Heavyweight - 2026 Update: Julia

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

In grade 8, Julia was bullied so badly by a group of girls that she changed schools without telling anyone. Soon after, the girls from her old school showed up at her house and rang her doorbell. She didn’t answer it. For the past 20 years, Julia’s been wondering what those girls wanted. Ten years after the release of this episode, we check back in with Julia, to hear how her life changed in the aftermath of the episode. You can sign up for our free newsletter at patreon.com/heavyweight This episode was produced by Jonathan Goldstein, Chris Neary, and Kalila Holt, with senior production by Wendy Dorr. Editing by Alex Blumberg and Jorge Just. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Maya Goldberg-Safir, Lina Chambers, Emily Kennedy, Laura Scott, and Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed by Haley Shaw. Music for this episode by Christine Fellows, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Keen Collective. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Mixing on this update by Sarah Bruguiere, with production by Lisa Wang.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Hi. Hello. We're back again in the studio. Yes, and in your earbuds. And who do we have on the docket today? This one, her name's Julia. Okay, this episode is the first one that I ever did with a stranger.

Yeah. Like someone that wasn't a friend or a family. And it was a little scary. It was a little intimidating. Julia is a journalist, and I needed to, like, step up. It's a great episode. Partly because of Julia kept me on the straight and narrow. Yeah, no, I was going to say it's great not because of us, but because of Julia.

And spoiler alert, another woman we talk to. If you stick around at the end of the episode, I talk again with Julia. And what was really very gratifying to me was how the episode really did have an important impact on her life. All right, well, I'm looking forward to listening to this one again. Yes, let's both sit down. I'm already seated. And silence? Do you have any snacks?

No, I can't eat a snack silently. It was a trick question. Oh, did I pass? Yes, you did. Thank God. All right, and here we go. Oh, but first, we're going to pay those bills. Gonna pay my automobiles with a word from our sponsor.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human I am an actor, fresh out of theater school with big dreams and an even bigger drug habit. But things are pretty good. That is until my best friend

is set up on a date with David Lee Roth. Yeah, from Van Halen. If you know, you know. From CBC's personally, this is Discount Dave in the Fix. The truish story about how a fake rock star

led me to a real trial that held up a mirror to me. And okay, let's just say that not everyone in this story, is who you think they are. Personally, discount Dave and the fix. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello? Happy birthday, birthday girl.

Are you going out for dinner tonight with Rick or anything? What? It's not my birthday for another seven months. Hey, hang on a second. Hang on. I'm hanging. I'm in traffic, so it's perfect for you. Well, according to my calendar alert, it is your birthday. It's not my birthday. Are you sure?

You're 100% sure. I don't know how many times I'm going to say it's not my birthday and how many times you're going to repeat that it is my birthday. This year you didn't actually... This year you forgot to call me on my birthday. Not even an email. Nothing. Okay.

Okay, what about that time you got me an ice cream cake for my birthday knowing I'm lactose sensitive? Do you remember? The man at the roller rink kept on knocking on the bathroom door. From Gimlet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is heavyweight. Today's episode, Julia. Julia is a journalist, and she's endlessly curious about the world around her. Once, on assignment for the New York Times, she investigated the benefits of bacteria,

and as a part of her research, she didn't bathe for a month. She's done political stories, too, where she's kept after a source or a story for years. Which is what makes her reluctance to seek out the answer to a question that's been dogging her for over two decades, all the more curious. I think the story begins on a Monday. I'm pretty sure it's a Monday. And I was 14 years old. This is Julia. And the question she can't stop thinking about revolves around a moment from her own life. It all began 21 years ago, in the eighth grade, at one of the fanciest all-girl schools in Montreal. I remember wearing my itchy green kilt. You have to wear a uniform there.

Yes. Okay. That's sort of a puke green uniform with a button-down white shirt. And on Mondays, we had to wear ties. We also had bloomers. I don't think I ever understood what bloomers were. It was just sort of like a balloon with holes in the bottom. And were they ruffled?

No. Cursed with a lifelong inability. to distinguish between bloomers, culots, pantalets, pantaloons, drawers, and even knickerbockers, I was glad for the opportunity to finally sort it all out. But that's not why we're here. So after about 15 minutes of inquiry, I was ready to move on. Okay, sorry, yes, I'll go on. As I left morning assembly on Monday and walked into home room,

I looked for my desk. and I stopped and looked around and it was missing. My desk was gone. And that was where it started. The desk had been hidden by her classmates, and that was just the beginning. Without warning, the girls she'd been friends with since third grade completely froze her out, and Julia had no clue why. To top it off, her best friend was the ringleader.

The girl who used to be my best friend, I guess we can give her a name, let's call her Jane. It was just strange knowing that she and I had hung out at my house and all of the secrets we exchanged and all of the fun we'd had. And then, you know, seeing how she was being now. It just, it was a bit surreal, but yeah. Then what started happening was every time she walked into the classroom, Julia noticed that the girls would drop what they were doing and study her. If she so much as scratched her nose or sniffled, they'd furiously take notes. It seemed like everyone was collaborating on some big project that she knew nothing about.

The notes were collected by Jane, who buried them in her desk. The girls kept at it day after day, until finally, Julia reached her breaking point. She gathered up her courage, and, like the good report, she'd eventually become, decided to investigate. I eventually snuck into homeroom one day during recess. It was empty. And I searched Jane's desk. And there at the bottom, I found a nicely bound document with a cover page.

And I picked it up and read it, and it said, 100 reasons why we hate Julia. In my memory, this document, I'm hoping. holding is a hundred pages long, but I'm sure it was only 10. And I opened it. And inside, I read about myself. Everything was something about me that they hated. I hate the way she walks.

I hate the sound of her voice. I hate her face. After that, Julia started skipping school. Eventually, she told her parents, what was going on, and they contacted the administration, but the bullying continued. Ultimately, her parents decided that the only solution was to send her to a new school, but Julia still had a few weeks left at the old one. I became a double agent.

I pretended that I was coming back the following year, and I didn't tell anyone I was changing schools because I had no friends left to tell. The school year ended, and her new life began. But because her new school was so close to the old one, Julia lived in constant fear that her old life would find her. Every day, she'd map her route to and from school, carefully avoiding the streets or old friends lived on, the coffee shops they hung out at. And for the most part, it worked.

For those first few weeks at her new school, she managed to hide in plain sight. She was starting to feel like things would be okay. But then, one day after school, Julia was upstairs in the den doing homework, and the doorbell rang. She went to her parents' bedroom window and looked down at the doorstep and saw standing there her former best friend Jane, along with a few of her old classmates. I hit the ground as if someone was shelling the second floor windows.

I was in a state of total panic, and I saw them in my mind's eye there on the front steps, waiting for someone to answer the door. And I was just on the ground trying to breathe, and they rang the doorbell again. And I waited. Eventually, they left. And this is the moment that Julia has fixated on for over 20 years. Why had the girls shown up at her door?

And what did they want? Maybe they'd shown up to bully her. But maybe they'd had a change of heart. realized how mean they'd been and were there to apologize. Whatever the case, Julia was too scared to open the door and find out. And that decision to not go downstairs and face the girls who tormented her still haunts Julia. Even listening to her talk about it all these years later, it still feels raw. I'm 35 now and that day has become one of my only regrets.

because the memory of my weakness sometimes supersedes all of the strong things I've done since then and it makes me feel weak. Even though you were just a child? I was 14. I think it's the memory of that fear. Still somewhere in my physiology, it makes me fearful when I think of it. I just wish I'd gone down there.

I wish I'd had the guts. What do you think has stopped you up until now from just posing the question? You know, like just finding the girls and just asking them why they were there that day. I'm afraid to find out what I did to bring on the bullying because it's very possible that I was bad. I think deep down I don't really know. what was wrong. I don't know what was wrong with me and I don't want to know what was wrong with me. I mean, it feels like you're being really hard on yourself or being hard on this little kid, basically, you know?

Like, do you look at photographs of yourself at that age? I try not to. Well, I think you'd be surprised by, like, I mean, I have memories of being that age where I thought, like, I was at weddings and I thought I was, like, flirting with adult. women and stuff like that and I look at pictures of myself and I look like a cabbage patch doll. You know? I think I probably looked like the tin man because I had a full set of braces. And then after I graduated from my braces, I immediately went to headgear, neck gear combo. I don't know if you've ever had that, but.

I've only seen them on TV sitcoms. So combine that with my glasses. It was a sad state of affairs. As soon as she graduated high school, Julia left Montreal. for good. Depending on the outcome of that conversation, I might have chosen not to leave Montreal. When I'm in Montreal, once a year I avoid the neighborhood.

I grew up in where all of this went down for the most part, and those girls are long gone. I mean, we're all grown-ass women now with careers and jobs and kids, and here I am avoiding friends of friends on face. book because I don't want any of those girls to know what's going on with my life. Do you feel like had you answered the door and they had apologized to you that that would have changed your life in some way, that it would have changed your relationship with your past and the city and these friends?

I think it might have, but I'll never know what they wanted to say to me because I didn't answer the door. It's scary to return to the moment you've spent your whole life running from. So when I gently suggest that she try to find out why they were at the door that day, Julia suggests that maybe the past should just stay in the past. You know, we move on with our lives and we, you know, we move on. And it's another thing to open up, you know, that Pandora's box again. Even the language that you're using about fear of opening up that Pandora's box,

it is so similar to the language that you used in describing like fear of opening that door. So what you're saying is I should really just finish the job? I think so. After the break, opening Pandora's box. Pride months, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride, Toronto Festival and we won't stop.

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If you're serious about change, real change, not hacks, not hype, not quick fixes, this is for you. I'm Rich Roll and Every week on the Rich Roll podcast, I sit down with some of the world's brightest minds, scientists, elite athletes, artists, visionaries, and avatars of personal evolution. These aren't soundbites. They are long-form conversations about health, performance, meaning, and becoming fully alive in a complicated world. Find the Rich Roll podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

In spite of her initial trepidation, once Julia decided to find out why the girls came to her door that day, she was all in. watching her take it on was impressive. Julia went back to Montreal and reached out to her former best friend Jane, who agreed to meet with her but said she didn't remember anything. And so, for the first time since eighth grade, Julia returned to her former school to go through the yearbook and find the names of her old classmates. And then she started searching.

I reached out to probably 12 girls from my, my grade. And at my worst moments, I imagine that none of them were going to write back and it was sort of going to feel like, you know, I was on the outside of the group again, you know, and that the social dynamics I remembered from the eighth grade were still in play and all that. But then the responses started to trickle in. Hello? Yes. This is Julia.

Julia logged hours and hours of interviews. School and rang my doorbell. I thought you might have been one of them. I don't think so. Do you remember anything about that? Was I there? No. Oh, boy.

I don't remember much about high school, to be honest. I remember one time you were hiding in a bathroom stall. But just like Jane, not a single person said they could remember showing up at her door that day. Yeah. Well, I honestly don't remember doing that. I don't. I don't. I don't.

I don't. I don't remember anything. I just don't remember it. I promise you I have no recollection of this. I'm sorry. But what each of them did remember was their own pain. There'd been a lot of bullying that year, and no one felt safe. Julia heard about one girl who'd found her desk filled with meticulously cut out images from porn magazines.

Another girl remembered someone spreading rumors that she had AIDS. I hated that place, said one. It's all a big fog of chaos, said another. A dark cloud over the class. You never knew who you could trust. We were awful, awful little girls. The more Julia heard about it, it started to sound like a Stephen King novel, and not one of those cutesy ones about clowns or talking cars.

In almost every conversation, one name kept coming up as the person who had it the worst. Even Julia acknowledged it. The name was Sarah Taba. Sarah had the misfortune of being the only eighth grader who was slightly overweight, and as such, she was always kept at a distance. In high school, I was also someone who existed. that on the margins. So I understand how oftentimes kids like me, kids like Sarataba,

become the eyes and ears of the school, fidgety, uncomfortable witnesses, forced to watch from the wings. I'm reminded of this all the time with the friends I went to high school with, who were more popular than me. Remember the time Robert Seolic wore a three-piece suit to school, I ask? The time Madame Rabeer slammed the classroom door so hard the clock fell off the wall? The day Sharon Weiner got suspended for leaving the school yard, during recess? Of course they don't. They were living their lives, but I was on the sidelines,

taking it all in, remembering. Hi, Sarah. Hi. It's been a really long time. Yeah, it has. Yes, it has. Having all these conversations made Julia think about Sarah and what she might remember. But when she asked her if she had any recollection about the day those girls showed up at her door, Sarah couldn't remember anything. The first thing I thought of when you said a group of girls in the doorbell, I immediately thought it would be a bad experience. Like it wasn't people coming looking for you to be like,

we miss you, where are you? Yeah. Great eight was a bad year at that school. Either you were being bullied and picked on or you had to turn around and become the bully. Yeah, I mean there's something toxic, something dark. I think normal bullying, if there's such a thing as normal bullying, you can identify the perpetrator and the victim and the, like,

but it was, it was just so pervasive. Do you remember the day that you realized that I was gone? I don't actually, no. I remember feeling like you were just, sad all the time. I remember you being sad, too. Yeah. One thing I remember

people would call you tubby tabba. Doesn't surprise me, yeah. I remember a lot of stuff like that. Can't help but think that our grades' behavior had impacts on the staff. What do you mean?

Well, I actually, I'm assuming you knew this, but maybe you didn't, but Miss McDonald's killed herself the following year. Yeah. Miss McDonald was Julia's favorite teacher, and Sarah's too. Miss McDonald

had gone to the school as a student and later returned to teach biology. She was the fun teacher who wore frog earrings. You think that there was something to do with what was happening in the school that caused her to commit suicide?

I think it had a role in her depression. She left right in the end of our grade eight year. Because what I knew of her, it was her school. It was her passion. She was an old girl. She was there teaching. She wanted to instill this love of animals and biology and all of us.

And we were a bunch of brats. I remember there being a lot of associations between that pig that she had on top of her TV. and her. A lot of comments about her weight. Yeah. It had an impact. Miss McDonald had been hospitalized over the summer, and when she came back in the fall,

she was no longer the biology teacher, but a substitute. The last period of the last day she taught before she killed herself was a class called personal and religious education. The students considered the class a joke. Sarah was there that day.

And the grade was just running around and doing everything they weren't supposed to do in the classroom. She tried to get people to calm down and sit down and pay attention. And she wasn't even trying to teach us anything. I don't even know if there was any material to cover that day. And then we showed up at school Monday morning to find out that she killed herself for the weekend. Oh, my God. She was my role model. She was the person who survived the school despite not being the same.

the stereotypical prefect or perfect girl. She was just this wonderful round woman who rejuvenated life. And as an overweight teenager, for me, that was like, okay, so you don't have to be perfect to achieve anything. She was my role model who the next year killed herself and, like, shattered all my dreams. that you can go about living your life the way you're living your life in this environment and succeed, which made me want to completely change my body. The only way that I was going to get through this school was to lose a bunch of weight to gain the respect of these people that have basically disliked me since I was 11,

and I did it. Yeah, I've been really. over the years, I wondered about you, and then when I looked you up on Facebook, I saw pictures of you and I clicked right by them. I thought, oh, I have the wrong person. Yeah. Because you didn't look like yourself. Right. So, I mean, you didn't, you just stopped eating, it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah, in 10th grade, 10th through 11th grade. And then basically destroyed myself in the process because it's an illness that I've been battling for the last 20 years. It's amazing what your childhood experiences can push you to do.

That I definitely remember because that's how I ended up in the situation I am now. I'm actually talking to you from outside of a clinic for treating eating disorders. I'm really sorry, Sarah. It's not your fault. that's the sort of sad reality of all of this since it's like

yeah please picture you know my nerdy looking 14 year old self giving you a big hug you know I actually do have to let you go

because we have to have a lunch now but it was nice speaking to you and do keep in touch the conversation had left Julia feeling devastated the scale of her own pain had been altered in the face of Sarah's.

Later that night, I couldn't stop thinking about Julia and Sarah's conversation, and as I turned it around in my head, a theory began to form. Miss McDonald had died around the start of the school year. Wasn't it possible that those girls had shown up at Julia's door to let her know? Maybe they'd been worried about the way Julia had just disappeared from their school and feared the worst. Wasn't it possible the girls had meant good that day that they came to the door? and if so, wouldn't knowing that change the way Julia felt about the past 20 years and maybe even change the way she saw herself?

So I took this last task upon myself. Hey, is this Christine? Hey, Jennifer, this is... I phoned up all the people Julia had already spoken with, and I ran my theory by them. To be honest, I would love to believe that's what their intentions were. I can't be sure about anything. But I can't say, yeah, sure, that's it, because I don't have a memory of it.

Okay, well, thank you. Bye. All right, you have a great night. Okay, bye-bye. Bye, okay. Okay, take it easy. Bye. Okay.

Okay, take it easy. Bye. Bye-bye. There was only one thing left for me to do. I just feel like I'm at a loss. Like this whole thing started off as me encouraging you to give it a try and that it might be helpful in some way. And I don't feel like I brought you any. closer to knowing what happened at the door that day.

And I just... If there's one of us who's disappointed, it certainly isn't me. I don't know whether I was emotionally equipped to open the door as a 14-year-old, but to me, the important part is that I opened the door now. I couldn't have... I couldn't have confronted that if I hadn't literally done what we decided we were going to do. If I hadn't had these phone calls and asked these hard questions. And I've forgiven that little girl for being so frightened.

I was so ashamed. I was so regretful. And I don't blame myself for being afraid. I had every right to be. It wasn't rational. And so I think the biggest challenge for me and all of this was to allow myself to slip back into that 14-year-old girl's skin and say, look, you know, I get it.

It's okay. You know, it's okay. I'm proud of why I was then. It's been a long time since I could say that. And you feel like that's happened? like that's happened in this process? Yeah, I do. Well, that makes me feel better.

Well, I'm happy to make you feel better, Jonathan. Ding dong. Ding dong. Is this the part where I rewrite history and answer the door? That's right. Ding dong. Okay, I'm answering the door. Okay.

Open the door. What happened to you? I changed schools. And you know why. Julia? Hi. How are you? It's, uh, it has been 10 years.

Yeah, 10 years. Have you listened to the episode recently? I, after you reached out, I listened to it walking around my neighborhood. And, you know, hearing myself be scared on the recording, um, made me scared again. Huh. And then hearing myself be triumphant made me feel, made me feel fully grown all over again. And it was cool. It was really special thing to be able to collaborate with you on that.

And you feel like it changed something for you? I think it changed a lot of things for me. For one thing, it gave me permission to reimagine my, as a player in my own life. I didn't have to be the girl that things were done to. I could be the woman who could choose to do things. And it gave me the opportunity to rethink my relationship with Montreal. And all of that felt like such an unlock stemming from our time together.

Yours in mind, Jonathan. That's really nice. did any of the of the girls who showed up at your door that day did they ever reach out? Did you learn anything more about that actual incident? I never learned anything about the incident.

Yeah. It remains a mystery, but I did get out of the blue a couple of days after the episode aired a voicemail from one of the girls in my grade, not one of the main girls, who made the Julia book, but she called and left a sobbing voicemail, and then I called her back right away.

I actually don't know how she got my number. I called her back right away, and we had a very heartfelt conversation. That's so nice that it generated all of this. Did you ever speak with Sarah Tab again? I just reached out to her the other day. I was inspired to reach out to her by you reaching out to me and re-listening to my episode. But it's really our episode, Sarah's in mine. And I think it's okay for me to share that Sarah Taba is thriving. Oh, that's so good to hear. I know. I know. So you think you might see her? Oh, yeah. We made plans for me to hang out with her next time I'm in Montreal. You're not moving back to Montreal, are you? I am kind of moving back. So the big headline is that I re-fell in love with my hometown.

And I've been spending my summers there getting to know a new version of Montreal, getting to know a new version of who I can be there. And I fell in love with a wonderful man. And he and I are talking about buying a condo in Montreal. You know, I've lived a lot of different places over the past years, but I'm always a little jealous of my friends who remained in Montreal and have a cool life there and have grown roots. And I'm envious of you, you know, hearing that you're moving back like that. I think that's really cool.

You know, we're not talking about spending winters there. Let's just be clear. Well, sincerely, I mean, if I am there, for more than a couple days, you'll hear from me. Sincerely, that would be a joy. Thanks to everyone who originally put this episode together. We'll be back in one week's time. That's right, one puny little week with something very special, a very special treat, if you will.

Can I say, Kalila, will you allow me? Yeah, you can. This is going to be unbelievable. People are going to think that we're doing some kind of. bit right now, but you and I are going to be featured on a children's podcast. We're going to be debating. We're going to try to take each other to the mat, knock each other out. And also, boy, we have a lot to talk about. As well, we have our newsletter. What's your favorite thing about our newsletter? I like to know what's on everyone's mind. Like, stuff comes up in the

newsletter things we've enjoyed or been thinking about that we're not necessarily even talking about one-on-one. No, no, you find out things about me. Yeah. I find out things about you and Stevie. Sometimes I'm shocked. You know what my favorite thing about the newsletter is? That it's on the, it's on the internet. I don't have to get paper cuts opening up an envelope that comes to my door. People have to know my business. Wow. So I ask you one and all to please subscribe to that newsletter, which I don't know if I mentioned is completely free. And you can find it at Patreon. I am an actor, fresh out of theater school with big dreams and an even bigger drug habit. But things are pretty good.

That is until my best friend is set up on a date with David Lee Roth. Yeah, from Van Halen. If you know, you know. From CBC's personally, this is Discount Dave in the Fix. The Truish story about how a fake rock star led me to a real trial that held up a mirror to me. And okay, let's just say that not everyone in this story is who you think they are. Personally, discount Dave and the Fix. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.