it, I've seen loads of press about it and I haven't read the book.
Starting point is 00:16:28 And I actually was a bit cross that I hadn't read the book. So I was like, how's this passing by? It sounds straight up my alley. So my first proper interaction with it, engaging with it, is in this piece. And it's so damning. In a way, it's kind of laughable and funny that the publishing houses like had no idea how much they'd been swindled in the retelling of the story. And obviously, there's that really famous Nora Ephron quote, which is, all memoir is fiction and all fiction is memoir. And that is true to an extent, but usually that means you kind of change some of the truth of the story, but the emotional truth is essentially true. And often in memoir or in nonfiction, it's very hard to
Starting point is 00:17:05 convey a full picture of the truth without betraying other people's stories or things that you know, maybe aren't yours to tell. But it's in this case where they just so brazenly, I think that's what makes you or me certainly feel not a lot of compassion towards the couple because not only did they defraud people, they then also had the temerity to go forth and kind of position themselves as the victims in the whole thing. I don't know if it almost puts me off watching the film because it just feels so much like it's built on a lie now. But I do wonder and as she said in the piece, you know, people will still go on to enjoy this film. And actually, this is definitely going to be one of those
Starting point is 00:17:42 things where lots of people just will not see this piece. The salt path will, I doubt, be remotely impacted by these findings because it's got such a big names attached to it. The book did so well. I'll be interested to see how far this does carry, even though I found it extremely damning. I was also really shocked. And I found it really interesting that they did go near his really shocked. And I found it really interesting that they did go near his medical diagnosis, because that's often quite a messy area to touch. And she does outline in the piece, you know, there's nothing to say on the contrary that they're lying, but also does get, you know, these medical experts saying it is unusual for someone with the condition that he has to go on living so long and to keep kind of being able to actually kind of become better. And so
Starting point is 00:18:26 that's also dangerous. It reminds me of other things we've spoken about on this podcast to do with people sort of saying that they've been able to improve their health or, you know, extremely bad illnesses through holistic ventures, which they then peddled to kind of sell you something. So there's so much in this piece. It's the Saltpaths Windlers, I guess. And actually, I should say, so since this piece came out, the couple or at least Raina Wynn slash Sally Walker has responded to the piece calling it quote, highly misleading. And she added quote, we are taking legal advice and won't be making any further comment at this time. The salt path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared,
Starting point is 00:19:08 an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey. So it's like, I imagine it has been fed through lawyer if they're pursuing a rebuttal or whatever else it is. They are not hoping this all goes away. I don't think it's like they fired back quite soon after it. It is very interesting. One, the aspect, the medical aspect because on the face of it, you're like, yeah, that's really no one's business. Everyone deserves absolute privacy on the matter of their health concerns, their illnesses, seems an absolutely egregious thing to do. But as the piece kind of gets into, so the condition he has is corticobasal syndrome, which is rare disabling. But as the piece kind of gets into, so the condition
Starting point is 00:19:45 he has is corticobasal syndrome, which is rare disabling. And as the piece explains, usually proves fatal within six to eight years. And Tim slash Moth has lived with this for 12 years and could be like medical marvels, miracles, wonderful things do happen. Nothing is like an exact science. And I think it would be shocking for any of that to be misrepresented. But I think the important point there and any of that to be misrepresented. I think the important point there and why Chloe includes this is some people are saying about the whole thing like, okay, it's a broadly true account of a year or two of people's lives and maybe it's okay that some things were left out. Maybe it's okay that they aren't beyond reproach.
Starting point is 00:20:18 Nobody's perfect. It's still heartwarming and hopeful and we do need those stories quite desperately so maybe it doesn't matter. Other people are saying, well, actually, the money in the ceiling allegations are bad enough. But if there is any falsehood in the health claims, that would be a really rotten thing because the idea here is that he was given and is given a kind of boost by the exercising and the walking. Like he would have a bad brain scan one week and then things would be more promising next time. And it's, yeah, it's all speculation. But I think that's where it becomes like public interest a little bit. And when you do lay bare the quote unquote facts, or if you sell a story and you go, this is true, and people
Starting point is 00:21:00 go, okay, so I'm kind of getting from this, that if I have something like this, or if I have this, then there might be healing to be had. That's when it becomes like, what actually do we owe each other of our own private histories? The whole thing is actually, it's testing my feelings about living in this post-truth world, and what makes a good story, and how much truth do we owe each other. And I'm not entirely sure what I think. I think because I'm so fed up with the bullshit of it all, I mean it all being everything in the world at the moment, I'm really short-tempered about it. I'm like, I just want to know what's true. The idea of doing all of this for profit, the idea of it just seems egregious if this
Starting point is 00:21:40 is true. I just feel it's just such a sour taste in my mouth. Yeah, I totally feel the same. Just on something something you said, and only about the reach of this possibly reaching less people in the piece, the Observer says that since it came out in 2018, the book has sold 2 million copies, which is huge. And yesterday, as part of work, I saw the the Salt Path Observer investigation was trending on Google trends in the UK. And I just checked and it's not really been picked up by the U S apart from deadline at the minute. So it will be interesting to see if this, you know, sparks across the world,
Starting point is 00:22:16 because this is truly a global bestselling book, but so far it seems like the fire has like only really been spreading in the UK. Yeah. I think you're probably right on that at least for now, but I'll be surprised if the New York Times don't pick it up in the next few days. But I agree with you. I think, I don't know, the piece did a really good job of trying to tease out the nuances of memoir and writing really does allow for artistic expression and memoir famously is about, as you said, memoir and writing really does allow for artistic expression and memoir famously is about, as you said, the emotional truth and what do you feel was worth sharing and what are the kind of poetic justices that you can flourish onto a story because really
Starting point is 00:22:59 you are building a narrative out and not everything is neat and sequential in the way that a story is. But I just, I felt so black and white about this. It felt like none of the emotional truth was left in the story if all of these allegations are correct. If even a fraction of these allegations are correct, none of that story makes sense. It's a house of cards that has completely fallen apart and the story just isn't real. And none of it felt like even close to memoir fact, nonfiction to me. What did you think Anoni? Lily Allen said something on Miss Me and I'm sure she said it really off cuff, but I genuinely found it so profound the other day. She said, you can be honest without telling the truth.
Starting point is 00:23:42 And I've really been thinking about it. And I think what that means is they could have been honest and said, we lost our house. And that was what made us decide to, you know, go on this long adventure, which would be honest, but it's not the full truth because, you know, the reason why they lost the house was whatever. But then they've been dishonest because they've then lied about what's happened in order for them to lose their house. Do you know what I mean? There's like a really fine line between being honest about something without disclosing the full truth. What's hard to take in as this level of fabrication or like active lying that seems to have happened to the point where it actually
Starting point is 00:24:20 it makes the whole story dishonest because it frames them as the victim. And I think that that's kind of where it sits with me is I don't think that in art or in writing, you necessarily have to purge your... And also maybe if you're really mortified, I mean, they obviously have committed crimes, but if it's not integral to the story, if that isn't the point of it, then maybe you don't necessarily owe that. I'm not sure about how I feel about that, but there's a world in which they could have omitted certain things without doing it in the way that they've done allegedly, which also frames this story as something completely different. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I totally do. Yeah, I completely get what you mean. It's the level of detail to present
Starting point is 00:25:01 themselves as the victim that really sours the story. Also, one thing that I'm obsessed with is just the reminder again of the amount of book deals that can be made without a level of interrogation or scrutiny. We spoke about it with Apple Cider Vinegar and Bell Gibson. This piece mentions another memoir that I looked up after where the memoirist talks about having been in jail and part of these horrendous accidents where he nearly lost his life and having been addicted to drugs. Years ago, it was an Oprah Winfrey book selection and it turned out that lots of the allegations he made were just not true. And now it's build as, I think, fiction or basically not memoir like it was before. But it's crazy. In my mind, you get
Starting point is 00:25:52 a book deal and it must be so rigorous, but I just keep getting reminded that that's just not the case. They don't necessarily hold the facts that you make in those books to account. I think if it's about you or something happens to you, they don't necessarily challenge it. But if you say like, X, Y, Z happened to me by this person, you'll then, you either have to have, I think, three points of contact to back it up and say, I can give evidence that this happened. Or you have to change it because that's more about defamation and being sued and stuff, or you have to like change the information.
Starting point is 00:26:28 But I think if you're saying it happened to you, they trust you as the narrator of your own story and I guess you can't sue yourself. So I think that's where the public, like sorry, the publishers protection angle comes in. They think, well, if you're saying it, I guess it must be true about you, but it's more that the thing they worry about is, will someone else, which is happening
Starting point is 00:26:47 now with this book, but they didn't know that, I guess, will someone else come in and say actually what they've written is factually incorrect? And I guess, I'm sure it must be quite an unusual type of character that does fabricate such big things about their own lives. I would imagine that's not that common. Or maybe I'm very naive. It's also just like the omissions of it all because it could be everything, like so much of what they say is true, but then they've admitted like, for example, it's the idea that they were homeless and then there's reports in this that, oh, but there was the French
Starting point is 00:27:19 property. The idea that, yeah, we've lost our money. And it's like, but how did you lose your money? And here the allegation is you committed quite a serious, egregious crime. And it's the hubris of it all. If this is true, it's a tale of audacity. It's shocking to me the idea that you'd be so brazen to be accused of a crime and to kind of so desperately seek to get away with this. The report is that she was questioned by police. They said, you will come back tomorrow. You've been accused of stealing 64 grand from a former employee. You'll need to come back. She vanished and then gets in touch via lawyer. It's the idea you would do that, get sucked into this hella situation and then pursue writing a book about it. It just feels like maybe at that point you think, well, I've changed my name. I'm going by a pseudonym.
Starting point is 00:28:11 Enough will be changed because of the legalese. I probably will get away with this. But then it's pursuing fame and visibility even more doggedly by making the film, signing off on the film, and then just posing on the red carpet, standing next to like world famous actress, Gillian Anderson. If that is indeed what happened, I cannot understand those associated behaviors, whether it's like, it goes to your head, whether you think, well,
Starting point is 00:28:35 everyone involved in this story is like older, maybe a few of them have passed away, slash irrelevant. It's just like pure hubris. It's like, I know allegedly, allegedly, but like you would kick yourself, I think, at this point for being like, I've gotten away with this for years. And now, because I wanted a little bit more, this has all come out. That's what shocks me most about this is the audacity of people, the gall. I cannot for a second understand what drives someone to do this besides the obvious rewards of like fame and money,
Starting point is 00:29:06 but there has to be a limit because this is was all unnecessary. Best selling book, no one's really you know, 2018 that could have just been a nice little earner. You don't have to go on the red carpet. I have a question for you both and I completely agree with everything you said, Beth. Why do we stan someone like Anna Delvey? And why, you know, in the age of post scammers, somebody like an Elizabeth Holmes became quite a cult figure. But you know, the salt path has absolutely horrified us. I have a theory, but what do you think? I think Anna Delvey was like scamming massive corporate, like big hotels and like conglomerates
Starting point is 00:29:43 and like, it's like taking from the rich to give to the poor. It was quite glamorous. I mean, she obviously was scamming rich friends, but I think the hilarity in that was that everyone around her was also buying into her fakeness. Like it was their fault that they kind of got taken in by her. Whereas I guess with this story and also to go back to what Beth was saying, if you're so brazen as to steal 64,000 pounds off your employee, which by the way, your employee is not Unilever. It's like a local person that you've known for years, who's an individual as individual as you are. If you're that brazen, then I guess there must be a certain sort of personality type or something that means that you do think you're above
Starting point is 00:30:19 the law and that you do think that you're entitled to take whatever you can take and that you're not going to get caught. I do think that that must be part of their idea. But yeah, I think that it's just, I think it's that I feel like it depends on who the victim is in this and everyone in the story and the piece, you just feel so sorry for them because they seem like lovely working people who, whose livelihoods, there's one guy who's like, they still owe me £800. If you see them, can you get that £800? And they were like, they must have the money now. And that's just, that's just really sad, you know? I totally agree with you. It's the injustice of it. Whereas I feel like those other people
Starting point is 00:30:53 in other stories, you know, they're going to bounce back. There is a sense that every single victim in this story just never bounced back. They just had to deal with it. And that is so unfair. It's so, so, so unfair. And there was a time where the scammer was like, country sexy, this is exciting. Caroline Calloway capitalised on it and so did Anna Delvey. And I think we're kind of through that. And this is not a sexy country crime embezzling from an employer in the early 2000s. I think it's awful that actually you can spin that kind of crime and manipulation into a media career, but that is the way of the world. Times have moved on and I just can't see this
Starting point is 00:31:31 ever having that gloss of it's kind of can't because it's just simply not. Can I counter that quickly just with something that Carolina Donohue wrote on Substack, which is, my hot take on the salt path is that a huge part of boomer culture is that every single one of them has either defrauded or been defrauded by a former friend. They are our elders. These are their practices. We must respect them. I read that and laughed because actually it's so true. The boomers loved defrauding each other. It's such a thing. I even really remember at school, like people's parents, there'd be stuff going on with people doing a little bit of fraud. I don't know this side of the world. I'm not familiar with that. I need to do some digging.
Starting point is 00:32:15 So I have been utterly obsessed with Netflix's reality series, The Ultimatum Queer Love, or what actually everyone calls it is Que ultimatum series two. Each of the couples and there's six couples in this one have essentially one person who desperately wants to get married and one who doesn't. The latter has been issued an ultimatum by the partner who wants to get married and what this means is they all have to go on this show, this reality show, and if by the end the non-agreeing partner doesn't change their mind, that couple has to break up. That sounds absolutely wild, right? We'll just wait, it gets more nuts. The couple then have to swap partners with the other couples
Starting point is 00:32:58 on the show to see if they could be happier with someone else in a trial marriage. During this process, they actually temporarily break up with their original partner and start calling them their ex even if they've been together a decade plus and after this kind of trial marriage with a stranger essentially they return back to their original partner and do the same thing with that partner and have to make a decision by the end of those three weeks. Vulture summed it up perfectly for me with the writer Zoe Papoulis writing quote No dating show format is perfect, but in a world where most of them rely solely on bad communication between straight couples, it's a cherished experience to watch other lesbians struggle
Starting point is 00:33:38 with things we understand, like overcommunication, the inclination to get matching tattoos with someone you've known for one week, and the impact that one charismatic, masked lesbian can have on a group of queer people. Have you both been watching this? Am I wild for thinking this show is just so, I don't know, so incredible, bizarre, wild, but worth watching? I have to know your thoughts. I started watching this and I was actually quite like a leery of a concept which involves an ultimatum. The whole concept of it really alarmed me and I was like, I'm going to need
Starting point is 00:34:12 to run the tapes back and understand exactly what's about to happen. It's these couples talking such loving terms about one another at this kind of round table dinner party and you're like, but wait, now they're going to break up. It's very odd. And I wonder, I think I kind of echo the thoughts of that vulture piece. I think my brain has been broken a little bit by modern reality TV dating shows because they are so toxic and they've been so unlovely and so unfocused on love for a really long time. I don't think it's even a part of my criteria anymore for the dating shows to involve like real feelings and love. There was a time when I did love that. Now I think I'm just watching dating shows to watch mess and to watch
Starting point is 00:34:51 content creators get their start. The stakes are so much lower. I started watching this and I was like, oh, this is not that. The stakes are really high here. These are people that love one another, have spent sometimes a decade together and really this is the last stitch attempt to make themselves feel whole and make the relationship work. And there's so much love. And I watched the first episode and I was like, okay, this is about investment. This is about commitment. It's not strangers, straight people snogging each other in like ball pits of goo and pulling each other for chats. This is like the stuff of life. And so I think my challenge here will be to watch this through eyes that have to
Starting point is 00:35:31 pretend they've never seen Love Island USA, which as we know they have. So I have started watching it and it just feels like a completely different beast than anything else on TV. I also have only just started watching it. As you guys know, I'm not the best with reality TV, but then that made me enjoy this more because it is different because you're already kind of thrown into the deep end of you don't have to watch people kind of getting to know each other. Well, you do, but there's like a pre-existing real depth to these relationships. So I'm really only early
Starting point is 00:36:00 on, but I think it's funny, it's something you just said a minute ago, Beth, about it, like it's so extreme. But in heteronormative relationships, this ultimatum is, I would say, happens in like 75% of couples that you hear about where women will go, I literally said to him, like, if he doesn't propose to me, I'm leaving him. And then they get engaged. It's such a thing, it's such a flippant kind of thing that people use, that there's something maybe interesting about seeing it in a queer relationship, because you just imagine that queer relationships are more partisan or that they don't conform
Starting point is 00:36:31 as much to these traditional structures. So I do think it's quite like an interesting, it shows how weird the ultimatum is in general. Like I do think it's such a funny thing that we have these ultimatums. I flip-flop about marriage, I never really know what I think, but I think what this shows quite interesting and the premise in what it does is that does it make you kind of question what commitment really means and whether or not there is, because these
Starting point is 00:36:54 couples are ultimately really happy apart from the fact that they disagree on marriage, right? But then the fact that they're then able to be swayed and to leave their long-term relationship, I think it shows how much agency we have in relationships and in love, that it's not some sort of like fated by the stars. You find that one person and then when you're with them, it's like, that's it. But I do find it so interesting that marriage can be that disruptive, that the lack of wanting it can be enough for people to not want to be together forever. But I think it's because more about that lack of security that thinking that, you know, if we don't get married, then maybe they'll leave me. But this show kind of proves
Starting point is 00:37:33 that actually this is all within your control because sometimes it's the people that want to get married that are leaving, you know? Yeah, everything you said is so right, especially the bits at the end, because I, with the straight version essentially, I feel like loads of the couples are so horrendously toxic and marriage is this almost like final card to use to hold and pin somebody down because they can feel that they're kind of escaping. And it's really yucky, honestly, the straight version is really yuck. Whereas this version, it feels like you have a few, not all, a few couples who are really actually doing very well.
Starting point is 00:38:12 So it's bizarre that they're on this show and by the end, you know, some things work out with these couples and it almost feels like, well, what was the point of going through this horrendous process? Is marriage worth all of this? It feels hard, I guess, as somebody who does want to get married one day, to see somebody wanting it so much that they could go on a show like this and reality TV is a better answer than just kind of maybe letting marriage go. So what you said really chimed with me because that's exactly how I felt too.
Starting point is 00:38:46 And the second part is I do have to say that kind of cliche about over communication and lesbians falling in love quickly. I'm sorry, but the show really did live up to that cliche and that stereotype and they just, it was absolutely crazy. Two of them get matching tattoos. That's not a joke in the vulture piece. Two of them get matching tattoos after a week of knowing each other. And the partner of one of these women, when
Starting point is 00:39:16 they find the tattoo obviously has a meltdown because they've never got matching tattoos before. Like what's that? That's wild. That is so, it's so wild. And I think that's it. It's like, I was going to ask because I just didn't know like, surely this was a straight show. And if so, was it absolutely dog shit? Because like, that is an insane thing to do. Okay, the matching tattoos to me, but also like the way that everyone's talking about each other in the first episode, like how deeply they love one another. And it's like when straight people talk about each other, it's not like that. When it's kind of like, often the male counterpoint is like listing things that are done for him.
Starting point is 00:39:53 Whereas this, this is, you know, women, lesbians, queer people, listing things about their partner that they just adore. It's very loving. And of course I'm early on, relationships as I know will fall apart and reform but it's just bonkers that it does then become, okay I've left that relationship, I'm now with someone I met three weeks ago, I can't understand what possesses someone to go on a show like this knowing that might happen. The idea itself feels so archaic because it's literally yeah the idea of shit I'll go off the pot, let's get married. But actually, I think the point is when it's like queer love, when marriage is not meant, when historically marriage was not, I guess, meant for you, it was sort of not designed with your mind and modern marriage therefore, you can yoke it to everyone. You can be like,
Starting point is 00:40:41 no, it's not that I just want to ring. It's that I want to know, I want security, I want to know, I want to feel safe. I want to know that you see me and you want to make our lives bigger together rather than this historic notion of submission and like the old wall and chain. So I think I actually went into it being like, this is really archaic. I don't know how this can work. And I'm like, oh, it kind of does work because it's like, do you see a life with me where we commit to one another and like stand by each other's side? If not, let's release each other, which is kind of beautiful. And I'm obviously not for a second assuming that because it's queer people and lesbians that it's going to be utopian dating and no one's going to misbehave because everyone is human and humans fuck up and are full of foibles and contradictions.
Starting point is 00:41:22 I embrace for that, but I'm like, this is a quality to this that it feels weird that it happens under the umbrella of something that feels so heterosexual, which is, marry me or I will leave you. But the way it's unfolding so far, I'm like, there is something so distinctly other about this that is unrecognizable and feels in its essence way more expansive than I'm sure the show could ever achieve. It was like Dave and Becky, she wants to get married, he just wants to go to football. I'm being reductive to straight people, yeah again. But I'm getting something from this that it's the contradictions, the contradictions.
Starting point is 00:41:57 I have to say it gets messier and messier and messier. You both are in for such a ride. So if you've just started and you don't know how this is going to work out, stick with it. You will be on quite the roller coaster and there are some many, many plunges. FYI, this week Emma Spector also wrote a piece for Vogue titled Respectfully, Why Would Anyone Go On The Ultimatum Queer love. And I think that sums it up really. So we need to talk about Brad Pitt. In a piece of vulture, Angelica Jade-Bastien writes, Brad Pitt is fooling you. There have been allegations of physical and verbal abuse by Brad Pitt from both Angelina Jolie and his children in the public domain for a few years now, but thus far it seems that in the court of the public, his image
Starting point is 00:42:50 is pretty untainted. And Bastien writes in the piece that Pitt has been so successful at this rehabilitation that most of the public don't even understand what he's trying to rehabilitate himself for. She goes on to say that his press tour for his latest film, he has limited it to outlets like Jack Shepard's podcast, which isn't an interview but a conversation where the star won't be pushed to address more prickly personal or professional matters. And six days ago, he jokingly read his thirst tweets with his co-star Javier Bardem. A day before that, he got cheeky over Britishisms with his other co-star, Dancin Idris, and
Starting point is 00:43:25 in his latest glossy GQ profile, Pitt gives an appearance of unmediated candour even though he isn't asked about Jolie or about his estrangement from his six children, some of whom are reportedly legally stripping his name from theirs. Which I also thought may be perhaps served as a good reminder for why rigorous traditional media being absorbed by celebrity and social media interviews isn't always a fairer or better system like we spoke about in last week's Everything in conversation and the piece goes on when the f1 movie premiered over the weekend It became the most successful box office opening of Pitt's entire career Bastien says it has always sold a particular vision of American
Starting point is 00:44:05 white masculinity, one predicated on charisma, unflapability and seamless confidence. His deafness in removing the specter of violence from his own narrative is a reminder of the ways his violence against women is normalized. It isn't that people don't believe in what happened to Jolie on that plane. They just don't care. And I just found that last sentence so damning and actually quite chilling and I think it't care. And I just found that last sentence so damning and actually quite chilling and I think it's true. And I wonder, is it just because he's so beautiful, so handsome, is it his PR?
Starting point is 00:44:32 It certainly feels like he's done an incredible job of pulling the wool over the eyes of the world. And a lot of the pieces about how he talks about his relationship with alcohol and his subsequent sobriety, and that kind of is acting as a means to excuse him from his behaviors, absolve him of that person because it wasn't him, it was actually the booze. I want to know what your relationship is with Brad Pitt, whether or not you've, because I've been really aware of this, but
Starting point is 00:44:59 I have to say I haven't necessarily actively disengaged from his work in the way that I have with other famous men. And that's a problem on my part, which I need to interrogate and I don't necessarily know why. I feel like I, yeah, I have an aversion to him now. It feels like oil and water. Every time he comes up, I just like, I have the immediate, ugh, ugh.
Starting point is 00:45:21 So I do have that, but I can see why it would be so easy to not have that because he has just been front and centre for the last few months. So I don't know, there's a reason why PR strategies like this work because they are successful. And the other thing I just wanted to point out quickly is that GQ cover, I don't even know what to say about it. I saw somebody tweet it was giving open casket vibes and I think that really nailed it. He looks frozen like a vampire that's been resuscitated and I don't want to be rude, but also I think it's fair game because of everything you've just said. It was a very strange cover visually. I'll leave it there. But yeah, no,
Starting point is 00:46:03 I have the yuck feeling with him and yeah, I'm finding it easy at the moment to just kind of just have that aversion wall come up. What about you, Beth? Beth Poulson I think it's so interesting to frame this in regard to like his attractiveness and especially that cover, which yeah, got a lot of kind of catty, not just catty comments, just like on the nose, that man looks weird. But it was a really common refrain and remains to be in around the Johnny Depp allegations. And the following critique is that like, wow, he's so old and revolting and
Starting point is 00:46:36 ugly and look how hideous he is inside now. And it's been interesting to see to watch Brad Pitt be criticized, obviously less so for reasons which maybe we'll unpack because I think he does remain very conventionally attractive for the most part into his 60s and whether that's good genes, skincare as I think he said, or as is rumored, a cheeky facelift, it doesn't really matter. But there's definitely an element of like, when it's harder to skewer here, one because the story is less explosive, for want of a better word, because we haven't really had that public trial, they're handing a lot of it privately, the details have been quite scant. But like, pretty privilege is,
Starting point is 00:47:14 it's more than just like an easier ride through life. It's literally like trust and social capital assigned to hot people that furnishes them with an almost total ability to get away with whatever they want, if they're also men. I think that has been a really interesting part. It is absolutely not of no consequence that he is and remains really hot. People have had a crush on this man, an attraction, a fondness for him since the late 80s, early 90s. It's so twisted up in that. Of course, Johnny Depp has a legion of fans, but he has aged more realistically and looks quite old. Whereas Brad Pitt has sort of frozen himself in time, which I think is quite a neat little trick for also freezing people's opinion of you
Starting point is 00:47:58 from where it began in like 90s, 2000. Good bloke, recognize him. He looks nice. I think it's a lot harder for people to understand, okay, it's possible this person has done the most heinous and abusive things and is actually just a dull, horrible bastard. So that's what I think. I think because he was always positioned as the golden boy in America, when him and Jen Aniston were together, they were the golden couple. I think when he went over to, you know, Angelina Jolie, he still, he was, he nailed the strategy of never having the fallout from having had an affair or crossover between those relationships. He always remained unscathed. Whereas the women were always pitted against each other. They face the brunt of that
Starting point is 00:48:43 huge scandal. He just had nothing. He was Teflon, nothing stuck to him. And we're seeing the same thing here again. And something about his image never, never weathers a scandal. He's just, whether it's PR strategy, which I think is part of it, the fact that he's good looking from what you said, the fact that he's a man, he's done this time and time again. And also, yeah, just to go back to what you're saying about pretty privilege, Beth, we've been primed since we were children to see villains as ugly as that being manifest
Starting point is 00:49:10 in the way that they look, especially in like Roald Dahl books, every single fairy tale, the villain is someone unattractive, the good person is beautiful and attractive. So it's not just like pretty privilege. Yeah, like you said, it's actually run so much deeper, like we're psychologically primed to feel more trusting. And even the sort of like Brad Pitt and George
Starting point is 00:49:29 Clooney were always pitted as the sweet guys. And whereas Johnny Depp is the darker, he was had that kind of energy. He's more rock and roll. So even in those really, it's quite insipid, stupid ways, we just, I think, find it harder. And I wonder if it's also because I do get a yucky feeling. I do feel an aversion towards Brad Pitt now since the information has come out. But I think it's almost like I'm waiting for a collective sort of cancellation. And because it hasn't happened, it makes me distrust my own feelings. And I also wonder if it's his interesting and I don't know how to feel about it because I love Jennifer Aniston, but she's been quite chummy with him ever since this news has come out. Like there's
Starting point is 00:50:07 been interviews where they appeared together. There was that famous Zoom where he goes, does he go, hey, Aniston and she goes, hey, Pip or he goes, hey Jen, she goes, hey, something like that. And they've been seen on red carpets. And again, it's like, it's sort of, it's almost like you're being gaslit by his presence within media. There's absolutely no, even with sort of Shia LaBeouf, he did actually disappear for a bit. There was more of a sort of, he then obviously was welcomed back with open arms and he walked the red carpet at Cannes and he had his reappearance. You know, all of that seems to have disappeared again now no one seems to care. But there was, there was at least some moment, whereas with Brad
Starting point is 00:50:40 Pitt, there doesn't seem to have been an actionable moment that you can pinpoint where he has actually fallen off the radar. And that ability to kind of stick your face above the parapet, even when all of this is happening, even when all of your children are kind of disowning you, there clearly is power in that because it's certainly wrong footing me a little bit in my, I probably should feel more ardently that I will never watch a film with him again. I should separate myself from enjoying his work. But if I'm just being completely honest, I don't, and even it's awful and I've read everything that is alleged to have happened, but somewhere there's a cognitive dissonance in my brain where I can watch an interview with him and
Starting point is 00:51:17 Jennifer Aniston and kind of forget for a split second, which I can't do with Johnny Depp, Shia LaBeouf, any other sort of different famous men that have been accused of awful behavior. I feel the same. I feel like I'm a bit in this tussle with myself when I'm like, why don't I feel that revulsion? Because I think it's the maybe it was the divorce filings or some sort of court filings where, and the lawyer said, quote, well Pitt's history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family's September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles. This flight marks the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well. Jolie then immediately left him. The details of this, and they are
Starting point is 00:51:53 scant, but the details we have are all really revolting. I wonder whether, because we didn't get what perhaps the public feel that they're owed in terms of a celebrity breakup of this, or celebrity breakup that involves these allegations, we don't get the court case. We don't get the details. We feel they were owed. We sort of go, well, I'm not getting involved until I get what I'm owed or like I can't form an opinion. I can't take a side until I've got all of the juicy details. And it's like, that kind of is the bottom line of it. Just because we don't have like public resolution or pages and pages of court dogs, it doesn't mean that as the general public, we're absolved from caring or allowed
Starting point is 00:52:30 to go on kind of stanning this man. Our role as a collective is we're continuing to rehab this person's image who is alleged to have done things which are sickening and intolerable and disgusting. It's just very odd. I'm trying to grapple with why exactly. And it's what it says in the piece. It's not really that people have gone, yeah, fuck Angelina Jolie. What a great guy. They just don't seem to care. And is it maybe that we just haven't reached saturation point with information? I'd be really fascinated actually to hear what listeners think because I'm certain there's a clearer idea. I just don't have it. Lae It does. It feels like the tide is dragging
Starting point is 00:53:08 us in a direction and it's so easy to just be swept up in it and to make a decision on him or to stop consuming him or to have an active revulsion to him takes effort. You have to almost like stand up and then like walk the other direction and like swim against the tide. So that isn't to diminish the fact that everything around us is pushing towards just, you know, saying, oh, whatever, like, it's fine. Let's just live our lives and like a tweet involving him. That definitely is a thing. One thing I also wanted to bring up is his production company Plan B Entertainment has put out some very feminist pieces of film, which I think also helps in this kind of confusion around how to take him and take this situation.
Starting point is 00:53:56 So in 2022, they came out with She Said, which is the film obviously about the New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein. And they also did Women Talking and Blonde. the film obviously about the New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein. They also did women talking and blonde. I think it is this big picture of his public image. It is probably more difficult to square everything for some people because how can somebody be producing these stellar feminist pieces of work and then also be capable of committing this atrocious thing? The reality is obviously everyone is difficult, everyone's naughty, bad people do good things, good people do bad things. It isn't just a case of it's impossible for a bad person to
Starting point is 00:54:34 make good films about women, you know, and victims of sexual abuse. So there's also that addition to it. It is a very complex situation for people to, I guess, understand. But at the same time, like you said, the details that we can see are so egregious. And it's so easy in this media landscape for PR and spin to just take over everything. We've seen it time and time again with the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni case. We just get swept into directions and it's so hard to just stand up and push against it. But that is kind of the nature of internet culture at the minute, I think. And also I love Angelina Jolie. I've been obsessed with her since forever. I think she's one of the most interesting and intelligent,
Starting point is 00:55:15 amazing women and she's obviously so strong and she's always doing just incredible work. But I wonder if in the eyes of a lot of people, she's not a perfect victim because she had all of that controversy when she was younger. And, you know, if you compare as people used to with Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, again, it was like sort of like the angel and the devil, the dark girl and the light. And then Brad Pitt again was seen as this sort of golden boy and Angelina was this, you know, kooky knife playing, tattooed, blood drinking, snogging her brother, whatever else she got up to, woman. And I wonder if that plays a part of it. And maybe because she seems in the eyes of the public unscathed, you know, she's doing this incredible work, she looks
Starting point is 00:55:55 beautiful. Maybe people find it again hard to square because they're like, what is the fallout from this? Because she's, they're doing it very privately, as you said, Beth. But it makes me also think of like, for example, I would never go to a Chris Brown concert and I find it really shocking when people do. And maybe that's what you said, Ritira. It's like, there's not really anything to action in this. It's like, I do feel a bit. I also often wonder, part of my thing around it is like, I see stuff about Brad Pitt and I'm kind of looking around like, does no one else know? because Why is everyone just not talking about it? So then I just don't really know I'm like, okay And I don't really do anything was when there's like an actionable thing eg. Lots of people are going to Chris Brown
Starting point is 00:56:33 I feel really outraged by it, but this whole thing just seems very like passive and I don't really know What to say or what to do? I don't know. I find it very odd I definitely a hundred percent obviously believe Angelina Jolie, but I don't really know what my place is in this conversation. Yeah, I feel like the only actual thing here is like en masse, like just a dismantling of celebrity culture, which just feels a little bit out of reach, but it's like there's so much sycophancy from like the journalists that are currently writing completely hero-worshipping
Starting point is 00:57:04 pieces about him, knowing exactly what we know because they're journalists. It got me thinking, I don't for a second miss the kind of heat magazine catty tabloid of the noughties at all, like sexist racists did so much harm. But there's something in like, there was a time when we understood celebrities as something other than deities and other than upper-loved faves and superhuman untouchable. And I do think their power has increased and is continuing to increase to the point where you can sort of do anything you want when you reach a certain level of fame, as long as you have those accoutrements of attractiveness, money, public opinion, or decades of good favour. And I don't think
Starting point is 00:57:42 we should go back into zooming in on women's toes and calling female celebrities like ugly hags, but there's something, I do crave the collapse of celebrity culture that currently goes all the way from like hero worshipping stands to trained journalists doing the work of PRs for no good reason. And I just, especially for someone who has been accused of those things. And I think that's not an easy answer, but there has to be a give at some point. This surely has to reach its saturation point, its tipping point at some point. It can't just be like, oh, you can do crime. Okay. Yep. Actually, you are quite good looking. You've been famous. Crime is legal. That's completely batshit. Maybe it is also that there is just a sense of helplessness and hopelessness when it comes
Starting point is 00:58:26 to violence against women because the thing I keep pointing to is like a cancellation, but actually like there should be legal massive repercussions to committing violence against women. But I kind of even have been forgetting about that in this conversation because so infrequently do we actually see anything come of it. And I think that's what maybe creates like a tiredness because it's like, what are we supposed to do? It's like an exhaustion where constantly you're just finding out that these people who are hero worshipped are violent, cruel, misogynistic, and then they just carry on working. So I think there is a point where
Starting point is 00:59:05 people don't care, but I think on behalf of women, there's also a point where it's like, what are we supposed to do? They're just going to carry on being more and more successful. And I think that's a real, there's just a real exhaustion, I think, where it's like, okay, we've heard this story time and time again. Is anything going to change? Evidently, no. And we're seeing it with the P. Diddy trial and there's so many names that we could put forward now. And I have seen a lot of pieces as well about, you know, did me too do any good in the end?
Starting point is 00:59:33 You know, what is, where are we? It doesn't feel like we've come on very far at all. Thank you so much for listening this week. Also, have you listened to our latest Everything In conversation episode? It's all about celebrities suddenly spilling the beans on their surgeries and whether this is helpful or harmful. If you've enjoyed the podcast, as always, please do leave us a rating and a review on your podcast player app.
Starting point is 01:00:00 Please also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything Is Content Pod. See you next week! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye!

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