From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Q&A With the Duffys: Celebrating 30 Years Since The Real World With YOUR Questions!

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

30 years ago this week, Rachel entered the MTV Real World House in San Francisco – the start of a journey that would change her life forever. From allowing her to meet Sean and make life-long friends, to teaching her a variety of lessons, it's an experience that meant a great deal to her, and to all of you who watched the show. In honor of the anniversary, Rachel and Sean answer listeners' 'Real World' questions. Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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slash rightsizedsavings for full details. Hey, everyone. Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos. Duffy, hi Rachel. Sean, we have a special edition Q&A today. We're so excited. This week was the 30th anniversary of the first time that I walked into the Real World House on MTV in San Francisco.

And there was just, I posted something about it. There was such a huge reaction to it that it kind of went viral. And so then I thought, well, why don't we make Q&A this week, everybody's questions, because there were so many comments of people asking me questions. So I'm like, all right, that's it. I posted videos on social media saying, hey, send in your question. And we got a lot of questions to the point, Sean, where we have these beautiful producers, three beautiful producers, but they're not Gen Xers.

They are not. No. And so they are Gen Z, and they're kind of going, what is all this interest? So I'm pretty sure most of the people writing are Gen Xers. Like what was MTV? What's a VHS tape? Yeah. So anyway, tons of great questions.

So I thought we'd just kind of jump into it. The most frequent question I got was, are you still in contact with anybody from the real world? I saw a different, most popular question. So you can tell me that. Okay. Well, the, the answer is there are three people I'm in contact with. You know, I, I exchanged Christmas cards and messages with Corey, um, you know, once a year, but the, the three people that I stay in contact with the most from the real world are Norman Corpy, who was from the very first real world in New York, John Brennan, the cowboy. Second season from L.A. Second season from L.A.

And then Puck. And I got a lot of people wondering, have you talked to Puck? The answer is yes. That was the most common question I heard. And there was, do you stay in touch with Puck? And what happened to Puck? So I just talked to Puck last night. And it's not like we talk every week, but I just happened to have talked to him last night.

A couple times a year. More than a couple times a year we talk. I would say, you know, probably five or six times a year we'll be in touch with each other. He's living off the grid right now. More than I knew, actually. Yeah. Rachel said five, six. I'm like, wait, what? What? And he wanted to come on the podcast. He had a prior engagement,

couldn't do it, but he has promised to come back and do just a Sean Rachel Puck episode, which will be a blast. Which will be historic. And then the other question I got that I thought was really, and I'll kick it off to you, Sean, right after. But I thought it was really interesting. This one was, who is your favorite country singer on Real World Los Angeles? And that was, of course, a question that came in from John Brennan. John Brennan, our favorite. I don't like the way he worded that question because brennan is literally one of my favorite country singers in all of america and he's he's also the most underappreciated uh country singer he's

amazing his voice has gotten better with age it's richer it's deeper um and his his lyrics he's still writing his own songs he had a number one song song on Positive Country this year. And so I encourage everybody, go and download and see what he's up to, because he's actually making a comeback, and I'm super proud of him, and I love him very much. By the way, he is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He'll give the shirt off. Anyone on the street that he met that needed a shirt, he'd give it off his back. That's the kind of guy he is. Good Christian man. And also I'm wearing, if you're watching, I'm wearing a Rigoni's bakery hat in honor of my friend Norman. So Norman Corpy is still doing artwork. He has an amazing collection out right now. I actually own a piece of that art. It's hanging in my cabin.

I encourage you to look. I'm just going to say it has a lot to do with paint colors and literally paint colors that you buy at the hardware store. But he also works at Rigoni's Bakery in Michigan up in the UK. Okay, let's get to questions. I know, but I just want to make sure you guys know. We love Norm too. We love Norm. So one of the questions that I came across, which, by the way, just from my vantage point, I didn't know Rachel when she did The Real World of San Francisco.

I met her several years later, but I remember seeing her on TV, thinking she's a bit spunky. She's conservative. A breed that I wasn't familiar with so much, which was a Latina Hispanic woman. We're a breed now. There wasn't a lot of them in Northern Wisconsin at the time. So it's interesting though, to have seen you on TV. And then we met later actually on television, which was pretty cool. But a question I saw was any of your show mates that you could see going on a six month vacation with you, their families, and your families? From your show.

Oh, from my actual show? Oh, if I had to pick from my show, it would be Corey. Not only do I love Corey, but I love her husband. And he's an awesome guy. She has a beautiful family. I think we share a lot of similar values, and I think that would be a great trip. So, because... What about on your season, Sean? Probably not any of them. I think we share a lot of similar values, and I think that would be a great trip. What about on your season, Sean?

Probably not any of them. Cyrus. So listen, I love Cyrus. Cyrus, we were very good friends on the show. He's part of the show. Yeah, we had a little bit of a pulling out. I had with my cast members, there was an offer to do another show. All of us get together, you know, what, 20 years later. And I didn't want to do it.

And I think they were a little bit annoyed by that. And so they've held that against me. And so we've had a little bit of a crack where I was a little iceberg that fell off of the mother. Is Cyrus still mad at you for that? I think they are a little angry. Yeah. But why don't you tell everyone what really happened? I don't know what that actually means.

How much am I supposed to say about that? This is actually kind of interesting. It's kind of funny actually. It's not funny. It's not funny that you fell out with them but here's the story. They wanted to do the show. Paramount wanted to do a show but they weren't going to do the show unless every

single cast member agreed to do the show. All seven of the cast had to say yes. They were offering a lot of money to come on for two or three weeks and do the show. And we just didn't think it was in the interest of our family. It's just not something we wanted to do. So there was a lot of back and forth on text message. Okay, let's be honest. I didn't want to do it because, again, I'm with liberal producers, liberal writers, a liberal network.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It wasn't in the interest of our family. Yeah, it's not in my best interest to go do this and you you have no control over what makes it to television and they can try to you know massage and navigate topics i'm like i'm not going to put myself in that kind of jeopardy yeah and so when i said no they lost the opportunity to make this money and i understand their frustration at that but i again i can't risk my own family for yeah but then there was a text chain going on of like- All of us together.

All of them together. But there was a separate text chain that they were kind of arguing, that they were talking about, Sean. And something happened where somebody accidentally started- Putting it on what they thought was their own private text chain. They actually started texting on the text chain that I was on. So I started seeing all the things they were saying about me.

Which is so real world, which is what I love to know. So I was going to actually comment to them about me seeing what they were saying. And Rachel said, no, no, sit back and see what else they say. Evil, devious Rachel said, just let them keep going.

Eventually they figured it out. They figured out you were on there at some point. So I heard all the nasty things they said. And again, I give them some grace. They were annoyed and angry, and they would have liked the money, and I understand that. I'm sorry. That was so funny.

It was so real world, but we didn't have text messages. No, we had beepers. We had beepers back in the day. They couldn't beep you. They couldn't beep me. But if I had to pick someone else, Cyrus and and i were i love cyrus he's a he's a uh so you would go with cyrus you're just not sure cyrus would go with you right now right exactly you still harbor some anger at me oh i love it i love it okay but it's okay so that

so you would go with cory can i ask you this what's happened to the rest of see i mean so i'm honest one of the most popular seasons of the real world was yours. Sure. You had Puck and Pedro and Corey and Muhammad, Judd and Pam. And who felt when Puck was kicked out, they brought in? They brought in Joe, who was a lot of fun. Actually, she'd be a lot of fun to go on vacation with, too. So tell me, like, who did you get along with him?

Do you talk to them? What's your relationship with them? I don't have a relationship with any of the other people on my cast. And part of it is that we sort of had like, you know, if there was going to be a reunion or something like that, I think prior to Donald Trump, I think I might have been invited. But I think Donald Trump broke a lot of people. He broke the real world. He broke the real world. San Francisco, for sure, because I found out that they were having,

this isn't dissimilar to what happened to you, but there was some sort of scholarship that they were doing in honor of Pedro Zamora. And everybody in my cast was invited to this launching of this scholarship, except for me. And of course, this was during the Donald Trump years. And I did start to get feedback and, you know, rumors back that, you know, I guess a lot of people on my cast, they could tolerate me being kind of being a Republican,

kind of being a conservative. But there became a point, I think, where they thought, you know, you know, you've heard it all. Donald Trump's a threat to democracy. And so suddenly I became persona non grata. I wasn't even invited to my own cast members, you know, launching of this. So you've seen the world kind of the island of misfit toys, you and me, from our shows? A little bit? Yeah.

Maybe Norman's too. I mean, actually, my friend Norman from the real world, New York, he and I, I mean, we were roommates before I even married you. I mean, he and I have been friends for, you know, literally for probably 29 years. I met him like right after the real world. And we've remained close. We share a lot of common values. I mean, people don't get it. Like, yeah, he's a gay artist, and he was on the New York season,

but he's from Michigan. And his heart, he's a Midwestern. He's from the upper peninsula of Michigan. He's actually really close to Wisconsin. He actually lives and grew up an hour away from where my hometown was. So, like, we're almost neighbors. Right. And so Norm may not agree with me politically on a lot of stuff, or Sean, but he understands us because his own parents think like us.

His parents are big Fox News fans. His parents and I are close, too. So he loves us. And during the Trump years, he was getting so much pushback for being my friend, for liking a post about something I did, you know, posted about my kids, or even for me supporting what he was doing. It was like, why would you want her support? So there is something that has happened in our country. And I think that's what makes this anniversary of, you know, 30 years since the real world. Yeah, there were political and social, social, social, and even class and economic divides in our cast 30 years ago, instead of things getting better, and they were on the road to getting better, I think, throughout the 90s. And then I think Barack Obama, this is my theory, you guys can comment and disagree with me. I think something happened. Barack Obama, I think, started this

trend. And I think it has gotten worse since. And that is race has become sort of that dividing factor. And I don't know what's happening, but things are worse than they were in the 1990s. Listen, they're far worse than they were in the 90s. In terms of national unity. On a lot of things. Yeah. So just to be, I'm going to be really honest with you guys. I've gotten some questions that we were both looking at questions.

There's so many. We love them all. So we're going to split them up. But I didn't approve questions from Rachel beforehand. So can I ask you about this? Oh, yeah. No, go ahead. Absolutely.

No, no, no. Hold on. Okay, thank you. I can let it all go. so someone wrote in and said we saw that you got it uh your first tattoo on the real world rachel um have you added to your real world collection of tattoos so yes when i was 22 in the real world um i went down my brother came to visit as you guys know puck was really into tattoos my brother was a marine. Um, and he was like, I want to get a tattoo. And the two of them talked me into getting a tattoo as well. So I have

a fairly large tattoo on my back that I'm absolutely embarrassed of. Um, you know, we, as a family, we will play family games and, you know, we'll ask like, you know, where do you, you know, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? The question has come up, what's your biggest regret in life? And all my kids know my answer. It's my tattoo. All of my kids have seen it, obviously. You know, they're my kids.

I've been in bathing suits. And they, I will, and I try as much as I can to cover it up. I hate it. I regret it. I beg them not to do it. I have a son who has a lot of tattoos and I, I hate it. I hate it on him. I hate my own. Um, I'm not a tattoo person. I don't like them and I regret it. So yes, no more. If, if I had to see it every day, if it wasn't on my back, I would probably have it removed. Um, but I'm too lazy. It's on my back. I don't see it. And I see it once in a while. You see it once in a while. I actually don't even have it removed. But I'm too lazy. It's on my back. I don't see it. And I cover it up. I see it once in a while.

You see it once in a while. But I can't tell you what. I actually don't even see it anymore. It's like you have a tattoo and I have to. Anyway, I am tattoo free. I would have got a tattoo if I could have found a cool one to get. Thank you for that. But I have no tattoos.

Thank you for that. I'm too clean cut for that, I guess. And that's why I love you. Are you in contact with Pam and Chad? The answer is no go ahead uh so how so just so you guys some weapons seen their show um you you had to audition you had a you had a they had like an open open casting and back in the day you couldn't use this we didn't have social media we didn't have youtube so um you had to send it in a tape so how did you um do your audition

tape what did you do so someone asked that um yeah so the first thing i did was um i saw an advertisement i was in my dorm room at arizona state university i saw um an advertisement on mtv because back then people actually watched mtv almost all young people did. And I said, wow, I could do the show. I was going to graduate in December. They were looking for someone for, you know, starting in February. And I was like, I don't have anything to do until I start grad school. I was going to have a semester off. So I thought, this is like perfect timing for me.

So I put together a tape. I had a friend who was in the broadcasting department, two friends in the broadcasting department. I asked them to help me and they went around and they filmed different things that I was doing me in the cafeteria, me going for a jog at the gym, near the gym on campus, me talking to people, me talking to camera. I went to a, I went in front of a bar and, you know, kind of talked about, you know about this cool band at the time that was playing there. Just kind of gave them a taste of what it was like to be a senior at Arizona State University. And by the way, my audition tape said nothing about race because that wasn't really a big issue for me or other people during that time. It just wasn't.

Now, if I was putting in an audition tape, I'd want to make sure they knew i was latina because i'm sure they have if you're doing it today yeah today i would um because if i wanted to get on because i know everyone's so race conscious at that time that was not an issue at all um and anyway they saw my tape um my my understanding is that you know they picked seven people to be in the house that 44,000 people sent in tapes. And so it got so much that the executive producer sort of enlisted her daughter to kind of help go through some tapes. And that it was her daughter that saw my tape and said, hey, mom, I really like this girl. And so that tape went to the next step. And there was probably about four or five more

steps before you made it to the finals. And all of those steps involved, you know, setting up a videotape in your dorm with a video camera in your dorm, and then they were going to call at a certain time. And so you videotaped yourself talking to them on the phone on a landline, by the way, that's how old it was. And then you'd send them the tape so they could see you interacting with them on the phone because we didn't have face time. Right. They couldn't Zoom call me. So tell the story of the clincher moment where they knew that you were right for the show.

Wait right there. We'll have more of this conversation next. Fox News Radio On Demand on the Fox News app. Download the app and just click listen. When you swipe left, you can listen to your favorite Fox News Radio on demand on the Fox News app. Download the app and just click listen. When you swipe left, you can listen to your favorite Fox News talk shows live. Swipe right for the latest Fox News Radio newscasts on demand. Fox News Radio on the Fox News app. Download it today. Okay, so it was the finals. They had now at this point flown me out to LA. I love the story. And yeah, this is a fun story. They flew me out to LA and I met with a panel of executives from MTV and the production company.

And I went through that. And then they said, okay, thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Rachel. Now go back to your hotel and make sure that tomorrow at 11 a.m. you're by the phone. We're going to call you and tell you next steps. Okay. If any. If any.

So I went back to my hotel room. My brother was stationed at a base not very long, far away. I think he was at 29 Palms. And he said, hey, Rachel, you're in town. Why don't we all just go? My buddies want to go partying. Why don't you join us? We're going to, I think, like Manhattan Beach or something like, right.

I'm in like Burbank at some hotel um and I said okay let's go and I go and I party with the Marines I'm not drinking that much I'm not a big drinker uh but the Marines are and so they're partying hard and my brother's like listen we can't drive back to the face. We're going to get arrested. We're too drunk. We're just going to rent a hotel room. I'm like, listen, I'm really stressed about this because I got to be back at my hotel by 11 a.m. No, no worries.

We're definitely going to make sure you guys get back. You get back. Don't worry. We'll get you back, says my brother and his friends. Well, they're passed out drunk. I can't wake them up. I'm in some scuzzy hotel room with all of them. It's just a terrible situation.

And I'm like kicking them the next morning, trying to get them to wake up. Yeah, yeah, we'll get up. They fall back asleep. They're all hungover. Needless to say, I don't get back until two o'clock in the afternoon. Now, again, if you're younger and you're listening to this, you have to remember there are no cell phones. I can't call those people and tell them I'm not going to be back. I get back to my hotel room. I go to my, the phone, which is lighting up from the hotel phone. There's like 20 messages. They calling, calling, calling, calling. I look at my brother. I'm like, thanks a lot, Pat. I'm not going to get this thing because of you. My brother's name is Pat. And you know, he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. It's like, we're, we're just couldn't do it.

Like, oh, I'm so sorry. It's like we just couldn't do it. Needless to say, I call the people back and they tell me, you know, they tell me I got the job. Fast forward to the end of the filming of The Real World and I'm at the after party, the wrap party. And I'm talking to one of the directors and I said, hey, I'm just curious. Why did you guys pick me to do this show? And he said, you know, to be honest, we weren't really sure about you because, you know, we need somebody who was, you know, who's really ready to open their life up and let their life be seen.

And you come from such a conservative Catholic background. And we were afraid that your family was going to be a problem, that you weren't going to be able to really be who you were because of them. But when we couldn't get hold of you because it turned out you were out partying with these Marines, we knew you were going to be right for the show. So I got the show. And the rest is history. The rest is history. And really, truly history because I got to meet you because I did that show. So some people ask us, how did we meet?

How do we meet? So we've mentioned this a number of times, but Rachel did the Real World San Francisco. And after that, there was Real World London, then Real World Miami, and then I did the show in Boston. So I was three seasons after you. And in the interim, you had a really bad car crash. And I went off and did the show. And a year after your crash and after my season ended, by the way, so I was in law school at the time. I had completed a year and a half.

I sent a tape in of going out to L.A. for a lumberjack competition. And I landed in L.A. and never been in L.A. And I'm like, this is crazy. This is what, you know, I was kind of talking about L.A. and what garbage it was. And I went up and I landed in LA never been in LA and I'm like this is crazy this is what you know I was kind of talking about LA and what garbage it was and I went up and I still feel that way I was he hasn't changed since the real world I I was turning my camera on and off to get these different shots for them but I was log rolling and speed climbing and talking about lumberjack sports um and uh I was in Fresno California um which was not the nicest part of California but I found in LA and that's the first tape I sent in andno, California, which was not the nicest part of California,

but I've flown into LA. That's the first tape I sent in and went through the same process that you did and was asked to do it. So we did not... I did my show. At the end of my show, they said, we're going to do a special because it was the real world where seven people live in a house together.

Then there was road rules where they picked five people to do an adventure series started off in winnebago and then they would travel around the world and do these different travel adventure show right so we're gonna have people the real world is going to do road rules and we're going to pick six people from the seven episodes from the no we're going to pick six we're going to pick six people no we're going to pick five people from the last five one person from each of the five seasons of the real world that have happened so they picked eric niece from the new york they picked john brennan from la they picked me from real world san francisco cynthia from miami cynthia

from miami and sean and so they so the way this show started was eric niece was the oldest show and he got on a train and he went to the next stop and then got john got on the train and then rachel on the train and then cynthia got on the train and at the end they were all going to get off the train where i was and so as they're getting off the train eric comes off john i have never met these people in my life but i'd seen them so my k eric oh hi john i Sean. And then the last one coming off the train is Rachel. And this has not changed with her either. She overpacked. And the guys were carrying my bag because it was so heavy. She can't carry anything right. So I think Eric gave me her backpack and said,

she's yours now or something. You got Rachel. And he's got my bags ever since. I've had her carry her bags ever since then. I have a question for you. So someone says, if you could go back and have another debate with Mohammed about Jack Kemp and conservative principles, what would you add? I don't know this debate about you and Mohammed, but I remember you going to see Jack Kemp. Yeah, I did. Paul Ryan, because I took my whole cast to an Empower America conference, which was a conservative think tank that Paul Ryan had been working at the same time he worked for

Jack Kemp. And so I took them to see Jack Kemp, because Jack Kemp was somebody who I considered to be kind of a political hero of mine at the time, kind of a little bit of a legend. But I loved him. And I went and I saw him. And that's when I first met Paul Ryan. So I actually met Paul Ryan before I met Sean Duffy, which was interesting because we all ended up, you know,

in Wisconsin politics, so it's kind of funny. My roommates, I always say I learned the myth of liberal tolerance on the real world. I was really open to hearing all of their points of view. I didn't agree with some of them. I really to hearing all of their points of view. I didn't agree with some of them. I really think I grew in my points of view. And my points of view, my political ideas and philosophies have continued to evolve since those days. And I would say that I've had a greater evolution in terms of my political philosophies than I think many of my most liberal roommates

have. I'm kind of a peacenik now. The Iraq war and Afghanistan really chasing me. And I'm kind of a peacenik at Fox. I'm kind of known as the Cindy. They don't even call me the Cindy Sheehan at Fox. They call me Cindy Snowden because I also want to declassify everything. So I've had a huge transformation. I do embrace Donald Trump because I like his anti-globalist maximum freedom, free speech, no war, and sort of an interest in domestic politics and focusing on American interests more than anything else. So I wish I could go back, knowing what I know now. I think that some of the things I said were very naive, but there have been some things I've gone back and looked at, such as I've had debates with Mohammed in particular on that show about welfare and the dignity of work and how I believe that big government wants to make us dependent on them.

And that true freedom comes from, you know, personal responsibility and financial independence. And what I think minorities really want is financial independence. And what I think the Democrat party wants to do is trap them in cycles of poverty that make them dependent on the party and, and, and therefore empower and give more power to the party and to those people. Um, so I still stand by all of that. Um, but yeah, do I wish I had the wisdom of a 50 year old to go back and debate that I would, um, I think I was, you know, considering how young and naive I was, I think I was pretty open minded. And in fact, people have come back to me as an adult and said, hey, I had a political awakening because of a conversation that you had on the real world. Rick Grinnell, ambassador, Rick Grinnell from Germany, who also worked. He's from the U..s but was the ambassador he was the ambassador to germany uh for the u.s um a gay american um who wrote me i didn't even

know him i knew of him i didn't actually know him personally wrote me a direct message once and said hey i just want you to know as a gay man, you did exactly, you treated Pedro like a real person. You asked the questions that the average person watching would have asked if they had the courage to ask. And you treated him like a normal person and not like some, you know, vaunted saint, which he was not. He was a good guy, but he was flawed like all of us. And I think that was a really interesting thing to hear. But in any case, yeah, what I I'd like to go back and do that. So I think, what about you, Sean? So I look back and I was very, I thought it was stupid. I couldn't seem like I was saying what I

was saying. I'm like, I could have done a better job. And I listen, I think I also had an awakening from Rachel. Rachel is she is a smart, tough cookie. And I became, I think, a better communicator, a better scrapper through our marriage, which made me a better prosecutor and a better member of Congress. I turned you into a good prosecutor. And again, I didn't have those. I didn't really have those skills, I think, when I did the show. So you weren't very interested in politics back then. You were more like, I'm trying to meet girls. I want to go out drinking. I drank beer in my girls. I love lumberjack sports. That was my.

Listen, I was, again, I drug my nails. And I like that about you. My fingers drug on the ground. And I'm like, this is what I'm about. Which, by the way, a lot of 24, 25 year old guys, that's what they're about. Right. And I love that about you. Our relationship when we first met on the show, I don't think we ever, this is very interesting. You guys. And for those of you who are young,

listening, when we were, when we met on the show and dated subsequently, we didn't talk about politics. We never talked about race. The closest thing we came to talking about race is that we both like Mexican food. And we traveled to Mexico together once when we were dating as well. And Sean loves Mexico. And I do too. So I'll get a place in Mexico. Rachel will not. Well, yeah, I'm a little afraid of the cartels. I do think that I think we have turned thanks to Joe Biden's open border. We turned Mexico officially into a narco state. So, no, I don't want to own property there. But we both love Mexico very much. One of the most beautiful countries in the world. That said, we never

talked about problems. And I think, again, talking about that shift between the 90s and now, everything is political. That's a communist thing. Communism makes everything in life political. Even family gets politicized under communism. And we are living in a Chinese, we're moving towards a Chinese-style communist, globalist mindset. Thank you, Sean. You're welcome. I love when you complete my thoughts. Awesome. Chinese-style, communist, globalist... Mindset? Mindset. Thank you, Sean.

You're welcome. I love when you complete my thoughts. Because everything is political. Back then, yeah, we had political conversation in the real world, but everything wasn't political. And our relationship was not political. Things have become more political for us out of necessity and survival and trying to understand this new world that we're living in. But we are not naturally political people. The important thing to you and i are is family

yeah god in politics i was i was a republican but as i rock ribbed republican conservative i wasn't rachel was into politics and we got married and i'm like i started following it started reading reading following and i'm like i turned like following it, started reading, reading, following. And I'm like, I turned, I actually loved it. Like I never had been involved or thoughtful and read on politics. And I found myself enamored, loving, fascinated by. And we both became, again, politically minded and engaged. But you brought up a point about the myth of liberal tolerance. And you saw that on the real world. minded and engaged. But you brought up a point about the myth of liberal tolerance. And

you saw that on the real world. But we've seen that in many points of our life. We, again, I think we've changed a little bit. But back in the day, if someone is a rock ribbed, radical liberal, that would never prevent us from not being friends with them. If they're interesting, nice, good people, but they disagree with us politically, we were open to having friendships and relationships with those people. And we did. A lot of them. Most of our friends were, because we lived in a pretty liberal part of Wisconsin, were pretty Democrat, pretty liberal. And we still had friendships with them and honest, good friendships. We saw, though, when I ran for Congress, that those people, I mean, they couldn't handle it.

They flipped not only just, again, they would never vote for me because they had a different political viewpoint. But some of our best friends actively worked against me, opened up offices, wrote political op-eds against me. Yeah, it's crazy. And that was an eye opener for me. And that's why I was like, you know what? You are so right. And again, it wasn't a true friendship. Because if you can flip on someone like that,

and politics are over friendships, that's a problem that you have in your life. Sean, what's your favorite memory from your season? Listen, I don't have, I think, a favorite memory. I don't have one. Just the whole experience. I mean, you were filmed 24-7. You're mic'd 24-7.

A microphone is on all the time. Everything is captured. The experience of doing the show with seven completely, six completely different people, for me, it was interesting because I would never have chosen to live with those six people. They were so different from me. And what I learned is at first blush, you realize how different you are, your walks of life, your viewpoints, your cultural history. Everyone's very different. And we see that when we first meet someone. And we always associate with people who are kind of like us and have viewpoints like us. And what I realized after spending, I was probably there for six weeks, and it started to break down. I'm like, you know what? I actually

have more in common with these people than I would have thought at first blush. And that encapsulates the 90s, right? And the 80s. That's how we felt as Americans, right? We had more in common. Than that which separated us. Yes. And so I don't really have a favorite moment. What was yours? Can you pick something?

I would say a favorite moment for me was probably going to Hawaii. We had a great trip. And I got to do stuff. I mean, listen, I was so broke when I was on the real world I had no money um it was so bad like my my roommates let me money at times and um and it was hard to pay sometimes I'd pay Corey back and I didn't have the money and I felt terrible about it at one point the producers came to me and they were like, Hey, do you need some money? Like, and I was so proud. I was like, no, I'm fine. Um, in retrospect, like,

damn it, I should have taken some money. And it was so funny because I was so broke when we did that. And the reason I bring up the trip is because the trip was so fabulous. I mean, we took, we took, uh, um, helicopter rides. Um, we did, you know, um, snorkeling and we did all these things that even if I had a free trip to Hawaii, I could never have done like they, it was a really, you know, um, luxurious vacation, especially by a broke 22 year old standards. I just thought I had hit the lottery. It was amazing for me. Um, and I had a blast. That trip was so, so fun from top to bottom. It was awesome. Um, uh, we would do every week a confessional, right? So once a week they would take you just you by yourself and they would set up an interview in some, you know, great place

and they, you know, take you out to lunch and then do the interview or do the interview and then take you out to lunch and then send you back home. And so I went, I would go and I would realize they're going to take me out to lunch. So this was, it was on them. So I would always order like, you know, the best thing because this was on them, on MTV. And it got to the point where I would get to a coffee shop with them. And before I could order, the producer would go, she'll have the lobster coffee. Because they knew I was going to look at the price and just order the most expensive thing. Because I'm like, I'm only getting.

And by the way, that comes back to another question people had. What is, how much did you get paid to do the real world? I got paid, get this, $5,000. I think I got paid $6,000 for six months. I got paid $5,000. And so I always felt like,

yeah, I'm going to have lobster coffee. You guys got a steal on this. I had no idea how much more money they'd make off of it. So they film the show for basically for seven days, every waking moment they film and they break that down. That's that seven days of filming into a 30, 26 minute episode. Right. And so I did one. We went to Washington, D.C. from Boston and we were going to go see a presidential.

You know, I was something about kids and the former presidents were going to speak. And I think H.W. Bush was there. Carter was there. And Bill Clinton was the president. I think he actually came as well. So the night before, I had gone out with Cyrus and I didn't make it home to the hotel on time for the buses to leave to go to this presentation by the presidents. And so I had to figure out, oh my God, I got to figure out a way to get there. I don't know DC, I don't know subways. So anyway, but I found my way onto the subway that brought myself somewhere to the mall where this thing was happening. And I got there, but at the same time they did, because they took a bus and I took the subway and I made it, but I had just missed the buses. And I got there and I was tired. So we had to sit there like for an hour and a half before the show,

before the presidents began. And like I always do, I put my hand in my head and I slept, right? That's Sean's superpower. He can sleep anywhere. and I've slept, right? That's Sean's superpower. He can sleep anywhere. I did that. Well, then when the show began, I was awake and I listened to them.

And by the way, and I was not that politically active, but I was like, yeah, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, great. You know, whatever. Well, when they edited it, they showed the president speaking and they edited me sleeping before the event is,

if I was sleeping through the presidential addresses and i'm like that's such it was such bs yeah they did something like that to me sean we had a fish tank in my um house and the fish were not doing very well um i don't know who the fish caretaker was because they had a guy that would come in every week to take care of the fish he wasn't doing a good job the fish were dying and other fish were eating other fish. It was a disaster. And I was very concerned. I love animals and you know that.

I was very concerned about the fish situation. And so I spent a lot of time looking at, you know, it was a beautiful fish tank. And I was concerned about that. So when Puck was kicked out of the house, they wanted to do an episode where, you know, I'm pining for Puck because he's gone. And by the way, I was bummed that Puck was gone. He was a lot of fun.

He was the most fun in that house. But they edited me looking at the fish tank and these dead fish and my concern. And they edited it so it looked like that's me like pining and so sad sad about puck being gone yeah sad about and they were able to do that um here's a good you have a question i do so someone asks um weren't you a little hesitant at first rachel what did sean do to win you over? Yeah, I was a little hesitant. Let's get into that. Let's unpack that. Let's unpack that a little.

I think that for as silly and trivial and all those things that I was in my 20s, and I certainly was that, I don't know if it was maybe because I had been in that car accident that was so traumatic. But I think by the time I met you, I was ready to find somebody and be with somebody really kind and really nice. And you are very low drama. You're just a nice person. Didn't hurt that you were very attractive to me. But I think mostly I was attracted to just what a nice guy you were. And that's the kind of person that I wanted to be with. And I really...

But it didn't work at the start. Yeah, there was a little bit. You guys can go back and listen to that episode. We have an episode on all that. But the bottom line is that even now in my 50s, I thank God I had the sensibility in my 20s, which a lot of people don't, which a lot of women don't, to find somebody who I was very attracted to because I think that's very important in a relationship. Somebody who was very attractive. I wanted somebody athletic and handsome and strong. And you were all those things.

But I also wanted someone who was really nice. And thank God I didn't go for a bad boy or do anything like that. A lot of people have been asking me about Puck, you know, Puck and I liked each other as friends. The whole relationship thing is completely overblown. It was always more of a sibling type relationship. He will tell you the same. So it was not a romantic relationship? No.

I think we might have kissed once but it was like you kiss someone and you realize that's not for me. He was actually much more of and that's why we remain like sibling friends. In fact, you, Puck and I have gone and done stuff together. We remain friends.

He has a lot of respect for you. He likes you a lot. So here's a question I have. Is there anything that you did that didn't end up on camera purposefully? And this actually brings up a really interesting thing about my season. What does that question mean? So did something happen,

but like you were able to not have it be on camera? And no, I did not have the power to tell the editors to put something on or off camera. However, one person did in my cast. And I learned that later, or actually during. And that was Pedro Zamora.

And, you know, listen, and I'm going to talk about Pedro, and I'm not disparaging him at all because I think he's a good person who I wish, you know, that was another question that somebody asked. Is there something that you wish you could have done differently on the show? Yeah. I wish I had understand mortality at 22. So I could have been a lot more in tune with what Pedro was going through. I was 22. I was living my life. I was just, those who don't know, Pedro had AIDS. Yeah, and he came to the show knowing he had AIDS, knowing that his T-cell count, which is a sign of your health and ability to fight this disease, was dropping. But also, your T-cell count is very impacted by stress.

This show, for all the fun stuff, it is a very stressful show to go through. In fact, there are episodes I can't watch because my skin just broke out. My acne was so bad and it was completely stress related. Well, imagine me, a very healthy 22 year old, my body reacting through acne. Right. His body was already compromised by having HIV AIDS and it was affecting his T cell count. So as he was living in the house, his T cell count was dropping so much so that six months after the show, he couldn't recover from it. And he died. And I really, I mean, I knew he had AIDS and we talked about HIV and the fact that he had AIDS. We talked about even

his doctor's appointments that he was going to. Did I at 22, was I able to comprehend that? No, it was more like, you want to go do this let's go do this and a lot of times you'd be like yeah because he wanted to live life and other times he said no and I understood but did I understand what better Zamora was going through absolutely not I intellectually understood it I did not I did not have the maturity the wisdom and the capacity to fully, um, really internalize what that meant. And I didn't understand that he was going to die so soon. Um, and I, I certainly didn't understand what he was going through. Pedro did. And because Pedro understood that

and our, um, one of our executive producers was gay himself. And they understood that he was telling a very powerful, intimate story. I think if he had not done the real world, frankly, I think he would have survived. Because very shortly after he died, the cocktail drugs had come out. And I think he would have lived. Or lived a lot longer. And I think this show compromised his life. That's up to Pedro to decide whether telling that story was worth it. For me, knowing him, I wish he hadn't done the show,

because I think he was beloved by his family. I mean, there's nobody on the real world that can understand or loved Pedro the way his family loved him. He was absolutely the golden child in his family, and they loved him tremendously. We'll have more of this conversation after this. When he was on the show, because he understood he was going to die, Sean, he had a maturity that the rest of us didn't understand. And he had a power that the rest of us did not have because he knew because of that maturity, how much MTV wanted to tell that story for both all for very good reasons and also for probably profit reasons. And because he knew how integral

there's ideological reasons, a hundred percent. That's what I mean. Ideological reasons. No question. Thank you. And I think that's the right word. And because he understood the power of that, he was able to make decisions about what he wanted on camera and off camera. And some things were edited out for his, I don't know if it, in some cases because he asked. In other cases, I don't know if it was because he asked. It might have been because of the ideological narrative that was going to be crafted didn't fit that narrative. I don't know if that was because Pedro wanted to or not. I also know that Pedro and his boyfriend also, and I don't say this to be smirch, I'm just saying it's the truth. They would go to bathhouses in San Francisco and he asked for that not to be part of the story because he didn't want that stigma.

And that was a choice that he made to not tell that part of the story. And that was a choice that MTV made to not tell that part of the story. I leave it to the viewers and the viewers to tell whether that should have been told or whether that's relevant or not. Maybe it's irrelevant, but I did not have the power. It never even occurred to me to have the power to say, I don't want this thing on or not. I didn't.

So I think that's a really interesting point because no doubt who they show you on the show as is mostly who you are. You can't lie about who you are when you do this. You might be able to pretend for a day or two, but when you live six months in a house, you can't pretend. But on the editing side, they can curtail a persona of someone by putting extra things in or taking other things out. Correct. And to your point, they did that with Pedro. And the show is highly edited. I mean, look, it's 22 minutes per episode.

Let me just say this. The person that you saw on as Pedro was the guy you saw. I don't think the fact that he went to a bathhouse changes that at all. I think it changes. I don't think the fact that he went to a bathhouse changes that at all. I think it changes maybe there were there were definitely there was a lot of politics around the way, at that time. And there were also ideological decisions that were made even at HHS around how to tell the story about AIDS and how you get it and everything else. This was very politicized. That part is really was I wasn't even aware of it, what was happening in that regard. But it's a very interesting part of the story because that's an interesting question. And so there you go.

Now you have the rest of the story. I think, listen, just from my vantage point, it was one of the great experiences of my life. It was a lot of fun to live in a fabulous house that you can never afford, meeting, you know, interesting, unique people on the show. At this point in your life, you could go out after and you could go to any for six months or eight months after the show rachel for a lot longer you can go to a a bar in any city in america and people would know who you are because that's that was the power of of mtv and and the show it was a wonderful experience and for the most part the most wonderful part is that i met you um and we fell in love and got married and we've had a

really adventurous life. We went to Wisconsin, small town, Wisconsin, a lot of years, built our family for Congress. You know, and it's interesting and I'm grateful for this. Maybe I couldn't see it at the start, but maybe I knew it was there. I wouldn't have been able to do the things that I wanted to do without your help, your encouragement, your wisdom. And I'm all honest on that. I could have never done it or had the vision myself to do it. Well, I say the same thing here. My job here, you're a huge support to me. But you also put a pause on your career to make mine happen.

Help me fly. And you paused. You were doing, you know, auditioning for the VU on ABC, a lot of things going on. And you stopped that, had kids, helped me with mine. But what's interesting in life is it's kind of come full circle where it's come back to you. You get to have a career still in TV, a little older, a little wiser, a few more kids. And it's been, I think it's been a great ride. And we wouldn't have this ride together because our cross, our paths would have never crossed, but for the blessing of MTV and doing these shows and finding each other, which I, again, there's good and bad that comes from it. This is the best thing that

would have happened to me. Because again, these two people would at first blush. Again, unless we went on a three-week vacation mission together, we would have never. If we met in a bar, you'd have been like, nice to see you, feller. Yeah, I mean, that was the beauty of the show, right? I mean, it truly put strangers together who would have never, you know, kind of naturally met up with each other. You and I are definitely people who would have never met up for each other. And I think the casting was really, you know, I give the producers credit.

The castings were brilliant. Sean, Pedro and I had, in some ways, if you looked at just the, you know, the fact that he was a gay American in a very difficult time with AIDS, and people's opinions being formed, we were very different. He was no longer Catholic. I was a practicing Catholic. But if you looked at the importance of family, and sort of, we actually had the most in common in terms of the way our families were and so when i brought pedro back to my house which a lot of people ask questions about that um it was it was really interesting because my family embraced him they felt like they knew him yeah and i feel like a lot of people felt like they got to know somebody with AIDS because of feeling like they got to know Pedro going through this experience. And it was a seminal experience.

It was powerful. And I think, sadly, it took a toll on his life. Can I tell you, you make an interesting point. During reality TV, and you're right, people knew someone with AIDS. They knew Pedro. You make an interesting point. Doing reality TV, and you're right, people knew someone with AIDS. They knew Pedro.

Because when you do the show, and it's a reality TV show, it's not an acted show. It's really you. Yeah. People felt like they knew you, that you had a relationship with them, that you were friends, because you were in their living room hanging out with them once a week, whether it was Wednesday night or Thursday night, whenever it would air. And it's the power of Donald Trump, that Donald Trump did The Apprentice, that he was actually, and it's, it's, it's somewhat scripted. Yeah, you feel like The Apprentice made people feel like they knew Donald Trump.

They all, they too know a billionaire, right? And again, that relationship that he had with viewers was very powerful especially in 2016 through the primaries when he was running for president that's so that that is that is so and by the way when i posted the video saying hey everybody you have any questions immediately i got a text from our friend dan punchy and it was like oh my god the memories are flooding back i grew up with you you know and people felt like that. And they hadn't seen a conservative on television, on MTV before. And I give MTV and the producers a lot of credit for having casted me, knowing that I was a young Republican at the time and knowing my positions and everything else. I think it's very interesting. Sean, this was kind of a good one to start to wind things down.

The question is, was it hard to adjust back to normal life after being filmed daily? You know, actually, I knew I was going back on a show that I was eventually going to meet you on. I left the show, and I went right to a lumberjack competition in Walsall, Wisconsin, where we ended up living later on. So it wasn't hard for me to go back to everyday life. What I found interesting, and I saw this could be a problem because my family came to see me in Boston, and they met my roommates. And the one thing they said is that these people only talk about themselves. They don't care about you, anything in your life. They cared nothing about other people. They only cared about themselves. They don't care about you, anything in your life. They cared nothing about other people. They only cared about the narcissism. And the show was made that way because everything was about how do you feel about this? And what do you think about that?

Because you do these confessionals and these interviews. It was all about you start to believe that what you start to believe that what you feel is really important. And so I was I was aware of that coming home to go listen is again, you all everyone, I think had a little bit of that when they left the show really important. What I care about, um, really matters. But, um, I was, I think pretty good about going like, okay, I'm back to back to normal. How about you? Was it hard for you to get off the show? And yeah, I think for me, the adjustment was very difficult. Actually. Um, I left the show and for the summer when most of my roommates were trying to you know adjust to being suddenly kind of famous i mean it's again it's

really hard to understand nowadays but every young person only had one channel to watch um and it was mtv so you went from being nobody to you couldn't go anywhere and and and without anybody recognizing you well I had I left to Venezuela I had an internship with the State Department in Venezuela with the economics department so I left the show and I went to Venezuela and I didn't know what was happening back in the States and I had no adjustment. And when I returned from Venezuela, I started graduate school and I started doing things like I was normally going to do. I started to go to graduate school. I was a TA. I was a teacher. I taught Spanish at the University of California, San Diego, and probably wasn't a great idea

because it was really weird for me. And it was really weird for my students. Um, it was very strange for them. And I, I didn't have that summer to adjust to being kind of a curiosity and a little bit of a zoo animal on campus. And it was very strange for me and it took a lot of adjustment and um and i i yeah they probably should have had a post real world um deconstruction decompressing um class for us uh yeah it was very weird uh for me to go from just that that adjustment was strange it took me a little bit so that So that's true. Can I tell you one of the most enjoyable times?

And you had the same experience. So when you do the show, I told you your mics and your film all the time, but there's people that are hired on the crew. So you have cameramen and sound people and lighting people, and they're in the house all the time, right? They live in the house that you live, right? You live on a TV set. And the rule is they, you can try to talk to them, but they're, they'll get fired if they

talk to you. Yeah. They are not, there is a wall. They are not allowed to talk to you. So you, you might hear their names, but they don't tell you their names. They're there, but they're there all the time. And they don't really want you talking to them because they can get in trouble. So you don't know them, but you see them all the time the time and by the way it's weird to live in a tv set for oh two weeks then all of a sudden you live in a tv set and like i could walk around on my boxers on a tv set and i'm like wow this is my house i'm sorry or like this becomes very comfortable it's amazing what the human mind will adjust you you're living in a fishbowl you truly are are. And so when the show's over, you have a wrap party, which you talked about a little bit, but where everyone gets together and we got to talk to all of the cameraman, all the sound

guys, all the lighting guys. And there was one pretty girl who did, who was like an intern who did audio. The boom. The boom, yeah. And I felt bad for her because they actually had to take her off because all the boys were talking about what how attractive she was and she was a distraction she was so good looking she was a distraction that's funny we all got to talk uh after the show and they you know kind of their favorite moments and what they thought of everybody um because there's there's contentious contentious moments and you don't know what the people who are

actually watching at that moment think but they're in in the experience, but you don't know if they think you're an idiot or they side with you. So that was really fun to talk to the people after the show was over because, again, six months of living on a set with people you can't communicate with is a really funky experience. Yeah, I think it was as interesting for them as a, should we go one more question? As you find one more, then we'll wrap it up. Would you ever consider doing an on-air reunion? You know, I don't, yeah. Would I consider it? Yes.

Would I consider it? Would I have to think about it? Is it good for me and you and our family? Yeah, I don't know, but I would consider it. I'd think about it. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I don't know, I don't know, but I would consider it. I'd think about it. Uh, yeah. And, and again, it depends on, I, again, I don't want to, I don't want to be exposed and unprotected where people can, I'm vulnerable to letting people edit us in what we say in a way that's not true.

And that's the only concern I have. Otherwise I'd be like, of course, I think it's, it's, it was a really, it was a really great experience. We don't have any negativity in the bond bond in the bond you create with these people because you go it's like you i think it's like you you were and i was never in the army or the but it's like you were you fought battle together you guys were in the foxhole together and we were the early i mean reality tv was so new um it really was an iconic and i think that's why you see this level of interest when we decided to do this. A lot of people are going, let's...

We've had people say, a number of people approach us and say, do you guys want to do a reality TV show with your family? So many people approach us for that. One of the issues, again, it comes back to the real world. And maybe it's not fair, but you don't have control over what's put out and what's not put out. And we're far more protective of our family than we were ourselves at, you know, 22 and 25 years old. And so that's always been the breaker for us of like, I don't know that.

And not just the family, Sean, don't you think it's also that it was hard enough psychologically to navigate that during and then after at 22 and you at 23 or 24 that you were, um, I have to believe that these children that are on these reality TV shows, it is not healthy. You talked about that narcissism that can come from a reality television show. The narcissism on a little kid's mind, that has to be so unhealthy. I think this is probably challenging, and that's also a consideration. I think 100% that was my beef with it. I didn't want our kids to do that. And sometimes, you know, you don't have a recreation of MTV again, so it wouldn't necessarily be like that. But friends, you know, people that they meet could look at it, and that can create problems, no doubt.

So, listen, I've got to tell you, this has actually been a fun podcast. I appreciate everyone. I know we didn't get to everyone's questions, but a lot of them were similar or the same. I'll try to go online and just individually answer them. And maybe if we didn't get to yours, we might bring it back on another Q&A. We'll go a few weeks out. Maybe we'll bring it back and answer some more of the questions that all of you had for us.

I'm so sorry we can't get to all of them. We kind of gave long answers. Maybe we should have done more rapid fire short answers. But bottom line is I'm really grateful to the producers, and I want to thank them for casting me that many years back I think they took a chance on me and it changed my life I think 100% for the better

mostly because I met Sean but I learned a lot of valuable lessons about life and about tolerance, authentic tolerance and I'm really grateful for that. And as am I.

Bottom line is, I met you. Also, when I became a lawyer and I was trying to drum up work, it was really good to get work. Yeah, believe it or not. It wasn't a drawback. And when I ran for Congress, people tried to bash me on it. But people who saw me felt like they knew me as well. And I wasn't a bad guy.

I think all the things the Democrats were saying in their ads against me when I ran for Congress, people who had seen it, they're like, yeah, but that's not who he was. Because they were trying to pin you as Mr. Hollywood. He's not really Wisconsin. And everyone's like, actually, if you watch the show. Or you see, like, that's my commercial with me chopping a tree. That's not a stunt double. That's me actually chopping a tree.

That's me actually log rolling. You can't stunt double that. And they're like, that's Wisconsin. That's not Hollywood anyway. Well,'s me actually chopping a tree. That's me actually log rolling. You can't stunt double that. And they're like, that's Wisconsin. That's not Hollywood. Anyway. Well, it was sexy then, Sean. It's sexy now.

If I could do it still again, I would. I still can. It's a little harder the older you get, though. Those were pretty wild sports. But listen, thank you all for sending in questions.

Thank you for joining us at this special edition of The Kitchen Table, celebrating Rachel's 30 years of the day she walked into the real world San Francisco house. And in April, we're going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Nine kids later. Nine kids, 25 years.

All right, listen, thank you all. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com. Please subscribe. Get a notice every time we drop. We do Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Friday is always Q&A. Like today, we take a lot of your questions, comment on things that you want us to talk about.

This was a little longer. And going down memory lane together was a lot of fun. It was fun. Thanks for all your questions. Thanks for responding to the video, everybody. Really grateful. We'll try to bring those back. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. app. I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app

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