Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Everyone Should Try Being Gay with Karamo Brown

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Karamo Brown is the first-ever in-person guest at Chelsea’s new home studio!  He’s here to talk about how he became a dad, breaking the cycle of abuse in his family, and why he wants to be single for a year.  Then: A bisexual woman wants to play the field, and she’s not sure how her boyfriend will react.  An ayahuasca experience goes awry.  And a puppy-custody dispute threatens to break a lifelong friendship.   * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at BelAirDirect.com. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse each week we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions yeah i'm obsessed i'm us. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and

space. You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Katherine. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Oh, I'm well, thank you. It's September. We're still in September. I feel like September is definitely part of summer now. It's not the fall. I was at Disneyland when it was 105 degrees. That's enough. Nope. No more talking. I almost died there. So there has been a heat wave in Los Angeles. And luckily, I've only been there. I'm not there right now. I've only been in Los Angeles for six days this month. Oh, my gosh. So that's been good. Yeah, I tried to avoid I tried to hopscotch around the country to avoid the heat. But yeah, 105 degrees is gross,

especially for like 10 days straight. My family and I are in the business now my cousins and my nuclear family are all in the business now of buying a compound oh i love we are looking in connecticut possibly i told molly to get on it because obviously i can't do any of the legwork and she's responsible and she's responsible and way more capable than i am at doing almost anything when we're on tour this last weekend i was like can you just go up and do my set for me and she's like no that's one thing i cannot do she probably knows it by now but i can do is my that. It's like, I'm capable of doing nothing but talking excessively. And then I don't even really want to do that either. I mean, I don't know. Everything I do is writing, talking. It's

all word use. That's it. You're a specialist. I'm a talking specialist. Even my editor came back to me last weekend and we had to do a legal call. I had to do a legal call to make sure like, yeah, for these situations that are true. And my book is going to be published on a very special date next year it may or may not be my 50th birthday so we will get to that when we get to that but she was like oh we have to do and I'm like listen I don't know how many more conversations I can have about this fucking book I wrote it it's in great fucking shape and like let's wrap it up I told Molly I'm like I have to do a call about my book she's like oh my god is that book still another one I'm like it hasn't even come out yet and I'm already done talking about it so

We need to like manifest for you like things coming to a close, like things like moving the fuck on. I know. Oh, Doug. Not you, Doug, though. No, not you. You stay. We need you.

Our guest today is someone you know as one of the Fab Five on Netflix's Queer Eye. He also has his talk show Karamo, which is back for its third season. So please welcome Emmy winning talk show host Karamo Brown. I applaud for myself, by the way. That's why I walk through life. I don't wait for anyone else to do it. Yeah, no, exactly. You've got to clap for yourself.

If I could clap with my feet, I would be, but I can't. I could do other things with my feet, though, but we'll get into that later. Me too. I'm sure I was just about to say, obviously, you can too. We're recording in my house today, so this is very exciting. You have a beautiful home, by the way. Oh, well, thank you. It's coming together.

You're our first in-house guest ever. You started off right. That's what you got to do. That is, exactly. Well, I always love a black man to start anything off for me. This is perfect. Okay, I want to talk to you about your story because it's pretty fascinating about your children.

So, break down for us. You came out when you were 16, is that right? 15. 15. Yeah, 15. And you had already gotten someone pregnant unbeknownst to you. Yes.

I like your style. Yeah, that's how you do it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was my best friend. She was probably one of the first people I told that I was gay at 14 before I told my entire family, which was rough because I'm a son of immigrants,

so my parents aren't from this country. Where are they from? Jamaican Cuba. they're and the jamaican side is very you know they're very homophobic but i just knew i couldn't live my life without telling the truth i'm somebody who just spits out my own truth like i like you no secrets tell it all and so she had a boyfriend that was a senior when we were freshmen and she didn't want to lose her virginity to him and be bad so she got in bed be bad in bed so she asked if i would practice with her and again at 14 15 it made sense like you know i'm gay but i

can practice with you i'm a male so we can practice and anything got me hard back then like the breeze of the wind got me hard that's always something that comes up with men that had sex with women before they came out people like how did you get an erection i'm like uh any teenager can get an erection by a curtain anything you know what i mean the beating of the music in the car and all of a sudden i was like aroused and so we did it it lasted no joke five seconds and i sat on the edge of the bed like pacing back and forth was like no no no but i was just like i knew i did not want to do that ever again and was it sex it was obviously yeah i like penetrated once or twice and then was like i don't like this don't like this and i feel bad later in life i apologize

because i'm like i ruined your first time like i'm on the bed of the side of the bed crying and you're like holding me and saying i'm so sorry and i'm like that's your first it's almost like you were in a threesome and you were the third person that got left out sitting on the edge of the bed exactly exactly and then she moved away this is 1995 so this before the internet like the things that we know today cell phones so when someone moved if you didn't have their home address or their home number you couldn't you know see them and so i went on with my life and then when my son was nine i got a stack of papers for back child support from the attorney generals of texas office and i thought i was being punked because that show punk was on and i was on real world

back in the day so i thought they were doing some like punked you know d-list version you know like let's punk the gay guy from real world and i was like i don't have a freaking kid threw the papers down and then soon that night i realized i saw her name that i hadn't seen since i was 15 my name and then this kid's name and then i went back to texas where i'm from to find out if it's true found out it was and then petitioned for custody of him six months later full custody full custody because she was now 25 with five kids so she was drowning and so she had reached out for support to you, right? She didn't. She applied for benefits and the state of Texas found me because she put my name on the birth certificate without me knowing. Oh, okay. I see. And so when I showed

up on her doorstep, she didn't even know that I was coming. And it's funny because I should have been angry, but I wasn't because the minute I saw her, we were 15 again. I know the broken home she came from. And so I just remembered us being kids. And so I just was like, we just started crying and laughing. And for the first 30 minutes that we reconnected, we didn't even talk about the kid. we're like we're just reconnecting and then she was like oh shit your son's coming home in 30 minutes do you want to meet him but what prevented her from reaching out to you this whole time she said she didn't want to ruin my life like her life was ruined oh oh my god yeah she was like she wanted we grew up extremely poor and she was like she wanted one of us to make it and so her

idea was by me not having to deal with this i would make it and there's a lot of part to that that's true i talk about this with my best friend trey all the time is that like i don't know if i'd be here if i had to have the responsibility of raising a child at 15 absolutely you know like i was afforded to go through high school i was afforded to go through college i was afforded to move to la to kind of live my life and then a child popped up and don't get me wrong i was still young but now i had all the resources and enough knowledge to take care of him but at 15 i mean i don't think i don't know if that could have screwed me up totally i might have went back in the closet i don't know you know i like i don't know where my life would have been if she didn't make that

decision. And so because of that decision, that's why I took custody because I said, I'm going to make your life easier in every way I can. And was she okay with you taking custody, full custody of him? Well, she was because of the fact that I made a promise to her that I would keep our family tight. So even for the first year and a half that I got him, I didn't move from Texas. Even though I had my place in LA, I'd made sure that every day we were going back and forth so that he felt connected. But then I realized there was a bigger plan because within that year, she has another son who because I worked in social services I was a safe placement and so instead of them moving all the kids into foster care and so he came with me and it was supposed to be for six weeks turned

six months and somewhere at that year point of him being with me he was doing better he's going to therapy his grades was great and he called me dad because he never knew his biological father and I was like oh shit I have two kids and so I went to her and I was like they're both doing good should I take custody of both and she was like thank you and we've been a tight-knit family she comes we're tight we go back and forth and and you know so i'm like you did it for me so i could be here so i'm gonna help you wow that's really beautiful so the lesson of this is every girl out there sleep with your gay bestie that's right and hope that they'll make it on queer eye and then yeah and then get their own talk show yeah so how is that i mean what that responsibility

coming on in such a burst i mean you don't really have a lot of time to prepare for that responsibility so what what was it about it that made it so doable for you well it wasn't i i think i had this sort of blind delusion because my father was shitty and i knew that i didn't want to be him so i sort of i went into this with sort of like a vengeance of i'm gonna show you you fucker i'm not like you and i and so if i'm being real with it it wasn't that i was like i could be a dad i just knew that i wasn't going to be him and i wanted him to watch me be better than him but in that process I learned so much empathy love vulnerability like my kids saved my life because right before I met them I was suicidal I tried to kill myself two years before my best

friend the same person is the one who found me he was leaving for work and I just tried to do it and on his he had a sense and came back and called the ambulance so I was just having and it was all based on daddy issues all daddy issues everything about my father hating me you know my dad was abusive to my mother my entire life and when I told him I was gay he literally from in high school because we lived together my mother finally divorced him he would walk by me for weeks without saying a word and now I know what type of emotional and mental abuse that is but at the time it was just our household he would literally be standing in the kitchen I would ask him questions to me like talk to me talk to me and he would not because he was like I don't want to talk to your

faggot ass and so I knew that I could be better than him when I became a father and that was sort of the catalyst I'm like yeah give me kids and what's your have you had any contact with your father now yeah a couple years ago like six years ago which I thought was the money and fame but he hasn't asked for anything fingers crossed he came to me later and was like I'm so sorry for how I treated you I reconciled my relationship with religion and my relationship with you and I realized I should have put you first I'm sorry for everything I did please give me a chance and i'd already get forgiven him from years ago i was like i was like you didn't know no better because your daddy didn't teach you any better and you didn't know any better because you were hurting

and so i just i gave that up a long time ago and he hurt and also i didn't want my kids to see me hating so that's called the cycle breaker that's from nedra's book too it's called the cycle breaker cycle breaker yeah and so i just opted and i was like you welcomed me back in my life the only two boundaries i have is that you can never disrespect me in front of my children because if you have a problem with who I'm dating or who I'm loving. And secondly, you're not able to teach any of my kids any of your bad habits.

So like, if you're drinking or doing these things, and it does, I said, if you can respect those two things, you're fine. And he has not ever said anything bad. And when he gets around the sons, he is like an angel. And my mom's always like, that's all it took to make him a fucking angel with some boundaries on his ass.

I know, better late than never though, right? I mean, people can be such big disappointments in your life, but once they turn it around, it's like all is forgiven. I mean, if you're a healthy person who's able to forgive oh yeah there's a lot of people that can't but forgiving is so good for you it's so good but that's why i did it earlier because i realized when i was suicidal is because i was holding on to all this anger with him and i was like resenting him and it made me sadder and then i was like i don't want to be here anymore because like well i'm gonna end up being like him

and like all this stuff i had a boyfriend before when i was in my 20s that we were in a physical relation abusive relationship and anytime i got angry i would hit him and it was did he hit you too no I was I was a bully I was my father I was my father and that sort of led me to that place of being depressed because I knew I was turning into him and I because it was the only model I have or like people would get mad and I would just go silent I was like literally turning into him and I didn't realize until I forgave him and told myself I have to work to be better I have to work I have to make conscious decisions to break this that I would have I would have turned into him and So, you know, I'm glad I didn't.

No, I'm glad you did it, too. What's your relationship status these days? I'm single. And are you available looking for a lover? Hell no, I'm not. You're not? I am not. How old are your kids now?

26 and 24. Shit. Yeah. That is crazy. I do not want a relationship. Why? Because they're trash. Well, not everybody's trash.

I want everyone else to find love. I just don't want it right now. Well, that's normal to go through phases where you're not interested. yeah but I've never been single my entire life well then that's why you need to be single that's it yeah how long has it been um that I've been single um

what two months oh well that's not a lot of time I know but I'm being patient and you're not and you're not getting penetrated at all or no I'm sorry or penetrating anyone I don't know if you're a top bottom or a first okay well I can tell by your body that you're probably a top a good top but yeah I've been able to now

differentiate tops and bottoms I'm like oh yeah well I mean it's pretty obvious But every once in a while you get those verse ones that will screw you up. Are you a top or a bottom? I don't know. Also, why the fuck does it matter? Why am I deciding? It's not like you look at a heterosexual couple and be like, does she get on top?

You don't think about that. It's so gay. It's such a gay thing. But I appreciate you thinking about it. Thank you. I'm just very curious. So how long do you think you'll go? What's your plan to remain alone? Because I think it is very healthy to be okay by yourself. Everybody needs to learn that. yeah my plan is hopefully a year or two oh okay that's the plan you think i should go longer no

i think that's a long time yeah okay whatever i mean you're too i i just i know at least a year but i'm my best friend he thinks it should be at least two because i haven't been single like the minute i slept with her i got into a relationship with a boy i got to another relationship with a boy and to another one and they're all long term i ended my relationship when i found out i was kids and then moved kids in and then during them i had a 10-year relationship broke up with him in 2020 then got to another one two months later broke up with him and then got into the one i was with for three years but you must feel i would imagine being on a show like queer eye really lends itself to confirming your positivity about your gayness oh yeah i like being gay i mean

right yeah what a validation i swear most people should try being gay once in their lives you'll Well, I think most people do try once. Some people try a couple more times than once, and you're like, ah, you might actually be gay. Yeah, you might. Yeah. But I love it. And being on the show, yeah, it just, what it really does is, like, it helps, it feels so good to go into spaces where people might have reservations or, like my father, not know how to reconcile their religion with their love of other people. And the fact that you can walk into spaces and then all of a sudden they're like, oh, we're all the same.

yeah dummy of course we're all the same but sometimes it takes people a little bit longer and so to be able to be on a show where you just become that image that all people deserve respect and love and kindness feels good yeah i mean it's a it's a good message well and for it to be such a huge hit and for it to be won so many emmys and beyond for so many years it's a big validation for gay people everywhere among the other cultural things that are happening it's it's nice to see something like that be so successful? Can I tell you a story that I want to share with you that you're never going to remember?

Oh, I already know I won't remember it. It's actually a really good one. Oh, good. I love those are my favorite. Only because you brought up the career. I, before I was in television, came to your house. This is 2016, 15. You lived, I don't even know where it was.

Bel Air. Yes, with Charlize Theron's mother, Gerda, and her friend, Keisha Knowles. You probably don't remember these. you had a dinner party and they somehow let me come. And I was there. You were very kind. You're nice. And you said, what are you doing? I said, I work in social services. And he said, no, no, what do you really want to do? And I said, I really want to be a TV host. And she looked me up and down and said, you're going to make it. And I was like, oh, I thought you're being sweet.

And then you stopped and said, no, you're going to make it because you're thoughtful and you're kind. And I really believe in you and you need to know me. And those type of things, when you're a big celebrity to say to somebody who's on the come up, which is very kind. First of all, I was surprised you had me in your house me too yeah i was like what the hell and you had me in your house and you said the kindest things to me that night verbatim i remember it that's so nice so nice to be here thank you for sharing that yeah that's what really surprised me was to stop and like no i'm not saying this just to say this i'm encouraging you well i'm very i think it is very important especially now that you're in that position it is very important to always a see

people and make sure that you they know you saw them yeah because it really does make a difference in every person's life when they are being seen yeah or when they are seen you know like and especially so much i feel this way about children you know when children are going through tough times or they just need one fucking person not to become famous but just to be to to have like their back to be like i see you i support you i've got your back and i'll be here for you it really is something that goes a long way and as you can demonstrate by your memory it it's meaningful meaningful and i remember when people said things like that to me as well yeah because it's that extra pause you know i mean i just think about even parents when they're busy and

we get it but anyway you're talking to your kids you're doing stuff yeah but when you say let me put down and let me be present with partners kids with a stranger because that's what i was to you a stranger and that's why the pause and saying no you can make it meant something because it was like you don't know who the hell i am you don't even know if i'm good or not but your encouragement in the pause was enough to say you can at least try and i believe and so appreciate you having me over your house and she was right yes you're right no thank you that's right oh my god yeah exactly the most important part okay on that note we're gonna take a break and we'll be right back to take some callers there's no shortcut for saving time but saving money is simple just combine your

car and home insurance with bel-air direct and save get a quote at bel-air direct.com when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,

part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

From best-selling authors and your favorite BookTok creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle, I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone

that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to

stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts, you go with it. And Shawn Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now-husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. We are back. We actually have some very juicy ones today. I love juicy. I love a juicy booty. Did you see my big black dog? I know, I'm beautiful. I finally have a black man to come home to every night.

Doug, it's a male. They were like, we have a black one, we have a blue one. And I'm like, you know which one I want. So beautiful. Look at him. He is. What kind of dogs do you have? german shepherd mix husky mix and um a blue healer a blue healer what's that a lot of energy blue

healer actually she was abused for so many years so she's so quiet and all she does is protect me but the shepherd husky makes the nightmare uh high energy high energy yeah this is a for i haven't had a higher ninja dog in a while and i'm like take it down a notch yeah seriously okay and we're back katherine what do we have well we've got a shared custody situation with zoe and mckenna Zoe's the one writing in. She says, hi, my name is Zoe. I'm 22, and my friend's name is McKenna. She's 23.

McKenna and I have been volunteering at a local animal shelter for five years now. We've also been roommates for two years. Once we got our own place, we met a pup at the shelter and absolutely fell in love. We brought him home as a foster, but both of us knew we wouldn't be able to give him up. We adopted him and named him Billy. For two years, we've split all the vet bills, the adoption fee, other costs and responsibilities for Billy, and we both love him very much. We knew we weren't going to be able to live together forever and planned to work something out when things changed.

Well, things changed. I got a job in a city that's five hours away. Understandably, neither of us wants to part with Billy, and since I'm the one moving, I do see McKenna's point that it might be more fair for her to keep him. That said, she's moving back in with her parents, who already have two dogs and is a full-time student. She's still a good dog mom and would care for him, but her parents would share their responsibility, and she has two dogs at home. my new job would be hybrid remote so i'd be in the office two days a week and home the other five to spend time with billy i've also looked into doggy daycare and walkers i'm kind of nervous about moving to a new city on my own and would love to have billy there with me i expressed this

to mckenna in conversation and she brought up that since she signed the adoption papers billy is technically hers so i can't take him since we're such good friends i thought maybe there was a compromise to be made as i was a bit taken aback as this seemed harsh to me like it could to drain our friendship in hindsight we should have had more discussion on different scenarios of custody when we adopted billy but we were excited to have a dog and we both still love him so much we're at a bit of a stalemate looking for an outside opinion to help us move forward zoe and mckenna well i love couples counseling this is my favorite this is hi girls hi hello where's billy oh billy is actually here do you want to see billy

come here hi billy i see why you couldn't get him off he's very sweet mckenna where are you right now with your parents yes i i'm actually at my parents right now because we're having like a little family vacation we're leaving to colona tomorrow so oh you're in canada yeah oh i love it and so where did zoe move to which which city she's moving to vancouver oh okay so what do you feel like you're gonna miss emotionally if you don't have this dog the support like i feel like the emotional support he's like my heart my heart dog my soul dog and it's hard because we both love him so much but what is it that you need emotional support for

what's going on in your life just like school and life and i actually i'm a dog walker so i feel like my life works well with him like i am able to like take him out every day and i am going back to school but like i'll still have the time for him and i always have prioritized him but do you feel like you need somebody to support you right now you feel like you're feeling stressed overwhelmed yeah i mean i feel like i always have needed a dog just because like i've never lived without a dog okay yeah do you feel a strain on your friendship right now because of this issue with your dog? I think we're doing a good job about, like, communicating about it and trying to, like, figure out what works best. But, like, it definitely is hard to, like, make that decision.

And when you found out initially that she was moving, were your thoughts immediately like, oh, I'll be keeping the dog because you're the one who signed the papers? I mean, like, I think because it's been both of our responsibility and because we've both taken care of him, I don't really think it's fair to say that I get him because of the papers. but yeah it's definitely hard to come to a decision but you signed the papers right yes i did and you said it's not fair now to say because you signed the papers that you don't get him because we didn't really talk about it like we never really had that discussion but didn't you use the papers as a way to say that's why you should keep the dog i mean yeah but i also like feel bad because

we are friends and like i don't have any hard feelings towards her but it is but you said it yeah you said i got the papers and it's mine yeah what's making you want to backtrack right now it's because you know that that statement might have hurt your friend and could have damaged your friendship yeah okay hi zoe hi we were just getting some backstory from mckenna we were getting some backstory about the dog and karamo has a question for you so zoe when she said to you i signed the papers that's the bottom line how did that make you feel not great it was just kind of taken aback that seemed too serious for our friendship we've been friends for like 10 years now so that was kind of crazy i thought we could kind of maybe discuss it or find maybe i

could keep billy till she's done school and then maybe reassess after a year or just there was some i felt like there could be more solutions there she only said it the one time it hasn't really come up a ton of course of course no she's apologetic no i mean you want to get your friendship together you guys want to maintain your friendship and figure out a solution can I ask you Zoe like if you are moving to New City what about getting another dog that is yours alone I've thought about that but it's just like I you know I've known this dog for two years now adopted him when he was a puppy and and McKenna I know she feels the same too though but we both just have that connection with Billy so either one of us for both someone's going to be sad I

think for a bit right but is it a possibility for you to get another dog where you're moving I think it, I guess it could be a possibility. I would prefer Billy. Don't want to just replace him like that, but it would be a possibility, I guess. And what about you, McKenna? If you think about it, what about you rescuing another dog and having Billy live with her for a while? Would you be open to that or no?

I mean, yeah, I think I'd be open to, I don't know, like same with Zoe. Like, I just feel like it's so tough because like it is, he has been in my life for the past two years and it's really hard to just like, it would feel like I was replacing him. When you two lived together, whose room did he sleep in? Usually mine. Okay. Really? Really?

He kind of switches it up sometimes. Okay. That makes sense. I have my verdict and I'm not a judge. Do we know? Do y'all know? I'm just thinking about what kind of compromise can be made and it doesn't seem like, this is how I feel.

You're moving. You're the one who's uprooting, right? So it is kind of not fair to assume that you get to take the dog because McKenna isn't the one that's leaving the situation. So I feel like it is tough because you did rescue the dog together, but you are the one that's changing where you live. Yeah. I do also want to ask, does Billy get along with your parents' dogs?

Yes. Yeah, he does. Okay. He's been around them quite a bit. So yeah, they get along super well. I mean, other than flipping a coin, what do you think, Ramo? McKenna, you are the winner. Okay, you get the dog.

I'm sorry. The thing is that it's all stacked in your favor. I'm a dog dad, just like you're a dog mom. And dogs will let you know who they want to sleep with. They will follow somebody around. The fact that he slept in your room was a big factor for me. But also on top of that, you also signed the papers. And then thirdly, like you said, Chelsea, Zoe, you're unfortunately the one that's uprooting.

And so at this point as much as I want to say emotionally, I would love for you to have that support I think it's better for you to grieve the relationship with the dog So that you can strengthen the relationship with your best friend Because at the point right now you two having this disagreement when you're all about to move is going to cause dissension And if y'all know each other since seven years old the friendship is worth it more Where you can see this dog in photos and then get your own dog versus you all going back and forth like this And you're losing something in that critical bond that makes you two so happy you know like I'd rather you have McKenna to talk to while you're moving and making this new

transition in your life versus not having anyone close to you to talk to because you feuded over a dog and I also just think this is a really good opportunity Zoe for you to get your own dog like I mean I know Billy was your dog I get it but you're moving and like you're moving into a new city it's a perfect thing it's a perfect occupier of your time to rescue another dog you don't have to get a puppy and put in all that work you can go to a rescue and pick out a new dog because that's going to help you be more social it's going to help you to meet people and it's going to help you to feel safer in your house and it's a great project especially when you're new to a town and you don't know that many people it's a great avenue and I'm sure

Billy is a comfort and but you've had all of this experience in the last two years of having a new dog which is gearing you up to be ready for another new dog yeah Zoe we're sorry I wish we could sign we could tell you but i know but we love we do love you i was just gonna say you know this will likely be forever but not necessarily you know mckenna you might move into an apartment a year or two from now where you're like you know i really want to live here but they don't take dogs you know zoe is it it would it be okay for you to take him so you know there could be something else down the line but i i agree with chelsea this is an opportunity for you to expand the amount of dogs that you're saving and dogs you have to give love to so i mean think about how

many dogs out there need homes you know yeah and i mean we also do work at a shelter together so i think before i grab one to take with you to go we could maybe we could go together go together that's a good idea i love that mckenna i love that idea go together and find her her new dog and then you can sign the paperwork on that dog too mckenna so that Anytime you want the dog back, you can just take it. Zoe, I'm going to tell you, learn from your friend McKenna. Sign the paperwork, okay? Yeah, I got to get my name done.

It's all about the paperwork. No, it's about the paperwork. It's about the paperwork. Get those receipts. All right, gals, thank you so much for calling in. Thank you for having us. And send us pics of your new dog when you get one. Bye.

Bye. Bye. First of all, good problem-solving, Karamo. Like, you really handled that because I wasn't going to go that far. but we really actually made a decision for them and now they have to stick to it it's like they went to the people's court but no i mean also i'm i'm pretty good at body language and i read it it's something that i studied and i could tell that mckenna is more anxious and has more of an anxious personality than zoe does and people with more anxious personalities normally do need

compassion or and the companionship of a dog so that's why i asked her where her emotional state It was because I can tell when Zoe came on, she was smiling and happy. Yeah. No, that's a good point. Really good point. Yeah. So. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple.

Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at BelAirDirect.com. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files I just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable I knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me

I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks

Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it.

It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations

with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Shawn Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood.

He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This next email comes from Victoria. She's going to join us as well. Dear Chelsea, my life isn't a complete shit show, but like most people in the world, I do have a conundrum. I have two beautiful kids, a fiance, a house, a job, a podcast, and a very active social life. Work?

No, I don't sleep. The only problem is I don't want to get married and I'd love to explore the bisexual side of myself. Sorry, not love to, need to. I always knew I was bisexual, but I never explored it because I was never attracted to anyone in real life until well after college. I've hooked up with girlfriends here and there, but have never officially dated a woman. First and foremost, I always knew I wanted to have kids. So now that I have them, I feel like I'm ready to fully explore that other side of me. Of course, the biggest hang up is my fiance.

When I was in my 20s, I never had any issue breaking up with a significant other. As soon as I found something wrong, I'd cheat on them and start dating the person I cheated on them with. It honestly was probably one of my biggest downfalls. But my dad taught me to never settle, and I took those words to heart. When I told my fiancé that I'm bisexual, he said he didn't mind if he was involved. Shocker. And we hopped on the dating apps. A month later, I was pregnant with our second child, so that ended abruptly, and we haven't revisited it since.

After I had the baby, we went to a friend's party a few months later, and I ended up cheating on him with a girl there while he was in the next room. I love my baby daddy a lot and care so much for his well-being, but we started as platonic friends, and deep down, I feel like that's what he'll always be. We've discussed calling off the engagement many times, but men are so afraid of being alone, I feel like he's guilted me into staying. I know you've never had this exact situation, but you're a witty smarty pants, so I'd love to hear if you have any advice.

Obviously, I need to move on and explore this other side of me, But navigating that road with all of the baggage is hard. Victoria. Hi, Victoria. Hi, Victoria. Hey. This is our special guest, Karamo. Victoria, we just heard your story and there was a lot that you're in turmoil over right now.

Yes. Yeah. Yes, for sure. So I want to know, your father told you that you should never settle? Yeah. And what did that mean to you? I don't know. I mean, obviously, I feel like most dads probably think that no one is ever going to be good enough for their daughter.

but i don't know he said it to me pretty young and i just took it to heart and you know do you think anybody's ever going to be good enough for you um i guess in what way okay no your laugh told me what i need to know i mean obviously good enough to have kids with which is a big freaking deal all right yeah yeah but as far as like marriage and like a legal financial commitment to someone like to me that's scarier than having kids with someone. I hear you. I hear you on that front. And I respect that. I think that is, I think that is also just a more contemporary way of looking at things. Also thinking about not settling. That is a good thing and it can be a stupid thing, but I think overall,

it's a good thing to think that you're have high value and that you're worth a lot. I mean, we should all be feeling that way about ourselves. It's pretty obvious that you want to explore women and you're attracted to women and that the guy that you're having your children with isn't somebody that you're going to feel attracted to for a very long time. So getting into a marriage under those pretenses doesn't sound like an honest thing to do. So why would you, you know, and putting off breaking up an engagement, like freeing yourself from a situation is also freeing the other person from the situation. Just because it's hurtful to them in the beginning doesn't mean you're not doing them a favor by living under this like false hope you know and so i would i

would say to just be honest about where you are and that you're going to explore this side of you he can figure out how he wants to handle that but he deserves the truth to so that he can make an educated decision like if you guys want to co-parent which you're going to have to do for the rest of your lives anyway right you want to have respect for each other and you want to be honest with each other. And this is one of those major first steps in being honest and respectful towards the other person is by sharing your truth and your desires. And they don't include marrying him. It doesn't sound like. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so tough. I don't know how to break it off because we have kids in a house together. But you don't necessarily have to break it off. Like

you can say, hey, here's how I'm feeling. This is the situation. Think about how this makes you feel and if you would be able to be in a relationship with me while I was exploring this side of me. And when you're not involved, it's not necessarily going to be a threesome every time I'm interested in women. You know, maybe there's a guarantee of saying like, I'm not going to be with men. You know, I'll tell you if that happens, it'll just be women. And that's what I'm looking to explore. I understand if you're not down with that, but I have to be honest out of respect for our relationship and I think you'll probably get a bit of a different result than you're expecting I don't know he I mean he definitely I don't know if he'd want to stay with me and let me go off and

explore because I've already tried to do that and it didn't work out really well so I know for him it'll be better for him in the long run just to cut it off kind of as soon as possible because there are other reasons why I feel like it's not going to work out but this is one where he can't change there's nothing he can do in this situation it's kind of like something i have to do for myself it's not like he did something stupid i forgive him and we move past it so i know in the long run it'll be better for him and he can go find someone he'll be happy with but um it's just so hard because we have been best friends for such a long time i think for you because i agree with chelsea i agree everything she just said about the communication in this relationship and i also

believe that marriage shouldn't be for everyone like i used to be so gung-ho on marriage and now i'm like girl you don't need that like that is so foolish but what i'm most concerned with when it comes to you is that i think you're going to repeat this pattern whether you're with him or not and the reason i'm saying that is because i'm watching you how you're rubbing your head every moment saying this is hard this is hard that being hard is about something that's going on inside of you and it started when your father told you not to settle and there is something that is lingering within you why you're not making choices or communicating about what you truly need didn't want and now you're getting stuck into these relationships where you know you're not

happy and then you feel like it's hard to break it off for them but really what's hard is that you're not willing to face what's really going on in your heart sound a little right yeah for sure definitely in this situation when i was in my 20s and i found something wrong with a guy i'd break up with them no problem but with kids involved it's and since i have you know i've been best friends with him forever like i feel like a lot of people are like oh you know you should be best friends with someone for 10 years and then date them, like your relationship will last so much longer. But for me, I feel like it's so much harder for me to break it off because we are such great friends and we've had years of memories. Yeah, but that's why he deserves

your honesty. Do you know what I'm saying? This isn't about being hard or difficult. This is life. You're an adult. You have children. You're going to have a lot of decisions that are hard or difficult. And the way to actually act with integrity is to face those difficult situations with as much honesty and grace as you can. And by avoiding it, you're putting your own happiness on the side and you're actually doing the same to your partner because you're not being truthful to him. And you're not as happy as you would be if you were free to roam around and pursue what you're more interested in pursuing. And there's nothing wrong with that. So you have a family. So there are many ways that this can resolve. Like he can agree to say, OK, I will let

you go and explore or you can say no this is like I'm not going to be comfortable with that and you're like okay we've been friends for this many years we're going to make sure we're going to be friends for the rest of our lives because we have children and we're going to co-parent and what's Gwyneth Paltrow's favorite couple consciously uncoupling consciously a couple but don't be a pussy about it because then you're just you're creating problems for everybody yeah including your children because what they're going to see modeled for them is going to be you less than happy or you holding secrets and him less than happy and you don't want to expose your children to that anyway you guys could have a great friendship for the rest of your life and that

would be more healthy for your children to see than a marriage that isn't truthful yeah but there's something you need to face about yourself i'm gonna keep telling you and you're gonna get off this call because chelsea is telling you how to handle the present situation perfectly but what you're missing is you need to handle something within you and i'm seeing it even as i ask you these things about you. You keep going back to kids. You keep going back to him. You keep going back to best friends. And you're not focused on you. There's something going on in you while you're repeating this pattern and while you're making this choice and why this is hard. There's something. Because it's really not that hard for you to communicate. Everything Chelsea's telling

you to do, you've already told him. You already told him, I want to do this. He caught you in the bedroom with somebody else. So you really have no issue with all that stuff. And there goes a smile. So you know that's true. You have no issue in communicating what you want. But there's some fear that's inside of you that you're not tackling and i'm telling you if we dissect what you said your father told you young that you were still repeating to yourself whatever narrative he told you you've turned into something way different that is causing fear anxiousness anxiety in you that is causing you not to be who you need to be for yourself and it's now lingering into all these other relationships if i had about another 30 minutes with you we could figure that thing out

but we can't listen all right montel williams listen to him he's like fucking let's go okay listen do that soul searching i think you gotta yeah you got and you gotta like face up to these difficult situations i know it's hard but you want to get some pussy and there's nothing wrong with that you know what i mean like what are you gonna do put your needs on hold you're putting someone's needs on hold at every point right you know what i mean and that's okay in certain circumstances but not for life decisions like this. And also, you're not married. So that's a huge advantage, too.

You don't have to get divorced. Right. Still complicated, but it's less complicated. And, you know, I kind of keep coming back to what Chelsea's saying. Like, you're wasting his time, but you're also wasting your time. She is. Yeah, for sure. I feel like I just need to put the hammer down

and have, like, a more serious conversation with him because I have said, like, I want to break up with you for X, Y reason. like and he's just like no no like let's work it out like he's pushing really hard to stay together and I feel like I just need to be like no or also you it's not that you have to break up in this moment but you have to say I want to go pursue women not with you I'm interested in in experimenting and seeing what's out there and I need the time to do that if you're okay with doing that great if you're not we need to talk about breaking up yeah are you afraid of being alone no I'm not afraid of being alone I just I don't know I know you're gonna yell at me for

bringing up my kids again no I know I just picture like the kids if we if we move if we move out like I move out or he moves out whatever our four-year-old's definitely gonna be like where's daddy where's mommy when are they coming back so you're afraid of disappointing your family no see I gotta figure there's some fear there I'm telling you even when she just said again i'm gonna put the hammer down it's natural to want to not disappoint your four-year-old but that's not a good reason either like four-year-olds are resilient well right i hear what you're saying but four-year-olds are resilient people get divorced they split up all the fucking time yes there is a deeper issue within you that you're not able to face your problems in a way that is

solution oriented you know there are a million solutions here and you're just kind of leaning into just letting the status quo be the status quo and not making any move. You have to make a move. Yeah, for sure. And especially with the warning like this, especially with saying, hey, I'm going to experiment with women. I'm curious about women. If you can't handle that, then we need to talk about splitting up. If he says he can't handle that, then that gets you six months. OK. And in six months time, you're going to really know if that's who you want to be with, if you want to be with a woman. And then he's already had his serious talk and conversation and then it's not coming out of the blue like he can choose to stick around while you're experimenting with women that might

make you even more turned on to him you don't know what's going to happen with all of this you don't know if you're really want to be with women if you're just bisexual or what whatever so you know you should give it like six months and just say hey i want to be as open and honest with you as possible about what i'm feeling and thinking about and there's no argument with that there's nothing he can say. You can't start. I don't want you thinking about women. Like, come on. You know, there's nothing he can say about that other than I will tolerate this or I won't. And if he ends up moving out and your four year old ends up having to go between homes, your four year old will forget that you guys were together within six months. That's how that's how resilient children

are. They won't even remember. Yeah. Two happy homes is way better than one unhappy home where mom and dad are not really living their truth yeah for sure okay and then you know you get to split custody and you have time to go date by the way no one advertises that enough when you split up with someone the free time you get away from your kid should be like a banner for divorce like you get a life again you know and then you can get all the pussy you want oh my god all righty okay all right victoria i hope you liked getting yelled at today I appreciate it. I need it.

I need it. Okay, good, good. Okay, keep us posted. Thanks. Thank you. He's trying to get to the bottom of the, he's like trying to get to the deeper issue. Yeah, because it's my thing.

But that's a longer, that's like a fucking four-hour conversation. It is, it is, it is, it is. For me, it's just that anytime I hear of somebody's problems, it's for any problem, there's always something more. Any problem starts with the I.

It's I, I, I. And so she can say about kids and all that, I'm a parent, I know all this. it's about you and the thing that the reason I want people to understand and this is for anybody listening

we say things to ourselves that we get in our childhood and we repeat them and they become bigger mountains in our heads and that one about what her father said she didn't need to write that in

that's something that Scott said to you and now it's plaguing you and it's playing with your mind and it's playing with how you see your world how you see your self value how you see

and she's not focusing on that she's like oh it's the money I want pussy it's not about the do you want pussy your man already caught you in the next bed with somebody else I just wish everybody would fucking get some balls and leave a situation when they are not happy in the situation.

That's what I'm saying. There's something, there's a fear she has. Yeah, but everybody has fears. Everybody has everything. So like, yes, if you're a therapist, you have to get down to that, you know, the granular level and find out what the deal is. But if it's a problem that she's dealing with, well, it's a result of that. But it's also like, okay, let's figure out this situation. Yeah, because even when you give her the advice, the answer she wants, she's still like, well.

Yeah, because she's not there. She's not ready to face it yet. She's not ready to face it. And that's why I was like, we can tell you all goddamn day to leave this guy and be honest with him and, you know, whatever. But she's going to repeat this pattern right after this. Even if she gets out of this, it's going to happen again. She said she's been doing it at different degrees since college. I also wish people would just fucking make moves.

Make moves. Like, you have no idea how big and broad your life can be when you have the courage to say, this isn't working for me. You know, and I know that's easy for me to say because I don't have children and I'm not married. But there are reasons I don't have children and I'm not married. So then I can fucking make moves. OK, on that note, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save.

Get a quote at BelAirDirect.com. when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,

part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

From best-selling authors and your favorite BookTok creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle, I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone

that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. If you know me, you know I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to

stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Shawn Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Well, our next caller is John. He's 23. And Promo, you're sober, right? Me? Yes. Ish?

Yeah, ish. Ish? Ish? Sounds like no. I just don't like hard liquor, so I don't drink a lot. No, okay, totally. So I'll drink like a beer. Okay, all right.

Well, John says, Dear Chelsea, I'm a 23-year-old accountant who's been looking for inspiration in my sometimes boring life. I turned to ayahuasca and psychedelics for some more insight and life guidance. And while the first many times were great, I had my first horrible trip. For six hours straight, I felt like I was in hell, strapped to a rocket, being blasted by colorful geometry and scary entities that laughed at how scared I was. Needless to say, I will never be doing them again, and I'm committed to sobriety. I'm focusing on gratitude that I'm back. What drug was this?

Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. Oh, well, hello. But he says he's done 5-DM EOT and all that stuff. Okay. I'm focusing on gratitude and that I'm back and safe. And I didn't think I was going to come back from that hell. But I'm lost as to how to move on from this.

How do I interpret such an awful time? How should I go about leaving this behind me? I'm curious to hear your thoughts, John. Hi, John. This is Karama. We have a special guest today. Hello, Karama. I've seen your show.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Love it a lot. Thank you. Okay, so you had a terrible ayahuasca experience. Yes, it was not. it's I'd like gotten some stuff from some friends and yeah, it just wasn't like it was tough, but I feel like it's like helped me become like a lot more grateful for a lot of different things.

Well, that's not nothing. Have you ever done ayahuasca? Yeah, I did. I did a special on it on Netflix where you can see me do ayahuasca. But first of all, that's a great gift that you got from it. Being more grateful and having more gratitude is already like a net plus. So you're acting like it was a terrible experience across the board, but you got something good out of it. So I think you should have gratitude for the gratitude. Yeah, and I definitely do. I think like for me, it just kind of has helped me realize I do kind of want to venture more into sobriety and just being more in tune with that. I've had a lot of problems with like alcohol and just things like that throughout my life. And then that kind of like just scared me away from everything in a

lot of ways. That's good. But these are all good things. You're looking at this as a negative and how to move past it. These are good things. You're becoming more sober and you're saying drugs and alcohol are a problem in your life. Great. You are more grateful. Great. Like these are good things that came out of ayahuasca. You're not looking at it from the right lens. I don't think. Are you afraid you're going to lose friends? What's the hesitation then? No, I think it was just it was genuinely like a horrible experience. I keep like going back to it thinking, I don't know, like I have kind of a lot of guilt about it just because I'd done other things and I like thought it was. What was horrible? The visuals? Well, I remember how you, Chelsea, had said like

you had done five MEO and you just felt like it was like really dark, like a tough visual experience. And that was definitely how I was feeling too. But it was also like the aspect of it just felt like very sinister. And I was not used to that either. Like at one point I'd like become like a cancer patient in a hospital. I just had this horrible feeling and all I could think of was it was like this voice telling me like there are so many other people out there that feel like this way all the time and you need to be more grateful for what you're going through and things might be kind of boring or like tough in your life but it was still just that like horrible you know feeling that like I'll never really be able to shake kind of it's just kind

of I guess really just being more grateful about my life in general is kind of what I got out of it I guess but have you ever done EMDR therapy I have never done that now okay well that's a really good thing because that really focuses on a traumatic event that is bothering you and then you live through that event again without having the same feelings that you had the first time it's like electro i forget what it stands for electromagnetic whatever emdt emdr movement desensitization and reprocessing oh good there we go and okay so you could go to a therapist and do that and work specifically on that and the other thing i would say is that sinister vibe and all of those things you were feeling, you can look at as a representation of what your life would

have become had you continued using drugs and alcohol. Okay, that's fair. That is a good wake up call. And you should look at it and frame it in your mind like, oh, that was what I would have become if I hadn't woken up. Agreed. Okay. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. Because you're moving forward in a new way. That's the past. It happened. It woke you up. And you're moving forward, there's no reason to let that experience haunt you. If anything, it turns the corner for you in a very positive way. Yeah, for sure. I see that, too. I think it's just like still kind of the struggle of regular living. And, you know, I still kind of want to go back to it a little bit. But then I do like it is kind of a nice toolbox. So you don't trust yourself that you'll make this

decision and stay on this path? I think I will. I think you're struggling. There's a bit of you that doesn't trust yourself. I can see it in the hesitation of how you just put your head up. I know, but I trust you. I trust you too. And I think that that situation is your reminder to trust yourself, to stay on the right path. That's what it is.

That situation is going to be a useful tool for you moving forward in life. When you are tempted to get back into drugs and alcohol, you need to look at that and be like, I don't ever want to feel that way again. And that was your wake-up call. And that was your warning call. And I trust that you will move forward in the right way.

Okay. I know I will for sure. Thank you for saying that. That's kind of cinches the deal. So. Okay, great. Then let's end this conversation here. you got it right you got this

thanks John I got this okay bye John bye guys well this was beautiful you were great I mean you are you're Montel Williams for sure you're a cross between Dr. Phil Montel and who's the other guy Jerry Springer no not Jerry Springer that's too trashy

I would say Montel but I like how you get to the heat of the moment you're like what is really going on we don't have time for this we don't fucking have time for what's really going on we have to take another caller um no you're a delight thank you so much for being here amazing i'm so glad you've been in both of my la homes i know i'm excited we'll have to get you to more i would love to i would love that thanks karamo you can watch him on his show which is a national syndicated talk show on

during the day different times probably right but it's called karamo and also on queer eye yeah thank you for being here thank you i was just kissing into the microphone goodbye everybody okay so upcoming shows that I have you guys I'm coming to Texas I'm coming to St. Louis in Kansas City and then I will be in Las Vegas performing at the Chelsea Theater inside the Cosmopolitan Hotel my first three dates in Vegas are September 1st Labor Day weekend and then November 2nd and November 30th I'm coming to Brooklyn New York at the King's Theater on November 8th and I have tickets on sale throughout the end of the year in December. So if you're in a city like Philadelphia or Bethlehem or San Diego or New Orleans or Omaha, check ChelseaHandler.com for tickets.

Okay. If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email at DearChelseaPodcast at gmail.com and be sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert, executive producer, Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at ChelseaHandler.com. i survived nine months in captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable abducted stalked controlled and nearly silenced these are stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots

between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our hometown is not a test tube. 90 miles northeast of Nashville, a battle for the future of America plays out in one small town.

Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land. We need cities on a shining hill. This is Our Town, a podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment and fights back. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

Thank you.