Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson - Paulina Porizkova

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Meet Paulina Porizkova, a Swedish-American model, actress, and author. She's has an illustrious career on magazine covers, as the face of numerous brands, and as an advocate for women. I had an amazing time catching up with her, and I hope you enJOY!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast. And I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian. God, I've been through so many things that at this point, I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle. I am Khloe Kardashian. Khloe Kardashian, everybody. Khloe Kardashian. No one Kardashian everybody. Khloe Kardashian.

No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network.

So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope,

about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well, it's actually it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the pants on fire tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout 2025 and beyond. For a full list of dates, go to thecraigfergusonshow.com. See you on the road, my dears.

My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness. Hello, everyone. Now, my guest today was one of my favorite recurring guests on the old late night show. She is a remarkably interesting, fascinating human being with an amazing story to tell, which if you hang around you're about to hear. She is the Czech wonder girl, Paulina Poriskova. That's how

you say it in Czech. Or you could say it in American by saying Paulina Poriskova. Here's Here she is. Enjoy. There you are. You look great. May I say we both don't look a day older than when we were carrying on on late night. Oh, I think we look about a decade older, but I think it suits us. How about that? Well, okay. I'll take it. I suppose I do. I don't think you do. You look incandescent. Are you happy? Oh, yes. I am very happy. Knock on wood. That's great. You know, Czech tradition, Eastern European, have to touch wood. Yes, I am actually incredibly

happy or at least you're talking to me at a moment where I am incredibly happy. How about you? Yeah, yeah, no, I'm pretty good actually. I'm in a reasonable mood and I'm reasonably happy. I feel like it's quite interesting. The last time we spoke, whenever we spoke before, it was always for 10 minutes

in front of a couple of hundred people. And I always thought, you know, it's such an odd thing because I felt like I knew you and I felt like we were friendly, but we really honestly, our conversations were just that. Yeah, it's true. Maybe a little bit, how'd you do beforehand and that was it. Yeah. I know after I did your show for the first time, all my friends sort of came away and they were like, my God, you guys had such chemistry. It's like you were old friends. And so, yeah.

I think that's one of those things. You remember certain people. You were always one of my favorite guests. You still are to this day. Now, let me tell you this though, what you can't do in 10 minutes is you really can't find out about someone. And what I wanted to talk to you about today is because we always joked to you about you were coming from Eastern Europe and stuff like that, but you correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you born when the Soviets were still in control in Eastern Europe? Is that right? Actually thanks, you're making me a little younger than I actually am. I just turned 60 last week, so hmm.

I was born in 65 and the Soviets came in in 68. So I was three years old when they occupied the country. And this is what sort of set up my life and the life of my parents on a very interesting personal trajectory besides, you know, the whole country going to shit. Yeah. I mean, do you remember the Soviets? Were you out there by, you were out there quite young? No. So what happened was that my parents left in 1968 because they knew, you know, we were getting occupied.

Everybody knew this. The tanks were rolling in and few brave people decided to chance it and leave. My parents were two of those, two of those because they were, you know, they were like, my mother was like 21, my dad was 24. I mean, they're very young and they jumped on a motorcycle and just drove between the tanks and drove out to Austria to a refugee camp. And they left me behind thinking that they would get me a couple of weeks later, you know, that, you know, once they were established in the normal country, that they would just be able to get me out. And that did not work at all.

And I was left with my grandmother and of course, you know, three, I have no, I had no idea. Just figured, oh, my parents sort of suddenly disappeared. Nobody told me where they went. So I sort of assumed that they were dead, but in a kind of a childish way of like, oh, my parents went to heaven and I couldn't solve them. You know, it happens. So you don't think you were traumatized by it in any way?

I feel like this is a deep and profound childhood trauma right there. Oh, it's a deep and profound childhood trauma, all right? Yeah. But it doesn't start plaguing you until you grow up and you try to form relationships, you know? Yes. Yes. And that's when you kind of get the full impact of what actually happened and how you clued it together. Let me ask you about this.

This might seem like an odd question, but have you ever had in your life a fear of flying? I did. I had a huge fear of flying for about 20 years. In between not being scared at all and then not being scared at all again. It's very interesting. Why are you asking? Because there's a guy, there's a fear of flying guy, an old, I think he was an American Airlines captain. His name's Tom Bunn and he does, he helps people who are afraid of flying.

And I used to be afraid of flying too. Oh really? And yeah. And he says that a lot of it is not about flying at all, but a lot of it is to do with when you were a kid an Authority figure that you should trust and that you placed all your trust in lets you down badly and later on it manifests itself as a Fear of flying I just thought oh well that sounds like a classic is that is that really how did you get over it?

As a desire to control yeah, I am a completely an utter control freak. How about you get over it? As a desire to control. Yeah. I am a complete and utter control freak. How about you? Pretty much the same. What I did was I became a control freak so much so that I got my pilot's license. I learned to fly. Yeah. That makes perfect sense to me. Yeah.

Isn't that funny? Because a lot of people, they're like, that to me. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Cause a lot of people that like, that's crazy. Yeah. No, that's the way to go about it. You can then pilot your own plane. And I, what I did was I got myself a Vespa that I ride around New York and that makes me feel like I'm in control. You still ride it around?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is baller. Is it the classic Italian looking thing with a little bit in the front over then? Yes. Fucking great. Yes. That is great. I've had it for like 28 years or something. I used to drive my kids to school on it And so they were like they always like the hippest kids to you know, get off their moms best buy in their little leather jackets

And you know flick your hair. That's very, very cool. Ciao baby! It's cool when it's in New York. Are you still in New York? Yeah. You know I just moved back to New York. No, I did not know that.

Wait, do you catch me up on your life? What are you up to? Well, you know, I'm not doing tons. I'm doing some things, but I've been doing live stuff because I, you know, doing stand up because I kind of, after late night, I was like, I don't know if I ever want to see the inside of a television studio again. I'm over that now and I'm doing it. But it was kind of, it was so intense that period.

I had like 10 years. I was doing a show every night, 10 minute conversation, 10 minutes, some people you remember, like you I remember, of course, very well. But there are people who were on that, like I've met since, who I've said, oh, you should have been on the late night show, and they're like, oh, I was on it three times,

thanks for mentioning it. And so I kind of like, I do stand up and I do bits and pieces and I went to live in Scotland for a while for like five years, I think. Wow. And then we moved back after that. But have you ever moved back to Europe? Have you ever spent time back there? You never gone back? I really love Europe. Like I feel when I go back there, there's a part of me that feels at home or maybe safe to some extent.

But you know, I've lived in the United States now longer than I've lived anywhere else. In fact, so see this apartment, this is a rented apartment that I'm very passionate. I love this apartment because it's the first place that I got to move in by myself since I was like 18. Nice. And chose all the wallpaper and made it look kind of European. But right across this wall, right there, is the very first apartment that I rented when I was 17 years old and I moved to New York. So I live right next door to the 17 year old me. Ah, how is the 17 year old you doing?

Well, well, she's dead. Well, let me ask you this, put it a different way. So you're left behind in Czech or what they call it, I guess, what did they call it then? I think it's a, well, it was Czechoslovakia back then, then it turned into the Czech Republic and now we're supposed to call it Czechia, which is what we Czechs have always called it, Czechy. Czechy. Well, I don't know, any Czech person I've talked to about, I've only talked to a couple.

The producer of this show, Tomáš, who you were just talking to, he's Czech. Yeah, I can tell by his last name. Yeah, it's because Zakopal is... Zakopal means somebody who was buried. Yeah, I think it's Undertaker or something, isn't it? Yes, it's Undertaker. Which is perfect for him. Poor man.

No, no, he's great. He's just, he's a cheerful dark soul. But I think we all are. Yeah, the Czech people are quite like that, right? Yeah. Quite cheerful, but quite... Well, look, we've been occupied for our entire existence. So like there's a, there's a, you learn that life is best lived with incredibly low

expectations and that things can turn on a dime and that, you know, things are happy today and tomorrow somebody will come in and wreck your life. So... This is amazing. It's like talking to a very beautiful version of Thomas. We're all the same. Hey, my name is Jay Shetty and I'm the host of On Purpose and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian. God, I've been through so many things

that at this point I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle. All right, we're ready. I am Khloe Kardashian. Khloe Kardashian, everybody. Khloe Kardashian. No one understands how it's... I'm not just a TV show.

There would be times that I was like, I'm not just a TV show. There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me. And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long. You've always taken care of others. Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your life?

How do you even find the courage to trust again? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network. West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Rannella.

I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare.

Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to

the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope.

Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On November 5th, 2018, 33 a.m. a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Grotesque... Oh my God, oh my God... Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Craig Ferguson.

And I want to let you know I have a brand new standup comedy special out now on YouTube. podcasts. And it's right there. Just click it and play it and it's free. I can't, look, I'm not going to come around your house and show you how to do it. If you can't do it, then you can't have it. But if you can figure it out, it's yours. So what happened then? Did you ever reunite with your parents? Oh, well, that's quite a bit of a story. I guess you can always edit it out, right? No, not at all. But you're welcome to if you want to. So what happened was that my parents, my parents made it into Austria. They didn't get shocked. So that was nice. I was left with my grandmother. And then from the Austrian refugee camp, they got sent to Sweden, which was a place that was hospitable to refugees at that

point. And then they were trying to get me out and they couldn't. The borders were closed and that was over. So my parents, again, being very young and very photogenic, decided to raise awareness for their cause of not being able to get their child. And so they started with doing a hunger strike in front of the Stockholm embassy, the Czech embassy in Stockholm, to try to get people empathetic and sign, you know, sign on whatever lists of people protesting the Czech government not allowing their daughter to be

of people protesting the Czech government not allowing their daughter to be released. And the Czech government did absolutely nothing but the Swedes really liked us. They got kind of whipped into a frenzy of helping these two young beautiful people to get their daughter out. So I became sort of a cause célèbre. Of course, figures, it was like my early career, I was a famous political refugee. And I became famous in Sweden as like little Paulina, poor little Paulina. Oh no.

I had no idea. So how did they get you out? The Swedes got you out there? Kind of eventually, about three years, my parents were using all the press and all the media and they were on TV. And eventually a Swedish magazine, actually, I believe the Czechs sent them, my parents, a letter saying that because they hadn't claimed me for three years, I was going to be adopted to a suitable family. Whoa. So that, of course, would mean that they would lose me forever. And they did sort of this desperate last attempt in which a Swedish newspaper funded getting

two Swedish pilots and my mother to go and kidnap me. On my way from school, they were going to kidnap me. They had a false passport for me. My mother had a false passport claiming she was one of the pilot's wife. And that they were just coming to the Czech Republic to look at planes to purchase. But they, and while they did that, they were going to grab me and pack me off into a small plane. Of course, nobody considered how I would feel about this, not having seen my mother in four years, I didn't

know who she was anymore. But they, so, and that newspaper had like a, what do you call it? A, you know, it was their story. It was exclusive. An exclusive, yeah, yeah. It was an exclusive story. And so my mom and those two pilots, my mom had a wig and glasses and the false passport and they land in the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia. They rent a car and they're driving on the way to my little town to get me on my way to school and they get busted for speeding. Oh, no. Yeah. to get me on my way to school and they get busted for speeding. Oh no!

Yeah. And so they get taken to a police station, interrogated. Apparently somebody might have written to the authorities that my mother was going to try to kidnap me. Oh, it was a tech buff. Yeah. So, the whole thing unspooled that they were all put in jail, the Swedish pilots and my mother.

My mother was six months pregnant with my baby brother. And now this newspaper had gotten a way better story than they even bargained for. Oh my god. I know. Yeah. What goes on? How long are they in jail? What happens?

well, my mother is in jail for about three months and then because There was you know, the Sweden was you know, it was all our story. Oh my god Anna Boris Gova got caught She's in jail. She's pregnant. She's not gotten to see Paulina. Like, you know, this is like a huge story. So she was given amnesty about three months into this. She got given an amnesty and so she was allowed to come and stay at my grandmother's house with me and grandma under house arrest for the next three years. The Swedish pilots, I believe, were in jail for like 10 years. What?

Yeah. So your baby brother and your baby brother's born, your dad is still in Sweden? Dad is still in Sweden and my dad is sort of carrying on, you know, doing all the interviews. He's meeting with Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister, to see if there's a way that Olof Palme can move anything to get us out. And there's like, and this is going on for another three years of this sort of back-and-forth Swedish Newspaper men coming into the Czech Republic to take pictures of us that they can then publish in magazines in Sweden.

And at the end of those three years, in 1973, I believe the Swedish hockey team was supposed to play the Czechs in like the international friendships games or something. And they refused to play the Czechs unless they released us. And Olaf Palme refused to make a states visit unless they released us. And then they finally, then they booted us out. So in 1973, they took my mom's passport and said, get out and don't ever come back. And then that was that. That's crazy.

Now you see, this is something that doesn't come up in a 10 minute conversation. But so you're about this thing, what, nine years old almost? Yes. So I was nine when we left the Czech Republic. Right. And now you become a Swedish citizen, I guess, right? And the family's reunited? Yeah, for about a week or so because my dad had found some other woman while mom was gone. So he promptly left. And then mom was sort of a single parent and she

was having a bit of a nervous breakdown. And so it was me and my little brother kind of left to our own devices, as they say. This is a movie, Paulina. This is unbelievable. I know, but every time I tell somebody the story, they're kind of like, yeah, it's kind of too much. You know, just give me half of that story. The full story is, it's unbelievable. And then like, you know what? I think maybe it's not a movie.

I think it's like 10 episodes on Netflix. That's what it is. Yeah. I think it has to be a limited TV series. Yeah, I think it has to be a limited TV series. Yeah, I think it is. Have you ever? Because then after that, if you're like, you're now like nine, ten years old, you're in Sweden, and by the time you're what, 17, you're living in New York?

Well by the time I'm 15, I'm a model in Paris on my own. So how does that happen? Is it because your famous little Paulina has grown up and she's very beautiful and actually she's not grown up, she's only 15. Why is she going to Paris? Well because models start very young. I think we know that. That seems very, very young, doesn't it?

Well, you know, yes, it's very, very young, doesn't it? Well, you know, well, yes, it's very, very young. But I was, I had a girlfriend who really was interested in fashion and she wanted to be a fashion photographer. And mind you, we're like teens, you know, like little teens that do the selfies, you know, these days. So she sort of, she would take pictures of me on her little instamatic pocket camera. And then she sent those pictures in to some scout in the city where we lived in Lund in Sweden to ask what she thought of her photography. Like, oh, do you, you know, how do I become a fashion photographer?

And the lady got back to her saying, yeah, you know, photography, schmotography, who's the girl, how old is she and how tall is she? Wow. And she introduced me to John Casablanca when I was 14 He took a look. He said would you like to go to Paris over the summer and I was like, yeah and So I was sent to Paris over some now it was supposed to be just a summer job in all fairness Yeah, but you know, I got to Paris at, I was 15. I was really fortunate.

I started working kind of right away. And by the time the summer was over, I had traveled, like I had gone to Morocco, I had gone to Japan on my own, by myself. They just, they would hand me a plane ticket and say, go. And I would go and going back to school seemed boring. Yeah, no, I understand. It does, I mean, look, I'm not your father as you well know, but it does worry me.

Wait, what? It worries me though, the idea of that 15 year old, 16 year old Paulina is too, and the fashion world is not renowned for being full of scrupulous characters. Gentle, kind men who want what's best for you. No. Fatherly types. Yeah, how was it? Did you, how did you manage?

Were you okay? Well, with okay meaning, you know, did I survive and not get flexed? Well, clearly you survived. Yes, yes. Clearly you survived and clearly you thrived, but was it a very difficult time? Was it a very unpleasant time? Well, you know what? It was both. To be honest, it was being 15 and completely unsupervised and making more money in three months and your parents making a year is not a terrible place to be at times. And then at times, you know, when you're by yourself in your little apartment and you

are scared and you're young and you don't really know, there's no real safety for you, then it's scary. So it was both. It was sort of a time of extremes, I think, you know. It's an interesting thing as well, because if you are, and you clearly are, I mean, I'm sure you're at peace with this now, but you're very beautiful. And so when people are very beautiful, I've noticed that sometimes people, other people will punish them a bit. They'll be quite cruel to them. They become a little strange, particularly, I think, you know, they always say things like beauty is only skin deep and it's not really that valuable. And what you have is just luck and kind of

downplay it all the time, which I think is kind of, I don't think that's necessary really. Well, is it necessary? No, I think it's just, it's a human emotion when somebody, you know, how we all compare one and ourselves to other people. We can't help it. It's a biological function comparison, right? Where do I stand in society? And when you are seen as an attractive and young woman, by the way, you have to be young. The nice thing about being older is that I don't get that anymore.

Nobody gives a shit. It's like you can be attractive because, you know, guys are not going to go for me anymore because I'm too old. Yeah. I don't know if that's entirely realistic, but fair enough. I'll go with you and the... Thank you. So you're doing these modeling assignments

and stuff like that. And you are clearly, you're getting all this information from the world that you are young and you're beautiful and that is a commodity. And so you, what do you do? You take it to New York? That's what you decide to do or or does the job take you there? Yeah, no, it's, you know, it's, there's a very small, there's very little decision making when you're a 15 year old child.

You do sort of, the nice thing about it is that you're endlessly flexible, right? So right wherever they put you you just kind of go with it and you go Oh, well, that's this is the way it's supposed to be. Have you ever seen Fellini's eight and a half a Long time ago like a long time ago well, I just I just rewatched it the other day and And it's a really kind of a cool movie and it's beautiful. Yeah. But it really is kind of like the insane ravings of a middle-aged man who finds himself, you know,

doesn't know where he's going next career-wise and all these women that he's disappointed and and you know a man in menopause and I just could watch the whole movie I thought oh like I feel like I watched a film about my father. It's funny yeah I know what you mean. Did you kind of reunite with your father? Did you manage to form a relationship with him at all? Is he still around? He's still around. I made an attempt a few times here and there to see if we could perhaps have some sort of relationship. And then I always sort of came away with, he's not really worth it. So no, no. Okay. It does set you up for a lifetime full of looking for the

wrong man. Do you think you did that? You were looking for the wrong man? For sure. Yeah. Oh dear. That is upsetting. So you're in New York and now by this time, you know, through all of these, you know, this is going on, you're now one of the supermodels, right? And that's what they were calling you girls, like, and you were the kind of, were you the first wave of supermodels? I guess you kind of were, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, I can't toot my own horn because I'm Eastern European, but thank

you for mentioning it yourself, yes. So what does that do to a person of obvious intelligence that the message you're getting is that you have this weird power, which is clearly marketable, you're very successful, you're making good money, and you're world famous. And all you have to do is be you. Well, actually, it's not so much. Not as simple as that?

In some ways, it's simpler. All you have to do is show up. Right. But whether you're you or somebody else entirely different inside really doesn't matter. What it does is that for a woman, it sort of sets you up for feeling like the only thing of importance about you is the way you look. Right. And so any needs or wants or desires or thoughts that you have are absolutely unimportant.

And it sort of reassures you that that is in fact the case. So I think a lot of models, we have a hard time trying to find, just find out who we are, you know, who we are outside this facade that everybody has us sort of narrowed down to just being a shell. Hey, my name is Jay Shetty and I'm the host of On Purpose and I'm excited for my next episode with Khloe Kardashian. God, I've been through so many things that at this point I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle.

All right, we're ready. I am Khloe Kardashian. Khloe Kardashian, everybody. Khloe Kardashian. No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show. There would be times that I was like, I don't even want to go out to the grocery store because I feel like I know what they're thinking about me.

And that was scary to me because I've never been in a dark place for that long. You've always taken care of others. Have you discovered anything about why you've seen yourself take on that role in so many relationships in your life. How do you even find the courage to trust again? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores,

and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where

they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in

an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet, and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography.

This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law, and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.

Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On November 5th, 2018, at 6.33 a.m. a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile, grotesque, horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How did you find yourself? How did you find yourself? How did you find out where you were? Was there a process that you went through that was conscious or did it just happen? I mean, I feel like, I assume, I don't know why I assume this, but it seems to me like you're, you seem to me like someone who reads who is connected who is interested in in the arts and then politically motivated as well. Would that be correct? That would be correct.

Although it didn't seem to matter very much to literally anybody but perhaps myself. Well, that's good though that it matters to you. It's also infinitely frustrating. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. Because no one's going to take you seriously about anything you say at all at any point. Correct. That drives me fucking mad.

Yeah, I mean if you... It would, it would drive me fucking mad. I don't know how anyone could fucking put up with that. Did you find yourself getting angry? I think there was a fair bit of anger, but I also, I'm also scared of anger. So I, I think, um, I would reduce that anger to contempt as sort of a slow simmering contempt for all, for everybody. Yeah, that's, that's actually quite cool.

I think, I ask Gregor, I sort of seething contempt for everyone. I have to say, I find that quite attractive. They're like kind of, whoa. So, but you did- That says something about your own childhood trauma. No, no kidding. But you did find, I mean, you, you, you got married and you had a family in New York City. Are you, that all happened to you?

I did. I met my husband when I was 19 and he was 41 and he lied about it and said he was 37. Like that was a big difference. When did you find out the truth? Presumably before the first child. Before we got married. Good. So like five years later. Oh wow.

Where he had to come clean, you know, cause I was gonna see the birth certificate. So he couldn't really pretend anymore. And I kept thinking, you know, for those five years, I thought things just weren't working out timeline-wise, you know, like how old his oldest child was versus how old he said he was. And I kept trying to go back over and go, so how old is Christopher again? And when did you say you have him? And he would sort of skirt by those conversations. But yeah, I was very much in love with my husband because I feel like I had found,

well, you know how they say, that's becoming a cliche now, but you marry your unfinished business. Is that true? Oh yeah, absolutely. It's absolutely true. I found a man who with some serious narcissistic tendencies, which both of my parents have. And so, you know, I married my parents and tried to convert them into actually liking me.

And it worked. It worked for a really long time. That's fascinating. Obviously, what I'm doing is I'm going back to my own romantic history going, oh my God, I hate this. How many times have you been married now? I'm on number three.

Well, lucky three. But we've been married for, for a while. I mean, I think that's, you married again, didn't you? No. No, you didn't marry, but you're, you're in a relationship now. I'm in a relationship. Yeah. Okay.

You guys going to get married? Hmm. Well, after my husband died and all the shit that happened. I heard about some of that. I wasn't going to bring it up. Well you're welcome to because everybody else knows it. I just didn't want to make you roll around in it. You know what I mean?

Everybody gets shit happen in their life. I didn't want to like, it's none of my business. How are you with that kind of thing? Because I get very uncomfortable in my line of work. I'm going to talk to you and you've gone through some public difficulties. I've talked to other people who have gone through, I've gone through difficulties, who's life doesn't have difficulties? And I feel a bit seedy when you talk to people about the difficulties of their life. I'd rather keep it more kind of superficial, I suppose.

Oh! Well, not because, just because I don't know, I just don't feel like I'm not a journalist, you know what I mean? I'm not trying to, you don't seem bothered by discussing that kind of thing. No, you know what I've noticed is that I'm really curious. I'm really genuinely curious. And by sort of airing out my life very forthrightly and openly on Instagram, which is I did by accident, I was just so fucking desperate. I didn't really know what else to do.

It brought all these connections to me, other people that maybe had similar experiences. And it sort of opens up all these channels of connection, which I really appreciate. And so it's a different lifestyle. It's a different life. It's that thing that you like so much, the, the, the contempt. Yeah.

Yeah. That I've let go of. Yeah. And I am much happier for it. Yes. I mean, I was very good at it. I had lots and lots of years of it. But also, you know, you're an Eastern European supermodel.

It's kind of a good look to be sort of haughty, you know, is kind of, I hate everyone, darling. Just leave me alone. You are, you know, I am far superior to you. Yeah, but that was never me. That was never me. I don't get that from you at all. Yeah. I'm essentially a very kind of goofy, nerdy. I know all it's like all pretty women say they are nerdy, but I truly am. I read a lot. Like I'm not, I'm not fabulous. Yeah, I don't know. People that read a lot can be fabulous. You're pretty fab. I think you're pretty fabulous. What do you read? What are you drawn

to? Do you read historical fiction? Do you read hardcore physics manuals? What are you drawn to? Okay, so maybe a little lighter on the hardcore physics manuals. Okay. Uh huh. But otherwise, I read pretty much everything. But really? maybe a little lighter on the hardcore physics manuals. Okay. Uh-huh. But otherwise I read pretty much everything. Oh really? I'm kind of indiscriminate in food and reading, but no longer in my men.

No, no. I think that's a very wise choice. Right? What about writing? Because you wrote a very interesting article. Was it the New York Times you wrote that? America, you made me a feminist. Yeah, that was the New York Times.

Yeah, I had some pretty swag. Are you writing more? Are you writing books? Yeah, so I think when I was on your show, I had, I think I had published my novel. You had published a novel because I read your novel, which was very good. I was going to ask you, are you writing more? You know what, I have been writing a follow-up novel to that novel for the past 15 years, I think. It's hard. It's hard. Did you write another novel? Have you written another novel? Not a novel. I wrote a book of personal essays that came out two years ago and that was actually incredibly

rewarding. I wrote it in three months. Wow. I know a fellow writer can admire that. That's amazing. What did you just binge it? Did you just like 16 hours a day, that kind of thing? Yeah.

Yeah. Every day 16 hours a day. I wanted to see if I could do it. Yeah. The challenge of it and I could do it. So I'll never do it again, but that was kind of crazy. But I did do it and it was, you know, it was, but it was in a time that it was after my husband's death and all of the shit that happened and COVID and

losing my house and all of this stuff. And so all the things I wanted to write about were like right there, you know, they were all occupying my brain for the last two years anyway. So it was just kind of like slash the vein, bleed all over the paper and. I totally understand. It's a great way to find some kind of relief if you're in distress, psychic distress to write, I think it somehow, I think it's a little bit to do what we talked about right at the beginning it's about control that if you write it down you're in charge of it you know I

mean it when I wrote that novel I was going through a divorce is very difficult and you know and I I had no control over it you know I didn't know where it was going next and but if I could go to the book and I write a book, I knew where everyone was going to go because I put them there. And it kind of helps. Do you think you write more? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I kind of feel like writing is what I really use it as is like an outlet for my writing,

for things I think of that I want to put down. I sort of detest the fact that it has to be followed with a picture and now more recently, videos. Because that is, I mean, it's all completely narcissistic anyway, but like, it's really pushing the envelope and that's like, but that's, I appreciate the fact that I get to have a voice and I get to use it in the way that I want. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. What about the like social media? Because when I was on Instagram, I'm not on anymore. I used to follow you on Instagram. So I would see your posts and stuff

like that with your, you know, your anger and stuff. And it was, you know, it was great. I didn't I've come off. I have like people who do it now because I cannot interact with the amount of I don't know, I just don't like it. It feels like unfiltered negativity pouring at me. I don't like it. Well, it can be that and then it can also be like sort of unquestionable positivity, which you also... That's true, too.

...like you don't deserve. That's true. And I also don't know if I like that. Yeah, no, I know I don't like it. I like whenever somebody says, you know, actually, my boyfriend was saying that the other day is like, oh, I'm so proud of you. And I was like, and then he sort of stopped and said, you don't like when I say that, do you?

I was like, no, no, that that's a very blanket statement to me. That doesn't mean anything. It just it's more about you than it is about me. Yeah. And that sort of unfiltered adoration that you can get off of social, as well as unfiltered hate, they're both kind of in the same basket of, they need to be put aside. They're not, they don't matter.

Yeah. I'm complicated. It's a complicated emotion. I'm not quite sure because you want to be nice to people who like you and you don't want to be nice to people who dislike you. The truth is, I don't think it really matters that much. You know, it's one of those things. In fact, it was Tomas who said it, because I was getting upset about something on Twitter.

This is how long ago it was. It was Twitter years ago. And he said to me with his Eastern European accent, if you don't look, it's not there. It's kind of like, if you don't look at it. Well, that's strong and that's bad, isn't it? It's not there. It's not a thing. If you don't pay any attention to it, it disappears. Yeah. Very few things in life are true like that. You know, it's like, if I look away, it no

longer exists. But I think social media has that, you know, it's like, if I look away, it no longer exists. But I think social media has that, you know, it's like, if I don't look at it, it's not there. Well, yes, which is true, but then you're not quite, and I don't, and I don't know that this matters, but that's what social media does, is that it kind of plugs you into, not if you only follow people that like you or live in your bubble, but when you separate it and look wider, it does sort of cue you into sort of the national malaise or the feelings of like where people are at. I find that very interesting.

Sort of it's a sort of like an anthropology experiment. Yeah, I get it. It's like your own little market research company. I understand, but it's, I don't know. I think you've done better evolving out of the control freak area than I have. I like, I don't know. You still need to control.

I'm aware of it and I don't need to control it, but I think honestly, I don't know if you can relate to this at all, but I think I'm actually quite shy, quite reticent. I don't really like, you know, I feel it's like not so much shy, that's not right. I think it's unseemly to talk yourself up. And I feel like when I see other people doing it as well, I find it kind of, I don't really wanna see you saying how great you are. It feels kind of like dumb.

And that's why when you said you had contempt for everything, I was like, Oh, that's good. Like I'm not the only one. No, I don't have contempt for everything. I really don't. I think I'm quite a joyful person, but I, I get on, I'm a Scottish Protestant. I'm uncomfortable nearly all the time. Yes.

That's one of those things. Oh my God, I know that so well. Like being, I mean, I guess, an Eastern European Catholic. Yes, being uncomfortable nearly all the time is sort of what we've been programmed to be, right? Kind of. There is a moral kind of grace to feeling bad, that it's a plus. Yes, you're a good person if you feel bad about yourself.

If you feel bad, yeah. It's weird, right? It's a very weird thing. Look, we're out of time for this thing. Oh, wow. Let me ask you this though. Have you done a podcast yet? Because you know that's next. You have to do a podcast. Well, you know, everybody and their mother is doing a podcast. No offense to you. Tell me about it. I've got 10 left on that. No, 12 left of this one. And then I have a contractually obliged to do no more. And let me tell you, I'll be doing no more. I might do some more. Yeah. Well, okay. So since you were asking me about podcasts, I'll be doing no more. I might do some more. Yeah.

I'll talk to you. Okay, so since you were asking me about podcasts, do you enjoy doing them? You know, I do, but the way that we are talking now is I would rather have this, see, let me backtrack it a little bit and answer it in a kind of roundabout way.

I feel like when I do a podcast like this, when I talk to someone like you, like this, on a Zoom call or whatever we're calling it now, I'm as good as anyone else. But I feel like if you and I are sitting in the same room and we're talking to each other, I'm better than most. And I feel like I can do this thing better, not over the Zoom. So if I continue to do it, I want to do it so that we can all be in, we can be in the

same room because there's something about the nature of human interaction, which it's okay. I mean, we're talking fine and I'm not holding anything back and I don't get a sense you are either, but somehow there is a, it's just different to be in the room. It creates a different thing. I agree. I mean, I think that this is where technology, as it joins us together, keeps us apart. I mean, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's exactly so. So you're not going to do a podcast now?

I'm actually also more interested in talking to real people rather than zooming with people. And I've never liked phone calls. I still... Really? Oh no, I hate them. Isn't it such a waste of time? Oh my God. Just see what you have to fucking see and get off the phone. That's how I feel hate them. Really? Oh no, I hate them. Isn't it such a waste of time? Oh my God. Just see what you have to fucking see and get off the phone.

That's how I feel about it. Yes, yes, please. Because I can't see how you look on the phone. I can't see your expressions. I can't see the twinkle or the disdain in your eye that I need to see for conversation. Yeah. It's exactly how I feel about it. I'm like, oh my God. I love talking to people.

I love they say in Ireland, the crack. I love the crack. You know, I love joking and laughing and making fun of each other and flirting and being silly and all of these. I love all of that. But somehow in this environment, it's nearly there. But I think I just prefer it when it's, you know, the live show. Right down to the sense of even by the way,

doing standup comedy. I don't mind doing it on TV and I don't mind recording a standup special, but the truth is, the best shows are always in the theater or the club when nobody's got a camera. Those are the best shows. And still, I mean, even if you're recording it on a camera or whatever, you still are performing it not to the camera,

but to an audience, right? Yeah, but the camera doesn't get everything. It just doesn't. It doesn't get it all. It doesn't get everything. It just doesn't. It doesn't get it all. It doesn't get everything. And I think, you know, we may be the last of a dying breed where, you know, what we're talking about will make no sense to anyone under the age of 50,

I don't know. I know it's already starting to be a bit like that. What's your, how old is your youngest child? 14. Okay, so your 14 year old will look at you, I'm sure the way my children looked at me and said, Mom, were you alive before computers? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, we were. Are you a boomer or a Gen Xer?

I think I'm actually a boomer. I'm 1962. So I'm a boomer. Yeah. So you're a boomer. So fucking get off my lawn, you asshole. Oh, okay. You did it. You're a Gen Xer, right? Yes. I think Gen Xers are the most- You kids.

Yes, yes. We are the ones that are truly sort of in the, we travel both sides, I think, more so than anybody else. Sorry, Boomer. Yeah, whereas me, all I do is remember the war. And when lawnmowers didn't have engines. And sing the Andrew Sisters. Oh, the boogie woogie boogie boy of Company B.

Let's see. Alright, get out of here. It's lovely to talk to you. I'll talk to you in person soon, please. I think that would be really fun. That would be really fun. That would be fun. That would be fun. It's lovely to see you, Pauline.

It was really nice to see you too on this greeny screen. I know. It'll look better in computer land. Yeah, I'm sure it will. But not me. Oh, no, you. You will. Get out of here. Goodbye. Right, that's the end of our show. OK, OK. Fine. I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast and I'm excited for my next episode with Chloe Kardashian.

God, I've been through so many things that at this point I would rather not feel than feel because feeling is too much for me to handle. I am Chloe Kardashian. Chloe Kardashian, everybody. Chloe Kardashian. No one understands how it's, I'm not just a TV show. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. A group of young women found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos.

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope, about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs by

I Can. Sure. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes, We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.