Page 7 - CelebReadies - Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! Part 2

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Jackie and MJ are BACK for a SECOND (and final!) HELPING of Liza Minnelli's book "Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!" Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Celebrities. Pop, Sex, Squash, Cicero, pill me. Bada, bum, Bop, six, squish, O'-Urish, oh,

Cedero, pill me. Pop, sex, squish, Cicero, pill, fill me. I gotta have bills. I gotta have bills. Gotta have bill, just a smile.

And if you'd been there, have you to pill me, I bet that you would. have had some fun. I bet you would have, I bet you would have had some fun as we're actually. How you think that this is going to be the last time these pills are going to show up during this show,

you would be wrong. This is the beginning, y'all. Get your pills out. Get your pills out. Get your pills up. Get your pills up. Get your pills in, y'all.

We are taking pills today. We are taking pills today. Yes, indeed. This is part two of Liza Minnelli's kids. Wait, till you hear this. And this is, we're finishing it. today. I don't care what happens. We have to finish it today. Oh, we're going to be finishing it today,

baby. Don't you worry because I will say, at some point, did I write down, is this book just becoming a long laundry list of people that she knew and loved and died? Who died? Oh, yes, the last line of the book is basically like, but some of my friends are still alive. Some of them are still alive. And their names didn't show up in this book, but all the other names, dead, dead. Shout out to my few friends were still alive is basically that's like the epilogue. Did you listen to the acknowledgements? Did you hear how she begged everybody to listen to the 20 minutes

of acknowledgements at the top? She was like, guys, guys, I know that I dropped a lot of names, but I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for these people. It's like, okay, so you're naming the only people that didn't die is what you're saying. I may be real with you. After 17 hours of Liza, I

fled from the book before I could get to the acknowledgments. Wow. She begged you to listen to the You didn't even listen to her. I listened to the prologue in full, which is like an ode to Michael Feinstein, who we will talk about at length in this section of the book, who's basically her like gay platonic life partner, yet it sounds like maybe they made out a lot.

It's hard to tell. MJ, they were having sex with each other. They were more than friends and less than lovers. I think it's great. I think that Liza is actually queering, queerness in really revolutionary ways as she is just being like a queer icon and identifying as a straight woman and being like all my lovers are gay men. I actually find it wonderful and fascinating. As someone that, you know, I just played the part of Liza just for like five or six years. And I got to

say, it really takes a lot out of you. And the fact that she just was, because if something I didn't know about Liza. Now, we knew, I will say, I think one of the few things everybody does know about Liza is that she had a lot of bows, right? She had a lot of bows out there. Loved to be married, loved to get divorced. Love to get divorced, but she also loved having sex with anything that would move. And I also, I'm wondering if every, like, stool she ever met, she also had sex with. I think that, like, if she met a tripod once, she's like, wow, three legs. Where are you? You're going to put them. You know, I think that she has found a sexuality in every single living existing thing.

And for that, I am fully impressed. I'm fully impressed, yes, with her sexuality. And one, does the counselor inside me wonder if it might have to do with attachment issues from an extremely unstable? Sometimes you got to kick him away, MJ. But what do you know, we just kick him away, MJ? Childhood. Her childhood, she repeatedly. emphasizes how she never knew what was going to happen next.

And yes, she did have a lot of unstable attachments. By the way, for anybody watching on YouTube, I'm Peter Allen. I am her first husband after he has found himself and come out. And we love you for that, Peter. I also will say, MJ, I think he found himself very early on. I'm pretty sure he found himself in bed with many men over and over and over again. And she was not only fine with it, she was like down, dog. Like she was like have that.

This was not closeted situations. This was peace be with you. Like go get on your knees. And I'm not talking about in the pews. All right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

she was at first when she, we talked about this last week. She, her first husband, they were madly in love. She said that a very sexual relationship. And then she did walk in on him having sex with a man. In their marital bed,

yes. She's very hurt and shocked. And then after that she's like, but you know what? We get along great. And that's why you always call home first. And that is her forever joke. That's not her little joke.

It is a fine joke, I think. I'm going to throw it out there, MJ. It makes me always want to call home first. And I'm not even worried about that in my marriage. I still am like, maybe I should be calling home first, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, the woman has been through just a variety of, I'm not going to call that a trauma,

but I am going to say it was a destabilizing event in her life, perhaps traumatic a little bit. Walking in on her husband having sex with a man in their marital, but maybe she seems like she recovered really well. But also, I think something that we didn't name. Also, I don't know if she recovered really well. I think literally her brain imploded and she went, that's okay. I just like everything else in my life. Well, that's just, that's just okay for me. Yes.

I think that what really, we maybe didn't emphasize this enough in part one. And I think we really need to emphasize it in part two is that, is a central question of reading this book, which is, is Liza a reliable narrator about her own life? And I think, Bing, Bing, Bing. I think that's tricky because of all of the drugs and the pills. And honestly, of the drugs and the pills.

I will. And the booze. I need to say it because she does say it at the top of the book. And I kept having to remind myself, she has been sober for 11 years, all right? And God bless. God bless, because can you? you imagine getting sober in your 70s?

In your 70s after 60 years basically of non- sobriety. And she tried so many times. She tried many times. And it just wasn't for her. I mean, so here's the thing. We're going to be making some light of Liza's. You know, sobriety is not for me. It just wasn't for her.

And I truly like, yes, we're going to be making some jokes about Liza's sobriety issues. I honestly think she would be the first one. making the bills out. Oh, they become a calling. But she really is, she talks, I mean, it is the central theme of the second half of the book is her relationship with substances. And it's not, I'm not going to say it's not all bad. Like, obviously, she had a problem. She talks about how she has a problem.

She inherited it. She considers it a genetic problem that she inherited from her mother. She had a great time. I think that this is the takeaway. By the end of the book, she's like, yeah, I had a lot of hard times, but I had a great time. And I want to be the one telling this story because I want you all to know that I had a great time. And I specifically have to do that because Lady Gaga embarrassed me on stage at the Oscars in 2022. And this book is literally my vengeance.

That is how she finishes the book. This book is my vengeance because everybody thought I was old at the Oscars in 2022. And we'll talk about it in detail about why. And she said, I need everyone to know that I'm still good. And I'm going to write a whole book to get the last word in so that Stephanie Germinata does not soil my legacy. It is fascinating how, you know, you can look back on a life that was completely filled with booze and pills and just be like, no, all of that was good. No, guys, really? Kids, wait till you hear this. It was all great. I never had any money. And I was always worrying that I was going to Judy Garland myself. Not that Mama killed herself. But I just had to get back out on the road. And maybe all the hotels didn't trust me in the same way that none of the hotels trust me.

to Judy Garland. And that's, but we were having a fabulous time. It is so, we were having a fabulous time. We were having a fabulous time. It is. It is the way that if you've ever been in a conversation with an older woman who's just insisting that everything is fine. It is a familiar feeling.

Oh, most boomers, excuse me. Yeah, a lot of the boomers that we interact with, yes, where everything is fine. And then you find out they had like seven surgeries. And they're like, I didn't want to bother you. And you're just like, oh, good. That's her, but like with her entire life. But I do have to shout out perhaps my favorite quote from the book,

which is her talking about when she is on the ultimate event tour with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. So many great books. We're jumping on head, bro. We're not going to start there. We are nowhere near there. We're not anywhere near there. But I just, since we're talking about substance use, this is one of my favorite line.

She says, Frank. So the entire time that we will be talking about substance abuse because she is, again, in her 70s is when she becomes sober, but please, yes. Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. drank the old-fashioned way. Constantly. And I also wrote that down. They drank the old fashion way.

Constantly. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Not to be like this. But surprisingly, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra going on tour with them, not the greatest thing to do if you're trying to remain sober. Frank Sinatra.

He wouldn't let anyone leave the dressing room because he wanted everyone to stay and drink with him. Drink. Drink with him, man. And then all the stories about how crazy Frank Sinatra is, but he's still Uncle Frank. Good man. Just give me, just give me a couple more pills. Let me talk about Uncle Frank and Uncle Sammy. I didn't know what to do with him once I lost Uncle Frank and Uncle Sammy. Another example of her insisting that everything is fine and always has been fine is when she's talking about Studio 54. She's like, listen, I don't want to hear one bad word. about Studio 54. After she's talking about like Martin Scorsese and the threesomes and the drugs and the

darkness and she's like, but listen, we had a fantastic time. I'm sure not one bad thing happened at Studio 54, MJ. I'm sure la la la, li lu, if you take a couple bills about it, MJ, you don't got to be upset about it. I mean, here's the thing. I get it. Because when I'm 80, if you ask me about like the after hours bar, Legion of Doom that we used to go to in Bushwick in 2008, where nothing good ever happened.

You asked me about Legion of Doom when I'm 80. I'm going to be like, we had a terrific time. I don't think that you are, MJ. I think you're going to remember how we felt sexually hunted at all times. I think you're going to remember how uncomfortable we were made to feel over and over again. Like, I think that you will remember those things, MJ, because again, we didn't have the same pill problem. And it is a gift. Honestly, I hope to have the opposite sobriety journey.

as Liza. Like, I want to get torched starting when I'm in my 70s. Like, I feel like that's when you bump it up. That's when he's like, you sober, oh, we toil. We get through the life. And then, like in, I think I always think about Little Miss Sunshine. I think about the grandfather of Little Miss Sunshine where he's like, this is when you start doing drugs.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that, I think that it works for Liza to be sober in her 70s and only then. Well, I don't know if it works for the rest of the same. I think she does it. To not be dead. Out of a drive to live. And boy, does she have a drive to live. Last week, we left off in 1972 with the musical theater reinvention that is cabaret.

We talked about how this is such a huge break from the movie musical that her pioneering father and her mother, Judy Garland, RIP, you know, they were they, they created. Go out to the one time when she kicked Mama in the head. Don't worry. Is that moment brought up multiple times in the second half of the book as well? Yeah. She doesn't remember anything bad happening at Studio 54, but she does remember the time she kicked Mama in the head. And isn't that how trauma works?

Yeah, certainly is. So she's at this time, Cabaret, she's doing great. I think we said last week, she wins the Oscar in 1972, who were playing Sally Bowles and Cabaret, which is the same year as the Godfather came out, which is just astonishing, like absolutely wild. And I've always known she was an Egot, but it's fun reading the book and being like,

that's, you're spelling out EGOT as you go. As you go. And that's where she got the Oscar. But it's also like even when she's like, oh, and it was the first time I'd ever done television and I got a Golden Globe. And it's like every time it is so crazy. She is that talented.

and it is so sad to think of what a laughing stock she becomes because she was that talented that even like in the beginning days of like all of the drugs and the crazy partying and everything although she had been doing that from the jump like you think you think about like all this stuff we were talking about she'd already been on tour by the time she's 17 years old you know what I mean like she started all of this very very young so she's just ripping through, like, everything she touches is gold until she becomes poison, I feel like. She becomes, like, they talk about this in the Joan Crawford days of like, oh, she's become box office poison.

And she's always worried about becoming box office poison. She's so terrified of it that she's like gripping onto reality so hard. Like, I will say, Liza Minnelli really lived her life, you know? That's what that's what I'm saying. And she does, she really does seem to like, I'm not going to say no regrets, but like, I think the substance use is a regret. But I think that broadly speaking, the takeaway from this book is that she has loved her life. And like she has loved her work. She has loved her friends.

I don't think she loved the struggling with substances stuff. But she like, she's really has loved it. And, you know, even when she talks about her relationship, she's with Desi Arnaz when she wins the Oscar. Yes. Well, this is of Lucy and Ricardo. Desi Arnaz Jr. You mean she was engaged. Desi Ernest Jr.

Desi Arnaz Jr. She was engaged to Desi Arnaz Jr. While also still married to Peter Allen. How did you feel about that Peter? Right, right. So she's with Desi Arnaz, Desi Arnaz, the real Desi Arnaz, not Ricky Ricardo. Please stand up. And Lucy's. son, Desi Arnaz Jr., who they grew up together, right?

Because Lucy and Judy are friends. And so she's with him when she gets her Oscar. She's literally sitting next to Desiarnes Jr. When she wins her Oscar. And then she's still with Peter Allen, but Peter Allen's off having a good time. And listen, she has just... Did you see how deep his V is? He's having a blast out there.

He's having a great time. And she has just done a film about a man who likes to sleep with both men and women. And it's 1972. so everyone's like, wow, what a, that's a mind-fuck. Totally into it. And then she falls in love with Peter Sellers from Dr. Strange Love. She starts banging Peter Sellers, and I love it. I wrote this down because I feel like she says it like it's almost an accident.

So she's married to Peter Allen. She's engaged to Desi Arnaz Jr. And then she says, I got lost in his eyes. And then his arms, our romance began that night in my dressing room. He literally came backstage to be like, You did a great show. And then they just started fucking mad stage. And she's like, well, I guess I started slacking Peter Sellers.

And that's insane. It's not only is that insane. What is, is it more insane is what she does next, which is hold a press conference. To announce their love. To announce that she's no longer with Desi Arness Jr. She is instead with Peter Sellers, who is absolutely at the top of his game, right? Dr. Strange Love has already come out like everybody loves. They also announced that they were engaged against.

Engaged. She's still married. She is engaged to somebody else. She holds a press conference to tell everybody. But I'm also in love. In love with Peter Sellers. Yeah. So if you're counting, that's two engagements in one marriage at the same time.

But turns out, and I did mean to independently fact this because of the unreliable nature of Liza, Peter Sellers, she says, schizophrenic. Or at least very unpredictable. and relationship turns real bad, real quick, and she gets out of there. It was genuinely scary

to hear her, like she would talk about her experience with him and how it would be, like he was such a nice, good person, but then when he would flip out and he would have these like mental breaks,

and I'm assuming you can say a psychotic break, and he would go from character, to character to character berating her and just being a horrible monster but then going from character to character to character do it

and then she had also had I didn't write down all of the details about it but she had this friend that like everybody knew was Jewish and Peter Sellers in one of his psychotic breaks like went over there in full Nazi uniform

pretending to duckwalk and be a Nazi out front of this woman's home and then Lise is like, maybe I shouldn't be engaged to this man anymore. It turns out this is a pretty well-documented thing. Like this, like, it's a tragedy for Peter Sellers. He had like a, he just had like this, these like intense kind of psychic breaks throughout his, his life. But she said it was really confusing because he was a very talented actor.

So at first it's like, are you doing a bit? A bit? And then it's like, okay, no, we're not, we're not doing a bit. Also, fine, by the way. Where she was like, I'm such a prankster. there was this one time that I went up to, that I went right up to Peter Sellers at a party, and I just pulled off his toupee in front of everyone.

And I kind of went like, Liza, I don't know if that's that great of a prank. Somebody who's that unpredictably violent and scary. He's very unstable. I don't think that's a good idea. I know, maybe I'm crazy, and I know we're not supposed to like victim blame here, but you know, don't believe the toupee on his head. Yeah, yeah.

So this is, we're in the mid-70s now, and she, around this time, she discovers Halston, and we'll get more into Halston and the fashion and everything. I didn't know any, okay, I don't know anything about Halston. I'm saying, I never even heard the name Halston before. That is how little I know about fashion.

Same. There is this whole section of it where she's just like, all I hear is passion. And then when the fashion has fashion, and then they took fashion, and then she's given-cha, and she, like, saying all the names. and I'm like, fashion, fashion, wow, it sounds like fashion happen.

And I know that she loves fashion. And if there's one thing that we know, definitely later on is thank God she loves fashion, because that's the only reason she has any money right now is because she was able to at some point sell all the fashion that was made for her. So that's why the fashion does come in Andy. Yeah, it's a bit of a check-offs, holl. At first, you're like, why he's talking so much about how much fashion you have? Turns out when you're 70 and you don't have any money, you will sell all of the

Halston and live on it for the rest of your life. I like that she said that Halston turned my sweat into glow with sequins. And so all of the look of Liza is all from Halston. Which is a genius, by the way. Obviously, he's a genius. I mean, look at what, like, what I am wearing is such a quintessential. This is her liza with a Z outfit. This is like the red dress that she really petitioned hard to wear on stage because everyone was saying it was too short and that it was too much.

And she didn't give an age about it because Halston was also Holson revamped all of the costumes for cabaret as well. He was trying to make them iconic. He had a vision. and so she and Halston got together like with their young, like his young design ambitions and her young star drive. They work together. And I mean, to be fair, the fashion, fashion, fashion, fashion, fashion that they were talking about sounded like cool fashion.

Like I even wrote down about that, like it was like the first time. Like it was a little, there are moments in this book that I think that Liza contributes huge portals. of history to everything she's done. And I think that that's very funny. And the way that she's like, she essentially says that she brought American fashion to Paris because of this,

like she's like, they never would have been talking about American fashion if it wasn't for me. I don't know that much about fashion. And please fashion rise up. Like, not fascists. Fashion. I want, please rise up.

I'm like, let fashists, stay down. But fashions, let us know if you're like, no, she really definitely did. Like, I don't know that much about fashion. Good point. And I think that also really brings up an important theme to another important theme to highlight, which is that not only is Liza living under the shadow of Judy Garland in so many ways, both in terms of talent and in terms of everybody seeing her as this, like, you know, wreck with the substance use, but also I think that.

You want me to bring out the pills? Is it time for more pills? We'll get to the more pills section. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Liza feels chronically unappreciated for the icon that she is in American culture. She feels like, I think that she feels like everyone sees her mom. Everyone sees her mom as like an icon of American culture and her dad as an icon of American culture. And I think that she's like, me too.

And she's not wrong. But it was different. But she does see from that moment on, the United States played a commanding role in the fashion world. That is the literal line, she says. Yeah. That this is. She's trying to prove herself. She made her stamp on America as well and the world.

Okay. She did. Do not forget that. And now what we have come, thank God, to one of my other favorite quotes from this entire book, because we're in the mid-70s, and she's trying to break into film. She doesn't have much success. And this is a real throwaway section, except for this, my favorite line of the book. She's talking about doing Lucky Lady with Gene Hackman.

I can't remember if I read this last week. I don't care. I'm going to read it yet. No, we weren't up to Lucky Lady. Okay, good. So she does Lucky Lady, and Gene Hackman is apparently an asshole. She's just having a miserable time with him. The movie doesn't do very good.

She's, like, kind of worried about her film career. Oh, my God. Are you bringing up the virus? You bet I am. The best. The best. Hontavirus! She's talking about what a prick Gene Hackman is she hates working with him.

And then she goes, I think it's fair to say that Gene was downright rude. Still, I felt bad for him in 2025 when his wife died from the Hontovirus. And the combination of Alzheimer's, heart disease, and starvation took his life. Wait for it. Lucky lady wasn't lucky for this lady. Jesus Christ. Liza. He died of horrible.

Horrible death. Why did you say it that way, Liza? This lady. That is still, I felt bad when he died of the Hata virus. Good, I guess. There are moments in this audiobook. Now, we talked about, we've talked about this a lot off microphone, but we need you guys to know that last week,

we were talking about, okay, Liza said there's no way AI would ever touch her voice. All right. So there's no way that this audio book was, done with AI. Guys, she has to be lying to us. In the same way, she keeps saying over and over again that booze and pills never interrupted any of her performances, quote unquote, and I guess they can't interrupt the performances if you just don't show up for them.

But I do feel that it did disrupt your life. And she keeps saying over and over again that the drugs and the pills did not affect her stage time. When she was on stage, she was not affected. When she did not show up to the stage, perhaps that did affect. I'm pretty sure she was also affected while on stage too. But I imagine people were just so happy that she showed up that they just shove your on stage and just got her to do it.

So there are many things that she says that she would, that are like seem like hard truths. And so we took it as fact that she wouldn't allow any AI to touch her voice, but that can't be. I think she must mean singing, like actual singing, because this audio book, if it wasn't fully done by AIing her voice, then it was heavily peppered with AI of her voice. Because there are times that I'm like, no performer in their right. mind would say that phrase like that. They just wouldn't say the phrase like that. But also, she is not fully, I think, in her right mind. But I think she, what she would say is, yes, I am. And so, so, but she does read my, before I knew about the AI allegations, I just thought she was

just surprised by every new word on the page. And she was not reading any, the sentences with any kind of internal coherence, but each, just expressing each word as if it's a new. But there is a TikTok that points out a reason that it must be AI because basically the TikTok claims that there's a line from one of her most famous song that there's no way even at the age of 80 in her and her. That she would have forgotten that. There's no way she would have forgotten that. And the line is from the song Liza with a Z. She says it's Liza with a Z, not with an S because Liza with a S says says, says S, not. Z. And so the lyric is says, so, not Zuh. But in the book, she says, because Liza with an S says

snas. Says, snaz. And we're, I just like, I paused it. And I was like, you, there's no way. Snaws. And let's again, if you're just grateful to be invited to read your audiobook and you're like, you're just plowing through. And it's 17 hours long, so they're not going to stop and make you do a retake. But I think that, you're right. I think that as the book keeps going, it seems more AIE-E, so I wonder if maybe it was just augmented.

I think that it must have been because you're right, it got more difficult. And I will say, I had bumped it up. I was listening to it on 1.75 towards the end because I had to get any done. And so she was just telling me, then this guy died, and then I took these pills,

and then this guy died, and then I took these pills and this guy died. And then rehab, rehab, rehab, rehab. I am in so much pain. I'm in so much pain. I'm in so much pain. Which I will say is a lot of the cycle, I think for a lot of us that talk to some boomers that are in our lives, I do feel that there is that essence of a cyclical I'm trapped in my body. And all my friends are dying.

And all my friends are dying. It must suck. It must really suck. I actually found myself tearing up every time she would mention somebody, one of her dear friends who died. just like, man, that, I know that's going to come for all of us, and it must just suck. Because that's a thing. You don't want to die young. But then, like, she just kept thinking and she just genuinely thought she was never going to live older than her mother.

Yeah, that's a huge milestone for her when she outlives her mother. But, like, she even says it later on in the book where she never expected to live that long. She says, she just destroyed her body. She said, guys, I'm telling you, if there's. There's one lesson I could tell you, take care of your body because you never know how long you're going to live. She really did not think that she was going to live that long. Why would she? You know, like, I mean, you know, Judy was so young.

But really, the 70s is her heyday. She's at Studio 54. She's dating Van Vareen after she gets away from Peter Sellers. I do love it in 1974, she thought she would never be divorced like her parents. And that is, it's kind of funny that she's even in this. This is after the Oscar. and she, wow, I could imagine finding myself in a similar place, like, if I could put, not that I would ever be in the place that Liza Manelli is in in any way, shape, or form,

outside of maybe some of the pill use, I feel like I had my heyday with that. I just, I could see that after the Oscar, she played Sally Bowles. This is such a specific, like, what a unique, like, we were talking about, like, beginning of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It was like such a groundbreaking performance that afterwards she said that she received over 400 scripts. And she said none of the female characters were strong enough. She wanted to play a strong woman.

She did not want to go back into, she's like, I was Sally Bowles, God damn it, is essentially what. And so nothing, she wouldn't take any jobs. She wouldn't take any of them. It is, it's, the Saturdays is kind of, I would say, where she peaks and also where she peters out at the same time because you're right. Sally Bowles was such a perfect role. It was a perfect role for her.

It was such a meaningful role. And also it really is like a, she's a really, for 1972, we're talking, this is a fascinating woman, female character, female lead that is, we're not seeing a lot of like really complex, weird, confusing, crazy, funny, talented manic pixie dream girl like characters like that. So she's just unimpressed with everything. And she, this is where she really finds that. she's absolutely happiest, A, but also most lucrative, B, on stage.

She's a great American, you know, a songbook, a touring gal. Like that frequently throughout the book, she says, thank God for touring. Thank God for touring. And yet, though, how is that not laden in trauma from watching Judy Garland so desperately do the tour circuit over and over again, but she just wouldn't show up, and she was struggling with her drug addictions, and she, and how, and what Liza saw of that circuit and the, the, how you have to kill yourself over and over again

and leave yourself out on the floor every single night and always in new cities. And she's talking about it in this way of like, thank God for touring, because that was the only way that she could continue her career. But that must have been such a mind. for her, right? I think, right. It's like impossible to stay sober on the road. Like, because she's just, you know, she's like, you finish the show, you're exhausted,

you want to go out and party. And it's not that touring was the only thing she could do. Obviously, she was a very talented actress and she does, you know, have a few other six big hits with TV and film for the rest of her career. But I also think, again, she really, she kind of acknowledges this, but it's also a huge subtext of the book. She is spending her life. trying to please her parents.

Like she's just like, this is what my mom did. Like, this is what the old, like she, she, think about her. She through the 70s, through the 80s, through the 90s, she's performing like a starlet from the, from Bodville, like her mom. She's like, I'm on stage. Daddy was born in a tent, MJ, I know. Exactly. And so I think that it was, part of it is, yeah, she,

she doesn't have the movie career that she thought she would after she wins the Oscar at like age 21 or whatever. But also I think that she just keeps returning to these patterns that her parents did. And even when she falls for her third husband, I don't, by the way, I don't remember anything about husband number two, zero percent, whatever. But when she falls for her third husband, she's like, he was political, just like mama was political. Like that was the one thing that she liked about him.

I think that you are stepping over, though, the, I think the new husband right after her divorce from Peter, she was 28, he was 41, he met her at the age of four. 14, he was the tin man son, MG. How did you forget? He was the tin man son. He fucking groomed her. I'm sorry, just real quick. Second husband groomed her real fat.

Like, it's just like a real fast. No, you're right. She even said, she said he looked out for me like a parent or a sibling. Oh, God, I forgot my best. Marry that one. Good. That doesn't show any of the debilitating trauma that you're struggling with. Yeah, no, no, it's fine.

He met you when you were 14. It's fine. Oh, yeah. What was I saying? she spent her life chasing her parents. Oh yeah, her second husband was just because he was the son of a guy who was in a movie with her mom. And someone that was around when she was younger.

And this was like also at the time that she was so upset because the tabloids were just going crazy about her pill use and about her booze in. And she was so taken about it just, you can tell there was such a distinction about how the world's. saw her and what everybody else saw is the truth and the delulu that she was living in. Because she even said that someone said she drank a bottle of Grand Marneux a day and she

immediately was like, I couldn't drink a bottle of Grand Marneux in a day. But like the way she even says it, it's like, babe, I bet you were. I bet you did and I bet you have. You know, don't stop. Like the book is filled with. with so many, but she even says it. She says, I didn't believe I was lying because I was lying to myself. She even says it in the book. Like, it is. I don't think that you can go to rehab as many times as her over the course of your life

without any long stretch of sobriety at all, unless you really are telling yourself. Like, I really, really, really do not have a problem. And she does, even though she is. is now sober and she's very proud of that. She does still talk about these times. I don't have a problem. I kind of had a problem, but it wasn't that bad. Sometimes with the older, they get another baby peels right over the test.

I have a problem, M.J. And I'm telling you, she meets Mark Garrow, her third husband. And yes, he is attractive, but I swear to God, the only thing she likes about him is that his dad wrote a play about the house on an American Activities Committee. and her mom, I think, was like, you know, like active. Her mom and dad both were like, you know, anti-Huak. And so she was like, my mom was an activist. She spoke out against the bombings of Selma.

So I loved Mark because he was like an activist too. And that is not enough to, I mean, listen, if you both love activism, cool. We love activism. It was like a little detail. I think that's a reason to marry a person. MJ, you don't get love the way we get love. Okay.

Wasn't even his play. a sculptor. His dad. He's just a sculptor. Wrote a play about an event that slightly impacted her parents. But it wasn't even, I don't think her parents were even blacklisted or anything. It was just like they were around during that time. It doesn't matter.

There is a connection to her parents and therefore she has to slurp her vagina around it and just absorb that person right up inside of her. I think that she was like meat puppeting. I feel like she did just wear them like. Like, where did they go? Like, where did that sculptor go? You know what I mean? Like, I feel like he just lives inside of Liza now and she just sucked up his essence.

Yeah, he has a, he has a rough one. They do, and this is a sadder stretch of the book because they're, they do seem, despite the fact that they have one thing in common, which is his dad's play, they do seem to like each other, they perhaps love each other, and they want to have a baby. And she tries a couple of times to get pregnant and has a couple of really devastating losses. and it really, really takes her out. I did write down the line that she said, Goldie Hawn loved being pregnant.

Well, everyone else thought it was hip to complain about pregnancy. And I was like, I didn't think it was hip to complain about pregnancy. It was just hard. It was hard. But she is sensitive about it, obviously. In this time period, when Verdun, who is, Verdun married to Fossey, she's in Chicago. She's starring in Chicago.

Everyone is loving Chicago, right? She inhales, Gwen inhales confetti during a performance of Chicago. She then, like, and Gwen who, like, again, connected to Fossi, right? She had acquired the rights of Chicago. And so this was something that obviously she, she was working, I believe that she was, was, was this, was Rita Marina or Cheetah? That's later. That's later. Okay.

Cheetah, yeah, Cheetah Rivera is later. But she steps up to like step in for her role on the way in Chicago. And Liza, you crazy bitch, she really thought that her going on stage was essentially her auditioning to be the role for the movie someday. And she's like, oh, this will be great. They'll see me as a character. Girl, it's not yours. Like you could see that she was so wrapped up.

and becoming a star and like the pills and everything. Like that is not like that doesn't compute, girl. Like that doesn't make any sense. Why would you get the role that's not yours? Right. And she talks more later in the 80s about how she really is like not showing up. And I wonder, it sounds like she did fine at Chicago. Like as an other than she showed up and people liked it.

And also it's like, yeah, that Chicago was a great place for you to go after cabaret. Like that is a, that makes total sense. And then around this time, she also gets Arthur with Dudley Moore, which is also really fun for her because she gets to be out, wisecracking Daffy waitress. And it's like she gets to show her comic chops. And she is really funny as we all learn later in the early 2000s, right? And so she's everything's kind of after this, she says, you know, after the pregnancy loss. She also in New York, New York, though, before that. She had the whole Scorsese thing.

The whole Scorsese thing. Like that's, she's like with, because right after Chicago, she's, like, she's, like, because right after Chicago, she. ends up doing New York, New York, which is the Scorsese movie. I'm going to say it. I've never seen New York, New York before, but apparently there was no formal script for it. And that's where she started her affair with Marty. And she and Marty were doing every fucking drug under the song. Like, they could barely make the movie.

They were so busy drugging and fucking each other. They could barely even make it through. And it's crazy because they shot New York, New York on the MGM lot. So the MGM, the studio that essentially broke her parents. And she is in the same dressing room that her mother used for meet me and St. Louis. And so this movie was supposed to take 14 weeks. It took 22 weeks and nobody liked it. apparently audiences were just confused by it.

They just did it and then they were just completely out of control. And I just thought this tidbit of information was fascinating. Marty had so gotten out of control with Coke that Robert De Niro went to him to be like, brother, you got to stop doing so much Coke. And while I'm here, Raging Bull. And Marty's like, Raging Bull. And Marty's like, raging bull, yeah, I gotta do it. And so then that's when they go off and they make raging bull.

Yeah, that is an amazing detail. And like, Liza is already, she was like, she was already, she had just been married. She was like, she's cheating. She's out. And like, it's, then she cheats on Marty while she's cheating within her marriage. She cheats on Marty with Berishnikov. I forgot about that. Marty finds out that she's banging Barish.

and then she's got to stop the affair because Marty got so angry. Yeah. I'm sorry. Your coaked up affair, surprise, didn't handle your affair on his affair well. She does love to layer her affairs and she likes to like have an increasingly like higher name value. Like Desi Arnaz Jr. promoted to Peter Sellers, you know. Like like Martin Scorsese promoted to Barish. Prishnikov, bump it up.

You gotta bump it up. Yeah, so that's, yeah, she's all over the place, right? Also, I'm assuming she fucked Warhol, right? Like, she's got the Warhol pieces of her. She's got a lot of war halls. She's spent a lot of time at Studio 54, and she said the Andy Warhol, quote, Studio 54 was a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance flaw. Sounds pretty fun.

Yeah, it was. But I imagine, I mean, according to her, only good times in Studio 54. So that's the thing. She's like, we had a blast. Don't say anything bad about Studio 54. It was a, it was a travesty that anyone ever said anything bad about it. And so, yeah, so that's kind of like the late 70s, early 80s. Everything's coming up, Liza, after this. She says, after the pregnancy losses, she says sometimes it feels like the sun will never shine again. But it did. And so she gets Arthur with Dudley Moore. She's happy to have a comedy. She also gets a new apartment, the Imperial House. on 69th Street between 3rd Avenue and Lexington, where she will live for the next, which will be her home base for the next 34 years. And here is another great quote, I could belt out a song with the best of them, but home decor don't even go there. So she gets Halston to design her home.

Why don't you bring in the parade of gay men you've had relationships with? Bring in the gaze. Get to design it, boys. She can't do interior design, but luckily she's exclusively friends. with like very talented gay men. And so Halston not only decorates her apartment, he decorates it as a tribute to, well, the master bedroom specifically is a tribute to her father's films.

The master bedroom in the Imperial House apartment is like a Vincent Minnelli like museum, where she's gonna fuck Mark Garrow. That is, there's a, there's an architectural digest cover story about it. And she feels, but she feels really happy. She's like, I'm finally home. She's from L.A., but always she wanted to flee L.A. because this dynamic of she needs to chase what her parents did, but also flee what her parents did. And so she's like, I made a name for myself in New York. I'm so happy to, like, have my own place. And this is when she was reminded, and this is how I knew it was AI, because no one in their right mind would say, and I made a killer pot roast. No one's just put roast, okay? No one in their right mind is put roast. You would. It's like how you say Broadway. Well, Brudeau.

I mean, yeah, but I don't think she was going to put the rose. Yeah, yeah. No, that might have been robot, Liza. But, you know, this does seem to provide a little bit of stability for her. She decides to throw a tribute concert for Papa. She doesn't provide stability for her. Yeah, maybe not. She's doing her national and international tour in 1983.

She ends up adding in songs from Meet me and St. Louis, even though she said she'd never sing Mama songs, but she sang a Mama song for Daddy, and Daddy liked it. And he said, better than Judy. And she even said, while they did hate each other for years, I did take it as a compliment.

I know. I love that. It's like Vincent Benelli did not have fond feelings about Judy Garland by his 80th birthday. But yes, she always said she would never sing anything that Mama sang, even though, of course, people are always requesting somewhere over the rainbow.

and she always said no. Never. But then she finally says yes. And yes, as she is, her career is still like fine. She's leaning into the touring, but she's built pills and booze are really getting a grip on her. Try it out. When the pills come a calling.

I think this is when you should get them out because this is when she tries to do the rink with Cheetah Rivera. You say pills, I say how high. You got it. And this one is a tough one, guys. Again, put your inner therapist hat on, okay? Because the rink with Chita Rivera is about a troubled mother-daughter relationship. Did I have to keep reminding myself that it wasn't Starlight Express?

It was just called The Rink. Yes, I kept seeing them just imagining Lucille Ostero shoved into roller skates, trying to roller skates. Like, that's what I was envisioning. Yeah, well, she's a little younger that she's in her 40s at this point. And she is still the daughter. I was like, what, you're the daughter? But she's the daughter.

Tita Rivera is the mother. But Tita Rivera, she's mad at Liza, guys, because Thursday is when Liza is not getting out of bed. And she's one of the headliner names of this show. People are buying tickets so that they can see Liza mentally perform. And she is not showing up. But the bills come a calling. She is not showing up to the point that word gets out.

Don't buy tickets to the rink because Liza Menneli won't be there. She is not. And she and the rink, despite getting completely canned and nobody like it. It was another John Cander and Fred Ebb work, and she feels really sad and disappointed that she, like, completely tanked this work from them. And yet does that make her, like, dry out? Does that make her do anything? No, but it does make her sister call Elizabeth Taylor to get Elizabeth Taylor's Betty Ford information so that we can send her to Betty Ford. Yeah, we got to, we got to send her.

I got to get her to the old Betty. I need to make a murder board with Carrie Fisher's memoir and Liza Menelli's memoir and the role of Elizabeth Taylor in both because Elizabeth Taylor broke up Carrie Fisher's dad's marriage to Debbie Reynolds or broke up, whatever. That's blaming the woman. She was a part of it. Broke up his own marriage for Elizabeth Taylor and that Elizabeth Taylor is also the one who goes to after. And I think also let's be real. I think the fact that this, her first intent in rehab does coincide with her doing this. play where by her own words she says I was playing an unhappy daughter who had never faced up to

the facts of life with her difficult mother. A difficult mother. I wonder why she was struggling. So she really is really struggling and that's yeah, Lorna, her little sister who always, remember, she had always run to Liza's house, Liza and Peter Allen's house. Now Lorna's got to help. Now Liza's going to her house when, to her little sister's house when she, you know, can't make it home and stuff.

And so Lorna's like, listen, Elizabeth Taylor knows a little something about being too drunk, okay? So we're going to get her to tell you how great it is that you can go to Betty Ford's new rehab place for celebrities. And what does she scream for? So this is, man, she doesn't. Liza, don't want to go to rehab. Surprise, she doesn't want to be dragged off to rehab. And so she is trying to do everything within her power to not go down to when they're, are in the car on the way to rehab.

She makes them stop and she screams for a hot dog, no onions, a lot of mustard and make it snappy. She's like, insist, she's like, I will crash the car if you don't get me a hot dog. If you don't get me a fucking hot dog with mustard and no onions on it, I will, you will crash the car

because I will have a mental breakdown. And so they stop the car, they get her a hot dog. Like, but also, I felt seen, MJ. I know. I thought about you. I thought about really seen. Thank you. And thank you for not saying that for all the time she was having sex with gay men, because you also could have thought about me during those times too. I did. I just didn't tell you that I thought about you.

Thank you for thinking about me. But also, Liza will use a hot dog to get out of going to rehab. And that's the kind of bitch I want to hang out. Yeah. And not only, they were in the car on the way to rehab, meaning they were in the car on the way to Frank Sinatra's private Learjet because they were like, well, we can't take a commercial airplane to rehab. Everyone will see me. Uncle Frank. She calls Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank, man, I know that he was a badman, okay? But his relationship with her really sweet, great uncle.

I mean, great uncle that was stooping his mom when she was married to her father. But great uncle. He was great uncle that was in the room when she was born. I was like, are we sure that he's not her dad? We know he's Ronan Farrow's dad, right? But anyway, he's like, use my jet. I totally get it. And one, there's a whole Frank Sinatra section.

It was so interesting. I wrote down basically everything. But Frank Sinatra loved to drink, but he hated drugs. He was like, Judy Garland died because of drugs. Liza, you're doing bad because of drugs. If you just only drank, then you'd be fine. Yeah, because they drank the old-fashioned way. Constantly.

It really is a great line. So when they go on tour, when she gets out of rehab and goes on the ultimate event tour with Frank, he's like, you'll be fine if you just drink with me. Just don't do a bunch of drugs. And she's trying desperately to stay sober. And they're just like, and then Sammy Davis, she was like, come on, baby. And they're all smoking cigars. And they're all just drinking.

And like, he would force her to drink with him. Like, yeah, he would literally lock the doors. Logged the doors. Yeah. She does do two stints. I mean, as we're talking about this, maybe. Maybe not the greatest uncle, but. But fly in you to rehab and then locking you.

in the room to drink with you is an interesting choice. She does do two stints at Betty Ford. And you know, listen, she doesn't stay sober. But I also want to say that I do feel, it does seem like she gets something out of this, even if it's not lasting sobriety. Specifically, the first time the fear of trying to publicly stay sober. Is that what it was? It's hard because she's under the spotlight. But also she says, like, I had to face my feelings about my mother. It's to me, it's very clear that the Cheater Rivera play about a troubled mom-daughter relationship was the thing. that finally put it over out. And then she goes to rehab where she has therapy for maybe the first time.

And she's like, oh, it turns out, I realize I was like holding on. I was holding on to my mother. I had not let her go. And I loved her so much that I never wanted to admit that anything she did was ever bad. And so, like, I needed to process that. At this point, you guys, guess how old she is? She is 38. She's only 38.

Like, we're starting to talk about this as if it's like, and this is the beginning of the end because. It kind of is the beginning of the end because then it is just decades of her lost in booze and pills and going from like one tour to the next, always trying to reinvent, which I find fascinating as an artist that is trying to make weird shit, that I can't imagine how difficult it was for her that she was pigeonholed into Broadway and the Broadway. standards and so she just kept trying to reinvent the wheel every single time and even in the book it sounds a little desperate how she's like you think that we just pick songs and get out there and choose an orchestra and just get out there no no no it's so much harder than that and you're right it is so much harder than that however you are because you're right it's the choreography it is putting on the full show but it's got to be hard for people to keep going to

to see you sing when in reality it's not that different every time. She is very defensive about her work in this book, very defensive about it. And yeah, I think she just needs to embrace, like, who she is, which is like she's a child of her vaudevillian parents. She's a child of MGM's golden age. Like, she has this whole thing where she, like, a little later on where she's, like, working with Gene Simmons to put out a pop sync funk album or whatever. A pop synth album.

And she was like, Jane Simmons asked me if I'd ever put out a pop record before. And I said, no, I hadn't. And it's just, yeah, there's a reason why no one was asking you to put out a pop record. Nobody want, I'm going to say nobody won't really wanted it. But it's like, Liza, embrace who you are. The way that she meets her best friend for life slash maybe a little bit lover, Michael Feinstein, is that she's at a party. Also, definitely her lover.

Shout out to how hard it must be to stay sober when you. You come back, it's Christmas. She's like, I'm on the holiday party circuit. I'm in L.A. Like, every party has drinks. And there's a lounge singer at a party, and he is singing a, like, deep-cut Gershwin song. And remember, Uncle Ira is her godfather.

Godfather. She's probably the only person on earth who knows every word to every Gershwin song, aside from Michael Feinstein, who's sitting there singing the song at the piano, and he forgets one of the verses. to this deep cut, like low, not well-known Gershman song, and she knows it, so she starts singing it with him, which is a great meet cute, even if it's platonic.

It's so sweet. It is so sweet, except for the fact that so she's like, so they immediately hit it off and she's like, meet me afterwards, honey, come and meet me. And she's so filled out of her gourd that she forgets. And then she meets him again at another party. And almost the same thing happens. And she's like, but meet me, come meet me here after the show.

And then she doesn't show up again. It's like, how do you begin a friendship? I'm sorry, someone ghosts me twice at the top of a friendship. I guess if it's Liza and you're like a Gershwin archivist. That's the thing. But because he even was saying to everybody, Liza's meeting me here and everybody's like, okay, bro, sure. Liza Manelli's going to meet you here.

And then she didn't show up. But then the third time when they end up hanging out, and it's solidified the lifelong friendship, they go. And then he brings her to that place. And everyone's like, oh, my God, you weren't lying. You were going to hang out with Liza Minnelli. And then she's like, Michael, I'm going to launch your career. And she's, and then Elizabeth Taylor is like, Liza, you're off the wagon again. We got to go back to rehab.

And she's like, sure, let's have a meeting place for when I'll go to rehab with you. but first I've got to launch Michael's career and then she doesn't show up to that. She doesn't show up to it. And then she's like, you just got to let me launch Michael's career first and then I'll go to rehab. And then I'm going to get a hot dog and then I got to go pick up something at the dry cleaners. And then I got, she really had a lot of things she wanted to do before she would keep getting back to rehab. The relationship with Michael is really so interesting because there's a time later on in like the 90s when he's about to go on a national tour of his own.

And she's like, maybe I'll come with you as the opener. And he's like, she needs money so desperately. And he's like, you can't be the opener. That would be really weird. Your Liza Minnelly. And he's like, you can co-headline with me. And then she just, it doesn't work out. And then she's like realizing now in retrospect, she's like, that was shitty of me.

Like I was about to completely steal his national tour from him. So it's like, I think she is like her and Michael do seem to have a beautiful friendship, but it is born out of her weakness, you know, like, I mean, it's born out of a shared interest in Gershwin music, which is awesome, by the way. But she really also wanted to lift other people up, which I did. Like, in the community with which she worked, yes, they were all having sex with each other, but they were also all working and creating and introducing people to each other and like having, like, you know, it's like, that's why nothing bad ever happened at Studio 54. It's like, to her, this was all.

all just like, you know, a place where everyone could like come together to make magic. She really did truly believe in the magic of theater and song and getting together around the piano for everyone to sing, you know. That's truly. She is a true believer. And I really think that she was like, yeah, she was like a child with the heart of the generation before her, you know. And that is what brings her and Michael together.

And then, yeah, Michael becomes this huge, like, pillar of support in her life, like, basically for the rest of her life. She does. There for her. Through everything. So she goes to rehab again after helping launch Michael's crew. She does, like, a big concert for him, basically. And it's like, everyone, look at my friend, which is nice of her. And then she's like, bye, I've got to go to rehab.

She goes to rehab. And then she immediately comes out and goes on tour with Frank Sinatra. Needless to say, she does not stay sober. You know, she keeps going in for a quote unquote tune up, but like the tune up's not taken. And it's sad. And I do love, I wrote down the line, in your 40s, you know, spring chicken, but you got so much energy, but your dreams start to have reality. And the idea of your dreams starting to have reality is so haunting. Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm 40.

I can confirm. I know. You're no spring chicken, but you got a lot of energy. But your dreams start having a reality. They don't start becoming a reality. They start having a reality. And that is devastating. Yeah, reality starts really impacting your dreams.

And it sounds like she's, I'm really glad. And then it's AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. Everyone she loves dies, AIDS, AIDS, and she loses Halston at 57 of AIDS. She loses Peter Allen, he dies at 48. I also, this was just a tidge in this book, but it did make me want to go off. And I'm like, maybe at some point we need to read an Elizabeth Taylor memoir. I know she is everywhere in this book.

I also didn't know that she was so fundamental in helping with the AIDS epidemic. I did not realize the work that she did that, like, Liza bows down at what the work. that Elizabeth Taylor put in, I am not familiar with all of that. Yeah, poor Rock Hudson, you know, who was this like total icon of masculinity. And then he was kind of the first Hollywood star to die of AIDS. Elizabeth Taylor is so devastated. She totally mobilizes to set up this like foundation to help with research and everything. Liza sings at Freddie Mercury's Memorial.

Yes, Liza, you can imagine a woman who has spent the last two decades cultivating extremely close friendships with a number of extremely talented gay men. early 90s is a devastating time for her. Also, she does have this great interaction with Princess Diana where she says, whenever I get depressed, I think about you. I think, yeah, like, don't tell her that. I don't think you say that to somebody, but it was really, that to someone.

Cute the way that everybody talked about, like, they had such a, like, gals friendship. Yeah, they really loved you. They got, I mean, listen, Diana knows suffering, right? Yeah, and so does Liza. And they understood, like, a fundamental. sadness within each other. Yeah, they bonded over their profound depression. Yeah. And there were even people that, like, said, like, if you would see a picture of the two of them

talking, it looked genuinely like two old gal pals having a laugh. No, it does. I saw in my researching looks for various husbands, I was also researching her looks. And there is pictures of her with Diana and Diana looks so relaxed and so happy. Like, she really, and yeah, it is, the Diana stuff is sad, but I just love, whenever I get depressed, I think about you. I think about you. Don't say that to me. Now, this is also the time period.

Liza moves back to L.A. And of course, you know, that was always a big thing. L.A. is where she was born. But New York is where her spirit is, but she goes back to L.A. And then she starts talking about these Monday night parties. MJ, did you want to be at one of those parties? or did you? I'm hearing them talk about everybody in Hollywood

because Mondays are often the days that Broadway is dark. So oftentimes there are parties on Mondays. And so every Monday, she then had the L.A. place where everybody's around the piano. Like, you've got Babs coming. You've got, like, everybody on El John's coming.

Everybody's coming under the sun. And everybody's singing together around the piano. That's and it's singing. And she's like, and essentially she doesn't say this, but it may as well, like, you say it's bad enough to be on tour with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. and be sober. It's hard enough for the Monday night parties to be sober. She loves, like, I really feel her. She loves to party. She loves being around people. She loves to host, yeah, she hosts the parties at her apartment in New York. She moves to Hollywood Hills and she's like, great, now I can throw parties here. And like, I really feel for her. Like, you know, we were on tour for 10 months, and it's, yeah, it would be very hard.

Very hard. Sorry, my pills get to jangling. I wonder what she did to keep her pills from jangling all the time. You got to keep them quiet, don't we? So she has a great time throwing all these parties, but this is really where her body starts to betray her. She's in, like, her mid, late 40s at this point, and she starts to just, she's in pain. Remember, she has scoliosis. Remember, one of her legs is longer than the other.

that catches up with you. And especially when you're dancing your whole life and you're not really taking care of yourself your whole life either. So it's not like, you know, it's not like she's pulling like the routine of like a Taylor Swift of like running on a treadmill and singing and stuff like that. No, it's the coke that's really doing it, I think is more than anything. And she this is where, so we start finding out more, didn't realize how close she and Michael Jackson. were. I mean, apparently she was the one that came up

with the moonwalk. Like, she... Allegedly. Sounds like she stole it. Sounds like she stole it from dancers in Brazil. She came up and no, she came up with it after, yes, watching Brazilian dancers do it, but she came up with it.

She literally said, I saw her, watching those Brazilian dancers do it, okay? She says, I helped Michael Jackson develop the moonwalk after I saw it done by dancers in Brazil. Did you develop it or did you steal it, Liza? Sounds like you stole it.

No. MJ. But then the pills never ruined a performance, okay? Listen, the cosmic justice of her may be stealing one of the most famous dance moves in history from, you know, people in Brazil and then bringing it to Michael Jackson. It catches up with her because Michael Jackson then introduces her to David Guest. Enter chapter 10, the marriage from hell.

Oh, kids. Wait till you hear this. because that is where she drops the line of the title. She said, this is the reason why the book is called Kids. Wait, to hear this. It's because of her marriage to David Guest. This truly,

the way that she tells the story, now this is a very upsetting story of a con man grifter that comes into her life that really truly puts a final nail. like she, like, everybody thinks in the coffin of her career. They think it is, but don't worry, that crint, she eeks right back out of it. But this is, I didn't realize,

I had known, I think a lot of us knew that, I think a lot of us this age, what we did know about Liza Minnelli is that she was a Broadway star, she's the daughter of Judy Garland, and that she had a devastating addiction to booze and pills. And I had no idea. that a part of how bad she got was because of this manipulative, evil man that comes into her life. She even says he stole her confidence.

Like it was he comes in and she hates kissups and sycophants. And you have to know that about Liza. She hates kissups and sycophants. And she doesn't realize that this man is grifting her. but everyone around her knows. Everyone at the wedding is like crying because they don't want it to happen. He's coming for her war halls.

They set up the wedding. He set up the wedding as a birthday party for Liza slash wedding. So the gifts would be better. So that the gifts would be better. And then he also implored money from people that he didn't even tell her about that he steals from her. Everything that he is quote unquote paying for

because he's pretending to be rich. He's charging on all of her credit cards. He returns all the gifts, all the wedding gifts and pockets the cash. Have you Google and searched him, David Guest, Jackie, because I almost was him instead because all I would have to do is just put Sharpie on my eyebrows. He's a terrifying looking man. Ew, you would have had to do a lot more than that, MJ. How dare you fucking say that?

He is a creepest. He's a, he would have had to put on a wolf's side. outfit. This man is a fucking creep. Ew. Ew. He is the Kevin Fetterline of Liza Minnelli. Like this is... If you were like, generate an image of the least trustworthy man on earth. Ew. He's so greasy. Yeah, he's real, real greasy.

And this, yeah, this not only kind of puts the nail in the coffin of her career, but also, yeah, her confidence and just her, like, it just, they're only married for 16 months. She wasn't allowed to speak to anyone. Like, he completely cut her off. And we were just saying, if there's one thing you know about Liza, she loves people and she loves being around people. And he cuts her off from everybody. And it doesn't take until she sets up a meeting. Like she like gets a phone and she's able to set up a meeting to go see Michael to essentially be like, I'm trapped.

And he finds out. He flips the fuck out. And it just, sweet Michael. It's very, she ends up getting away from him. Yeah. And a long story. short, she really, like, if it wasn't for arrested development and Ronnie Howard calling her

to give her the role, she had nothing. This is like her, of a woman who had many, she says that her first trip to rehab was her rock bottom, but I actually think that like this period after David Guest, this is also when she is identifying. I'm sorry, they sign up for a reality show that's going to be about their life. and David Guest asked VH1 for 30 times the costume budget of what Liza asked for for the reality show. So of course, VH1 threw it in the trash, you know, like that immediately. He was trying to get as much out of her as physically, spiritually, spiritually possible.

Absolutely. And so she's publicly still claiming to be sober, which is something she does for a lot of her career. but she is totally secretly drinking. And this is a time that she says is one of the worst days of her life where she goes out. She's in New York City. She kind of slinks out of her apartment trying to not be noticed. Her staff, at this point she has staff who's kind of helping her because she has a lot of health problems. She gets out and goes to a bar in like the 60s on Lex.

The amount of times she used to. She had to have handlers because she would escape so often. And I know that's not funny. I know inherently, but also say that to the content that we're definitely putting out this week of me. Retending to be Liza in the studio because the idea of her manic escapes that she would go to is so funny to me. I'm sorry, MJ. It's debilitating. It's so sad.

It's okay. can be the sympathetic person for Liza because I also, somebody got me out of here. Somebody got me out of here. And like everyone in the secret bars that she would have would know her. Right. She would like find these dark bars that she could go into without being noticed because she's Liza Minnelli in the 60s in Lex.

This is like her hood, right? And but I feel again, any talk to any sober person in New York City and they will tell you how specifically it's hard to be sober in New York City. New York. Oh, yeah. Because there's great fun bars everywhere. And it's really fun to drink alone at a bar in Manhattan. It's one of my favorite activities.

And so she's just like, oh, it's calling me. It's calling me. Honestly, it's funny. You even saying that she even brings up in L.A. where it's like, oh, but you have to drive everywhere, which is why I feel like it is a way less of a drinking culture here. Because you have to drive everywhere. But don't worry.

That didn't stop Liza. It didn't. But it is, I think it would be really hard. It was really hard for her to stay sober. And so, yeah, she has this really horrible moment where she goes out. She gets drunk secretly. Nobody knows where she is. And she passes out wide open in public on Lexington Avenue.

People are walking by her. She's obviously Lise and Monelli. For hours, they couldn't find her. And it's just the biggest humiliation of her life. But you guys, that is one month before her old little boy who she used to babysit, Ronnie calls her. because Ronnie, Ron Howard was, he was a child star, not only Ope and Anthony, but also in The Music Man and in these films that her parents worked on, right? And so her little boy, old boy she used to watch, Ronnie calls her one month after the worst day of her life and is like, do you want to do this project?

And it's like she's like born again. She's like, finally I get to like, I get to be funny. I get to this is like such a fun role. And she's having all these physical. that she gets to do it. Yes, and she has all of these physical ailments, but if you've watched, which also, I went last night and watched all,

like, watched a bunch of the Liza episodes of Arrested Development. And just, because it is funny, because originally watching Rested Development, I thought she was so old in it. And watching it now, I'm like, oh, she's not at all, but reading about how she does all,

because in it, if you've not seen her unrested development, Lucille Ostero, has vertigo. So she's always like tripping and falling into things. And she specifically, even though she was ailing so much physically, she does all of the physical comedy herself. She's so proud of this. And I love this for her.

Yes, because watching it again, she's hilarious, MJ. And this is another thing that I'm so glad you bring this up because I also wanted to say this. The first time that I saw Arrested Development, I thought that she was really funny, but because she's old and older, she was, or 60s maybe,

she, and because she's Liza, and she's so, so committed to the character, and the character is not that dissimilar from her, I wasn't sure how much Liza was in on the joke. And now that I know that she is actually an incredibly talented comedic force, she's super in on the joke. And I feel bad that I kind of underestimated

that Lucy Lastero is so funny because of Liza's comedic talent, not because Liza is a joke, right? Like Liza is seen as a figure as a joke, but actually she is a very funny, talented actress, right? I think that that is what I've really genuinely learned from this whole experience of reading and watching her stuff and that before this, I always knew of the icon of Liza. I didn't quite realize that she could and did back up what the icon was.

Totally. I didn't quite, like, I knew obviously that she was. good and obvious bird way and you know doing all that i just the fact that egot winner the fact that that translated to so in so many different like facets of entertainment she was so and is she's so dynamic of a performer that it really is so devastating that i appreciate that you even said up top talking about like her regrets with pills. I don't even feel like she really talks about it with regret. I don't think she does, yeah.

I don't think she acknowledges the fact that she suffers from substance abuse disorder and understands. Now, I hope that that is all in the place of having done the therapy in rehab to get to that and it's not just another. I've been sober for 11 years. I have been, you know, like where you. you hear the clickety clap of the pills in her pocket. So I'm really hoping that this is the case because in the end,

she was so like with the rest of the element, like, of course that helps, but she had to sell everything to be able to live. Yeah, she's broke. She does. Yeah, she's basically in the last two decades of her life. Arrest, arrest development really helped her like find her confidence again. But yeah, she's broke.

She has to auction off all of her stuff. She says she does like kind of find peace. But I think that also in terms of like she's she's very defensive. And she what the whole we can end it with the little Oscars episode because that's where she ends it. She hates sympathy. She does not want anyone to think that she is not capable. And I think that that is obviously born out of spending your 70 years being like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not drunk.

Like she even talks about an episode where she's in the hospital. She's been found in like an unconscious state. And then her phone rings. she just picks up the phone and goes, sweetie, I'll call you right back. And it's because she had to- back into a seizure. Like she was so used to lying to everybody. She was so used to it.

Exactly. And so she's very, and I think that that is still very clear in the book. She's very defensive. She's like, I'm fine. I never really fucked up that bad. I'm fine. I don't have a bill of them. I'm not.

So 2022, it's the Oscars. And I will, I will say, I'm getting. This is the last image of Liza. I have in my mind. The last image of Liza in public that I have in my mind is her at the Oscars. And she wanted to go out there and sit on a director's chair. That is her signature move. Her body was failing, but she was like, I could sit really well on like a tall director's chair.

And she says the teleprompter was sized so that her eyes could see it from the director's chair. And then all of a sudden, right before, like, the ceremony's already underway. And they're like, you have to go out in a wheelchair because we don't want to want you to fall. And she's like, I won't fall. I do, I don't want to go out of a wheelchair. I don't go on stage in a wheelchair. She has this, she has this whole little aside where she's like, if you're out a wheelchair, it's fine, but it's not fun for me. And she's like, I won't go out in a wheelchair. And then they basically are like, you're either going out in a wheelchair or you're not going out at all. And Gaga, who she's co-presenting with is like, you have to just listen to them.

Just do what they say you have to. Stephanie Germanata. Turn your back on. All right. Yeah. You, you, you just sold her. down the river and she even hates Lady Gaga now. Because she feels that she, she feels that she betrayed her because she was like, just go out in the wheelchair. And what happens is we all saw her seeming kind of like demented. But what she says happened is that the teleprompter was,

was she couldn't see it from the wheelchair. She was ready to be able to see it from a higher height of the director's chair. And they also gave her cue cards. And she was like, I can't read those with all my reading glasses. I didn't have my reading glasses. Which she couldn't read the cue cards. Anybody over the age of 40 will understand. And fucking Gaga is like, here, look, look at the cards.

And she's looking at them and she's like, I can't, this is useless. Like, I can't read this. And so everyone was like, oh, Lady Gaga was so empathetic in that moment. But she's like, I got you, I got you, babe. But she's like she got sympathy. Why did not see it like that? Like Gaga got basically like lifted her reputation. is this like lovely pop star to old people by humiliating Liza is how Liza feels about it.

So she has never forgiven Stephanie Germanata. Never. And never forgiven like the Oscars as a production. And she basically writes this book in vengeance. She says my parents never got the chance to set the record straight about their lives, but I do. It took a televised disaster to push me into action. And so she was so humiliated by being seen as this. kind of like out of it old lady at the Oscars when she's like I'm not out of it.

Friends, I'm still here. So that she's like, I'll write this fucking book. And she writes it with Michael. She writes it with Michael. She just like tells the story of her life to Michael. And I find that part incredibly moving. I love it. She was just telling Michael.

And Michael, he was an archivist for Gershwin. He loves this shit. Okay. He loves this. Yeah. Michael must be a pig and shit hearing all these stories. And so, yeah, so this book is a revital act. of vengeance. And I love that for act of vengeance. And the pills did not destroy any of her performances.

Her mother did not kill herself. And she has been sober for 11 years. Yes. And we hope that for her. I will throw that out there. No matter, regardless of what content we put out, we do hope that for her. And I want you to remember that. We're proud of her. She is an incredibly talented, singer, actor, dancer, and also an incredibly important figure in pop culture. Like, no question about it. Yes, and she is not a gremlin that if you give her pills after midnight that she'll start to reproduce. And even though we are a little worried, but as long as, you know, we try to put her back

in the crib, get the shackles back on her, and then everything's fine. I would say this is a long book. If you have enjoyed this conversation, you could read the book. You could also just go watch Cabaret. You could watch Liza with the Z. You could watch some Vincent Minnelli movies. You could really just like revisit the, listen to a George Gershalan album. We let you know.

We gave you the highlights. She touched so many aspects of so many important things in like 20th century music, you know. And so it's a long, interesting memoir. Yeah. Quite long. But we did it. Quite long. I'm also glad we read it.

And I do think that there's going to be read it. And I do think that there's going to be in our near future, us reading Elizabeth Taylor memoir. I'm sure there's a great one out there. And I think that we do need to do that at some point. But we're not doing it today, Peter. And I'm sorry, my gay husband, but you got to go on keep on being gay out there, right? I do. I do.

Well, thank you guys for going on this journey with us. Go listen to her Jean Simmons produced pop synth album if you really want to know. want to, or just watch Liza with a Z. That's why I'm supposed to Z. That's a, she's really great work. I am intrigued. I do think I'm going to watch New York, New York, and I'm sad that I didn't have time to watch it before this, but I am curious the fact that audiences were left confused.

So I want to know what happens. And thank you guys so much for hanging out on our second part of kids. Just wait till you hear this by Liza Minnelli. Thank you so much for joining us during our second part. part of celebrities. MJ, you ready to sing the song with me? I'm ready. Just take a look.

It's in a book. It's celebrities. Celebrities. Celebrities. Pills. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them.

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