LadyGang - LG Quickie: Loren Ridinger

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

In this deeply moving episode, the extraordinary CEO, entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling author Loren Ridinger joins the Ladygang to share her powerful journey through love, loss and healing. Following the sudden passing of her husband, the legendary J.R. Ridinger, Loren opens up about navigating grief, finding strength for her family, and embracing the messy, beautiful path of rebuilding her life. Drawing from her new book, Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up, she offers heartfelt stories and hard-won wisdom. In a touching exchange, Becca shares her own experience with loss, creating a beautiful moment of connection as she and Loren reflect on the signs they’ve received from loved ones who’ve passed. Raw, real, and full of heart, this episode is a powerful reminder that even in our darkest moments, there’s the promise of healing. Keep the tissues nearby…this one’s going to hit you right in the feels.We have deals for YOU!!Good Wipes: Get your first pack of Good Wipes FOR FREE! Buy any package, text your receipt, and get reimbursed! More info at GoodWipes.com/ladygangTropcial Smoothie Cafe: Smoothies and beachside bites made just for you! Earn rewards with the Tropical Smoothie Cafe® App! Learn more at TropicalSmoothieCafe.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time for a quickie podcast. One presents the Lady Gang, the Hollywood girl posse with Lady Gang Quickie. Here's Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin and Jack Vanek. Let's make this quick. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Lady Gang Quickie. I'm Becky here with Jack and Kelty, and we have a really special guest today. A little treat for the Lady Gang. Kelty, give us a little intro. You know, we love a book here at Lady Gang, And this is a trigger warning for this episode. We might be in the sads a little bit, but we're very excited to welcome visionary philanthropist, global influencer, New York Times bestseller, co-founder and CEO of Market America and Shop.com.

This woman launched multiple brands, beauty, personal care, everything you've ever used and had the life of your dreams until a sudden tragedy happened. She lost her husband, and she is here to talk today about a very hard topic, grief. Between the dashes, as they call it in the book. The author of Scrambled or Sunny Side Up. Please welcome New York Times bestselling author, Lauren Ridinger. Hi, Gorgeous. Welcome.

Hi, Gorgeous girls. You guys look all beautiful. You look beautiful for talking about something so sad. Yeah. You know, I try, it's the funny thing about all this is that I've had to force myself every day to get up no matter what and get dressed and be presentable because otherwise it'd be real easy to hide away. So in the lady gang, we have a couple different groups within our community. One of them is the lady gang grief group. And it's, and when you go in there, it's, it's actually a really beautiful thing because women that have gone through huge losses or have

had big tragedies. They support each other and they just allow each other to feel sad. I would love to start by talking about a little bit where this book begins for you and what you've been through in your life. And then we'll get into the skills and what you've learned. Yeah, I think, well, the beginning was just probably the hardest time in my life. You know, I just really had to, you know, there's a different Lauren from the start of the book and a different Lauren from the end of the book, no doubt. You know, I miss the Lauren before the book. It's funny because we become different people. I don't think anybody really understands that. I don't think there's an end to grief. I don't think there's a way that I'll ever have

a solution for anyone and vice versa for grief. I think it's something that you just learn to live with and you become this different person and you embrace it because you know it means that you loved. And I've had to look at it in so many different ways to accept it for what it is, but really it's a hard thing to accept. So your husband and you were married for how long? 36 years. 36 years. You were like 18 years old when you met. Yeah. I was mad in love with him from day one. I fell madly in love with him. He was, you know, 18 years older than me, had nothing to offer, you know, not, not a car, not even an apartment, not couldn't even afford to take me to dinner. I just thought something was really special

about him. And I had never dated anyone older. I only had one boyfriend before him. And I was, I fell mad in love with him overnight. And he took me in my second date. He took me to a cemetery and he said, get out of the car, get out of the car. And I was like, what is going on? I'm either dating a lunatic and a psychopath and it's over for me here, or this could be the greatest experience of my life. And I was 18. I was in North Carolina and I was living my best life too. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was just enjoying getting out of the house. And he said, get out of the car, pick any one of these tombstones. What do you tell me about it? What do you see it's in common? I was like, I don't know. I was scared to talk. And he's like,

you see that, the line between the birth date and the death date? And I said, yeah. He said, that's the dash. And if you're going to be with me, we're going to do something with it. And I remember thinking I'm, I've fallen in love with this guy at this moment. It changed my life in that second. And, uh, it was, it was a remarkable journey. Yes. How many years out are you from him passing? Two and a half now. Yeah. Two and a half. So it's been, you know, this journey of trying to figure at who you are and what you are and where you go from here. And you realize like all the things you've worked your whole life for, like, you know, we had no money. We built this incredible empire,

had a life that people would only dream about. And you realize at the end of it all, money doesn't matter at all. Won't, won't bring you any happiness. It won't, you know, people's lives go on. Time keeps going. Time doesn't heal anything because it's just an emotion. You know, I mean, it's just a thing. It's not an emotion. It has no feeling. You realize you're left in this circle that you're stuck in and you don't know how to get out of it and you don't know how to heal from it. I went to five different therapists. I fired all of them. I really struggled. I really struggled. You know, my daughter, it wasn't until that my daughter, I heard an interview that my daughter did when somebody asked her how her mom was doing and how was she doing without her dad?

And she said, I didn't just lose my dad. I lost my mom, too. And that was enough to break me, you know, because I just, you know, my whole life I lived for J.R. and Amber and those three grandchildren that we have. And so it was just turned my life upside down. You know, it was the first time we were going away and we had not been ever apart without the children. We had been fortunate our whole life that Amber wanted to be around us. you know Jera had this philosophy in life right like you can have your kids come visit you at holidays they'll come visit you around a you know a hospital bed when you're dying or we can choose

to have them work with us and choose to spend time with them and they can choose to be with us because they want to be with us not because they have to because they're we're their parents and and so we chose that life of being with our kids all the time regardless of what we were doing that became first and foremost in his life and my life. And, you know, we never took a trip without the kids. And this particular time was the first time he had written me October 17, 2021, and wrote me a note and put it on my bedside, as he often would when he thought I was too busy to pay attention. And he wrote to JR from JR, which is his way of saying this is to you, Lauren. but read it when you can. And it said, I want you to go away with me right now.

And N-O-W was underlined. And he said, I don't know how much time we have left. And if we run out of time, what difference will it make? We've given our life to people for 36 years. We've built an empire. We don't need any more. It won't matter anymore what we do. But if we don't have each other what do we have left let's go do it let's go live the final chapter out together go charter a boat wherever we want sail you know his he loved boats i wasn't a big boat person i did it and he was like let's go sail the med and i wrote him back and i said give me till august of 2022 give me all this because it was our company's 30th convention right and i said jay i don't know if we'll ever have another one if we'll ever see another one i don't know if we'll ever be you

know we'll be young enough to ever see it so i want to make it big and i want to put my energy into this myself and i want you know pull out all the stops and he's like all right but august we're going away right after it's done and we did we had uh you know jennifer lopez's and ben's wedding which we all know how that turned out right after and then we we got a private plane we went to Croatia, which was interestingly enough, a place on his bucket list. I don't know why. I never had the desire to go, but he had been hounding me for years. And I said, okay, we'll go there. I chartered a yacht. And I remember I have the video of him on the plane. And he said, I can't believe you made this happen. And we lasted three days and he walked by me and took

a deep breath. And I said, why are you sounding like that? Why do you, why are you making a noise like that? Why are you holding your breath? They said, I'm fine. Stay here. And I was like, you know, I'm in charge of my house. You know, I'm the boss. But this moment I wasn't, there was times when Jared would comment that you knew, leave me alone. Just let me have my thing. And so he's like, give me a moment, stay here. And I didn't know that that was his final breath, that he had a pulmonary embolism in that moment and never recovered, just passed out and died on that yacht on our first vacation, you know, in years since before COVID and without the children for the first time. And oddly enough, he had been quiet those first three days. It's almost like he had

some sense or somebody comes to you, like if you've ever seen the movie, I just recently saw it with Brad Pitt and, and Anthony Hopkins, gosh, it's just left my, my mind, but it's almost like somebody comes to you and tells you, Hey, wrap it up. And he was very quiet. He had woke up that morning and said, I want to let you know, you've made me the happiest person on earth. And that was a very unusual statement for Jared, because Jared could tell me he loved me a million times,

But happy was something that I never know if somebody who has an appetite for, when I say success, Jared didn't have an appetite for money. I don't want to give that impression. He actually had an appetite to help other people succeed. And he was never fully satisfied unless he could help one more person. And I just, when he, I used to wonder, like, is it ever get, do you ever get full? Are we ever going to just stop working? Are we ever going to chill out? and he just woke up that morning. He said, if you've ever wondered, I want to let you know,

you've made me the happiest person on earth. And I was like, why are you saying that? Stop saying that. Don't say that. I don't want you to say that. I don't like the way you're saying that and why you're saying it. And he said, well, I just want you to know that. So what you've made me happiest person on earth too. And you know, it was like four hours later, I lost him. The book, it's been such a short, you know, it's been a short amount of time. did you feel like going in to write the book was very cathartic or did you were you just like so broken that you're like well I may as well write this down like where did the it seems like taking on something like writing a book I was angry I was really angry I was angry at myself for putting

it off I was angry at myself for because we included the kids and everything that you know always waiting to make sure the kids' schedule were worked through. Amber's grown. Her three children, you know, she had her own life, but I always made sure because, you know, we'd always done that, that her schedule lined up with theirs. And, you know, I waited on several times he wanted to go away when he would say, well, if they can't come, forget it, Lauren, let's go anyway. I would be like, no, let's just move it to another time. I had put off too many trips, too many things for Lauren and JR. Um, and you know, he never got upset with me over it. He would just say, okay, we'll do it. And so, you know, I didn't expect our clock to expire. You

know, I didn't run out of time and I was angry and I was really dealing with this person I didn't like right then, you know, I really disliked myself during grief and I, and I still have moments like that. But I've worked so hard on myself to get through the anger and the upset and really worked on it myself and realized that there is no magic formula for this and that you will have to suffer. You will have to go through pain. You will. You know, I lost my mom and dad at a very young age. I knew grief. I lost my mom, who was my best friend at 21 years old. I felt I had been robbed then. So to lose JR, somebody I'd lived my whole life with for 36 years, I knew him longer than my mom, no longer than my dad. We had nothing. And we did it all together. He'd done

anything for me and I would have done anything for him. So to, to lose him without, you know, taking an account, I was mad. He had written me the letters that he was like, okay, it's time for us now. It was almost like somebody had given him notification. Like it's time for us to lock it down, Lauren. We need to go do something together because we've done all this our whole life and now we got to enjoy. And I was like, okay, six more months, you know, wait six more months. I was mad. I was really mad at myself. Is that the lesson then? Like if you, I mean, I think it's annoying that we've talked about this a little bit, Becca, before too, is like, everyone's like, well, what did you learn? And what do you want to tell people about it? Like sometimes you just kind of want to

be able to just be sad. There's a couple lessons in it. You know, the book was called Scrambled or Sunny Side Up because every day JR would ask me, should I have my eggs scrambled or sunny side up? And every day I'd wake up and I'd say, Jesus Christ, it's your damn eggs. I don't know. But you know, the first 10 years of your relationship, I was like, have them sunny side up or have them scrambled today, baby. Whatever you want, I'll get them for you. And as time went on, you know, when you get more and more busy, it's kind of like you're a pain in the ass. Why are you asking me how you should have your eggs. I'm not even eating eggs. I got pissed off. And instead of getting, I didn't realize that was his love language. I didn't realize it was no different

than me picking out the shoes for him, the shirt for him. I missed it. I damn got so busy with our life that building what we were building that I missed that that was part of his love language. That the communication like that, that I would take care of him, pick the eggs for him, pick the shirt for him make sure his shoes met you know he loved to match his shoes to his shirt to make sure everything was perfect i didn't realize that was his love language because mine was different and i learned that the hard way i didn't why couldn't i just wake up and say have scrambled in it baby you know that i was a bitch about it and so it really it i had to really learned to forgive myself for that and I that's a big lesson for me like pay attention to

the signs of what the love languages are they're not always the same we don't communicate the same and I didn't ever see that because our marriage was so great the way it was I thought and he thought and we were great that way but I missed the things that were so the little things that were important even though he would say oh they don't matter to me they matter if they matter to him. And, and, and also I think not putting things off, you know, not putting things off that he wanted to do. Not, you know, J.R. was a work hard, play hard type of guy. He would go in hard. You know, he was the guy who could work, you know, and we could do a seven day speaking tour, but then he could go on a 24 hour party binge, you know, he'd be like a rock star. And I'd be like, Jesus, I can't

keep up with you. You know, I'm going to, cause I always thought I would die. Everybody thought that I would go before Jared, even though he was older. Jared was a lunatic. His parents lived till a hundred. He should have lived till a hundred. And he had a, you know, a bad knee from a sports injury. And that's where that blood clot he had gotten from the vaccine was hiding. And he got in that final booster and he had asked me, why don't you get the booster? I said, I don't even know why you're getting the booster. Why are you getting the booster? I've had COVID five times. And he said, well, I'm doing it because I never got it. And, you know, I would get COVID so many times.

And he would say, I would say, Jared, just stay away from me. I'm going to stay in the guest house. And I'd wake up and he'd be in the bed with me, you know. And, you know, that's the type of love that he had for me. So, and I loved him that way. But I was, you know, managing so many things in the house and managing so many things at work that I let that consume my frustration sometimes. Did that make sense at all? like sometimes you get frustrated. You're doing a million things at once. You're managing,

helping them manage a business, managing the people at the house, managing all the things you have. And all of a sudden you realize you don't want all these things. And at the end of the day, after I lost him, I didn't want all the things anymore because I felt like it was part of the part that stole my time from him. You know, part of the things that took away my time were the things that consumed it. And so you worked your whole life to have all these beautiful things, but yet you don't really want them at the end of life because they actually consume your being. And I, I just, uh, that's very powerful. It's a powerful statement because, you know, I'm going through it right now. We sold, my husband bought me this beautiful country home

in Greenwich, Connecticut in 2018. And I'm selling it on Saturday. I close on Saturday and my kids were devastated. So Mimi, why would you do that? My daughter was like, why would you do that? You know, you don't need the money. And I said, it's not about the money. is about my peace of mind now. I let it rob our peace. You know, the moments that we could have had to go travel, to be free, to do the things I was consumed with,

making sure this was fixed, making sure that was fixed, making sure everything was okay with the business. And at the end of the day, I've learned that those are the things that are not really worth it, that it less is more. So we could do more.

And I missed it. I missed it. I missed it. Sure, we had great times, but I missed the final part he wanted to do. Well, I think it's really interesting because a lot of times I read those articles that are like, here's what people said on their deathbed about like the secret to life and what you should focus on. And it's such an interesting perspective from you in this book, because you have all of those moments because you're living in real time, but you're living at almost a younger age where you can give that advice that almost deathbed advice because you have, does that make sense? It's like, Oh, it definitely makes sense. And I think it's, it's such a hard thing for people to grasp because you have so much yet you don't want it all. You just want to have some sense of peace again. The Lady Gang.

So Serena Williams wrote the foreword for this book, No Big Deal, and also convinced you to try group therapy, which sounds like a nightmare to me. I like my therapist to know my psychosis one-on-one. Um, how, what did you realize in group therapy and why did it help? I mean, our mission here at Lady Gang is how do we turn your story into something that brings everyone some comfort today? So I was struggling, you know, nobody told me that when you lose, when I lost my mom and dad, I'd never, I felt when I, I wasn't even close that close with my dad. I felt like it was an end of an era. You're, you kind of lost an orphan, like, where do I belong?

I lost my parents. but when I lost air, I, I was in charge, always running things, speaking on stages everywhere. And all of a sudden my confidence was gone overnight. I felt like I could never speak again. I could never succeed again. I couldn't run this company. How would I do this? Even though we had done it together for so many years, I went to all these group therapy, I mean, these individual therapists and all they kept telling me was time will heal all and you can date again. And, you know, I was just saying, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired. And then I, Serena to send me a passage. And in that passage, every day she would send me a passage. And in that

passage was an advertisement for group therapy in Miami. And I went and I, you know, almost didn't walk in. You know, I saw these like eight women sitting in the room and I thought, I'm just not like any of those people. And you know, when you're going through grief, you think you're the one who's dealing with it the hardest. You don't think about somebody else's pain. And so I went in there and I listened to all these women talk about how they each love their husband on different levels, some more than the others. And none who I felt ever loved their husband as much as I did, which is expected. That's how people are about their relationships. But I heard something that I'd not heard before. It's something I wasn't encountering. They were all going through it.

They were all suffering. Many of them were suffering the same way I was. Some of them were suffering less. They were going through like a separation and, you know, they were struggling that they had not come to peace with their relationship yet. But all of them except me were in there and they were struggling how they were going to make their, pay their bills again, how they were going to send their kids to school, how they were going to make a mortgage payment. And it hit me like right between the eyes. And it was like, I don't have to worry about that. And I can't imagine what it would be like to be in the pain that I was in and to have to worry about going to get a job, putting my kid through school, how I was going to make the light bill. And I like a light bulb switched in my head and said, I will go back and I found my why again, I will go back and spend my life helping people have another way, a plan B, if they need to make extra money, teach them how to do it, go teach people how to become entrepreneurs, which is what I'd done my whole life anyway.

and it's funny that it came back 360 full circle, but it was like a light bulb moment for me. And I called Serena when I got out and I was like, you won't believe what just happened. And she said, I just wanted you to find one thing, just one thing, whatever it was. And that's what I needed to find out. And then I realized in that moment when I got home that, you know,

my husband had planned his whole life, even though we never had anything when we first started dating, He had planned and put away our whole life that I would never have to suffer or my kids for the rest of their lives. But my suffering would go other ways. You know, being a young widow, somebody who had who who wished that we had, you know, it was all those years before that I was the one saying, hey, J.R., let's let's take a break together. Let's go travel the world together. And then all of a sudden as we got bigger and bigger, I was the one who didn't want to stop working. I was the one who didn't want to slow down. And I felt like he was, why are you acting old?

You know, and that's when for the first time ever, 18 years separation started to come into play. And I never really talked about that publicly, you know, because I never felt it before until then. And I was like, well, I don't know if I want you to slow down. And I don't know if I want us to just go hold hands and walk on a beach. That's not my thing. And I got really angry at myself because I didn't get to do those things that he wanted to do when he wanted to do them. Sure, we did a lot of that in all stages of our life, but it's what he wanted to do then. And I lost that. And he had written me specifically in October of 2021 about it. And I lost him August, 2022. So I didn't have any time to fix it.

You know, it was I could fix everything in my life. I could fix anything in our family, anything that was a problem. He loved it. One of the things about J.R. is like if I was on a phone having a problem, battling it out with somebody, he loved to listen to it. He loved to watch me manage problems. He just thought I was he was like, you're brilliant at this. You're great at this. You're like my golden. You know, he just loved me. And so I always felt so secure in my relationship, which is how everyone should feel. and, and I was a pain in the ass. I'd be like, okay, have your eggs. Tell the chef how you want your eggs today. I laid your clothes out on the bed today. Okay. We've got to go do this today. And it almost became like you become, you love them so much, but you, you start just operating.

It's like a thing to do. It's like another part of the to-do list. Husband happy, check. Yes. Kid happy, check. Yes. Because you think you have all the time in the world. and i lost i i forgot that i don't get to choose that expiration can you believe in 36 years of being married to an older man who was 18 years older than me i never once thought that i would lose him before i never asked him what happens if something happens to you yeah never asked him i never always thought for some reason we would just magically poop together and so i never asked it so you know part of my anger was you know why didn't I talk to you about this why didn't you talk to me about it you know I mean he used to joke with me like if you ever get remarried I'll come back

and haunt you or I would call the same thing you know but never did we have discussion about what would happen if it didn't work like you could do this but I found a letter you know in my in his computer uh three days before he died you know that said you are going to have a beautiful life and we have had the most beautiful turbulent love affair of all time it's one for the fairy tale books and i want you to move into your best life i want you to live your best life i want you and it was in his draft folders to jr from jr never given to me you know probably and i know why Because Jared would do that often. He would work on writing a draft of an email and then perfect it a hundred times before he would feel comfortable sending it or print it out. Probably because I'm a pain in the ass and he was looking for the perfect time to give it to me. You know, I controlled everything around us. Everything was, what time, Lauren, can I do yoga? What time should we go to dinner? What time this? And some days I'd be like, just choose your time. Well, I don't want anything to interfere. And I'm like, nothing's going to interfere. I felt like there was a lot of pressure on me to make all the decisions. and so I don't know why I I didn't just relax it's hard to explain I I've never even said this

to anybody but you guys actually in all the podcasts I've ever done I've never said like why couldn't I just chill out and relax like you wanted me to relax you know why everything was so had to be so perfect and organized and you know I mean he spent all that time in 21 putting together Amber and the grandchildren's trust. He wanted everything to be perfected. And I was like, we have time. Let me ask you this. We had Chelsea Handler on, oh God, I don't know, eight months ago or something. And she had written, oh God, two books ago, maybe guys. She had written this book about the oranges. Do you remember? Yeah. What was it? She like saw them. she was for the first time really facing the death of her brother when she was young she had sort of

put all of that behind her and like compartmentalized it and shoved it away never wanted to face it and she grew older and was like i think this is time for me to face it it's it's rearing its ugly head and all these other aspects of my life started seeing a psychotherapist and he one day before her you know before she walked in for her appointment he offered her an orange he's like oh, I have an orange tree in my yard. And do you want an orange? And she just broke down crying. And she was like, it just represented somebody doing something so pure and kind and taking care of me. And I've never allowed that in my life. And I might be botching it, but that was the sentiment of it. And then she talked about how oranges can show up, you know, or some symbol,

whether it's a fruit or a bird or whatever, whatever, whatever. And so in the book, you know, Laura Lynn Jackson, who wrote that book signs where, you know, you can ask your person who's left, like send me the sign and you decide what the sign is. I don't know if this is a stupid story to share. And it really resonates with me. I, um, in 2014, my boyfriend passed away in a hotel room at the age of 31. Um, a valve from his heart just detached. It was a defect that just didn't go, you know, diagnosed. Wow. So I, you know, went through all the things. It wasn't a 36 year marriage. So it's like, I apologize if this is like the most annoying thing. I remember after he died, people were like, well, when my grandmother died and I wanted to punch them in

the face. So like, I've gotten a lot better about it. Yeah. So I just, the orange thing was so important. I was feeling so lost and I just, the only thing I could get myself to do at that time was just drive to yoga 10 minutes down the road in LA and like be in a dark sweaty room for an hour. So I was listening to her audio book on my drive to the studio and I turned my car off and I sat in the parking garage and I was like, okay, Matt, like I think all of this is bullshit. I really, I'm having trouble believing any of this, but if you're here, I want to see a orange and I want to see it really soon. You saw it. I walked into that yoga class. It is hot yoga. Nobody brings a snack into a yoga class. And I sat down and I look behind me and there's a man behind me

peeling an orange. And I broke down crying. And I just felt like I, throughout the years, I've just like asked for those little things. And it's like, I vacillated between believing every second of it and talking to every psychic, every medium, every healer, and then going to a place of being like, it's all just unfair. It doesn't make sense. And I'm not buying into any of this shit, but it's like- It's real. Yeah. If we don't see the signs, we're actually being disrespectful to it. That's the way I see it now. At first, I would have never believed that. You know, Jerry used to tell me for years, he had like eight past life regressions. And I used to say, tell me about them. He said, I can't. He said, but I will tell you this. I said, why can't you

tell me? You tell me everything. You tell me everything. Why won't you tell me these? He said, Because it wasn't always perfect between you and I. But I came back this time to fix things. And I came back only for you. And I came back for this company. And we're going to do it one more time again, and I'm not coming back again after this. I used to say, I was 18 when he would tell me this. I used to say, this guy's out of his mind.

You know, he's crazy, whatever. And I didn't believe it. And I would go into his book, and he had all of the books, like the famous book that's written, Many Lives, Many Masters. Okay. He's now a friend of mine, Dr. Brian. He's a friend of mine. And I called him and I said, you have to help me. I'm seeing all of these signs. You know, JR's big symbol was hourglasses. Yesterday when I flew home, I've been on a 17 day tour in Asia, speaking everywhere. And when I came home, I was in the airplane. I hate to fly by myself. I'm on a commercial plane in the first class cabin, basically very emotional, crying to myself with the door closed because I'm on this

journey alone and I'm going home alone. Again, I'm going to go home alone and I'm tired of missing him so much. I don't like that I have to miss him so much. I want him to come home. And it hits me that he's not coming home yesterday on the plane. And the flight attendant brings me a cup of tea and puts the tea down I took a picture of it and in front of the tea she puts a small hourglass and I'm like

how is this even possible when does a flight attendant have an hourglass I've never seen it in my life unless you can see it no way she brings me a cup of tea and I guess it's like to tell me that the tea is like done

that's crazy Why bring an hourglass? An hourglass is what Jerry used on stage all those years to demonstrate that we're running out of time. And you know that if we learn to live paying attention to the clock, we would realize that we all know how much money we have in our bank account. But he used to say, we don't know how much time we have left in our account. and i used to be like you know i would see these hourglasses after he died and when that came in on my on my thing yesterday i started to cry i was watching a movie all of a sudden you imagine i see this hourglass and i realized just like you becca that the signs are real and i disregard them it's disrespectful and i went to the bathroom in the plane to dry my face to wipe my face and I came out Christian was in the seat beside me and he said are you okay and I said yeah and I said but you know what and he said there's an hourglass on your table I said I know and all of

a sudden a song comes on from Phantom of the Opera on TV which was our song from Phantom of the Opera no way and I realized at that moment that you cannot make sense of these things but they happen Becca, just like you explained. And when you ask for it, they will come. And when J.R. passed away, I knew he wasn't with me. I lost my mom. And when I lost my mom, I had one experience at a young age, at 20, when I lost her, that I felt somebody around me. Very shortly after she died, within a week. She was young. She was 42. And I felt this presence strongly. I couldn't explain. I'm not a religious person, not a spiritual person at the time. Now I am, but I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not so much a religious person. And so I remember feeling that, but when

Jared passed away, Jennifer Lopez wrote me, said, please speak to this girl, this girl, she can help you. I was like, I'm not, I'm not speaking to your people because I know how they are. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I love you, but I'm not going to do it because sometimes they say things that I'm not willing to do. So I don't want to hear that. And she's like, well, okay, but she just wants you to go to JR's closet. And I said, okay, fine. I was already planning, just up front, I was already planning to go to his closet. I arrived home with his body to bring him to my children, you know, for the first time after waiting 10 days to get, or seven days to get out of Croatia. And when I did, I went to his room at three in the morning with my best friend who

sat on the floor with me while I cried my eyes out. And JR had this big, gorgeous closet with gorgeous doors. Everything was closed. You know, I always perfectly had his clothes. Perfect. I'm an OCD freak, right? Not him. You know, if there was pillows on the couch, he'd love to take a knife and cut them in pieces. You know, he hated, he hated the pillows. Not the throw pillow. Yeah. He hated the throw pillows. You know, I was the throw pillow queen. And so all the doors were closed. And you know, when the doors open, the light goes on. When the door closed, the light goes off no dimmer it was three o'clock in the morning and my friend said just lay on the floor for five minutes give yourself five minutes with him and I had a piece of his clothing in my hand

and I must have put my head down for two seconds you know when you pass out I went oh my god I and what happened she goes it's okay you just fell asleep and the lights were pitch black in there and she starts crying hysterically and she goes look what's going on and I look up and every light on the door is doing a dance all around the doors and I feel the room get ice cold and that moment my husband like I've never experienced before hugged me and I if you would have told me this before I before I lost him I would have told you lock me up in a mental institution he he grabbed me he held me and he let me know he was still there no matter what And that's what I think Matt did that day.

And I think that's what happens. And I, there's no other explanation for it. I don't, I just, I refuse to believe anything else anymore. It makes me feel better too. Yeah. Yeah. There's comfort in that for sure. I mean, look at Becca.

She walked into a yoga room. It's impossible to see somebody with an orange. It happened again. It happened again, literally two months ago. I was having a hard day and I was like, show me an orange. I want to see if I believe it again. I took my son who's now three to see Paddington in the movie theaters. The opening scene of Paddington is an orange factory because they make marmalade. And I just took pictures and I sent it to my girlfriends and I was like, I can't make this

shit up. Like I, I have gone a long time without asking. And I asked today of all days and it was just like a wild. So it is, it's like this weird comforting thing that you wish you didn't have to ask for, but it does make things, I don't know. It just makes, I think the past lives thing is also so beautiful. Many Lives, Many Masters was this book that saved my life. I literally read it one sitting, maybe two days after Matt died. Let me tell you, you and I, I'm going to get you to come to my house. Me too. It changed my life. You know, it was JR's favorite book all those years. Sat on his bookshelf. I refused to read it. I was like, I don't want to read that. I'm not interested in it. I read the book in one sitting. I called somebody in Miami because,

you know, I was connected with people and I was like, I need to meet Dr. Brian, please. Somebody the next morning, he called me, he talked me through it. He said, listen to me. I told him everything about the lights. I told him what happened with other signs that happened. He said, Lauren, that's him. We, we out there, we stay out there. And he explained everything that ever happened with him and how it started with the book of many lives, many masters. And then he told me that to read this other book that he did which just it changed my life too and it was called I believe it's called there's only one love um I'll tell it to you right now but he he changed my life and he has been such a strong a person who's helped me get through this to see the good

in it all to see that things never end that that love never dies and and that was the other thing I did not want to give up on love. I not, not looking for anybody else. And, and I'm sure that'll happen at some point. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. It's not really, I, I understand why it happens for people right away because it's hard to be alone when you go through it. I don't know how to ever put, have anything better. yeah and so I'm just not putting that pressure on me and I think so many times that we put too much pressure on ourselves and this time I'm just not willing to do it anymore yeah how did you handle that I mean that's well I didn't you know I was so young I was 28 and um we hadn't there was an engagement ring in the safe in our closet um he and I had like been talking about rings and we were supposed to meet my family in Paris, uh, that summer, this happened in July and we were going, I think in August, I don't know for sure, but you know, the ring was in the safe. We're

planning this trip and, um, you know, essentially I got this call and your life just stops and you're, you explode into a million pieces. I mean, I don't remember the first three months. Like I really have, I remember little moments. Like I remember having his memorial and we had to wait forever in a day to get his body home. Like, I just remember being like, I have to see it. Cause I'm not believing it. Like I have to see him and I have to talk to him and I, and I have to have that moment. And so I remember the memorial, I, I got through it. I did the thing. And then I passed out. Like, I was so angry after that memorial. Cause I looked at all those people and I was like, they all get to go back to their life. This is the period on their life, like

their real their life with Matt and like I have to keep going and I thought like that was the moment that I was like I can't do it I can't do it oh I'm sorry no I feel that um no so for three months I didn't really I don't remember it and then I six months after that I was just kind of like very lost and still living in this house that we shared and I actually was at a bar with my best friends from like childhood. I had gone home to Atlanta to spend the holidays and, um, I was in this bar and I had just started drinking again. Cause I stayed stone cold sober. I just was too afraid to like touch any substance and like be, I don't know. I was afraid. I finally was like, you too. Yeah. It's, it was just such a, we're not in control of ourselves. No. Um, and so I

had some drinks and I had this like wild night, like I just needed to like unleash. And I was with my childhood friends who like, just, it was a life before Matt. So I was like, I can pretend, yeah, I could pretend it didn't happen for a night. And that night my now husband was at that bar and he had been kind of had a crush on me for many years, kind of from afar, a lot of acquaintances in common. And he was never a friend, but I kind of knew his face. I kind of knew his name. Um, and that night we ended up making out and it was like, I never in a million years thought it was going to happen. I think I was drunk and finally like a little bit in denial. And then after that we had a very slow burn. He did not live in LA when I was living in

LA. So it allowed me to, I kind of got to escape in those weekends, escape the grief, escape the house escaped my life. It gave you a break from it. A break. And then I got to leave him and still honor the grieving process for myself. It was like a weird vacation. And I'm telling you, it was like, if you do meet someone when you do, it's like, I know it probably makes you want to vomit to think about, but I couldn't have asked for someone better. There was never a single moment that my husband was jealous or wasn't patient or didn't understand. It's like those people exist. That's what I was always afraid of. Yeah. They exist. And I think Matt sent him. I don't think there's any accidents. I think- I bet he did.

And I think he did. And it comforts me so much in knowing that it was kind of undeniable. I didn't consciously choose my husband. I talk about it all the time that I feel like he just kind of brainwashed me into marrying him, I felt this greater pull to him. And on my wedding day, I cried my eyes out because I was like, equal parts grieving and equal parts grateful. And it's like, I think that that's the reality is life is really beautiful and, and tragic. And, um, you know, I, and wow, you can't explain it any better than that. Yeah. So you can be in the supposed to be in the most beautiful moment and then the most saddest moment at the same time and I think that's the part about grief like when everybody around me is celebrating like I just

finished this big tour and it was like 26,000 people everybody's like you must feel so accomplished but I felt so sad inside and I can't really express that to people because they will never understand what it's like to feel so alone and so I booked another tour in September 15th in Asia my brother said, well, that's a lot on you. I mean, you're not going to miss the kids and everything. And, and the, you know, you start to realize that your kids have grown up and everybody has their life. Life keeps moving without you. And that has been something I didn't expect to happen so quickly. And so for me, I've got to make space for me somehow to feel my purpose can be fulfilled and I think I think you you probably did the same thing too you

probably needed to feel like you know you gave you you you love this guy so much that you needed to feel like you were okay again to survive I felt like if I didn't have my kids I don't know if I couldn't have walked off a building you know what I mean I really I never had thoughts I've struggled and then I met Dr. Weiss and Dr. Brian Weiss and he told me the name of the book by the way is called only love is real and he wrote it and it's a story of two people who meet he he he does there you should put him on your show yeah he has two people come and don't know each other two different days in his office don't know each other not under therapy you know he does therapy with like Oprah and Eva Longoria, all my friends, a lot of people. And he interviews them

and they're both in search, not knowing each other, in search of somebody that they have had in this past life, but can't find them. Not realizing they've been looking for each other their whole lives. And they're in the same therapy session on Mondays and Thursdays. And he sets it up and they're still married today. No way. Their whole life. And they described each other's exact appearance, everything in this past life regression. So he's remarkable, but he helped save my life like he did yours. And I had to find him. That's incredible. Oh my gosh. Well, listen, Lauren, you are incredible. I very appreciate, we appreciate you coming on and being so honest and open. And I'm sorry, Becca, that I gave you this at 8am. But I think there's something

really beautiful that nobody talks about it. And I think that's probably why the book did so well. And so if you want to grab the book, Scrambled or Sunnyside Up, it's already a New York Times bestseller, girls. So you know what? She's good, but this is a beautiful book, Living Your Best Life After Losing Your Greatest Love. The foreword is from Serena Williams, which is gorgeous. And it's a wonderful, wonderful book. And I can't wait to see what you do next. And I feel like you guys just became best friends, which I love over the worst topic of all time. I just started following all of you. I love it so much. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you guys. You guys are a breath of fresh air. It's nice to know that there are women who support women and feel

what they feel. I think it's such a beautiful gift in a world that's filled with a lot of things that don't feel that way. So it feels really great to be welcomed and loved in this environment that feel safe very safe i love that it almost feels weird to say it but go ahead becca see you next tuesday our usual tagline on thursdays is we weren't here for a long time we're here for a good time considering we all cried i feel like maybe we're just gonna skip we're still here we're still here for a good time i think that's the the the paradox of it all the funny thing of it all is we're still here for a good time that's what life is short Make it a great time.

Lady Gang is executive produced by Jessica Crandall. Social support from Kali Carrera. Editing from Jared Monaco. Producing from Steve Delameter. And iconic hosting, creating, and being the gang gang of all gangs by Becca Tobin, Jack Vanek, and Kelty Knight. Kelty Knight support by Derek Haley. Hey, Ontario. Come on down to BetMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive, the Price is Right Fortune Pick, has to offer.

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