That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Bella Mackie talks sleuthing, mental health and her new novel

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Bella Mackie joins Gaby for a natter about all things joy. They discuss her new novel and why she has been working on it for such a long time. She also reveals how her Dad is very instrumental in the writing process! There's also a bit of running chat too - and some good mental health advice as well. You can find out more about Bella's new novel hereAnd see Gaby and Bella being a bit silly over on her instagram! (you can also follow Bella too) We hope you enjoy the episode! (and if you do, please like, follow and subscribe - and leave us a little comment too. Remember, we also have a YouTube channel now as well, so you can watch the podcasts if you so desire...) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bella Mackey. Hello. I think you may have two of the greatest titles for any books ever in the history of books. That's all we need to say. Thank you very much. Good night. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

What a way to go and how to kill your family. Hello. Yeah. No, they are good and I chose both of them. So I shouldn't probably say that, should I? No, they're your books. Yeah, they are my books. Actually, I much prefer that you chose them.

Yeah. But a bit weird if you said, no, somebody else gave. Well, sometimes the publishers do choose. that happens quite often that the publisher chooses. Okay, really, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So quite often it's, you know, marketing comes up with things that they think buzzwords and things that they think would work.

Sometimes, you know, a writer will have no idea what they want to call their book the entire way through and someone will suggest something and they'll say, yeah, that sounds good to me. So sometimes it depends. With me, I really want to choose my own titles and I had a bit of a fight about this one. Which one, you knew one? About what a way to go, yeah. Why? We went through about 15 different titles and,

marketing was saying, well, we really like this one. And my editor was saying, and I like this one. And I was saying, no, I want this one. And then back and forth, back and forth. And then we came up with some ridiculous titles that kind of, I've got a whole page list of really embarrassing title suggestions. And we kind of got to a stalemate. And eventually they went, okay, fine, we can call it, what a way to go. And I think they only let me do that because I came up with Hasker family and that was a good one. So I think they're a bit like, oh, if it fails, that's on you. This is really weird, because I think what a way to go is the most genius title. Well, I like it, but I mean, to be fair, we haven't, it hasn't come out yet, so the proof will be in the pudding.

But I checked with other people because I thought, is this a very English phrase? So I asked my hairdresser, his French, I said, would you say that in France? She said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I asked an Iranian friend. So I got a bunch of other people to give me their options because I was sort of losing confidence. But, but, yeah. I had no idea that you didn't choose people. Not always, yeah, no, not always.

I mean, it's interesting. I'd love to know about, you know, I'd love to know whether, like, Dickens chose all his own titles or whether his publishers were suggesting. David Copperfield or, you know. I can imagine somebody like Dick, I suppose now, because he's Dicky. But then. But then, you know, it might have been that a really cany publisher said, okay, we're going to call it and, you know, whatever it was. You know, it's interesting.

Not everyone picks their own titles. Obviously your first book as well, genius. How to Kill Your Family. That what's so wonderful is the reaction to that book and the reaction to the title. You must have known that that was going to be a very good. reaction. No, I had no idea. Really? I really honestly have no confidence and I mean like most women and no I thought you know I thought I was really hopeful that like you know maybe 10,000 people might buy it because that would be really successful you know for a first novel. I had no idea and I think

a lot of that has to do with the title that people picked it up and thought it was a funny title and catchy and a lot of people bought it for family members to say you know you know don't go your family it's not a manual so a lot of it I think was to do with the with the title but I think also in publishing, everything is, it's an alchemy. You just don't know what's going to do well and what's not going to do well. There have been books I've read recently that I thought have been some of the best literature I've read in years and they've not sold huge amounts. So I think it's completely chance. It's not, it's really not about talent or, I think a lot of it's just luck. I have to say, I disagree. I had to kill your family. From the title, you want it.

The minute you go in, you're there and you want to stay in that book. And to me, I like a book to grab me from the very beginning. And it did. And I wanted to be in that world. For me, I love books. I absolutely love them. But I want to be in that world and I don't want something to take me out of that world. That's why it's great to be able to put the phone aside. And you're in that world. How do you do that? How did you bring us into that world straight away? Do you know what? I think it's because I felt like I was in that world when I was writing it and thinking about it and living with those characters and I think

I don't know I think it's something to do I mean it's my that was my first novel so obviously I don't have a huge amount of experience of kind of and this is how you do it did really well yeah yeah but I think it's because it's a subject that I was so interested in myself you know I'm so interested in the super rich I'm so interested in that world I've always been interested in that world I was reading I remember reading hello magazines when my mom was getting a hair done in the

hairdresser and just being fascinated by these people you know, in their society gala's and their bullgowns and, you know, their diamonds and riding horses, all these insane things. I just, I was, I was fascinated from a really young age and my mum always thought it was completely bizarre. And so I guess as a result, I'm so interested in the world I'm writing about, which is obviously a luxury that I get to write about why I'm interested in. You know, I can't write about whale watching because, you know, I have very little interest in it. Oh, you've got to go. I would like to watch it. I would like to watch it. Can I tell you, it's one of the most remarkable things. Where did you go?

I was in the San Juan Island. in America. It was truly one. I did it for a TV show, but suddenly digress. But please do it. It was a bad example. It's only because I saw a TikTok video of a whale breaching in Ireland this morning and I reminded myself of it. But of course, that's actually very interesting. So of course you'd want to see that. Something else. Anything else. The life of germs. I'm not interested. No. Again, quite interesting. I know. Could be quite interesting. I don't know why I keep quite interesting. I know. I know very interesting. Are we interested in everything? We are. We are. Let's find something that's not interesting. But that's the thing as a writer, I think you do find

everything interesting. I find everything interesting. Watching a worm cross the road. I'd be fascinated by that. I should think I? Yeah, I would. You'd think. A fly flying around in the kitchen. No, I'm interested by that because I think where do you think you're getting out? What's your intention here? You keep going to the same place. What's happening here? Okay. I know, I know. Maybe not animals because I find all animals. All right. All animals. Say, okay, you tear the corner of the newspaper. That's not very interesting. No, okay, fine. I think you may have found the one example that I wouldn't find very interesting. There you go, there you go. Although there's a little bit of me that wants to find out what was written on the rest of the tomb bit. See, there's always something. But that's the joy about writing is that you can always find, there's always something that you can dig down into and find interesting. So, but for me, at the moment, it is still the world of the super rich and I find that endlessly fascinating. And the class system in this country, I find that fascinating. How has their reaction been?

the rich people I don't know because I don't know if rich people read it and if they do they don't tell me that they've read it you know they wouldn't

get in touch with me and say you need to infiltrate I know well I did get a message from someone who I thought you know Instagram sometimes people message me and say things about the book

and she messaged me and she had an honourable in front of her name on Instagram so then I looked her up and she is the daughter of some duke what did she say

well she just said I love the book and it was so great but I think she wouldn't have found it I don't think it would have chimed with her life because the people I've written about in this book are kind of new money and so I think for her she would have thought this is very interesting reading about

this completely different type of person to me and so that's the class system you know everyone is in their own little category and sees everyone else as something else so yeah I don't think she'd have recognised herself at all maybe in the new one which is about kind of slightly older money older money so what you need to do is you need to infiltrate a hallow event

and you need to go in in disguise big hat, big hat, dark glasses, and you need to distribute the book around while they're not looking. Well, it's funny because you say that, but I was speaking to someone who works. No, I mean, I wish I'd done it. I don't even have a copy of it at the moment. I was speaking to a journalist I know who works for a lifestyle magazine. And she said, I was talking to her about my new book, What a Way to Go, and she said, oh, I don't think you've, I don't think you've been harsh enough. And I said, oh, why not?

And she said, these people, Bella, she said, you don't understand. they're not rich like you've written them. There's next level rich. She said, I know of someone who has so many houses around the world that when they came to London, they stayed at Claridge's and they spent one night at Clariters and then the husband sort of slapped his head and said, darling, we have a house here.

And they had forgotten. No. Yes, that they had a house in Mayfair, round the corner from Clarages. Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't like that. I don't like greed. I know. I know.

But so, so you see, I think I've downplayed the wealth. and the power and the money that these people have. Because I've gone and have said, oh, you know, they've got two nice houses. And, you know, maybe sometimes they get, you know, a private helicopter. But these people forget that they have houses. I don't like greed. Neither do I. But that's why everyone in my book gets their come up.

Yes, yes, I was going to say. No one really, I mean, they might profit from it financially, but, you know, ethically, morally, spiritually. Yes. They're not doing well. So, you know, I think that's the fictionalized element of if you see something in the world and you don't like it, you then write it fictionally and and brilliant. Yeah, and come up with your own conclusion for these people. Let's go backwards if we can.

You speak so openly about mental health and about your anxiety and about running and all of these things. For me, it's that you suddenly weren't, you were a journalist and you've written and so, I love all the way you're so open about everything and you speak your mind, which I love him. But also do you suddenly say, that's it, I'm going to do the book. What was that moment? Because the way that you got there, the running book, and all the other stuff that you've written, suddenly you say, I know. I'm just quite fascinated by that moment, that light bulb, that click. Yeah, it's interesting.

I think, again, it's like a confluence of events that were lucky in that, you know, my husband left me and I started running and I felt better about my anxiety and my OCD and all of these things that have been sort of crippling me for. for a decade. And then I wrote this book about running and mental health. And then because that did fairly well, I thought, okay, they're going to let me write another book at the moment, you know, because you're only as good as your last book. And I thought, okay, fine, they're going to let me do another book here. And they kept saying, you know, would you like to write a book about, you know, trampolining or, you know, skydiving or, you know, what else could you write a book about? And I said, no, none of those things make me happy. I mean, they might make me happy, but I haven't explored them. So it would be, it would feel disingenuous to then say, you know,

and now trampoline yourself happy. And so that was the kind of slight gamble. I knew they'd let me write something, but I know that they wanted me to write more mental health nonfiction. And I said, can I write a novel? And they went, no. They said, well, that's not what we were looking for. And then I sort of pitched it to a couple of publishers and I got rejected by about three publishers. He said, nice idea, but no. And then eventually my my original publishers said, okay, we'll take it for quite a low advance. But by then I was like, okay, foot in the door. So, you know, let's see. Let's see if it works. And luckily for me, it did work. Because it's quite a leap. I mean, okay, you're, like I said, I love you for your honesty about everything and your anxiety.

Coming out and saying all of that and helping so many people as you did, that was quite a big leap for you to be so open about everything. And then the next step and believe, I love the fact. That's why I was asking you where it came from, that moment. because from everything that I've read that you had that anxiety and you didn't believe in yourself but then you believed in yourself enough to do that novel and that's what I was interested in. Yeah, no, you make a good point

and there clearly was some kind of confidence there which was, you know, I think was because I kind of got over quite a lot in that five years you know, husband, you know, marriage breaking down and sort of dealing with women into health and I had a stalker during that time and so there was lots of bad stuff going on and I think because the book came out and did well,

and it did help people and people responded really positively to it. And because I think it took a weight off my shoulders of thinking, I don't have to hide the fact that I have these issues. You know, I don't have to kind of minimize them or pretend they're not there or try and make myself look more palatable to people. I think there probably was a confidence there at about 35 where I thought, oh, okay, you know, here's a springboard and I can take it. And I'm not normally like that.

I'm not a kind of grabbed opportunities by the... But not normally, but now you are. Yeah, well, no, I think once. And then once, and that was amazing. And I think now I'm very nervous because I think, oh God, I've got to try and do that again. I don't know. So do the nerves come back? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I sort of thought maybe it's that life lesson, isn't you think? If I can just get to X, then everything will be fine. You know, if I can just get to Y, if I can just, you know, make X amount of money or buy a house or whatever it is. And you think then life will be great. And of course, that's not realistic, you know, life doesn't just suddenly slot into place. So even though the books are really well and I've been so lucky with it I thought

and now I'll never feel anxious again and actually you feel more anxious So it is but it is I mean giving a book Handing a book over as any author Always says it's or a musician with their new album And they've had a successful first album And they go here we go

You're handing over your baby And then somebody else is going to be Looking after your baby And saying what they think about your baby And sometimes for the first draft you don't like your baby. Really? Yeah.

Do you get moments like that? Well, yeah, because the pandemic happened sort of in between. And I was really anxious during the pandemic and really sad and sort of worried all the time. Understandably, a lot of people were. Yeah, a lot of people were. And obviously I had it much better than a lot of people. But it was just the mental health element of it. Just I didn't react well to it.

And so I was trying to write a funny book while feeling really sad. And I wrote the whole thing. And then my editors sort of sat down kindly with me and did that head tilt thing. And she said, I don't. I'm not sure this is the book you want to write. And I kind of was devastated thinking, oh my God. But when I read it back, I thought, oh yeah, none of this is funny. It's not funny at all.

And so I threw it away and wrote another draft. Wow. Yeah, yeah, 130,000 words. Literally scrapped 130,000 words. Yeah. So you had actually somebody hold your hand and say, this doesn't work. And they knew how to do it. But it didn't stop you from doing it.

No. So that's huge. Yeah. That's, yeah, I think it did make me much less confident with what I was doing. But then actually, once I started writing again, you get into the groove of it. You know, there are times when you're writing and you think, I hate every single thing about this, it's terrible. You know, no one's going to read this.

Ugh. And then there's times when you're in your groove and you're like, okay, no, no, this is good. This is funny. I'm getting there. You know, or you hope it's funny, but you find it funny. And so, yeah, you bounce back, I guess. And so this has been my difficult second album in the musical analogy. And hopefully the third one, which I've already plotted out is much easier because I sort of

know what I'm doing. I've been plotting it out with my dad. We've been going over the specifics. Oh, that's so lovely. Oh, because we both have this real interest in crime. So he used to read me True Crime Bedtime Stories. He'd read me about sort of Dr. Crippin

and the Brides in the Bath and stuff. It was always old murders. I think maybe he thought that was less. Oh, like six, seven? Yeah, yeah. And he brought me a subscription to a true crime magazine when I was eight. And that was really disgusting. I think, but I love that story.

I mean, obviously around you, you had journalism and writing and everything around you. but I love that you had this shared thing. I know. I know. I mean, some people bond over, you know, football or, you know, lots of normal things. And me and my dad bonded over weird crimes, which we still do. He will text me about a weird crime, you know, at least once every kind of couple of months and say, what do you think?

What do you think? True crimes. Yeah, yeah. And he'll be like, what do you think? Who do you think did it? I think it was X. And I'm like, you are 70 years old. You should not be, you should not be saying that.

No, let him. I think that's fantastic that he's. Fantastic that he's still thinking like that. I know. It's funny. It's very funny. So, yeah, I'm plotting out that one. But I think I'll stick with the crime element of it

because I just find crimes. So everyone does, right? Everyone finds some element of crime fascinating. It's such a weird instinct that we all have, you know. I mean, the true crime podcast do. Oh, my goodness. Amazingly well. My elder daughter, she listens.

She'll go, you'll never guess. So, so and so, sometimes I'm just, what are you listening to? I know. I know. And then also, but also with the rise of it. social media is not just the kind of true crime podcast, it's also that everyone now has an opinion on things that are happening in real time. Absolutely. Because, you know, I mean, you look on TikTok at the moment and there's just, they're all looking at this one specific case

and they all have their own theories, they all have their own, you know, conspiracy. But I was just about to say the conspiracy theory is terrify me. It's terrifying. People then believe it and there's no budging it. They go, oh, well, I've heard that. I read that. I saw that. TikTok, I saw it on Instagram, it must be true. And that does, that actually does worry me. No, it's awful. It's completely out of control because it's no longer just, you know, reading about something and having an opinion. It's going online, sharing misinformation, perhaps affecting a victim's family, you know, all of that kind of thing. So I actually don't imbibe true crime myself at all anymore, partly because I remember I once was talking about it on Instagram and I got a message from someone who said,

I'm really glad that you don't imbibe too much true crime. She said because my sister was murdered. Oh my god, I know. And she said, and the worst moment of my life, obviously apart from finding out that her sister had been killed was she was in a changing room in a shop. And in the next cubicle, there were two girls discussing their theories about how her sister had been killed and who had done it. Yeah, because it had been on a podcast without the family permission. Without their permission. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm now sort of steer clear of true crime, but I like to get my fix with fictional crime, which I think is, you know, probably slightly.

Slightly safer. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I always find so funny is that when people do write fictional crime, that people say, what's going on in your hair? But actually, we all have vivid imaginations. And personally, I think we should keep our vivid imaginations alive. As kids, we have it, and then something happens when you turn into an adult.

But we should keep our imaginations alive. It doesn't mean that there's strange things going on in your head. Of course not. And also, the other thing I'm quite careful not to do is, I think lots of fiction, crime fiction, is, and you'll know this, it's quite gruesome. It's normally there's a female victim and a surly but handsome detective, male detective, who sort of doesn't know how handsome he is and he's a bit troubled. And quite often the women in those books are just the bodies, you know, and you read visceral

descriptions about how they've been, you know, mutilated. And it's quite harrowing in a way. So the crimes that I write are comedic. You know, I don't want to trigger anyone. I don't want to make anyone upset. I don't want anyone to feel like they can't go to sleep that night. I want it to be funny. My main goal in writing now is just I want people to laugh.

You care passionately about how other people cope with life, don't you? Yeah, I mean, I hope everyone does, you know? Well, no, because what you do is you're trying to help others. I absolutely like you believe that I try and believe that everybody is good. I really do. I look on the bright side of everything. But what you've done with everything is, like you said, you want to make, somebody smile you want to make them feel better you're running but you wanted to help them with

their mental health you passionately do care and that's what I get from everything that you write and everything that you do on social media and all the stuff that you do with mr. macky is that you want that you care about people I do care about people and and I do want people to feel good and I want but I think equally I think I feel really strongly about certain causes but in a way that I want other people to care as much as I do about about things that I'm interested in in and that's maybe not a good thing. You know, I sort of, I feel like I have to hold myself back sometimes. Why? Why? Why?

Well, because I think there are things like I'm a vegetarian. I think if I had my way, if I was overlord for everyone, I would ban all meat for sale, you know, and I feel like if I don't hold myself back, I would be going on Instagram every day, screaming at people saying, stop eating meat, it's terrible, do you not know what it does for the animals? So I think I do want to help people, but I think equally I have to remember that other people can do what they, yeah, but also that it's not always altruism that drives your emotions. Sometimes you have a feeling or a thought or an opinion and you feel like you're

helping someone else, but actually you're trying to help yourself or work through something. So it's not always altruistic. I think it's disingenuous to say you're always trying to help people if sometimes it's more to do with your own feelings or emotions about something. But your book and the running and being, like I said, again, being open about your mental health will have helped so many people. Yes, it helped you. But I don't think you thought, maybe I'm completely wrong. Oh no, Gabby, I just did it for the money. No, I'm joking. So you thought, right, this is helping me. It's not going to help anybody else. You knew what you were doing. You knew you could help people. Yeah, I mean, I think I wrote it partly for me,

partly for others. Obviously, again, you don't know as a writer who's going to read it or what the reception will be like. You have no idea. And that's always the kind of added nice surprise at the end. And I had no idea that I would be, I was besieged by messages. I mean, really honestly, like thousands and thousands and thousands of messages I've had over the last, whatever it is six years since I wrote that book from mainly women, sometimes men, talking about anxiety and OCD and depression and medication and therapy and at the beginning it was a bit overwhelming because obviously I'm not a trained professional and I can't give someone advice or take on that kind of trauma for them. So that was quite difficult in the beginning. Now it's lovely because I feel

like I sort of I know where I am and I know what the boundary is and all that kind of stuff. But I had no idea it would help people like that and I had no idea that being that honest would chime with other people who would go, oh, right, yeah, I know it, that's what's what it's like for me. Because I think I felt like the mental health space, and I think it's still true, is kind of too sanitised. You know, there's a lot of talk about how it's okay not to be okay. And, you know, we all have mental problems and please talk to someone, all of these kind of messages.

But I think actually the reality of so much of mental illness is, is kind of terrifying, scary, so isolating. And you have the weirdest thoughts and you think no one else is thinking this. You know, you can't find any information or literature about it. You're thinking, oh, my God, you know, someone describes anxiety as just feeling a bit nervous. But I, you know, can't go out of my house or I'm scared of being poisoned. You think, oh, I'm going mad. You know, so to actually write all of that stuff down, I think was a relief for other people who thought, oh, right, that's amazing.

Thank you for writing down the weirdest bits because it makes me feel less alone. Yeah. So that was a surprise. But as I say, like, that's kind of the great thing about writing is that there's a surprise at the end, which is what other people think. And that's not always good. But when it is good, it's lovely. And when it's not good, it's interesting because you think, okay, fine, you know, that's not the angle I would have thought it from. So, you know, lots of people didn't like the end of how to kill your family.

And I thought, oh, that's interesting because I think it's, you know, the only way it could have ended. But lots of people get very angry with me. And I think that's great because I think, okay, fine, you've got input into this. Yes. We're having a dialogue. Yeah. Yeah, because it can't, nothing these days. And you'll know this from your long career as kind of a presenter, which is at the beginning of your career, presumably, you know, this kind of a war.

between you and the audience. You know, there's a kind of pre-social media. You are the presenter. You do what you do and it goes out to an audience that can't contact you very easily. But now... With changed the show. Yeah, right. So now you get feedback on your podcast, on your shows, whatever you're doing, the audience can be in contact with you. And obviously, sometimes they're like, oh, that was rubbish. But mostly it's interesting, it's thoughtful, it's funny. And I like that, that there's a dialogue now, that people can have that kind of interaction with readers or listeners or whoever it is. That's what books do.

I think books are, like I said, sort of as I started, that you can disappear into that world. And that when a book takes you in and you're there in that world, it's just, and I'm passionate about books because they, you can picture those things yourself.

And I always used to be upset if somebody saw a film before they read the book. because no, you're not painting those pictures. So we've all got our pictures of your characters and how they look. You describe them carefully, but we have our own in our head. I'm closing my eyes because I'm there in that world and it's such a, it's a precious thing because it's just between the reader and the writer. Yeah, because it's such a unique relationship. And the reader and the characters as well, because the way you think about characters

in your favourite books will never be the same as anyone else. You know, so that's so brilliant and wonderful. And also that it is such a, it's such a calming thing to do to read because you do have to put your phone away. You do have to, all distractions do have to go somewhere else and you're doing something just for you. And I think, I mean, that probably explains why the majority of fiction readers are women. It's because that's time just for them when they're not working, looking after the children, making dinner, doing all of those things. You know, it's just that beautiful 15 minutes if you can grab it just to, you know, just to escape into another world. and it's such a good thing to do actually for your mental health is to be books yeah it really is and

every time I read a book I think oh why haven't I why haven't I picked a book up in two weeks because this feeling is so fantastic you know and it makes it makes such a difference to your head it just calms everything down it quietens everything it sort of lets your you know imagination expand it's just yeah I mean reading I mean everyone knows that I don't think it's controversial is it no one saying it's actually very bad for you it's not it's not a good thing to do it's a wonderful thing if we make we just Before we finish, just talk about Mr. Mackey. Of course. Is it okay that I tell you to your face that I love your husband?

Of course. We, I see him at work and Greg is just brilliant. And I think you two together, there was a very funny article I read, we're not the new Richard and Judy. He's like, no, you're not. You're Bella and Greg, you're Greg and Bella and together. I mean, he's fantastic. He's a genius.

He's a genius. He's a genius broad. He's so clever and I love that he's daring because I think a lot of television and radio is a little safe. And it can be a bit safe everywhere, but he pushes the boundaries in a really good, positive way. He's never nasty. He's never hypercritical. He's clever. Yeah. No, he is. I'm in awe of the way he broadcast. You know, obviously I'm kind of shy and I get nervous about doing anything like that. And the way he does it is, I find it completely, is watching someone with their craft.

So interesting to see someone. He's a master of his craft. In the same way that Chris Evans, you know, where a lot of people say, oh, he's like Chris was. Chris Evans, he looked at things and he was a, produced something and he pushed it to the nth degree and to make it work brilliantly. And Greg looks at things like that. I think Greg is just fantastic.

I absolutely love it. No, and actually, I mean, you know, I think, you know, sometimes people make jokes about their partners, oh, you know, you should see them whatever, you know, when they're at home or whatever. lovely, lovely man. And I'm so ridiculously lucky to have found him because... And he's lucky to found you. Oh, he's very lucky to have found me. Exactly. You know, he's very lucky. His mother once joked just before we got married. She said, you're not who I thought Greg would end up with. And I said, who did you think Greg would end up with? And she said,

I don't know, sort of maybe like a 26 year old yoga sort of influencer or something. And I thought, okay, I don't know if that's worse for Greg or me. Is that worse than him or me? So funny. I know. It was so funny. I was laughing so much. But, you know, he is lucky to have about me because I sort of pull things out of him and he pulls things out of me. And also he's so optimistic. He's so joyful and cheerful and genuine. He's like that all the time and I'm a huge pessimist. I'm not joyful. I'm horribly cynical. I love that you've come on reasons to be joyful. I know. I know. I know. I was thinking about it and I was thinking, oh God, I'm going to really have to like dig deep for this one. But I love being with someone who's like that because it's like

watching us. We go through the world. We're seeing the same things and we have entirely different. I'll say, oh no you know the sky is falling in and he's saying no look it's so beautiful actually what's happening is it's just expanding you know and I love that I think that's such a wonderful thing and I think I probably get the better end of the deal there which is that I get this joyful cheerful person all the time and he gets me going what if the sky falls in but no he's a he's a doll and I love him and he's made my life infinitely better and I can't believe we've been together seven years and I just after having a marriage explode after nine months the idea of being with someone for seven years feels insane to me and the next seven and seven and seven oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

I'm not letting him go now. Like, I'm not having a third Mr Mackey. We're sticking with this one. No, and it's a good one that you're sticking with. Bella, thank you so much. Thank you so much.