Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald - Ariana Madix Lawsuit and the Mysterious Death of a Pastor’s Wife

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

LA attorney Jeff Lewis is here to explain Rachel Leviss’ lawsuit against Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval. He also gets into Ariana’s Anti SLAPP suit and what it means. He shares Tom’s response and... how the two differ. I give my theory as to why Bravo and Andy Cohen are mentioned numerous times but are not defendants. I share about my own latest lawsuit and how Jeff defended me. I also get into The Met pre parties and JLo’s dilemma. Britney got in a fight with maintenance man/boyfriend. Bethenny Frankel is single again. A pastor’s young wife died by what he said was a self inflicted gun shot but many suspicious factors make us think it was not suicide. Selling Sunset OC has a threesome rumor. RHONJ premiered and social media is driving the storylines.   Go to https://Rakuten.com or download the Rakuten App. Membership is free, and when you sign up and shop today you get an extra 10% Cash Back Boost. Go to https://ProlonLife.com/JuicyScoop to get 10% off their 5-day nutrition program. Shop Juicy Scoop Merch https://juicyscoopshop.com  Get EXTRA Juicy on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/juicyscoop  Follow Me on Social Media Instagram: https://www/instagram.com/heathermcdonald  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heathermcdonald  Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherMcDonald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Guys, the weather's getting warmer, so say goodbye to your jackets and sweaters and say hello to shorts and tees. I wanted to update my wardrobe, so luckily I found quints. And now I've got a beautiful lineup of timeless pieces that's gonna keep me looking chic and fabulous year after year. I love their premium European linen dresses.
Starting point is 00:00:21 You guys, this is what everybody's wearing. This is quiet luxury. I got these incredible blouses and shorts from $30. Also washable silk tops. Are you kidding me? You know I like my silk tops. So I got one in lavender and blue. I absolutely love them. You'll see them on the show. And the best part is all Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And by partnering directly with factories, Quince cuts out the middleman and gives the savings to us. Get warm weather ready with Quince. Go to quince.com slash juicy for free
Starting point is 00:00:56 shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-n-c-e.com slash juicy to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash juicy. Sasquatch here. You know, I get a lot of attention wherever I go. Hey Sasquatch, over here. So when I need a judgment free zone, I go to Planet Fitness. Get started for $1 down and then only $15 a month.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Offer ends April 12th. $49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. and only $15 a month offerings April 12 $49 annual fee applies see Home Club for details. Heather McDonald has got the juices. Mr. Snake with serial data and serial systems. You'll be addicted and addicted fast to the number one tabloid real life podcast. Listen in, listen up. Hannah McDonald, Juicy Scoop.
Starting point is 00:01:56 Hello and welcome to Juicy Scoop. As always, I have a killer show for you. I wanna thank everybody who came to our show in Scottsdale. It was so much fun and I made it back in time to have the best Mother's Day, pre-Mother's Day ever. So get ready for Mother's Day. But I already had a wonderful time with my son. Like I told you guys, I was so excited for it.
Starting point is 00:02:20 I'm going to talk more about the whole thing on Patreon Friday. You go to heathermcdowelland.net to do the Patreon because there's a whole backstory to what really happened, though I also made a reel of it and with Brandon's permission he allowed me to share his wonderful speech about me and every mom should be so lucky. So anyway, here are some more dates coming. The next one will be Denver at ComedyWorks that is May 17th and 18th. Please come to that show. I've got Pechanga, which is in Temecula,
Starting point is 00:02:52 with the hilarious Chris Frangiola. That is June 1st. Then Tampa, Orlando, San Diego, Texas, Houston, Austin, Dallas, all these dates. Fall dates, New York, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, all these dates, fall dates, New York, Chicago, Pennsylvania, the Parks Casino, all of that is at heathermcdowell.net. The tickets are selling fast and once they're gone, they're gone, but make sure you go there. First, listen, you know how I love a rap battle, but listen, this is a real thing.
Starting point is 00:03:20 Drake, not my son, is in a rap battle that appears to have been going on for years with Kendrick Lamar. What's sad is, in the beginning, the two of them were really good friends. They collaborated. They went on tour together. I think Kendrick Lamar opened for Drake. But then it turned and I was trying... Listen, analyzing these lyrics is like just as difficult
Starting point is 00:03:47 as analyzing Taylor Swift like it is just goes on you have to go way back you've got to figure out what this means and what's going on and TikTok is going crazy trying to analyze it but what I got from the gist of it is both of them are putting out tracks I guess they're just putting out new songs, or they have songs, or they're just coming up with a song in a minute, going back and forth. Both basically say that they're both horrible boyfriends and might be into underage girls. So, and then they defend it and say, no, you're it.
Starting point is 00:04:21 And they're like, no, you're the one that's gonna be like Mike, meaning Michael Jackson. No, you're the one that's gonna be like Mike, meaning Michael Jackson. No, you're the one that's gonna be down. I don't know, but anyway, apparently there's some fun beats along with all the dissing, so enjoy. Also, everyone is talking about the roast of Tom Brady, which is part of Netflix is a joke, LA Festival.
Starting point is 00:04:40 So it was a huge room, way more elaborate than what we used to see with the roasts of Comedy Central. And you know, big names, big stars, other football players. I've seen clips with Ben Affleck and Will Ferrell. And the biggest one that got the most news was Kim Kardashian. Now remember, she was rumored to possibly have been dating him or something was going on with him or she was gonna buy a house next door to him a little while ago. She and Tom Brady. She got up there with her long blonde hair now and you know, black dress and she got booed.
Starting point is 00:05:18 From the moment she took the mic, she got a lot of audible boos. Though she delivered her monologue well from what I can tell and some people thought the jokes were funny. Ios, though she delivered her monologue well from what I can tell, and some people thought the jokes were funny. I mean, remember she did the SNL monologue and she did really well. Of course she's not writing these jokes, but you know, participating in what the gist of them are or whatever.
Starting point is 00:05:37 And so I have to watch it, I have yet to watch it. I wanna watch it and talk about it more with a fellow comedian, which will be my guest on Thursday. So I'm gonna watch it and talk about it more with a fellow comedian, which will be my guest on Thursday. So I'm going to watch it and really take it apart. I personally have trouble kind of watching these roasts because they are so like cruel and mean and then they go after each other. But it is entertaining and it's getting a lot of buzz. So we'll talk about that. But a lot of people think that she took the boos in stride and still killed it and ate, left no crumbs and all the expressions that means like she didn't give a shit and shine. So we'll see.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Tonight is the Met Gala where everybody wears these crazy outfits. And the theme is Anna Winter, who is the head of Vogue that does this whole thing. Remember this whole thing is for charity, to help with art museums or something. And fashion designers pay for certain tables. That's how you get invited, and you have to be invited by her. When you're in, you're in, and when you're out, you're not coming. And she said, we came up with the title, Sleeping Beauties. It's wonderful, it's poetic, it's romantic, but actually it could be many, many things.
Starting point is 00:06:52 That means you have to dress in that theme. Sleeping Beauties is the theme. That paired with the Garden of Time dress code, she said, may have caused mixed signals. I fear we have unleashed a lot of confusion out there in which I deeply apologize. I always find this is so weird. Either some people go so crazy or their outfit makes no sense or they just show up wearing just like a beautiful gown and they're like, fuck it.
Starting point is 00:07:20 I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't care if I ever come again, whatever. But it will be fun to see it. So I'm sure you'll enjoy. Let's look at the photos this morning. JLo, there's all these pre-parties and after-parties. And JLo was left looking for her Uber the way Peter and I were left looking for our Uber
Starting point is 00:07:38 at Stagecoach the other weekend. And it is awful. I don't know why she didn't have a driver. This was one of the pre-parties. There's all these also, there's all these all these after parties people want to go to. It sounds like the most fun, most exhausting night of your life and at this point I don't know that I'll ever be invited and I don't know if I totally care but Ross Matthews is lucky enough to he's doing the red carpet which is a dream I'm sure for anybody to do something like that. So fashion into it.
Starting point is 00:08:05 Okay, this is a crazy story that's going around. I'm sure Dateline offices are all over it because this is a horrible story made for a Dateline episode. There is this young pastor. He's good looking. He has the southern accent, he has the more casual, charming outfits, and he had a wife named Micah Miller. She's very young and pretty as well. He goes and does his sermon, and all these sermons are now coming up online, because every single one of them was either streamed
Starting point is 00:08:37 or filmed or whatever. After he finished the whole service, he said, oh, and by the way, I have something to say, you know, and I just want to say it, and by the way, I have something to say. You know, and I just wanna say it, and I want you guys to leave quietly, and I don't want you to talk about it or talk about it to each other, just leave. And then I'm gonna take a little bit of time off.
Starting point is 00:08:55 But I just got word yesterday that my wife has died, and it was self-inflicted. And you know, he's kind of like shaking and his voice is crying. Immediately people are like wait what the fuck? So here are all the things that I have read from all different sources and why it's confusing. So his story is that she shot herself and ended her life. They find out that they had been separated. They also find out that she had done filed a report saying that someone was stalking her and put something in her tire that made her tire go flat and then when she took the car to the dealership,
Starting point is 00:09:45 they said there's also a tracking device on your car. And they're not saying who she stated in the police report, who that is, but it appears that it would be the ex-husband. There's also reports that she's kept these diaries and binders of the abuse that she suffered at the hands of being his wife before she had filed for divorce. Then there's reports that she was groomed, met him when she was 15 in one of his churches, which is now closed.
Starting point is 00:10:16 But then they didn't get married until they were both divorced from someone else and had kids, but then he was really abusive, sexually abusive, sexually abusive, including other people. Like there's this one story that she allegedly wrote and shared with people that he would insist on picking up a homeless person in which he would engage in sexual acts or make her engage in sexual acts. I mean, it is so disturbing all the stuff that's coming out. And like I'm saying, this is like all alleged. It's my understanding he has not been arrested yet. However, the church has put him on leave. They just sent out a
Starting point is 00:10:54 letter today. He also has a this woman that he was seen eating with right after. And she claims not to be his girlfriend. And she she then got in there and made a statement and said, he just was looking with looking for someone to eat with. And I happened to be available. We're not romantic. However, his wife, um, Micah Miller was, um, definitely had mental illness and it threatened to commit suicide in the past and all these other things and but she says way too much than she should. She like brings up all these different instances like one time she
Starting point is 00:11:34 was so distraught that she threw a belt out the window of her car thinking it was a snake and she's like saying all this stuff that clearly the only way she'd have that information is from this pastor that she supposedly is not involved with. So this is an insane story. We'll see what the evidence is with the gunshot. One report is that the gunshot was to the back of her head. The other one was like, we don't know. So we don't have the report from the autopsy yet. He has not been arrested yet, but very, very suspicious. And being that we're able to see his sermons about different things, just more and more odd sermons about, you know, he's just so good at it. He's like such a good
Starting point is 00:12:19 speaker and he's so gregarious. But then when you look back at what he was saying and then she was quite active on social media and really sharing about her abuse. There's text messages between friends of hers that are like, I'm really glad that you got out of it. Even though we're Christians, you shouldn't have gotten divorced, but I'm glad you got out of it. This is an insane story. So it's the Micah Miller case. I'm just very, very sad that she is not with us. Soon we'll know, hopefully, what the truth is. Real Housewives of New Jersey, it began last on Sunday, and I talked about this on my Patreon.
Starting point is 00:12:58 There's a lot going on with social media and these counts that were dedicated to Real Housewives of New Jersey content and shows. And one of these accounts has come forward and said, I was in contact with Teresa and with Jennifer Aiden for quite a while in strategically putting out tweets and things about other cast members, which then they could read the tweet on when the cameras were there they'd be like okay allegedly tomorrow they're coming to my house the producers to film me and so if you could put out that tweet about so-and-so's lawsuit or about the alleged story behind this one's husband,
Starting point is 00:13:49 sexual preferences or whatever, put it out there on Twitter because then I can be talking to my husband or whoever when the camera's in there and go, "'Oh my God, did you see this? "'Do you see the crazy shit that's going on right now "'on the internet about so-and-so's husband? And now it's available on the show.
Starting point is 00:14:08 And now, you know, Teresa now has something that she needs to fight or defend or talk about or whatever, so then they claim you're creating this for a storyline. Is she creating it for a storyline for herself or is she out to really hurt another cast member's reputation, or is it a little of both? Then other accounts are like,
Starting point is 00:14:29 my God, the other team has done it. So if you look at this photo, this is the team. And the reason Dolores is in the middle is because she is Switzerland, and that's part of her tagline. So it's Team Melissa is Melissa, and I think her name is Rachel Fuda. Fuda is her last name and Margaret versus Teresa and Jennifer Aiden and this Danielle. I don't know what side this new Danielle is on, but anyway, it's split and they don't
Starting point is 00:15:01 even want to talk about, Melissa's like, I don't even want to talk about Teresa in my confessionals anywhere. Don't ask me questions about her. So we got into the screaming last night. They go to Jen Fessler's 55th birthday surprise party and Teresa shows up and she's like, you know, Louie and this FUTA guy who's new, this one's husband got into it at the reunion at the end, because food is like, why did you contact my ex wife? And why'd you put all this stuff out about my ex wife who's struggling with drug addiction and in and out of prison? And she's and then that woman said awful things about him. She said he liked a double headedheaded dildo and which I don't even know how that physically worked between a man and a woman but
Starting point is 00:15:49 whatever I was thinking about it last night and you know he was a drug dealer many years ago which caused him to be in legal trouble which now he is not he has a business he's doing fine. So he's pissed that that's put out there and that she's talking about it. So they're fighting about it at the party, screaming and people are like, oh, I don't even want to watch this. But now that the story has come out that this this girl, Gabriella, who's at Melissa's old nose is now singing like a canary, allegedly. Other people say don't, she's not to be believed. She's like, look, I was a mom with a special needs child
Starting point is 00:16:33 who decided to bully Melissa and other cast members through the internet. And I was so excited to have someone like Teresa and Jennifer Aiden give me any time of day. I just did whatever they told me to do. And now I realize I was manipulated and I was also creating storylines for them and I feel gross and I want out now.
Starting point is 00:16:56 And everyone's like, it's almost like when someone is accused of murder or whatever and they're on trial. And then the person that they shared a cell with who's also a criminal and you know looking for any kind of break of their sentence says oh well they confessed the murder to me they told me and then the defense is like why would you believe that piece of shit they were in the the cell with them,
Starting point is 00:17:25 and they're looking at 20 years as well. So why would you believe that, why wouldn't they just make this story up? Because they know they're sharing a cell with someone who's on trial for murder, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, it's like all these people, I don't know, but they're trying to show DMs and things,
Starting point is 00:17:40 and it's gotten really ugly. And I kind of feel like, I don't know how much the audience really cares. I think they just kind of want to watch it. And other people are like, I'm over it and I don't want to watch it. So that's what's going on there. This Juicy Scoop episode is sponsored by Rakuten.
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Starting point is 00:19:10 that's gonna keep me looking chic and fabulous year after year. I love their premium European linen dresses. You guys, this is what everybody's wearing. This is quiet luxury. I got these incredible blouses and shorts from $30. Also washable silk tops. Are you kidding me?
Starting point is 00:19:28 You know I like my silk tops. So I got one in lavender and blue. I absolutely love them. You'll see them on the show. And the best part is all Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And by partnering directly with factories, Quince cuts out the middleman and gives the savings to us.
Starting point is 00:19:47 Get warm weather ready with Quince. Go to quince.com slash juicy for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash juicy to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Juicy. Also Britney Spears, she got in a horrible fight with her boyfriend.
Starting point is 00:20:10 And this is the boyfriend that I met when I saw her at Chateau Marmont. I didn't know it was her boyfriend, though they seemed like they were kind of a couple. I guess they were, that was back in December. She tried to say it was no big deal, that she was trying to leap in a hallway and she tripped and hurt her foot, but they called the ambulance and the ambulance took her.
Starting point is 00:20:32 And then when she got back to her house, she did a bunch of videos saying like, this is totally my mom's doing. They're just trying to make me look like I'm, you know, not stable again when all I was doing was just trying to do a dance leap in a hotel room and I sprained my ankle. And that's all it is and it's not a big deal. And I don't know why people are exaggerating so much, but the Chateau Marmont reports were that she was, loud and disturbing people.
Starting point is 00:21:01 And then also that she was hurt and fighting with him. And that is why they called the ambulance, but I don't think she went to the hospital. So I don't know. Brittany, I'm telling you why don't we just go and get some coffee, go to Joey's, I will do my Drew Barrymore for you as much as you want. Okay so just please put some ice on that ankle girl. Hold off. Don't try to squeeze that swollen shoe and your brown sensible pumps. And we will just hang out and just pick flowers and just enjoy a beautiful spring day in Calabasas. Bethany Frankel has officially, according to Us Weekly, broken up with her fiancee, Paul Benson. This is something that many of us suspected, being that she started talking about her horrible
Starting point is 00:21:55 divorce with Jason Hoppe. She's going to do a whole series on her divorce. I think it was inspired by the Reese Atisa, Who the Fuck Did I Marry? 50-part series, and that fame that that woman got, I think Bethany was like, you know what, I never talked about this and I've got tons of material, so let's go, I Heart. And she did a couple episodes
Starting point is 00:22:15 and then her mom unfortunately passed in which she had a tumultuous relationship with. And she did an episode about her mother, a very raw episode about that. But now the episodes, the two episodes, because she was going to do like 50 of them, about the horrible divorce to Jason Hoppe,
Starting point is 00:22:34 those are been removed. I don't know if it's legally. I don't know if she chose to do it to protect her daughter, which is probably a wise choice. I don't think the daughter would appreciate it. And but maybe she wanted to do it because at the time she was broken up with Paul and was like, fuck it. Like I just, let me just distract myself with someone who was worse. Who knows why they
Starting point is 00:22:56 broke up? Not everybody lasts forever. But now it's out there. But one thing I did notice is when I did listen to her episode about her mother passing and in talking about her life, she didn't ever, and the morning of it, she never was saying, and then Paul was there and he was hugging me and holding me and telling me this, or he brought me chicken soup. She never mentioned him in that episode. I was already pretty convinced, but that's why I was. So there's why I was. So
Starting point is 00:23:25 there's some scoop there. And, you know, the only reason I'm mentioning it is because Us Weekly and you know, she shares a lot about her life with us. So they are no longer. Megan Markle, allegedly people are saying that she's greedy, that A-listers are like, we are not interested in hanging out with her. She definitely is not as popular as she was a couple of years ago. I feel like people don't know where it's going. I still have yet to receive the jam. And of course, the podcast is on hold and supposedly Lemanada, which is the new podcast company, thought that she would be all excited.
Starting point is 00:24:01 But instead, it's been postponed to 2025 because I guess she's going to work on her cooking show with Netflix and no A-listers are like dying to hang out with her. But you know what? If you need someone to do your cooking show with or if you want, we go to a restaurant and I can show you how I am the world's best order.
Starting point is 00:24:21 I'm still open to it. I still am on your side, Megan Markle, that you're a sister and brother or nightmares. And I can show you how to make a more interesting podcast. Also, Selling Sunset has dropped and it's very juicy. I'll be watching it and giving more into it. But the big story is that there's this cute guy named Austin. He's married to his wife. They have two little twin girls and this other guy who is either out as bi or gay, it starts to tell the other agents that one night he went over
Starting point is 00:24:57 to their house and they propositioned him. And a lot of people are like, that's weird that a woman would want to like, maybe be with a gay or bisexual man and that she'd be down for her husband. And there's that saying that her husband Austin is gay. And then the Austin guy is like, that's not what happened. We invited him over. My wife baked cookies and that was it. And now we never propositioned him or whatever.
Starting point is 00:25:25 And most people are saying, it's always the realtors that really have no listings that then have to like drive these stories. But anyway, it sounds very juicy. Also Alex Hall, the pretty brunette who was on my show, she's been having a lot of press lately because she was the girl that dated Brittany Snow's ex in the last two seasons. Well the first season I talked to her about it saying I don't think
Starting point is 00:25:52 their marriage will last and then the second season is when he breaks up with his wife and then they get together and then so she was annoyed that Brittany Snow was alluding to her being a cheater because she's like there was no cheating ever involved and I don't like that. So, you know, it's a beautiful time to watch just hot people in tiny outfits selling beautiful, I like to call it real estate porn and that's what we're going to watch. It's going to be pretty juicy. Sophia Vergara got her own chihuahua. Remember I told you, I believe that the chihuahua that she originally got for herself, that then her ex-husband Joe was all over
Starting point is 00:26:31 and with at all times, I felt that that chihuahua might have been the reason for the demise of the marriage. Well, she posted that she got another one and let's hope this one loves her more than the first. And now for such a juicy interview that answers so many questions about Hollywood lawsuits, let's get into it. Hello and welcome to Juicy Scoop. I've got a real juicy one. We have attorney at law Jeff Lewis, my new favorite and forever favorite Jeff Lewis. We've had some working dealings cases together.
Starting point is 00:27:08 Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Well, we're obviously very interested in this Vanderpump Rules lawsuit that has happened. Rachel Raquel, which now the lawsuit is under the name Rachel, which I assume is because that is her legal name. I don't think she ever legally changed it to Raquel, and that's what she used when she was on the show. And since she's left the show, she went back to Rachel. Rachel filed a lawsuit.
Starting point is 00:27:34 And why don't you explain, let's start there, what exactly the lawsuit is saying. Sure. We could talk about the allegations and then we'll get into the evidence because there seems to be a little bit of a gap between the allegations and the evidence. The allegations are that a video was made without her consent of her having sex with one of the two Toms, Tom Sandoval. And having FaceTime sex on herself not with another human. Correct. Yeah. And that it was made without her consent and that it was distributed to multiple people and
Starting point is 00:28:09 Invaded her privacy violated California's revenge revenge porn laws intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc And so she's seeking unspecified amount of dollars and injunctive relief and punitive damage It's junk differently injunctive relief can be if they find that you for for example, had a copy of the video on your phone, you could be ordered to delete it. The court can try to undo all the distribution and broadcasting of this video. So just to get people up to speed, my audience knows what happened, but in case you didn't,
Starting point is 00:28:42 this all went down in about a year ago, just about a little over a year, I believe it was the end of March when this happened, where Arianna Maddux, who lived with Tom Sandoval, who was best friends at the time with Rachel, they were all on Vanderpump together, filming had stopped, and she was at his show, Arianna was at Tom's show, and his phone, either someone handed it to her while he was performing, she had access to his phone. And I guess he didn't have a passcode or she knew the passcode,
Starting point is 00:29:13 and something told her to look at his camera roll. And that's when she saw this intimate sexual video that of Raquel pleasuring herself. And that's when she knew that they were more than friends and freaked out. And so now let's get into what Rachel is saying that happened next. Yeah, well, the allegations are really broad. And by the way, she spends a lot of time talking about Bravo and Andy Cohen and hostile work environment, but they're not parties. They're not defendants. I'm not sure why they spend a lot of time
Starting point is 00:29:46 in the complaint talking about the environment. Can I ask, as non-attorney, do the attorneys decide to do that in the complaint or the lawsuit to set up maybe that they could eventually do another lawsuit against them? Is that why, to get it all out there at the same time? There's a few reasons. That's one reason. Another is to tell a complete story,
Starting point is 00:30:06 because lawyers are storytellers, to get a complete picture. Another is to, yeah, when Bravo and Andy Cohen gets a copy of this lawsuit, and you see that there are doughs in the case, that maybe they might be added to the case later. Explain what a dough is. A dough is a fictitiously named defendant. OK.
Starting point is 00:30:20 Yeah. Or it could be, this is rarely the case, but it could be they drafted it with the idea of naming Bravo and Cohen early on, that's part of the narrative. At the last minute they took Bravo and Cohen out. Nobody but her lawyers will know which of the reasons, but they go on and on with that story. Right. In that what? That she was exploited as a reality cast member. Right, yeah, exploited. They took advantage of her. They knew she was mentally hurting from this situation,
Starting point is 00:30:50 and they used it. One of the things that I saw was they said that she is also saying she didn't get a chance to tell her side of the story. And that part is confusing to me because she was invited to the reunion. She was able, she did decide to go. So I don't understand why they're saying, I mean, at any time she could have gone on
Starting point is 00:31:14 Instagram and said her story or gone on a podcast. She did eventually go on Bethany Frankel's, but she could have even gone earlier. And so do you know what her reasoning is to say that she wasn't able to speak? It's not clear now, but with this anti-SLAP motion being filed, she'll have the chance to file a declaration in response, and maybe we'll see a little bit more about her timing issues and why she did what she did. So why don't you explain what this anti-SLAP really means, and this is what Ariana Maddox's attorneys have sent into response because she's suing so she's suing Ariana and Tom
Starting point is 00:31:50 Correct. Separately and they're not working together they have their own separate counsel. Separate counsel and separate legal strategies Tom went in with what's called a demur it's a motion to dismiss the case has nothing to do with the First Amendment or anti-slAP. Anti-SLAP in California provides protection for people who are sued for speaking their mind. So people who qualify for anti-SLAP protection can file a motion dismissed very early within the first 60 days of a lawsuit. All discovery is stayed and immediately the plaintiff- Meaning discovery stayed means what?
Starting point is 00:32:25 No depositions are taken, you can't ask for documents, you can't ask written questions, all these burdensome, expensive, time-consuming activities. Okay. And in the first few months of the case, the plaintiff here, Raquel, would have to put her cards on the table and say, this is the evidence I have and this is why I should win this case. And if she doesn't have enough evidence the case gets dismissed she has to pay the attorney's fees of the person who moved moved to strike filed the anti-slap
Starting point is 00:32:52 motion okay so it's a very powerful device in First Amendment cases yeah I I do want to say I don't know if this is a big First Amendment case because although these people are in the public eye Sending a private text message between two people because the harm that's alleged here is that this video was recorded and then Ariana or Ariana sent it by text message back to Raquel like I know what's up Right not to the Guardian not to Instagram to one person And I don't know that the courts gonna find that this is enough of a public issue
Starting point is 00:33:28 that the First Amendment really applies. I'd be surprised if this anti-slap motion even got granted. So basically, Rachel is saying that all these joes, like there could be a hundred, like she thinks that it was sent to other cast members and they were seeing it that Is her belief. Yeah, she alleges two kinds of broad conduct in the complaint one that it was Recorded without her consent and two that it was distributed widely without her consent and the evidence so far now She hasn't set her side in a written declaration But the evidence so far in terms of this anti slap motion is there was one text message and that's it
Starting point is 00:34:05 And then the the videos were immediately deleted off of her phone by Tom So if that's all there is if that's the only evidence and there's nothing more This lawsuit is not going to go very far. So with But you know, so it's just she's from what I gathered is But, you know, so it's just she's, from what I gathered is Rachel saying, like, I know from other people saying, like, hey, I did see it and this person saw it and they sent it to me. And so, but it's all kind of hearsay because at this point, there's no proof to say that someone sent it and then it did get deleted, you know, seven months ago, but for one minute,
Starting point is 00:34:44 whatever, maybe some other people saw it. But it's interesting because Juicy Scoop was mentioned in Ariana's, how do you say it, complainer? Yeah, the complaint. Saying that I had Lala on and Lala was, I was asking about it because Lala did receive a email directly from an attorney, who I don't know if it's the same attorney now, but of her attorney of Raquel's, Rachel's saying, you know, that you better
Starting point is 00:35:12 not share this or anything. And that's when Lala had this like viral moment where she's like, don't send it, you know, don't send a letter to me, you can send it to Daryl, send it to Daryl. And that's her attorney. Oh, I see. And she made sure it can send it to Daryl, send it to Daryl and that's her attorney. And she made sure it's send it to Daryl. And it was just kind of like, I don't know, it just, if you were so wrapped up in the story and she was kind of funny the way she said it and she was kind of like badass, she's like, I have a little baby to take care of me, wake up to this message and da da da. And so, but that was always like, I mean,
Starting point is 00:35:41 I kind of test it in talking to Lala like right when it happened and I was like wait Is this really real and she her story was that exact story? She got she had the phone like the story has never changed as someone who heard it like within it breaking on TMZ within an hour and You know I shared as much as I was allowed to share at that time, but I was like, wow. And so then a couple, like a few weeks later, she was on my show and that was the same story that she never saw it.
Starting point is 00:36:14 She was told what happened. She told, it was told that there was this video that they were clearly having a phone, a video phone sex kind of a situation. And so I guess the question is, for the Tom element, is if you're FaceTiming each other, I guess one person can record it, the other person can record it
Starting point is 00:36:36 without it showing this is being recorded? Yeah, from a tech point of view, that's possible. Okay. Now, if you're recording someone's sound, it's illegal in California to tape somebody without their consent. On the other hand, I think there's an argument out there, maybe Tom raised it, that there was no sound, it was just video, and if that's the case, it may not have violated California's eavesdropping laws.
Starting point is 00:36:57 Oh, which is probably being that this is all such new technology, from face timing to the revenge porn to all of it that's what makes this like you're in it probably maybe there will be some precedent set in this if it goes past the slap or no it could I yeah it will go past the slap I don't I predict the anti-slap motion will be denied I predict the demur will you think it will be denied on First Amendment grounds I'm not saying this lawsuit has any merit what I am saying is this is not a First Amendment case. This was not... These videos were not put on the front page of the Washington Post. That's a First Amendment case. If you get sued for something you say on your podcast,
Starting point is 00:37:36 that's a First Amendment case. Two people exchanging a video and then it quietly being texted to somebody else. If it ended there and went no further, that's not a First Amendment case. Get to know yourself and your roots better in 2024 with AncestryDNA. Want to know where your family comes from in northern France? Maybe you'd like to see how your genes influence certain traits like diet, fitness, and allergies. There's so much of you and your heritage to discover. Visit ancestry.ca and get started with an Ancestry DNA Kit today. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies man.
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Starting point is 00:38:40 Tennessee sounds perfect. Need a great reason to get up in the morning? Well, what about two? Right now get a small organic Fairtrade coffee and a tasty bacon and egg or breakfast sandwich for only $5 at A&W's in Ontario. And so when will we know if Ariana gets this and then it's dead, right? If the judge — so one judge has to look at Ariana's complaint and decide if it's been granted or not, and then they're done, they can't go after her again?
Starting point is 00:39:17 If the judge were to grant that anti-SLAP motion and the case were dismissed, they have the right of immediate appeal. And that process takes about a year, and you go in front of three appellate justices, and they look at it. Rachel has an immediate appeal. Right, right. If the case is dismissed. If the case is not dismissed, Ariana would have the right to an immediate appeal,
Starting point is 00:39:36 have those three same appellate justices looking at the anti-SLAM motion. But that's not going to be the first thing that happens. I predict the first thing that will happen when this motion was filed is that the other side, Raquel's lawyers, have the right to ask for discovery. They can say to the court, hey, we think person A and person B and person C have cell phones, that we should have an IT guy look at those cell phones and see is the video there or have any videos been deleted around the time that these issues came up in order to properly oppose the anti-SLAP motion.
Starting point is 00:40:06 So the first battle you're gonna see is can Raquel do discovery? I mean, this is just, as someone who's followed it, this is so frustrating. Like, I can't believe that Ariana has to go through this bullshit. Like, she's doing well she's going back to Chicago she has a shoe collab she's doing all these
Starting point is 00:40:31 things and I believe she's doing it with a lot of grace and professionalism and then like I don't care you know being having gone through it I've shared with my audience how incredibly stressful it is. Even if everybody tells you you're in the right, you did nothing wrong, you'll just watch a dateline about someone who committed murder and it'll like give you anxiety. It'll make you feel like, oh my god, what, how long, or how long could this go on for? And every time there's a phone call from you or an email, it like shoots up your anxiety. It's just awful.
Starting point is 00:41:07 Yeah, but the good news is Ariana was sued in California. About half the states in the United States don't have anti-slap laws. And if she were sued in a state that didn't have an anti-slap law, she'd be going three to five years, spend half a million dollars in attorney's fees, have to go through depositions, discovery, people looking at her phone. At least this way, there is a potential shortcut, although I think the anti-slap motion will be denied. And you think it will be denied. So that's a big bummer.
Starting point is 00:41:32 Yeah. On First Amendment grounds, I'm not saying that the case has any merit. In terms of the merit, if somebody ever looks at the merit of that case, they got to see well. But you say First Amendment, but you've said it wasn't on the cover of magazines It wasn't shown on her Instagram live or something. So then why why should it continue then? Yeah, where's your damages? Where damages if if this video just went from person a to person B and that was it and it wasn't on a newspaper So what who cares now the allegations are pretty broad if The allegations are true that this was widely disseminated.
Starting point is 00:42:05 It wasn't just person A to person B, but it's out there. Well, maybe she might have some damages, but I don't think so. The problem is it's going to take a while for a judge to get to the point of assessing this question of, are there damages or not? I mean, listen, when you think about sex tapes that were seen by people, whether it was Tommy and Pamela or Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whatever, I don't know one person that says that they've seen this. I don't think there's one. It's not like all of a sudden it's on this dark
Starting point is 00:42:42 web and they're like, look, it ended up on this dark web. So somebody in this circle must have given it to somebody to put it on this crazy website. So there's no evidence that it's getting any other views by strangers at this time, right? Heather, your instinct is right. If there was such evidence, the plaintiff would have put a copy of that text message or that image
Starting point is 00:43:03 on a server in the complaint. It would have put the URL where this text message or that image on a server in the complaint. It would have put the URL where this video could be found or the date where it was transmitted. And the fact that they weren't that specific and they didn't name names suggests that maybe there's no evidence. This is a shoot first, aim second scenario where they file a lawsuit first and hope to do some discovery
Starting point is 00:43:20 and see, well, what might be on people's cell phones? Do they think that maybe somebody that will be like, all right, I just I can't like I'm so I'm so stressed and I feel like I'm an accessory to this. So here here on March, whatever here, do they think that that could maybe happen and someone come forward that, you know, is scared that they don't come forward, it'll be worse for them? If that does happen, you know, when these lawsuits get if they don't come forward, it'll be worse for them? That does happen. You know, when these lawsuits get filed,
Starting point is 00:43:46 the lawyers send out, they're called evidence preservation letters saying, hey, you were in contact with this person, received text messages around this time. Preserve your phone, make a copy of it, don't let it get dropped in the ocean. People facing that might call their own lawyer and say, well, what should I do?
Starting point is 00:44:00 Well, maybe go cut a deal, turn over your phone in exchange for an agreement and a full release, and that way it's not your problem. Oh. Yeah, it's just like a criminal case. You know, the smaller fish kind of make deals and then you go up the food chain to the bigger fish. I just feel like, unless there's like a murder involved,
Starting point is 00:44:20 isn't that a pretty big deal to try to go and see what was deleted from the cloud and all that kind of stuff in today's world? It's very expensive, very cumbersome to do that. And this whole lawsuit, by the way, just filing this lawsuit is a very expensive process. How much is it? You know, a lawyer, assuming it's not on contingency, meaning assuming she's actually paying her lawyers, it costs anywhere from a quarter million to a half a million dollars.
Starting point is 00:44:44 Well, don't you think this is a contingency? I wouldn't have taken this case on a contingency because there's no damages, right? You get paid a third of what? Well, the thing is is that these attorneys are also involved in some other Bravo-related things. So maybe it's just a whole laying the foundation for something larger. Oh yeah, I've seen cases like this where discovery from one case is used for another, etc.
Starting point is 00:45:09 So it could be strategic from that point of view, sure. I'll tell you one thing, this case brings to mind the case involving Katie Hills, a former politician in California. She had an issue with revenge porn and her ex, I don't know if it was a boyfriend or a husband, but her ex put video images out there and they were put on a newspaper and she sued the newspaper and her ex for revenge porn, a violation of California's revenge porn law. The court looked at it and an anti-SLAP motion was filed by the newspaper saying, this is our First Amendment right to publish this.
Starting point is 00:45:41 Normally under the revenge law, this lawsuit would have been able to survive the anti-slap but there's a little portion of the revenge law that says hey if this is a matter of public concern if there's a matter of public interest people have a right to have this posted on the internet and your anti-slap motion can be granted and the case can be dismissed and that's what happened to Katie Hill at the end of the day, her revenge porn was put in the newspaper. The newspaper filed an anti-slap motion,
Starting point is 00:46:10 got the case dismissed. She had to write a check to the newspaper for attorney's fees and the case was over. I bring that up because I wonder if a reality star, if there's enough public concern or public interest in the contents of these tapes, that maybe a similar argument could be raised. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:27 Well, normally they film in the summer. Okay. And now they've been put on pause. Okay. The show. Now a lot of people think it's because one, Ariana, who's obviously was never, was always a regular cast member, but really was not, kind of was under the radar
Starting point is 00:46:43 for many years as just Tom's girlfriend and a pretty girl that was gonna have a couple fun moments, but not big storylines. And she is, I think doing, she's hosting like Love Island. She's going back and doing a month of Chicago in New York as the star of Chicago. So people think, is that why they're holding off on it? Also Lala, one of the other stars,
Starting point is 00:47:05 is pregnant with her second child. She's due in September, so they wonder if that's the reason. Now I'm thinking this could be the reason to see if this goes away, because maybe they don't want this to be a storyline, but how could they not discuss it? I mean, this is a huge part of your life.
Starting point is 00:47:20 And will there be a moment where Tom and Ariana in some way not come together legally but come together as like I can't believe we you know right I can't believe this is the triangle that we're now in is the mistress is coming after both of us you know it's absolutely gonna be brought up I mean can you imagine the reality housewife shows not discussing Tom Girardi and the proceeding against Tom Girardi, you couldn't, it's the elephant in the room. Right. So maybe that's, yeah, it's very interesting. The other part was they always normally film in the summer, but then there was, you know, a little bit of a scheduling difference because of the scandal of last year. But yeah, I mean, that,
Starting point is 00:48:04 it's just interesting because like she went away, people, yeah, she got a lot of hate for it. She did. Rachel. Then she went away and then she did Bethany Frankel's podcast, which I did not think she was ready to do in my opinion. I don't think she came off humble or changed or and I always said I'm like she should come back with like guys this is how you know this is how to happen I can't believe I did this now I want to talk to other men and women that were in a deceptive affair hurting a person not only having an affair with someone who's married but knowing knowing the partner, something like that, and then talk about it. And maybe then some people would see some forgiveness or whatever. But she didn't do that. She went and started her own podcast and is now just
Starting point is 00:48:54 kind of rewriting history, reviewing the show like everybody else. And she's still in, you know, she's still very relevant because we're talking about her because of her podcast of this, you know, but as far as like, like trying to rebuild a reputation as someone is like, Hey, I did a really bad thing, but I'm a different person now. I feel like this lawsuit completely ruins that with, with the public. Well, yeah, your gut instincts, right in front, in terms of PR, but also keep this in mind. Her reputation is terrible. And in court, she's going to say, my reputation was harmed.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Well, your reputation was terrible because of what she did, not because of this tape. And I don't know how a plaintiff's attorney can rehabilitate that and ask a jury for damages. I mean, what's interesting is someone who's covered it a lot. We, the, the, the discovery of, of Ariana having hardcore evidence with her eyeballs that there was something going on, which is this, this small video, um, this intimate sexual video,
Starting point is 00:50:00 that's like the littlest part of what was discussed. I'm just thinking about that now at the reunion and everything else. It was really just, oh my God, you know, there was a scene where we know that she was months deep into sleeping with Tom behind Ariana's back. And there's a scene where the cameras are there and she's like, how's everything going with Tom? Is your sex life getting better? And it's moments like that that just made women go, oh my God, because women came out and be like, and they would say, my sister, my best friend
Starting point is 00:50:35 was having an affair with my man and then acting like a friend counseling me. And so people go, why was this such a big story? Reality stars have cheated in the past, but it's been like with a one night stand or with an outside person, it was never within the cast with this deep, deep history of friendship and stuff. And I think that's what got people talking. But the people were not going,
Starting point is 00:51:00 Oh my God, can you believe that she filmed herself having a little phone sex with her man? Like that wasn't really a big deal No, that's not the story And that wasn't what hurt her reputation when her reputation was she had an affair with someone who was her friend's man That's it If she had an affair with some other guy because there's other cast members who had Affairs with with men who were married at the time in the past.
Starting point is 00:51:25 And they throw that in those cast members faces like Sheena and Lala. But it's completely different because they didn't know those women. Those women weren't part of the cast. They were told by these men that the marriage was over or it wasn't what they thought or they were going through the divorce, whatever. She was well aware that this was a couple, the girl was freezing her eggs to have kids with him. They own the home together.
Starting point is 00:51:46 Like, there wasn't any like, oh my God, this guy said he was, you know, one month from his divorce being final, which a lot of men do. And a lot of women are blindsided when they, you know, because of course divorce takes a long time. Do we really expect everybody who's going through a divorce to be a choir boy until an altar boy until it's time to? So that's not weird to be dating someone who's legally married or whatever and they can tell you stuff.
Starting point is 00:52:09 So that is what it was. So I'm just thinking like really it's really not about this stupid video which so many people send nudes and things that in this day and age it's just like I mean it's just not a big deal. It's not like we thought of her as a harlot, you know, a harlotin or whatever, because she did that. Right, absolutely. No, the story's a little broader. It's about betrayal. It's about friendships.
Starting point is 00:52:35 It's about everything that went on before that video was shared. Right, yeah, exactly. And so, so now she just awaits and sees. So when does, so the decision has to be made whether it's accepted and dismissed or she has to do the three appellate thing pretty soon? I would expect a ruling on either Tom Stammer or her anti-slap motion to happen within the next six months. And then no matter who wins or loses, you can expect an appeal. The loser
Starting point is 00:53:04 of an anti-slap motion always appeals to get a better result from the court of appeal. The other thing is, Tom Sandoval is not the beacon of morality or whatever. But one thing I am on his side about is that, this is a 28 year old woman who knew Tom for six or seven years she'd been on the show as another guy's girlfriend and then fiance. And yes, did I think she was
Starting point is 00:53:33 manipulated the way one person can manipulate a partner, whether that's a girl to a guy or guy to a girl? Anyone can lie, anyone can try to make you feel like there's something more going on or less going on or whatever. But throwing the word around like grooming, like I was groomed, I think is ridiculous and I think that's unfair to true children. I feel like the word should be only used for children. It's emotionally charged and politically charged term that needs to be reserved for appropriate circumstances. Yeah, it wasn't a 39-year-old guy with a 28-year-old woman who was having an affair while they're filming a reality show in the jacuzzi.
Starting point is 00:54:16 And, you know, like, yeah, that was all bad, but it wasn't. It's not like. And the thing is, the other part is that I think kind of is helping Tom's Reputation and maybe people wanting to forgive him is that He really did care about her he actually wanted it to continue he wanted her to get out of the a rehabilitation place and continue a relationship with him so it wasn't like he just used her for a storyline or used her and threw her away and then afterwards she
Starting point is 00:54:50 was like what I thought you said we're gonna be together it was the opposite she dumped him. Wow yeah it's another another aspect of the tragedy which makes the public interested in this. Yeah. And think about this you're talking about how retrospectively people were looking at her questions about hey how, how's your sex life? And at the time that conversation didn't mean anything. Right. Think about all the hours and hours and hours of Bravo unaired footage that might now be relevant to some of the backstory here preceding that tape and how discovering depositions about that footage might bring other issues to light that we haven't seen. Right, that could either benefit Rachel or Tom or Ariana. And so it may be that is why Rachel's attorneys
Starting point is 00:55:32 are throwing the Bravo and the Andy to maybe make them nervous. Is there any world in which legally that being just named, Bravo being named in there, but not a defendant, that they could pick up the phone, NBCUniversal, and say to Rachel's attorney, for the sake of everybody involved, two of our cast members, Rachel's mental health, everyone wanting to move on,
Starting point is 00:56:02 we would like to offer whatever, $300,000 to Rachel to dismiss this herself. Is it too late to do that? Is that something that someone could do? It's theoretically possible. I imagine the folks at NBC would be hesitant to open the doors towards liability in other situations because these settlements always get out.
Starting point is 00:56:21 They're never confidential, they're never private. So NBC would then be opening, and Bravo would be opening themselves up to other situations and other lawsuits on all their shows. So I don't think it's likely that that kind of scenario will happen. But I will say this, the moment NBC and their lawyers saw the complaint and saw all the references
Starting point is 00:56:37 to Cohen and Bravo, they immediately had a duty to start preserving all of that footage and anything, text messages and all of the computer data about the show. Between producers and talent and everything, yeah. Yeah, so there's gonna be a financial impact NBC and Bravo and Cohen, even if they're never sued. Just in terms of the evidence preservation,
Starting point is 00:57:00 I'm sure they're gonna be deposed. I wouldn't be surprised if Cohen's not deposed. And what would Cohen have to say? He wasn't a producer. I could see a producer being deposed, but why would Andy Cohen have to as just someone who ran, did, you know, interviews on Watch What Happens Live and did the reunion? Well, the ability to do discovery in California is very broad. You can, you don't have to have a specific reason to depose someone if you just have a plausible reason.
Starting point is 00:57:27 And who knows, maybe there'll be something found on these unaired tapes that will potentially impact a communication or a video involving Cohen. I'm not suggesting he did anything wrong, but that he might be a witness to something. So, you know, speaking of which, the night of discovery of the cheating happened when Sheena Shea and Rachel, who were also acting like best buddies on Watch What Happened Live,
Starting point is 00:57:53 Annie Cohen's TV show, they were on the show that night. Then afterwards they were at a bar in New York. That is when Rachel said to Sheena very nonchalantly, oh, Ariana just found out, anyway, I forgot to tell you I've been having an affair with Tom Sandoval for seven months. And that's when Sheena was just so like, wait, what? And got very upset with Rachel. And then Rachel went on to say
Starting point is 00:58:19 that she physically scratched her and she threatened to have a restraining order and all this stuff. But then the day that Sheena showed up in Van Nuys Court to defend herself so that that restraining order would not be granted and she wouldn't have that on her record, Rachel then decided not to show up. Oh, okay, interesting. And nobody, there was no witnesses or whatever.
Starting point is 00:58:48 I mean, in this alley of where they had this argument, was there a, you know, camera in an alley? Probably, but this is eight months later. So unless they asked for it that day, and again, it wasn't like someone got murdered. And now my other question is, because you talk about the California thing. So the fact that Rachel was physically in New York City when Ariana texted her from California, does
Starting point is 00:59:16 that matter at all? That then if she sent the video from her phone in California to a person physically in New York to her phone in New York Does that not matter because the phone was originally bought and set up in California or does it matter where you are when you receive it? Let me give you a lawyer answer. Yes As long as one of the phones was in California or as long as one of the defendants lived in California Okay, there's a good-faith argument to bring the case in California. Now, New York has a pretty robust anti-slap law. As well?
Starting point is 00:59:47 As well. Similar? As well. Keep in mind, lawyers will jockey for different states depending on the strength of anti-slap laws. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, that case was filed in Virginia. At the time, they had a very weak anti-slap law. But how did they get Virginia then? Washington Post has a connection. I'm not sure if their corporation is domiciled there. And they were the ones that published her op-ed.
Starting point is 01:00:17 So that's why, by the way, I'm a big fan of this proposal in Congress sitting around to make a national anti-slap law so that everybody has this protection. There's a proposal in Congress sitting around to make a national anti-slap law so that everybody has this protection. There's a little less gamesmanship with lawyers trying to pick which state to file in. Right. And so, and then the other big thing about suing for defamation, that somebody said on a podcast, let's say, you know, you're a liar, you're an awful person, you're a thief, whatever, something like that. Someone says something like that and then someone would be like, oh my God, they said this lie about you, you should sue for defamation. It's my knowledge that first of all, that's
Starting point is 01:00:57 a lot of effort and work, but also I would have to prove that because that person said that lie about me, I lost a $1 million deal selling jeans. And I was just about to do a jean deal and then this came out and they wrote, due to this, we don't wanna do your denim deal with you. And then that would be proof enough that I absolutely lost a job because of a lie that was said. Yeah, and you could probably prove the loss,
Starting point is 01:01:21 but it's the causation part that's hard to prove that you lost that particular deal because of that particular comment. But the harder thing is, look, you're famous. Public figures have a higher burden of proof when going to court and suing for defamation. You got to prove that the person who said something bad about you at the time they said the statement knew what they were saying was false or had reckless disregard as to whether it was false. And it's really hard to crawl inside someone's head
Starting point is 01:01:46 and figure out, you know, nobody writes a memo saying, I don't believe what I'm saying about Heather MacDonald. So that's the biggest, it's called actual malice. There's New York Times Sullivan case. And that's the biggest barrier to famous people filing defamation lawsuits. And so speaking of which, I just thought of another thing that just came up this week.
Starting point is 01:02:05 Have you heard of the documentary Quiet On Set? Yes. Okay, so, you know, Dan Schneider was a big producer on that Nickelodeon show. And the gist of it is mostly about Drake Bell, who was a victim of, you know, sexual assault molestation from his acting teacher who was employed by Nickelodeon and that whole thing. But there were other accounts saying of how Dan Schneider ran his room as a showrunner. Nobody's accusing him of anything like I was molested by. Nobody's saying that. But they shared their stories about him as a producer
Starting point is 01:02:45 in the kind of room that he ran, and that it was toxic or odd or whatever, lots of sexual innuendos and stuff on the show. He then did a 16 minute video saying, I apologize, I'm sorry that this ever happened, if people felt this way, whatever. He has now filed a defamation lawsuit. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 01:03:04 Saying that he felt it was a hit piece against him. Wow. And so a lot of the comments under that story were like, well, now the people that were holding back, they might get- Here they come. They might get deposed by the production company to have to say, hey, I worked for him and these five weird, awful things happened.
Starting point is 01:03:24 Because a lot of those people, I had one of the writers on my show, and she was featured on the show, Christy Stratton. And she was still so terrified just in speaking about her own experience. But all these other writers didn't go on the documentary out of fear of the retaliation that Dan Schneider would do for them. So now they might be like, fuck it, you know what, I'm going to tell everything. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:03:51 And by the way, you know, I kind of poo-pooed the anti-slap motion in this case. If that Netflix case involves a complaint for defamation against Netflix, you can... I think they were on Discovery. Oh, on Discovery. Discovery Network, yeah. You can 100% guarantee there'll be an anti-SLAP motion, because that is a First Amendment issue. When you put on a documentary about harmful conduct
Starting point is 01:04:10 to kids, that's in the public interest. So the people who filed that lawsuit will have to prove probably actual malice. They've got to prove damages. They've got to prove a lot of things to get past an anti-SLAP motion. Right. So before we wrap up, we had our own case that
Starting point is 01:04:27 you wanted, that you helped us out with. And I'll just explain it and then we can tell what happened. Okay. So I'm good friends with Josh Flagg, who is a member of Million Dollar Listing. And this was shortly after like January 6, COVID time, whatever, around then. I can't remember what happened first or whatever, but he was kind of doing a lot of like man on the street type of stuff. And he saw that there was like this patriotic kind of anti-vaxxer situation happening in Beverly Hills. And so he went and he like interviewed this woman and then he was like, well, you know,
Starting point is 01:05:10 come on, come in my backyard and I'll interview. So he does an interview with her again. And then he, it gets revealed that she was arrested for being part of the January 6th insurrection. Not just arrested, let me just interject here. If you were at home watching this on TV, you saw a woman with mascara running after tear gas. She was, for me, the face of J6 in the sense
Starting point is 01:05:33 that she was on every TV station with that image. So that was discovered after he did this interview with her. And so then he comes on my show and I go, wait a minute, what was that, you did that crazy interview with that woman, what happened? And he goes, oh my gosh, I found out later that she was arrested in connection with being there on January 6th.
Starting point is 01:05:59 And then he jokingly said, I was harboring, little did I know I was harboring a terrorist in my backyard joking. And so we're like, oh, I never remember saying her name or anything. And then she sued me. TMZ, Harvey Levin, Josh, a whole bunch of other folks for defamation and all sorts of crazy legal theories. And so then what happened once we handed it to you? Fortunately, you live in California.
Starting point is 01:06:30 Yeah. You called me and we filed an anti-slap motion. She put up what evidence she could. She didn't have any. First of all, the claims were time barred. Second of all, you didn't say anything false. What does time barred mean? You got one year to sue for defamation.
Starting point is 01:06:44 Oh, okay. One year from when the words were said and she sued you well after a year. But also you didn't say anything false. You didn't commit defamation. And it was a newsworthy topic. And so the case was dismissed and the court ordered her to pay all of your attorney's fees and now she's still on house arrest waiting for her criminal trial date. I took her deposition. She showed up with an ankle bracelet, one of those home monitoring things. I've never seen one of
Starting point is 01:07:10 those before. And by the way, nice woman, genuinely believes in her cause, but she had no business suing you. Yeah, I just think people need to know when you do that or when an attorney might be talked to into it or takes your case, that there are some real repercussions of doing this. It's a reckless thing to do, to sue someone for the sake of suing someone. Some people I think love it and it's fun for them. And it's like, that's why I like this law, because it's not fun when you're unrightfully sued for something.
Starting point is 01:07:48 It's a horrible, horrible nightmare that can be like really debilitating for people. It's stressful, it's drain on your energy, and you still have to pay some money while you're waiting for the rightful outcome. And there's always the idea, you never know if you'll get a judge who doesn't know the law, and you might lose.
Starting point is 01:08:04 But there are consequences, at least in California for Aiming first or shooting first and aiming second and filing a lawsuit that you have no business filing That's a good Gina's lawyer should have taken our side and said yeah, this is the one of the January 6. Yeah Yeah, Gina's lawyer should have taken our sides. This is awful. What happened to you? Yeah, Heather's a bad person But we're not gonna file this lawsuit. You can't sue someone for saying something on a podcast. That's what should happen. Right. Very interesting. As podcasts become more and more popular, it's just interesting where then sometimes when podcasters are like, I'm going to do it. I'm like, listen, we want to have First Amendment rights here. We all want to talk about things as we can. And yes, say allegedly before, and show the reference and all of that, which I try to
Starting point is 01:08:54 do more and more. But we don't want this to be a place where no one can say anything out of fear of like, oh, you said I was mean at a party or whatever. Yeah. Lawsuits are a terrible remedy for mean thoughts and mean statements. Instead, start your own podcast and say the truth and let the ideas fight it out in the arena of public opinion rather than hiring a lawyer to file a lawsuit. Right. And then just like how so many of these things now come up because of the internet and anonymous people that write things on blind items, Twitter, you know, all these anonymous things. And then it gets out, oh, we, you know, oh, it's all the internet that your husband's cheating.
Starting point is 01:09:37 And they they either plant it or they wait, you know, for then the cameras to be there. And then they could go, oh look, I just opened up Twitter or X or whatever and there's this person saying, Jojo295, that so-and-so's husband is rumored to be a cheater and then that becomes a storyline and that's the other thing you have to realize when you accept to be on the show.
Starting point is 01:10:03 Right. That there can be these other elements that it's not just how you behave at a party that can be used against you or what you say in your home to your wife while having coffee. It can be all these other elements that then the other cast members then talk about these fake stories and rumors, which would have died without the show. Well, no one would know who you are. But also without the show, it would have just died on that small person's platform.
Starting point is 01:10:31 You know? Yeah. I mean, I know it's your audience, but you got to be crazy to sign up for one of these shows if you value your privacy. Everything is on the table, including innuendo, stuff that has no basis in fact. Right. Yeah. Very interesting. Tell everybody where they can find
Starting point is 01:10:45 you if they need legal help in any way. Yeah, my name's Jeff Lewis. I don't flip houses. They can find me at jefflewislaw.com. Perfect. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games,
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