The Ben Mulroney Show - The funniest thing you'll see on the internet today -- jonbreaksbadnews

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

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this episode is brought to you by Dazon for the first time ever the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on DAZN starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. ["Dazen"] Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And look, this show works because we do a lot of prep work.

I don't show up without the requisite knowledge to speak and sometimes offer my opinions. I can BS my way through most conversations in life, but on this show, I wanna come at you armed with facts and information. So my producer, Mike, said, OK, here's what we're going to do on Tuesday is I've got a guest that you're going to find really interesting. You may know them, you may not.

And you're just going to be introduced to them on camera. And I'm not going to tell you anything except I know that his name is John. So my question for you is, is this my son John? No. No, so it's a- This is John J.O.N. I think your son is J.O.H. Okay, well I did math for some reason.

Maybe you could have typed it wrong. No, no, no, I understand. Okay, so look, here's what we're gonna do, listeners and viewers of the Ben Mulroney Show. I'm going to be introduced to John right now, and we're gonna see what's up. But explain that you have to take, I have covered up the camera.

Yeah, cover up the camera, I gotta say, it's really well covered with some paper towel here. So now just, and introduce yourself. Okay, okay, so John, hi, it's Ben Mulroney, how are you? Hi, Ben, this is John from John Breaks Bad News. I have some bad news from your good buddy, Justin T. From who? He said, yeah, Justin T.

Oh, Justin T, yes. Yes, he wanted me to tell you that he's impressed you've managed to stay on TV or radio for 20 years without ever really saying anything. That's a skill for politicians. Yes, I promise you, it is not something I'm going to, I'm going to pivot into politics with, but if it keeps me afloat and gets me a paycheck,

I'm gonna keep doing it. So then you also wanted me to tell you that you're the only guy who could host a red carpet and get outshined by the carpet. And finally, a hot dog even sandwich and a round of golf isn't seven holes like the more rainy clan likes to play. We're into count to 18. Shiny, weird, Ruby, you can't gesture. Yeah, that that sound that sounds like him. That's fair. I'll take it all. I will take it all. John, it's a great it's great to meet you. Thank you so much. So

so so you're you I think I think I've seen your stuff before at least heard it right. So you just you wait, how does it work? You do you? You? You call people with bad news that other people should want to tell them but they don't want to tell them themselves? Yeah, exactly. That's that's pretty much how I explained it myself. I, uh, when people ask me what I do, I, I, I, uh, deliver bad news for people who don't want to do it themselves. How did you get into it? So I back in 2019, I started the page, the Facebook page, and it was just kind of like

something I've always been the person in my life to be the bearer of bad news to people. So I kind of thought it would be kind of neat to do it for the public. Yeah. And I offered it originally as a free service, and then that got to be too popular. So now I do it for tips. Yeah, you do it for tips. So if you tip me, I'm guaranteed to attempt your call. Well, yeah, we've got a couple to air right now and to show people. Here is a fun one, right?

Let's play this first one here. Hi, Stroud. This is John from John Breaks Bad News. There's some bad news from Kibo for you. Yeah, copy that. You're going deaf in your right ear, and you're yelling a lot. And it's starting to scare the students. Also, they drank all the bls

in your mom's fridge holy night so sorry bud do you know john when you're going into it like you don't know what like you're breaking bad news and you don't have the full context i'm guessing right so you you have no idea how people are going to respond you might think that you're breaking bad news and you don't have the full context, I'm guessing, right? So you have no idea how people are going to respond. You might think that you're breaking something in a funny way and somebody might take it in a completely different way. Yeah, I mean, like, we just recently had a video where the guy was not happy with me at all. What was that? What were you? What were you breaking to him?

I think his ex wife wanted to tell him that he was like a miserable guy and he was everybody around him was miserable and that he was like kind of like a bad person. And he proved everybody right. According to the comments, he proved everybody right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, but even like, but so, okay, so we've established that you don't get, you don't have all the context. Of course you can't. Like somebody wants you to break bad news

about a relationship ending. You don't know anything about that relationship. You're getting it from one person's side. So you really got to go on instinct as to whether or not you accept one of these missions or not. Have you ever turned one down because you just got a bad feeling about it? So the ones that I turned down are mostly ones where there's like a lot of slurs.

Yeah. So I, I, I, if they're telegraphing that they may be a racist, maybe you don't want to hit yourself to that wagon. Yeah. So those, those, I definitely turned down stuff. That's just like, just insults. Yeah, okay. I like, I try to stay away from them

unless they seem like lighthearted, then I'm like okay with it. And John, like, so you say you do this for tips. How, I mean, it started as one thing. How big has this gotten? Give our listeners a sense of the magnitude of John Briggs' bad news. Oh, so my TikTok account just a little while ago

passed 1.6 million followers. I have 1.1 million followers on Instagram and over half a million followers on Facebook. Oh, but listen, we were patting ourselves on the back for hitting 10,000 followers on Instagram and over half a million followers on Facebook. Oh, but listen, we were patting ourselves on the back for hitting 10,000 followers on Instagram. Granted, we've been on the air for a month, but we got a long way to go, my friend. Okay. And yeah. I sat at 10,000 followers on Instagram for a few years. And then we had a couple of videos

that just went, you know, yeah, nuts and. And because you're now because you're up there now, like, do you, do you have a sense when you're picking this up? This is, this is something that could go viral. Do you have a sense of that now? Or is it really, you know, it's the luck of the draw. You never know how, which bounce you're going to get. So like every once in a while, I'll have one where I'm like, all right, that one,

the person was very confrontational. If this gets picked up by the algorithm, it'll do really well. Yeah. Yeah. And, but there are ones that get picked up that I'm like, what do people, I don't understand why everybody thinks this one is good. Yeah. How much of John breaks bad news is John himself and how much of it's a character? Oh, that's tough. I think it's like 90% me. Yeah. But that's how, yeah.

I wouldn't know how to put this on. But that's how, yeah. I wouldn't know how to be, I wouldn't know how to put this on. But that's how I feel as well. People always say, oh, you're not the same person that we meet in the street. I was like, well, of course I'm not the same person at home. We contain multitudes. And Ben, the dad, the way I talk to my kids is not the way I talk at work

and it's not the way I address the clerk at the grocery store. And it's not the way I address the clerk at the grocery store. And it's not the way I speak into the microphone because we have, you know, I don't even know how else to explain it. Right? Yeah. Everywhere you go, you have to be a different person. I have two young kids, you know, like to them, I'm dad to my best friends, I'm a drunk. If you weren't doing this, like you started on a lark, you were having fun with it. And now I'm guessing it pays the bills. Yeah, substantially.

But if all of a sudden there was no more bad news to break, what would John be doing right now? I'd probably still find a way to make some sort of content. I like doing it. I've always wanted to be like doing something like entertaining people. I've been in bands my whole life. You give off live band music vibes.

I can see I was a vocalist. Yeah. Yeah. Like the other thing that I wanted to bring up was that we do live streams. Yeah. And the way that the live streams work. Like I don't even read the bit like the messages before they air. Okay. On the show. So like a lot of times, I don't even read the messages before they air on the show. So like a lot of times I don't even know what I'm going to be saying until I'm saying. Yeah, well that presents real, I mean there's risk involved there. That's a high wire act.

Oh, I'm sorry, you know what? I got totally caught up in this conversation. We have to go to break, but John, it has been such a pleasure talking to you. Oh, but stick around, because we're gonna talk to you on the other side of the break. All right, don't go anywhere. This is Ben Mulroney Show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And in our previous segment, I was introduced on air to my guest. He has made a career out of helping people break bad news to the people in their lives that they, for whatever reason, don't feel comfortable doing themselves. It's John Breaks Bad News,

and he's sticking with us for this segment. John, thanks so much for sticking around. No problem. Hey, to our listeners and our viewers on YouTube who may feel like content creation is a path that they want to explore, or they're in it and they're just not optimizing it, what's a tip that you could give them as somebody who's really

turned the corner and turned it into a career? The biggest thing is try to be as unique as you possibly can find a niche. Yeah. You're and like, I got extremely lucky. Like you if you have a 1000 followers, you're doing gangbusters. Yeah. Like, if you have 1000 people that are willing to listen to you or watch you do something, you're doing better than 99.9% of everybody out there. That's

right. But but in that arena, I mean, it's highly cutthroat. And because it's the most democratic thing you can do. Everybody, if they want, can get into the game. And you found that one thing, right? You either stumbled on it or you just have to be really good at it. And it resonated, right? You had lightning in a bottle, but that also elicits, you know, copycats. I have to assume that there are people like, well, if he can do it, I can do it. You must have a lot of people out there nipping at your heels.

Yeah, a lot of people out there nipping at your heels. Yeah, a lot of people try and but, you know, obviously what I do is like, there's an element of prank phone call. Yeah. And that's been done for decades. Like, there's been the jerky boy, you know, and there's some soaking in oatmeal. I just want to give a shout out to her because she's a great prank phone caller. And we have a lot of similarities where, you know, like, because it's kind of a classic thing to like say I love you at the end of a prank phone call. And, you know, like we both do that. And all the time we have people coming to us and saying you stole that from soaking with oatmeal, soaking in oatmeal, or you stole that from

John breaks bad news. And it's like, no, no, that's just like, that's nobody invented saying at the end of a phone call. Yeah, that's not that's not intellectual property. That's just, that's just a thing that's said by everyone with a heart and somebody in their life that they love. But okay, so you've got these competitors, right? But because it's such a competitive space, I gotta assume that you can't rest on your laurels.

It would be nice to believe that you could do the same thing over and over again. And it's the simple act of having like different people that you're talking to that is gonna keep people coming back, but at some point, the landscape is gonna change, the needs and the wants of the audience is gonna change. And so are you, like in the back of your mind,

are you planning for that next iteration, that next chapter? Yeah, actually we already kind of have somewhat of the groundwork laid out for that. I'm gonna be going to Florida. I'm from New York. Yeah. So I'm gonna be going to Florida in September

at the Conduit and the Orpheum on September 19th and 20th. And we're going to be doing live in person. That's amazing. Um, yeah, like a, like a live show at, at a venue where you can come and have me break your bad news for you in person. And we get to talk to you about it and we get to, you know, call the person that you want to call, or maybe they're there. Yeah, they're in the audience. And then we can help. We can help you break the bad news that I mean, I'm now I'm thinking about like it is it is the perfect vehicle for a lot for live engagement, right? Like it's it doesn't just have

to be at home with you. And I have to assume that that in some way is a return to your roots of being a, like you said, you were in bands before. So this must be an itch that you really want to scratch. I'm stoked. They reached out to me, I wouldn't have just said, hey, I'm gonna go to Florida and try to book a show.

They reached out to me and they wanted to do the these shows. So I was I was very touched and humbled by that. And, and I'm really, really excited to be able to do it. Well, yeah, the more now, I mean, I've only been thinking about this for about 30 seconds. But this opens up a whole new possibility for you, right? And, and if it goes well in Florida, who knows where a tour, you can mount a national international tour

doing something like this. Yeah, I mean like that's obviously the dream. Yeah. I hope we could do something like that, but you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah, well let's play a little more for our listeners. What's the idea of the goodbye? Yeah, we're gonna play, well first I wanna play the one, I wanna play the one play a little more for our listeners. Yeah, yeah, we're going to play.

Well, first, I want to play the one I want to play the one that says you eat too much. I think it's one of our last ones. Yeah. Who's speaking? This is John from John breaks bad news. There's some bad news from Christian for you. He wanted me to tell you that every time you guys go out to eat order food, you need to stop eating more than your share of food.

I can't hear you. What are you talking about? You gotta stop eating so much food. You ate more than half the pizza last time and the wings that you guys ordered together. You need to stop being such a big old fatso. Wait, I can't hear you. I can't understand what you're saying. Yeah. Oh, he could hear you. He could, and if you didn't, but even though it's, part of it is, because you say something like that, and there is a heart around it.

Like, I would never listen to that and say, oh my God, that John breaks bad news is being mean. Like, that is a great way to break that news. And you're a great person to do it. I don't, very rarely do I read something and I go I know all the facts. And I know this person is a bad person. Yeah. And I need to be mean to them. Yeah. Most of the time I'm relaying the message. And then I want to talk to the person

about it a little bit and find out their side of the story. And, you know, a lot of times people aren't willing to give up their side of the story so easily, but you just kind of like, you know, yeah, I think I'm a charming guy. So I kind of a little affable and I go hey, you know, look, look, look, I'm a mailman, but I'm just curious what's going on with you. Why? Why? Why is your buddy saying that you eat all the food? But see, I got to say, man, like it's a yes, it's probably a numbers game.

The more of these you can do, the more gold you're gonna mine. But your entire business model is predicated on the unknown. And that is, it's A, you're doing it in the most competitive landscape being content creation, and B, you're relying on your skills and so many unknown factors to create success. And that in and of itself deserves celebration and deserves sort of the, I mean, if I could shake your hand right now, I would,

because the fact that you're able to build the career that you want based so much on these unknown factors of who you're calling, what you're saying, and what their reaction is gonna be, to me is like, it's the definition of an entrepreneur, man, betting on yourself. And I have nothing but respect for entrepreneurs. I really appreciate that. I never I think of myself as like a goofball first and foremost.

And like the idea that I'm like a businessman. businessman. Lastly, and really, real quick, I gotta ask, has you mean, have you reached a point where celebrities have you've you've pranked celebrities? Well, um, or is that the next? Because you know, that's good. That's on the content creator. Other content other content creators, but I haven't really done any celebrities. Well, lastly, let's end it the way you end your calls. Let's listen to this.

Well, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. No problem. I love you. All right. Thank you. Say back negative. Come on. No. Oh, man. I love your show, though. All right. I will. I'll take that. That's as close as all right. You have a great day. All right. Well, John breaks bad news. I will say it to you. Thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulroney show. And I love you. I love you too, Ben. You have a great day. You too. And thank you so much for joining us here on the Ben Mulroney show. Of course, keep the conversation going with us on all of our social media platforms. Join us on YouTube. Join us as a podcast, and we'll see you tomorrow. What will you need to stay in this house? What do I need to give you to get you out of that house? This wants to stay.

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