The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Tony Reali

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Tony Reali has been the definition of a television staple for more than two decades... and now, that's changed. After years of friendship and support, Tony and Dan come together to break down the biggest roadblocks and successes of their careers and their personal lives. Tony looks back on his very early success, the legacy of Around the Horn and processing the loss of "the best job ever", and how he maintained his positivity through it all. Tony, who has championed mental health awareness through open conversation, also bears his heart over his personal journey through anxiety, fertility issues, and the unthinkable grief of losing a child. Powerful and uplifting, this episode will stay with you… Be a part of “Team Reali”, go to TonyReali.com and subscribe on YouTube, @TonyReali. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to DraftKings Network. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFfrills.ca. Uh, excuse me. Why are you walking so close behind me? Well, you're a tall guy. You throw a decent shadow when I'm walking in it to keep out of this bright sun.

It hurts my eyes. Okay, well you know at Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149. And oh, you'll like this. One can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store? Mmm not far, come on. Let's hurry then! To my count! 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 All right, we already started. Welcome to South Beach Sessions.

This is Antonio Giuseppe Paolo Reale. Anthony Reale. We have been friends more than 20 years, he's a monster talent. And you're still reading it off the list here. I wasn't reading it, I have plenty of prep here but I was reading nothing because you castigated me earlier this week for at 56 years old having atrophied so much that I have to use notes. That's what we're 56 now.

I have to use notes. You look better at 56 than you did at 46. Thank you and I was more inflated at 36 as well I just want to give people some of the history here before you take over the proceedings with Today with your with your likeability Hostess he has been a friend for more than 20 years and he at least is a friend in part because he's more comfortable than most With sharing his vulnerabilities most of my friends in my inner circle you can let go of my hand see I'm not gonna let go till you let go at any point okay I think we should hold hands throughout this interview now. I have to stop being a TV host. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no Is leaving he has left the ESPN after almost a quarter of a century and I believe this is news to me at the moment

right Because I'm still with ESPN Yeah, and I'm just yeah, I wanted want to continue to see how the next couple of months of The summer play out, but yeah, I mean you're being paid by ESPN But you're not on ESPN television and you had around the horn one of the more successful shows they've ever had of any kind at ESPN one of the more successful sports television shows there have ever been and i wanted to just talk to you about your growth and your life because as i said more than 20 years I've known you, and I'm pretty sure I was there either the day you got the job

because you happened to be in, pardon the interruption, studios, and Max Kellerman had just left and they needed an emergency substitute, so they went down the hall. If I wasn't there that day, I was there. You were there within the first month, so how we came to know each other, we both found each other in moments of vulnerability and moments of doubt, self-doubt.

Why am I here? You had done TV just enough, stand-ups for sports center. Oh no, but I was scared. I was scared. So I don't want to put words in your mouth, but we were both going through something, imposter syndrome, right? I had 30 seconds of airtime a day that I loved on Party Interruption, where we first worked together. And I was Stapp Boy, and that's a sidekick's role, and I got a phone call the night before a show saying, fill in and carry the show for 30 minutes, and it's the show after the Super Bowl, and Janet Jackson's boobs coming out and being adult in the room and be a host of a show and then be

funny and brilliant and all these things I had brazen confidence but even that shook me a little bit and you were one of the first shoulders I turned to in that first month because you had then filled in for will bond at pti and we were spending time together and I remember asking you and your response was I'm going through it right now man I'm hosting pti and I'm I'm writing three times a week for the Miami Herald that's my career that's my job this is now an add-on and we were all navigating that well how old were you because I remember at about that time,

I just so specifically remember because you can fake confidence, you're better at faking confidence than I am, but I remember walking around my neighborhood at four o'clock in the morning practicing the words, pardon the interruption, but I'm Dan LeBattard. The first words of the show, You never told me that.

I was, yeah, no, I was scared. Like like I didn't I don't have any television training most amazing things from people in the last month Not to put that to the side for a second, but we had a panelist on around the horn say He was made fun of by the tone of his voice by one of the other panelists and started smoking that week. This was news to me too. And it just goes to show you don't know what's going inside everybody's head but you do know there is doubt and skepticism and you are practicing the lines to say welcome to the show alone in a parking lot. Not alone just walking around my neighborhood in the dark but you you're one of the best I've ever processed it like that no I think I did the rosary before I went on the air the first time you know I mean I was a good little Catholic boy well how old were you that was 25 I was 20

probably 23 when I was first on TV I was 25 when I was carrying the show and I felt the weight of that that's a weight I felt for all 4,953 episodes though it didn't change, right? I felt the weight, but I knew I was stronger. I was self-conscious about some things, but it wasn't like I was embarrassed that people would make fun of me. I never felt that. I was more in a place of, I didn't earn this seat at the table.

That's what it was for me. You know, the way I grew up, Joe Reale, my father, doing everything by the book, first in his family to go to college, turned out to be a lawyer, thought he was brilliant, is brilliant, of course, and just knowing this is the way you do things. And here I was, this is sneaking in through the fire escape. This is, we just had a phone call on a Sunday night, you're the only one within 3000 miles, can you fill in the show?

So wow, I didn't earn this. So now that's where my neuroses really hatched. It wasn't about, I don't think I can do this. It was like, I shouldn't be doing this. Well, but I remember though how it is that I came to like you when you talk about your neuroses because I'm noticing the difference and I hadn't seen it in anyone before you, okay? The juxtaposition of this person is so affable,

so likable, so warm, so seemingly confident in his every interaction publicly, but secretly he's a roiling tempest of anxieties that's hiding behind a smile a little bit and I don't know where along the path you became comfortable and adult enough after 25 to be talking about all of that stuff with people have you always been like that sort of I was somebody who needed to communicate what they were feeling I you know you you don't know it at 25, but it becomes your path in life as you go through the highs and lows and specifically the lows. I want to get this out there. My wife and I went through

the toughest days of our life and we processed it completely different. Why are you doing it this way? She said to me, this is just what feels natural to me. But I would say as a 17 year old and then even-year-old, I was a big feeler. I felt things differently. And I knew I liked talking about it. And I sensed simpatico with you in that as well. I wasn't getting that from Cuanizer or Wilbon. But when I felt somebody could do it with me,

and that was what drew me to you when I was you know first navigating TV and you were first navigating TV but your anxiety is not easy to see you had to volunteer it it's very well concealed it is it you have developed a hell of a camouflage energy will do that right? I mean, you can demonstrate gusto and enthusiasm, and that's it. But that's my role in my family, and this is a lot of the unpacking I did through talk therapy and beyond, in that once you demonstrate to people you're alright and you're doing alright, that's enough. And they stop, not that you need to be worried about, they're even checking in like, Anthony's fine, Anthony's fine, you know?

And I felt like that was my role in my family, to always be fine. So when things weren't fine for me, that's when I had a hard time even expressing that to the closest people in my life. I have had deeper, more heart-to-heart, and then you feel guilty about this, deeper, more heart-to-heart conversations with you or or Israel specifically then I can get to with my brother and that is a huge source of of heaving anxiety for me right and I just had a wonderful we've had a wonderful couple of years me and my one of my brothers and it's in a great place right now. Comparative, but it's

still not in the place I aspire to be in with even, you know, I you know sometimes this is such a silly thing to say. You're you can be closer with the people that you aren't closest to and I'm sure you felt this too. Yes and I felt a lot of what you're talking about. You mentioned getting stronger. I didn't realize my strength until I got to 50 years old. It had never been tested. So I didn't realize that I had some strengths until I had to go through some hardship.

You've gone through some hardship and you just mentioned your wife, Sam, who I wanna talk about your love of her because she's a real source of strength for you in a way that's wildly admirable. But you mentioned going through something with her and you experiencing it differently. We'll get to the details of what you went through with her, but when you say you, she looks at you, you're built very differently.

Very differently. And so when she says you experience this, what are you talking about? What are you thinking of when you're saying there was a situation that you were involved in where you handled it one way and she was handling it another You've known me for 20 years and she's known me for for just a bit longer But anybody who's known me my whole life before sportscaster before anything knows that's a guy who wants to be a dad That's the first thing. I remember about you like you were talking you were talking in your early 20s about I want kids I want to be a dad. I was talking with Sam on the first night I met her. I was a thunderbolt.

I got hit by the thunderbolt. It was love at first sight. And I mean, I wasn't going to propose that night, but I'm just saying. But I felt comfortable enough in the first night to be talking about I want, I don't know what number I put on it, and I would do it probably for a joke at that point seven kids five kids on one of five uh... uh... you know i saw it did this and what i'd wanted to demonstrate was help how up how much i love children and how much of a family man i would be this

is what you're saying to a a woman you're meeting for the first time so you just trying to to stress that this is the type of guy who I am right but it's also who I knew you to be you and everybody knew that about it but it was it seemed an odd thing for you in your early twenties to desperately want kids I want kids I want a farm I want a farm of children so I'm godfather to six and I uh I would want to have that many kids. So this is now along with I want to be the best sportscaster and the happiest guy in the world, I want to be a dad with kids.

And I say this to then the navigation of our relationship and marriage, which has been wonderful through it all, but in order to have kids became a challenge for us as it is for many couples, right? So now I unbeknownst to me put a pressure upon our relationship, which I thought was a positive expression of how much I love you, love life, and love family. And I remember writing notes to every wedding, have kids, lots of them, not even knowing

what I might be projecting upon somebody else. Just thinking it was a positive, like who wouldn't want to? Sure, yeah, I'm writing this to people. I don't know, you know, biologically, I don't know mentally, I don't know their relationship with their parents, you know, but I was so filled with an enthusiasm to bring life and how great would it be to have kids that I pass this on to people, why pass this on to my wife first and foremost? And now we're married and now we're into years of marriage and we can't conceive. We can't conceive and doctors are telling us it's a 1 to 3% chance,

which is echoing in my ears at a volume I wasn't expecting when I'm in that room. And now I'm not even trying to get into her head and she's going to be, it's echoing in her ears. Like I just told this woman. I love who loves me That there's nothing in the world I want more than this and a doctor is telling us it could happen for you guys unless you get really lucky and Now she's thinking I'm letting him down right that may be a natural I have a lot of friends who have had fertility issues It is a real test of any relationship and all parties can

feel inadequate and I have to say this too that was on both ends however you take take I'm an honest person but I have this is complete honesty I'm not trying to say this was on both ends and I did the work to and I'm like what why why biologically am I not operating at the level that the doctor would say it's above 1%? So, 1%. So, now we're going through this and it's been years and now we're into our mid-30s, right? Well, it's such a mind bleep to want kids that badly and then...

So, at 23 when I met her, the day I met her, so now we're 12 years into her knowing everything about me. And then maybe I've even said things like I'm at this moment older than my parents were when they saw me graduate college. And Tony, I'm telling the audience now, I have never had or known a young person in their early 20s who wanted kids as badly as you do. So now, but I'm just saying my parents started young

and now I'm at an age, you know, I've got young kids now that molded when they were already,'d already got it through college and we're years now and we're year we're into IVF and we're and we're not getting positive tests out of that now the psychological toll of IVF while while my psychological toll had been going on for years can't't conceive. Now we're injecting a concoction. I mean, I do believe the doctors, it's amazing. You've given people the possibility for life. That's, I mean, of all the great inventions of all time.

That's breathtaking to me. And I had to unpack a lot of things from my Catholic side going into this. And we could talk about that, too. I mean, my mother and father, you know, that was a tough conversation. And it only got to sentence three or four. And then it had to stop. And we're going to we're trying IVF here. Do you know we're trying it?

Believe me. Do you believe we're taking the proper thoughts? This is coming from the right place, the heartful place, the godly place. So you've got religious parents who think this is unnatural? Correct. And I'm dealing with this. Is this unnatural? Should I be replaying God on some level?

Did God want me not to have children? And then, I mean, so now I'm unwrapping these things that there are never going to be answers to. But I will believe in something I will now broadly call a primacy of conscience, which is part of religious teaching in the catechisms, as we say. I was somebody who grew up in the Catholic faith, went to church at... still in the Catholic faith, what, the church at, still in the Catholic faith, goes to church on Sunday, but I grew up educated by Christian brothers and then Jesuit priests. These are two of the more, I would say, progressive

sides of the Catholic church, and that's certainly what people have told me I am part of after I've had many of my beliefs, you know, just the way I operate my life. I was taught by Jesuit brotherhood right in high school and i know what that we know what that is but you question things in maybe in a way other parts of the greater catholic faith i mean you're constantly looking inward and say you're debating yourself so funny that i've worked in the big show all these years what are we doing we debate ourselves maybe this is why we are the way we are

it was in our pre as i say all this. A primacy of conscience means in the end, God gave you freedom, God gave you a conscience. Go with what you feel is truly in your heart. And this was truly in my heart. That's how I arrived at the decision. But now, there is at the decision. But now there is a total thing that is outside of the man's position in IVF where you're not even getting injected with anything. You know, there's no hormonal thing. You go into a room for five minutes and they give you the whatever you need and it's incredibly... I don't need to hear about these five minutes. You know what this is. I don't need to hear the details about what the magazines were in the bathroom. 25 minutes.

You're in there for an hour, an hour and a half. And the point is you can't understand what your wife's going through. You just can't. It's an impossible thing to know hormonally what's happening. We don't have access to what's happening there. You can read books on it. You just have to be there. You just have to be full support.

So now, not having positive tests through the first, the second, third, you're talking about emotional distress, you're talking about financial things, you're talking about all these things. And then, yes, there's hormones in a body, injected into a body, that are also then creating a spin here that it's so easy to spiral out of control. I have known you to help Mike Ryan. He's talked about it on this show. You have been a source of inspiration here for a lot of people who didn't know the challenges. Nobody talks about this. They don't really talk about the challenges of IVF because it's

still clouded by so many distresses. Yes. And you've been publicly vulnerable about this in ways that have helped people. I remember, I don't know if you remember this, being totally ill-equipped. You went to Colorado at one point. Yes. But I just remember being totally ill-equipped to want to be helpful to you here. You were in a position of like crying out for need and I just didn't have any tools to be helpful.

Yes, so I saw you the week after, a month after we got back from Colorado. We were playing in Boogt-Shonby's softball game. I remember this very well because I had talked to some of my some of my friends But they've been even you were right there and we went through it find me the greatest doctor Well, whatever, you know, I mean we were you know, we that's where we were and then

Natural took over well, so the original question though you and Sam experienced something differently you were describing I don't know whether it was related to this IVF or something else, but you were saying you and her are very different. From what I've studied of your relationship and it feels sound and healthy and strengths in the right places where you have weaknesses. Yes, that's the key. But you are the emotional one or the less stoic one. And so you're just two very different people.

Talk to me or explain to me what the love is and what she was telling you or how it is you were different in the experiencing of whatever it is that you're thinking of when you're saying her and I handled X very differently. So through the navigation of having children and through it all, you know, the IVF was different for both of us. I wanted to talk about it. She kept that one very close to her and I couldn't even read how she was feeling through all.

We have the natural childbirth the first time and then we commit again to IVF. And what I'm talking about is losing a child in stillbirth, in delivery, when we were carrying Enzo and Amadeo and losing Amadeo in the room, you know? And being, even before that, you know, when we're in a doctor's appointment at eight months, right, seven and a half, eight months, and it gets quiet in that room. There's no quieter room than a doctor's room when they are listening for a heartbeat and they're hearing a troubled heartbeat or lost heartbeat at that moment. So we are having a

great healthy twin pregnancy and feeling wonderful about a life that we dreamed of. We are going to get to have more children. And at this moment, we may have been looking at twin carriages that day, and this is going to play over and over and over again over the next, well, still to this day. And we lost Stamadeo in delivery, a ruptured intestine in his little body, and there's nothing you're really going to do for that. It's not like there was, you know, but Enzo was able to be delivered early and we weren't sure at the time, but at the, pretty clear was he was going to be okay. He went into NICU for the time that he needed to.

But we then began saying, what just happened? How are we doing this as he's being carried away? And we had an opportunity there to hold Amadeo. And this is the first instance where we're saying, wow, okay, this is a heavy, do we want to hold him? Do we want to remember this feeling? Right? And we even approached that differently.

I held Amadeo and I touched his foot, but he's wrapped and swaddled. And I'm thinking in that moment, I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life. This feeling is the one chance I have. And Sam went even further. She opened up the swaddling and she looked at Amadeo. She felt that was part of her process. And they took the baby away.

We buried Amadeo in a Catholic cemetery, four babies born still. And we do visit. But that was, at that moment, the last time Sam was really able to, to... It took a while for her to even start talking about it again, whereas I, all I could do, I started writing thoughts immediately. I wrote a eulogy. Immediately. About what this...

Now I didn't know what I was writing. I was really trapped in the physical holding. I've come to find out certain things about me. I'm looking for fullness in the experience. Not just grief, not just mourning, not just sadness. And this is something I've tried to impart to other people, just my experience, not this is the secret, to move forward with time and work. It always takes time and work, right?

What is the work? We need time, we got covered, it's gonna go by. But if I still just lived in that moment of holding on Medeo, I would be stuck. That's paralysis, right? Because that's my only moment with him. I have imaginations. Remember being trapped for a little while with like I was the two strollers, anytime you see twins for the rest of your life you're gonna be

in this place. The Minnesota twins are in a script and around the horn two weeks later twins only goes to one place in my head right now, right? We chose Amadeo, a special name in Italian means, you know, for the love of God or God's love, but it's also a name you're not going to see at a pizzeria, Amadeo's pizza. It doesn't happen, right? So that was intentional. But the constant reminders of loss can be anywhere for anybody at any moment. I knew to be intentional somehow innately in me that it communicated about it I was going to make the experience more full and not just this one thing. Does that make sense to you? Well the one thing sounds like it

would be quite the dark thing to hold on to forever. You want a palette, I would assume. Knowing what I know about Sam, it's unsurprising that she wouldn't be forthcoming with all of the emoting or that you would be different this way and that you would need to talk about it. We talked about it, I'm pretty sure that night or the next night, remember you have your family in town

because you're giving birth and Enzo's with us, right? Oh man, I just remember, because we had to tell Francesca, you know? And how much, again, this gets back to those notes I used to write to people, you know? Have kids, lots of them, because it's all positivity for me right you know I'm gonna you know make you know you're You know some people are nervous about having kids. Why can't be nervous? It's all positive You know it's happened trillion times before in the history all these things you know

Well now this is a young four-year-old three-year-old four-year-old And she's only expecting one thing and how do you even begin to have this conversation? You know? This is a young four-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old. And she's only expecting one thing. And how do you even begin to have this conversation? I remember it. Pick her up at school. I had to leave the hospital to go tell her before, either that day or the next day.

Had to be that next day, because it was late at night. I got to say it face to face. And she's, of course, not understanding. And I just remember taking that experience. I found a priest in the hospital that night. I just wanted to talk to somebody. I don't think it was, you know, necessary. It was just me talking.

It sounded like the priest on the other end really had anything to say. But I just felt the more and more I talked about it, the more and more it got better for me. And this became what I took from the experience, what I've added to the moment. You can talk through some of these things and it's gonna feel like the valve is gonna be opened up a little bit and the pressure is gonna be released a little bit. Knowing my wife wasn't wired that way took more navigation and we talked

that night I think I just I was starting to tell you this you know and I said I gotta release this valve you know. The way you are you always almost always have to release that you have to particularly release. When you know the way you are you always almost always have to release that you have to particularly release when you keep that inside it has a way silence breeds you know um things things get gunked up things in silence get they metastasize into sometimes some things they not even that. You have now created a boogeyman, you know, not every birth, you know, someone's birth needs to, do I need to attach these, you know, oh my sister's pregnant now this is oh boy holding my

breath for seven months like this and living a life. My grandmother, my father's mother, lost a sister in, you know, early adulthood over a car accident when she was coming home late at night. And I feel this is what is now used and said as generational trauma Her posture was like this my father's postures like this I look at myself fist racing for impact is how I would describe it. You know, I Remember as young kids my father staying up and would never go to bed before we got home You know, I think your anxiety is hereditary. I think i think my brace for impact was hereditary this way i think my churn and my willpower certainly are practice learn things i think my posture i mean there's scientific evidence to to corroborate this

it's not even hereditary, it's just patterns, right? It's just family. Patterns built in from visual. Yeah, it's what you grew up around. And so I know that to be true. But talking through it in talk therapy, I just remember why am I so anxious? Why I am a highly functional, I'm working great,

people like me, I've never been broken up with in my life until two weeks ago on an international television show. That was the first time I've ever. That's the first rejection you felt? First rejection I've ever felt. Wow. There has to be a rejection letter from a college.

Holy shit, what a run by you. But I was never, I was never, I mean, if I applied to another college, I was only going to the one college I went to, because of the broadcasters that went there, Fordham University. So, I didn't get to that college, I feel rejected. No, never, never, I wasn't, you know,

no relationship like that. Never, I mean, you're gonna find, there could be people maybe who of course I'm not their cup of tea, but maybe we were, it was never rejection. Absolutely not. So that was the first time was when they told me don't come back to around the corner. That's crazy. So you just got done saying though, you said things I've learned since then. Since things I've learned about myself. About myself. I don't know how soon after that you decided to do therapy, whether you were doing therapy beforehand, but what have you learned

since then? I was doing therapy beforehand also related to parenting. My anxiety, as I knew it to be, aware to me. You know, let's say you were maybe aware this guy this guy's got some i would have said that was performers anxiety for a long time you know i'm doing a high high-end job i would not have known you were anxious if you weren't ball all you know you know when we when i started writing and i turn to you for

for a mentors hand here in writing uh... my column for newspaper right you remember these days well i remember the insecurity of writing that's different than just the way you bounded through life because you always had a spring in your step the only evidence i had that you were an anxious person is you volunteering it with your mouth it wasn't in any of your behavior i'm telling you it was really well i was trying to make every part of life be the greatest moment ever i'm still trying to do that

for others for everybody involved you know i was going to be the happiest person in any room any moment the most energetic person a room that moment i would walk into or newsrooms in a way where i would make sure by new these just kicked up a notch i'd just did it on the street with you. It's a muscle I have. It's perpetual effervescence.

It's a champagne bottle opening when Tony Riele walks into a room. I don't know if you have a need to be the center of attention anywhere. I don't know what the calling for it is. It was more for I wanna please. The need was to please you guys. The need was to please people.

So why was Robin Williams winning every interview he ever did? Uh, the cooking show, you know, I, I don't know, but I was Robin Williams in my way through walking into the newsroom every day of PTI with a slow clap and a, come on guys, let me hear it every day. That was no way to go through life. So these are the things I was learning about myself and you can't do that with parenting. Yeah, you're gonna, I mean, I'll give you another example.

The pandemic was a place where everyone realized I have to operate at a different speed now, right? Things are not allowed for me to do, I can't do all these things. Or I was giving my kids 110% before the pandemic. And now I get no breath, no breath. I didn't age a day. I was 23 until month three of the pandemic.

And then I became a 40 year old overnight because it was just like, I hit a wall. And a good 40, a healthy 40, a fit 40, but that was it. I've got people I gotta take care of. I gotta get them through, I mean, we're not even through breakfast yet, you know, and they need my energy to be at this level the whole time. Well, you've been helpful to people, though, by talking about your anxiety. And that was my process. So yes, here's where it was. We we, we bury Amadeo, and I do a eulogy, which is not required, right?

But I was talking through my experience, the duality of life and why I was struggling with how we could have a healthy child and we could have a deceased child in front of us right now. And would I be, would we be trapped? Every time, you know, I was just, you know, struggling with that reality of my existence and knowing I have a microphone in front of me on a TV show. That's about sports and I'm not trying to intertwine the two,

but even applying other parts of life that I can reach people in this way and I know that makes me feel good. I spent time in the NIC unit talking to the other parents because now while we were dealing with loss we were also now dealing with ends of being healthy but still just being an incubator or whatever devices at that time and other parents having a different experience in NICU the full-on vacuum bubble which suggests that there is something now in their lives they're going through something more difficult than I am at this moment because... So now we're talking about what that is and just providing, when we call it support, just providing existence next to another human being.

That's sometimes support enough. So you brought up instances of people we know who I've talked to. Once again, my relationship with them was not what it is with my best friends or my family members. Yet still I felt more open to being in that place because I was in a position similar, right? open to being in that place because I was in a position similar right existence and being there I don't want to overstate what it is but it's so important it's so important and it's it's the least you can do but it's the most you can do and you find comfort in community what is this need how do you

do being alone like how you, because your need for- Yeah, I feel comfort in community. I definitely do. I don't know, when am I alone? I haven't got there yet, Dan. I really haven't, I haven't. I mean, I think I would enjoy learning a little bit more about myself, you know,

just in how I breed and how i move move i want them constantly tweaking working that whatever became from from when you knew me younger which was an exercise addiction cuz i wanted to grip everything and go so hard uh... to now doing the exact opposite i do something called functional patterns uh... but i know you were never getting this to you were trying whatever

massage and rolfing you were although you were trying this too. You were trying whatever massage and roll thing you were. Oh no, I'm doing right now acupuncture three times a week. I'm doing, is it called NAET? Like the strangest thing where the doctor puts vials in my hand that are grief, joy, neurotransmitters, and assortment of things with acupuncture because I don't know what I don't know about how it is that I don't know but but but but you say that but try to try and lubricate what have been lifelong repressions on wherever it is that I push down feelings like the alternative medicine I'm doing right now would suggest that repressed feelings are the reason that i have had a three centimeter uh... uh... rock in my gallstone that threatens in my

gallbladder that threatens to uh... surgery that i've been i'm trying very hard to avoid by doing of sort of natural things there about lubricating my emotions so that things don't say inside here that stone was there uh... while my brother was dying so i've gotten i've got this happening i've got my brother i'm i'm spending ten months near his death bed daily

uh... i've got my mother goes into surgery after falling down so hip problems and broken hips are hard for eighty year olds and usually the last step on death and now I'm going into surgery and my cortisol levels are so high with my brother that I'm too high of a weight I'm not healthy enough for surgery. Are you afraid of surgery and going into a hospital? I'm afraid of starting the practice of medicine so that you take one organ you tell me it's okay but now we've got a lifelong set of issues

that come from whatever I don't know about how that organ came out. You're afraid of being in David's position? Not only am I afraid of being in David's position, I'm getting a call from a doctor, listen to this story, okay? My brother's on the bed and he is non-communicative. I don't know at this point, as nurses from all over run in, there were a dozen next to his bed, and we are trying to resuscitate my brother. He's been out and is non-responsive for minutes, and I'm thinking, I've just seen my brother die.

He finally gets resuscitated, and I get a call from a doctor I've just met, just met him, because of what I'm going through, and he says to me, without knowing any of my circumstances, knowing what this medicine is that is the practice medicine that earns a lot of money but is not alternative medicine, he says to me, don't let them torture your brother. And my brother had three surgeries after that, and what they did was, and they were just doing medicine, practicing medicine, they tortured my brother.

Like he had three surgeries that his body could not withstand because he was trying to stay alive and a lot of things were going wrong. But that's where it started. A doctor of alternative medicine, and they've tried to get me on, and they have gotten me on a different path where they've dissolved this gallstone with an assortment of things

that I simply don't understand. And we'll live all my life without understanding because what they're trying to do is lubricate my feelings because of where it is and how it is that the body holds on to whatever it holds on to. When you hear those stories about people doing yoga and they hold their emotions in their hips and all of a sudden they're sobbing for 30 seconds in a yoga class because they don't know what

their this well it's not even a release I'm open-minded enough to know that I don't know everything I need to know and so even if I'm agnostic I'm still trying to avoid I believe this was surgery, and I believe that these doctors, I'm working with three different acupuncturists, I think that they know an assortment of things that I have no idea about, and so I'm just going in and trusting them, and I feel better, and they're helping with an assortment of different things

that include grief, like it's, they are trying to- No, it has to, I mean, you've heard me say mental health is health. Mental health is simply health. Talk about mental health. We talk about sports and athletes, like a strained hamstring would, right? But I apply that to everything you just said,

that our feelings are simply health, just like a bone, just like a muscle in your body. So I believe we can injure our feelings to a certain way. If I could speak broadly, like this is a talk I give to high school kids, you know, or something like that. Feelings are your superpowers, but they still need to be addressed. I am comfortable going through life knowing I needed to address feelings, relationships like with my brother or with Amadeo or they would have put me in a position where I would

have been ill in this other way. I believe that to be the case. I believe there needs to be release of that. Help the audience. Hoses that are kinked up. We, Dan, we have not, you and I, talked about David, you know, phone calls, things, we haven't. I had David's phone number right next to yours on my phone, I haven't taken it out. You know, that's, that's something I wanted to tell you because I just told you how easy just being there for somebody can be and how important it is

and I don't feel I was there for you. Oh, don't do that. This is not about that. But I'm just saying, I know you have people who are there for you, but I also know that you're still dealing with it. Well, my brother was deeply private, didn't want me to tell anybody about, didn't particularly want to tell me, really. Like, it was his friend, it was his best friend who ended up telling me because my brother didn't want to,

didn't want to burden us. The number of things that I learned throughout all of that worst experience of my life and I'm also hugely grateful for it when you just mentioned... This is precisely the fullness of an experience and if that's what what I mean this is just really heavy stuff but I mean that's what I wanted to impart to you yet again I want to even draw the line on that do you feel a fullness to losing David that you know that you can help yourself and then help others because that's his spirit. Let's say even be more literal.

His spirit carries through you in a way that he's now affecting good positive change in the world. Yes, I do feel his presence in a way that's hard to articulate and isn't being conjured by me, hopefully. But I just thanked Valerie for this the other day, because she, my brother and I were going through an assortment of issues before he got sick, because he was not behaving clinically sanely. There was a lot of stuff going on

that just didn't make me recognize who he was, and he was acidic, and he was mean in some spots to me in ways that I didn't feel like I deserved and my wife who believes and has told me since the beginning weirdly that she's here to help teach me about death because she has suffered grief and at this point I'm not thinking of my brother on death right I'm thinking about my parents because he's my little brother. She pushed me in a way that she hasn't done before or since

into go be by that bedside and eat whatever you gotta eat to be by that bedside so that you get all of the things said before he goes and and get the healing that i have gotten and i started sort of practicing grief before i had arrived at grief because i'm you know every time i'm kissing him on the head or smelling what he smells like like

i'm i'm remembering that soon it'll be gone and the the eulogy when you mention the eulogy that you gave uh... i remember walking up in front of those people and saying out loud on my way to the podium, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, to get up in front of people and give, you know. Do you feel there was a benefit in doing it? Yes, I feel like I'm stronger because of all of it,

but I wasn't doing it sort of like I needed a fullness of experience. I didn't know what to do, how to do it. I just know in having done it, I arrived at the stages of grief and guilt's not in there. I don't know, there are a lot of other things in there, but guilt is not one of them because at the end I held up my shot as best as I could, and we talked through some of the stuff with forgiveness that required forgiveness. Well, that's, that you were able to do that. I do believe that there, some people think, you know,

the process of grieving publicly is medieval and almost like something that shouldn't be done, but I do believe there's a reason why there is, or almost a routine to it you'll laugh at this the will bond when you mention this isn't the conversation that i would have with will bond will bond sat in that seat and i remember talking to him about his late father

and he started crying and the thing that he said while he's crying is like i'm sorry sometimes when i fly i i get misty and he just sort of tried to shroud it because of whatever his stuff is about not wanting to be seen publicly that way. Like you know. That's a general, oh, absolutely, this doesn't surprise me. It's a generational thing on some things, it's cultural things on other levels.

That's, when you look in the mirror as you age and you see your father's face in you. I don't see it physically what I see in a way that Valerie it this is now this is uncomfortable when you talk about it is a real oil. Alright everybody it's UFC International Fight Week and while hotels in Vegas may be sold out there's still one vacancy left and it's the lightweight title at UFC 317. Grab your own crown with DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC.

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that are in the deepest places that you find the deepest love, the thing that has happened recently with my wife that has been hard to have pointed out by her is when I'm behaving like my father. And she's not, she doesn't know what the behavior of my father is, she's just telling me, you're reacting poorly to me criticizing that you need to wash those blueberries

before you put them in the smoothie. Of course that's what it's about. And I'm seeing my father react poorly to my mother's helpful critique that is meant to make their life both better, but instead he's being stubborn. So it's behavior that I recognize of my father. It's not physically looking like my father you see physically your father yeah yeah

yeah yeah sometimes yeah my brother you know that that catches me especially when when i was worried about him that seems like that was almost like a trigger for me and i was going through an experience where i was creating an idea because i couldn't reach him in the way that i wanted to reach him you know you you you create you imagine you jurassic park dna code you know you had a frog dna to create something

you know so it's complete movie you know things viral out of control because you've just actually made something up it turned out poorly poorly. Your parents were right about don't do that unnatural stuff with science. So in the absence of communication in that relationship or in the absence of knowledge in that relationship you go on what you just imagined to be, you know? And that isn't reality. So that's an important thing that you need to come to grips with.

Like, how do you know? Like, how do you know what your dad is feeling right now about your relationship? You know, maybe he's thinking... He's just thinking about black beans. He's not thinking about our relationship. Should I have honked him more? Should I have been able to show things? Should I have patterned behavior in this way? Is our Dan and Valerie, you know, living a marriage, because I pattern marriage with, you know what, right? Is he thinking about that? Who knows? Not really. But am I thinking about that? Am I making him proud of how I'm showing married life to be, you're thinking that because that's that's a that's a real part of How humans are wired? I still fall in the pothole of somehow wanting my father's pride

Although it's not I mean, it's a look man. I'm an adult I'm 56 years old and I've done not there being heard enough people talk about their place there is an international tb he was proud of you he was stopped and recognized that he games for the rest of his life i walked outside yesterday to a man wearing a shirt of your father's face on it you did that uh... well but he has not acknowledged at any point that that is

something he likes or enjoys which has made the gratification of feeling the pride of him a slightly difficult because mostly he complains about having had to do that. So you're in one of the most stressful moments of your early life here. They're about to launch a TV show based around you. All right. You and your father fly to Washington, DC. You called me right before we were going to do that and you were excited for me because you said, Dan, our people have built you a better sports car. Yes, that's my expression. Exactly, exactly. But more than that, your father came with you to Washington, DC. We're sitting next to each other

and um... this is just rose stuff at the screen what's going to work and i sat there next to a man who i didn't know yet well addition a rand were failing in flailing i know we're failing in flailing so i'm sweating right doesn't know it was a little bit of learning so he's funny and ride home and tell her and the greats and we're all and flailing, so he's funny. And Ryde Holm and Kelleher and the greats, and we're all in there, and I'm playing a mock Stapp Boy character to see if Stapp Boy type character would work in this moment, or to see how we can deliver Poppy in the best way, honestly.

That's what we're trying to see. They discovered after building a show for me, around me, that the star was my father in that first pilot where I was terrible and he was great. Well, it wasn't because you were terrible and great, it was because that was a dynamic thing. By dynamic, I'm using the definition of, like there's a dynamic in play that is envious in the production of art, I would say,

or any type of TV production, right? You're going to give viewers immediately a relatable dynamic that's just like me and my dad. Or I wish that was me and my dad. Or in my case, Anthony, why didn't you do this first? You know, like that my dad said, nobody would watch that, Pop. You know, he wanted that.

Did you arrive, you've arrived at your father's pride and what you're... I've always had that, you know? You know, I think that... What's that like? What's that like, you know? I mean, it's always a work in progress. So I know they're proud of me, but I may, you, if you asked me point-blank and I guess you are, you know, I would have liked to have them at the last episode of Around the Horn, you know, and, and, and they, like I was wonderful to have 20 or 30 people there. Some of my best friends and some of my not best friends.

My trainer showed up. What amazing was that? You know, I would have liked my mom and dad to be there. You know, they were a couple hundred miles away, but not so far. Wait, that sounds like hurt. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's hurt. I think it's a realization that I have to still unpack

that Anthony's okay, we don't need to worry about Anthony. They send me notes, I mean, it comes with the script or reading sometimes, it sends me, their focus is on let's get Anthony a job. Right? Now? Now, this moment, right?

Anthony doesn't have a job, okay? And you're gonna get a great job, people gonna see you for what you are, you know? They get really upset when articles were written about. I didn't do media for a long time. I didn't wanna do interviews. It's while I am brazenly confident and I love talking to people,

that was one note there of, I gotta be humble. It's gotta be full humility. I'm not gonna talk about myself. So then what happened when the show was being canceled? The announcements came out and my father got very upset. Max Kellerman's name made it into the second paragraph of every article because no narrative was written since the first year of the show. And I had done, you know, 97% of the episode.

But you're saying humility, that's optically what you had to project. Anger and denial would be the things that I would assume are there, that you're wrapping in humility because you have to put on the brave face of taking the high road and saying the right things. Okay, well I'm just approaching it from this way.

My parents are fighting dearly for me in their own hearts and with my own head for me to get the recognition of what this show was. Why is Max's name in the second paragraph? You know, he got his chance. He got up and left. Didn't come back. You took over the show. You didn't take a day off for eight years. You know, you did the show. The ratings went up. Ratings are up now. How come nobody's writing that? And then I started doing interviews basically on the advice of pop reality of all people you know so I know what that that's love that's pride that's a lot of things but

then it's the same moments like you know and then I got four other siblings and then that their current state needs to be put up immediately in that conversation to balance out a cease off for person seesaw because they can't even though you know it'd be pretty obvious to say they are giving more attention time to the children who needed in that moment but my moment is is not

at that level as they know it would be okay and i know i'm to be okay just a twenty four years of t v and i'm going to get another job because the twenty four year veteran of television for show that was a successful is is in a phenomenal position i don't have the anxiety about that i know you were worried about me getting to that place

six months ago i'm here to tell you right now i feel like i'm in that i are the only reason i wouldn't say that i was worried about you i was simply keeping an eye on you because i know that i underestimated. Talk to me about what that is because i told you i've never been broken up with before and this is my first rejection and and you went through a rejection that was modified differently and and kind of you know put into a different mine is totally different just because all over the course of time i've always turned my employers into my father because i'm

trying to please a father so the relationship is always good with the employer i'm pleasing and making the father look good the father's patting me on the head and telling me that uh... that's really that that's how you see you're genuinely thinking you're a pleaser. Well, in this case, an employment pleaser, right? Because I'm thinking of all the bosses, Paul Anger, Jorge Rojas, John Skipper. I'm always trying to, Gary Honig,

I'm trying to make them look good and doing so, so I'm getting the reciprocal rewards of actually pleasing the father figure. But I had this conversation with Dan Patrick About Dan Patrick comes home from ESPN after being sort of you know I mean They had the biggest show in television for many years that made a lot of money for Disney and he gets a take it or leave

It offer from an executive who he doesn't have you know much for, and he decides to leave the offer, and when he comes home, and he's done now, he's just decided, he's done at ESPN, the safety of ESPN, his wife looks at him and says, you didn't think they cared about you, did you? And he's like, well yeah, I kinda did. And so I, at the end, because I'd never had a rejection from an employer before, kind of thought at the end

that there would be some caring involved, or at least enough caring to not fire my mentor's son without telling me, and so I ended up getting hurt by that. But the reason that I reached out to you, and it wasn't concern, I just know how lonely it felt after having a lot of confidence doing a thing for a long time

to suddenly be in a position where there was some doubt about what the future would look like. And so I was just reaching out to you to make sure that the turbulence wasn't unsettling to you. Well you put me in a hundred, I went 180, you I mean let's be honest we talked multiple times multiple times and I did get to a 180 place I mean I'll be honest about the TV show around the horn I could not say goodbye because of again maybe a faux humility and I loved it and I felt fulfilled in some ways.

I wanted and was going to do and will do more. I want to show other sides of my personality and I wasn't worried the show was going to go on forever and it was going to be the only job I had. I was just going to have to adjust how much energy I was giving that show and add on other things. But I was always prepared for them to on other things, but I was always Prepared for them to say the show is gonna end it wasn't like that. I was I was disappointed I was surprised because of how successful I feel the show was and I know how Profitable the show was and all these things I've talked about in the past. It's not about that for me Well, yeah, I would assume you think it should still be on and you should still be doing it

And and it should be and you should be have a show like as successful and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and performative in some ways in the show could be more feeling in this way and the you can say this show became one thing or not too serious more more or more uh... whatever it less about stars and more about journalists and and we didn't want to rose what it became is more more yours yes and you know i think you're sitting within the confines and limitations of television

and i don't know what i was pushing it so because i wanted to push it i wanted to show to i thought there was value in being a differentiator you're going to lose obvious in every way on the show your adult growth as a creator and as an adult was obvious on uh... that show in in many different ways over over the twenty four twenty three years twenty four years twenty three for the show yet uh... that that was fun to watch interesting to watch interesting to watch your imprint on the show but when you say you've done a one eighty i

don't know what that one eighty years i would just tell the audience that what i was impressing upon you again and it wasn't cheerleading was the dead's honest truth from someone who was just a little bit further ahead on this particular path than you They did you a favor. They've given you an opportunity They've given you an opportunity to stretch in a way You never would have stretched if you had stayed within the safety of those guys as much work as I had done on myself I was still

Harboring feelings of what is it that I do? What is my skill, right? feelings of what is it that I do? What is my skill, right? Because I have been and called myself a sportscaster my whole life. I dreamt of being a sportscaster my whole life and now I am a sportscaster. I've got this dream job and I host a show and I work with journalists. I would not call myself a journalist. When I do my job I'm trying to get up to their code of journalism and they're not committing daily acts of journalism on our show when they're debating sports, but it still is a show about journalists and that's a wonderful thing.

So most of all, I thought of myself then as a TV host, right? I started to adapt and I was, am I a sports host? Well, I'm dealing with people, I'm dealing with feelings, and we're talking about sports topics, but I became more comfortable thinking to myself, okay, now I'm dealing with people. I'm dealing with feelings. And we're talking about sports topics, but I am more comfortable thinking to myself, okay, now I'm a TV host. But even that, I don't think was getting to the crux of it, because you can be a TV host and you can be A to B, get through. I was still doing something that was more connective to an audience in my mind.

But now I am receiving that back in how the show, the response of the finale of the show and the last six months of the show. But in the absence of me really allowing myself to talk about myself and be seen, for a while, I'm sure I processed those feelings Around the Horn, which was first hosted by Max Kellerman, or Around the Horn, which is produced by Eric Rydholm, or I'm like, those things are factual sentences but

if someone is knows the story it's your show story your show not the story so yours so it wasn't until I started talking like how do you write around the horn is going possibly this is how I found out it was on vacation in California with the family around the horn possibly looks like it's going to be cancelled in the summer of next year. How is that not, next sentence not, the show ratings were up 5% this year, because if you're writing that article as a journalist you'd be like, oh, Around the Horn is getting cancelled, I'm hearing, wait, let me look at the ratings, oh, it's up 5%, oh, that's an interesting

sentence. Nobody cares about you the way you care about you. But in saying, the show is getting cancelled, it's currently 5%. Oh, that's an interesting set that's open. Nobody cares about you the way you care about you. The show getting canceled is currently hosted, currently hosted by me, was first hosted by this other person, and then the next one is, you know, expendable and overpriced. And I don't know which one I was more insulted by, because neither of those are true. And then I was like, wow, you know. So to have those things written about you,

I recognized they weren't coming from nowhere. Somebody was feeding this. I'm like, okay, so I get this game is being played, right? So the second I started talking, that hurt too. That hurt too. I read on my birthday, I'm on my balcony drinking with my wife and I read the news, Levitard show going to be replaced by my Greenbergs

and everything else, because someone leaked it and I'm like, what is this? What is this? Because I didn't think it could possibly be true. And then I called and was told it's not true. And then it was true. Yeah, I was told that was true. You heard, oh, you don't know where that's coming from.

You know where that's coming from. So the point is, there are any moments in your life where you know what's true about yourself this is social media for me I don't have the same opinion everyone else says I get it it's a negative place for a lot of people all these things I know it's true that those things bounce right off me because I know I mean somebody's telling me something about the show I can take any type of feedback and criticism this show got too blank for me yep that. That's real maturity though from you.

Oh yes. That's not the person I met. That is not the referee who's telling me I had a traveling violation. I'm telling him that's not his call. That's referee's call. So you can't possibly. That's the reality I met, furious with referees, unable to control his anger during basketball games.

That to me I got too quickly though. Yeah right. So what Stan, what you're alluding to is that we had pardoned the turnover in wonderfully names recreational basketball team for p t i won't bring any attention to you at all of the star player of pardoned turn over and i was i approach with a lot of gusto i was still the youngest one on staff and i was in ways they were swan a little bit of exercise i wanted you know to qualify for the olympics or i don't know what i want swung a little bit of exercise i wanted you know qualify

for the olympics or i don't know what i want there was a little arrogance there was a lot of success and very young age so i don't yet i don't i mean that's really young you think you could get to be nationally televised as part of a daily sports lineup on the worldwide leader in sports when you're the youngest person on television right but i don't know if i ever process that is arrogance honestly i'd you know i didn't i didn't i'm just talking about the if i give you you look at maybe it's a temper problem

whatever it is to think that you're in your early twenties that you've got on not for uh... confidence in who you are what you are that it's okay to publicly beret a referee when and i'm not all times when everyone the at everyone on the on the court no no it's okay to publicly berate a referee when ever I'm like all times when everyone everyone on the on the court knows that's televisions Tony reality that seems arrogant to me I think my brother does the same thing and he's he's he's not televisions oh but I don't think of arrogance is real confidence I

think of arrogance is something that is a barbed wire armor around insecurity like the most arrogant people I've ever met have this I remember when somebody wrote a blog that got picked up that were saying you know I'm a jerk playing intramural sports and that hurt me well but that's it but you grew out of it I stopped at coal turkey I took that out of my life. I stopped playing sports publicly Which you might say what you didn't need to do that Well, that's that's how I decided but you developed in 24 years and I'm 23 years an immunity that is legitimate I don't think it's bravado when you say this criticism now bounce bounce. I mean, I know most the time It's about that person who's talking. I know

the the I like using social media as a tool and as a I like to model what I aspire to be or model good behavior or model fair exchange good faith exchange. I like to do that to show people I would respond to eggs and retweet it and people like you do know I absolutely know but I wanted you to see it and I'm in TV I'll re-air my episodes I don't care I'll retweet this out to demonstrate that I had intention behind what I was doing why did the show talk about this this step this way well first off you're right I maybe I missed that one but here's what I was thinking

in the moment and I know what I was thinking so I'll put this out there and you guys can give me feedback on whether I was right or wrong But there was intention behind it for me life has become about intention not habit right if we wanted to distill how did I? Mature in the way you just you said maturity right I Started to get away from doing things habitually, routinely. I got to work out every day because that's how I'm wired. Because I got this energy. You were obsessive compulsive about running. I was obsessively compulsive about running or CrossFit

and not even CrossFit, but in CrossFit, cheering everybody else on and collapsing at the finish line and then getting up and then cheering them as they collapsed. And also injuring yourself. Yeah, yeah. Oh my man. I was pulling my body was probably closer to the top of a tuna can, right? Both in a wiriness but also like a muscles about to pull out, you know. I was, why do I have neck pain? Why do I have hip pain? You know? I mean, you know white I mean whatever So you were staying fit with CrossFit, and you'd also stay fit if every day you wrestled a bear for an hour But I wouldn't recommend it for your body. I was consuming

The PTI and around the Horn crew will tell you vast quantities of spinach juice and kale salads and All these you are you're not you're obsessive compulsive not addictive writer you were I would say I was obsessive compulsive not addictive right but I was it but it wasn't I mean this is now this is haphazard diagnosing but this is knowing my my willpower like okay I'm gonna live the cleanest life I can live I was consuming so much juice that I gave myself kidney stones. How do you get kidney stones? The calcium oxalates is what it was for me that were basically

in spinach. I was trying to be Popeye, but they never show you Popeye's kidneys. They only show you his biceps. And here I am with my kidney stones. And what am I doing when I get kidney stones? I'm getting surgery. And what am I doing? I'm doing around the horn that day while then going to the surgery immediately after. Or I'm doing around the horn the day my house burns down because I don't want anyone sitting in my chair. I didn't want Pablo Torre,

one of my best friends in the business, sitting in my chair because I knew he was so good, right? That needed some maturity. That needed some reality checks. So this is, I know you appreciate Norm MacDonald. And this is- That was smart, by the way. Pablo would have stolen your chair.

And would have- I told you, I don't feel like I'm off here. He wouldn't have looked back either. Like, wouldn't have, he would have ghosted you as soon as you started calling trying to figure out why it's going to have a he's got a good at the mcdonald's line that really resonates with me is you know we use the expression surreal often in life people say this

is a surreal feeling and that's quite the opposite it's actually a real feeling that you're not open to experiencing cuz you've created everything to be routine and habit. Okay? So, this is part of what is maturity for me, recognizing don't do that just because you do that every day. Don't do routine.

Don't do habit in the same way. There's going to be a routine to life. There has to be, of course. You know, and you have, there's a reason why you have an A and a B and a C block on your radio show and all these things, right? But intention is the planning that comes in advance that demonstrates you're at least giving it the inward debate amongst yourself back to how we were schooled, you know, or at least intention is the planning that proves my heart is behind this. So whatever it is, at least I made an active decision.

I had a primacy of conscience. These are again phrases that I've used already in this interview, but I'm showing you I was intentional even in those moments. You've done the work, and I will say to you now publicly something that I haven't said to you privately, but I'm sure that you know. I am legitimately proud of the maturity that I have seen of you because you have lived over the last 20 years a life that has some depth of experience in it, some depth of pain in it, and the man who

stands in front of me now knows himself, knows his strengths, knows his weaknesses, and is a mature human being who has gotten what he wants from life with a sprawling family life where you are a father above all, I think, and it's just, it fills me with an immense amount of pride having gone through pieces of this journey with you, the difficulties in childbirth, the difficulties at work, the difficulties we have

in family life, the difficulties with your anxiety, you have grabbed these things and you've turned them into tools that help others with your learning and your wisdom. That was important to me. That was, again, intentional in that way. If I'm gonna go through something, well, maybe I can help the next person

go through something and you have modeled this for me as well, but to me I build in public, which is an expression people have taken to using now, but building it's literal for me because I was on a TV show for many times and I had an opportunity, but there is something, it's not a matter of how many you can help, how you can help somebody, it's how many you can help when you're, it puts it in a particle accelerator. But the responses I got when we signed off the TV show,

that told me, that was the right move. Tony, nobody gets the goodbye you got. And that's why you helped me take a 180, That told me that was the right move. Nobody gets the goodbye you got. That's why you helped me take a 180, but then that sealed the deal for me. I felt that there was value and fulfillment all along. But it was nice. It continues to be nice to do it. And it will be nice where I do it next, you know, because I will always reach for that connection

because I see how that, again, puts it in a particle accelerator. It just makes it, you're the next person, that next person does it to the next person, you just see it, it compounds. You asked out loud the question of what am I good at? What is my skill? Obviously you're good at television.

I think I'm okay at television. You're good at television, period. But your skill is your likable. Like that's your connection point. However it is that you arrive at likable, you are a person on television who people like, even if they don't like your show, even if they don't like your opinions, even if they don't like your opinions,

and I don't think your opinions were so strong as to be obnoxious or abrasive, you know how to be likable, what do you think your skill is? What do you want people to say about you? What would you like for them to say about you? And what, these are three questions, and what is the criticism that can get to you the criticism that will wound of your public work

I mean it comes down to feeling for me you know I want to be true to those feelings inside me but then I want to be able to impart that to demonstrate to people they should be so so there's the expression that's overused and I use it again, but people forget what you say, people forget what you do, people remember how you make them feel. That's what I think my skill is. And I can remember now how necessarily maybe I make them feel, but how sports makes them feel, or how this game show makes them feel, or how being a brother makes them feel. I think that's my skill. That's what I see. It's it's again gets back to dynamics. Is that what you want? I want people to understand

those moments in life that are real. What I was just talking about, not surreal. That's a feeling knowing that this one right here, I'm going to allow myself to feel the reality here. I'm not going to build a wall in front of this experience and make it feel like something else. Comparative thing. We do this at sports all the time. This person's this. No, they're actually just this. They're know they're not they're not you know the next version of you've already now created a dino dna from jurassic park so so i want

to my skill in t v is to make people feel now that's gonna be with you know comedians do that and and and actors do that sports casters do that it's not a bad bad, it's not just feelings, it's feel good. I think feel good, yeah, yeah, of course. Cause I make them feel bad too.

No, I'm not, no, I make them feel bad. Look, I'm okay with that. If you're watching cause you hate- You make them feel uncomfortable. No, no, don't do this, don't, don't ascribe. This is, this is a bad, bad thing that came out of Howard Coasell many years ago people hate watch the hate watch of it all I'm not trying to be hated I'd like to be liked

I'm just saying that in the cases where I'm not liked I understand that there even did this on PTI and I regret being even part of the hateable Dan Leavitt oh yeah right homes apologized to me about going yeah yeah he said he thought he did that too much at the beginning so certainly they're too much but I mean even yeah well because I'm happy to hear that good okay I was that that was weighing not that that was weighing on me but that was like like that's not how I would produce TV today and I understand there's so many silly comments every time oh you're hating them but you're watching them and the ratings are up if you're it

that is like I don't I I want to make a comparison to what it is but that is just too cheap you can be smarter about it you have the job I am good but I get it it's a byproduct though of I'm understanding after 30 years of this at least in part that some of the criticism doesn't have anything to do with me, and so if you're just not indifferent, if you're feeling something. But you're talking about making people feel uncomfortable.

I'm just talking about making people feel. You were talking about you want to be known as somebody. I want to make the people feel. Right, but you want them to make them feel good. Yes, I do. I'd like to make them feel good, but if they feel bad, I'm not going to take responsibility if they feel bad because they don't like my position on feel uncomfortable which it might happen I want to be there and steward and escort them out of that uncomfortable feeling to a reality of

Of that. This is a real feeling that that I mean So so I'm not trying to just shy to just be bliss because this is what got me in trouble Real feeling that that I mean so so I'm not trying to just shy to just be bliss because this is what got me in trouble To me blissfully feeling good trying to make everybody feel good, right? That's me ten years ago 15 years ago That was why it's so hard to say goodbye to PTI but because I needed to say goodbye to PTI Right because I was walking into a room every day, you know clapping and cheering and doing that That's trying to make people feel good i can make people feel

and if it's uncomfortable i think that we can get to a space on why that that that that's a goal that that's the goal for that school for the next show or for the future of my career what would rule me what was the one criticism right a criticism are for me it's criticism uh... it's also helpful though but the stuff that hurts is coming from the people who know you, right, and they have sharp criticism. People whose opinions you respect,

who show you things that you didn't know about yourself. Like, I've found myself over the last five years asking an assortment of people who were honest with me that way, huh, I'm that? I'm that, I do that? Yeah, right, right'm that? Yeah. I'm that, I'm that, I do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I struggled in this last nine months

because I'm not the, as much as I love people, that the hand, glad, what's that, glad handing? And talking, being political in the office and trying to get that job. And then I started talking about other people's jobs, right? We had a conversation about this and that, that I wounded myself in the pursuit of trying to put myself out there, right? Well, you, you, we don't need to get into the particulars of this, but you felt great

remorse because in wanting to handle an unprecedented situation for you, public rejection where you're going out there and saying things to tell everybody, hey I'm here, hey I'm available. Shouldn't I be a valuable person in this marketplace? That was my first time trying to do that and then I saw there were ways I was doing it that I could have done this better. But I'm just saying, so I wasn't wounded by this, but when you're asking me what people said, you gotta be better, you gotta get that pretty self out there. You love talking to people, go win a room over there. Yes, I know I can win the room, but it's just like, come on, I'm talking, playing political games

and trying to put myself out there. And this is something I despise of other people, let's say. Or that's the stuff where I'm like, oh man, look at this guy plays the game and he's putting himself out there to maximize himself in ways that I feel are not how I would do it. But what wounds me the most of all, I don't know. I mean, I've been, I am forceful and energetic. And when I, I still, this is terrible. I'm going to put this on me. I allow that to come off in a way that people could feel, you know, I'm bullying. That's it. You tell me, you call me a bully.

That's how you get me call me a bully that's how you get to me bullying not not inauthentic bullying like if people think that nobody has yet to call me an authentic honestly so i did that that has a really happened but i do know how forceful i am the reason i say inauthentic is just sometimes a personality is so affable slapping you on the back so good at small talk and other people are so repressed

around that and might project onto you. That can't be real. His level of happiness can't, his level. No, thank you for raising that. I never considered, no, no. Here's where I were with any criticisms of myself as a person, as a public figure. There was no wound other than when,

unneeded and overpriced maybe? Because that was something that was like, I mean, where did that come from? Like, who told disposable? Who told you that? Like, I guess somebody had to tell you that because whatever. So that hurt.

I've been in rooms with every type of person on the planet. I've got along with every type of person on the planet. So I've never, there's never been a time where it's just like, oh, you know, when somebody calls you woke or something, whoa, that was the most absurd thing to me when people started calling me that, me. Which one hurts more, disposable or overpriced?

No, there's a, negotiations are still going. I mean, the overpriced was just like, come on now, what are we doing here? Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muscogee or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60

from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. I want to, before you get out of here, to to tell the story the love story of you and Sam now it starts In the most uproarious way possible. It's you losing Okay, let me tell the story man. Let me tell the story man So I told you a Thunderbolt hits me and I'm love at first sight. I would have married her very quickly

Or there at some point very quickly. I wouldn't have been foolish and can you tell me about the Thunderbolt though can you actually it's gotta be a lightning bolt right because a Thunderbolt is just the sound technically but that was the that's a line from the Godfather so okay I'm sorry for my ignorance right just step in step in that's my bad my bad you have I show people the back of your phone here just so that they understand how much you love being Italian Yeah, and a mafioso and there's Ray leota over over laughing on the back of his phone in good fellas Anyways, I got very sad when Ray died Ray and Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain died you delivered both of those news is with a bit of pep. Too much pep, too much excitement on. It didn't sound sad. It sounded like it was wrapped in flowers and fireworks. I got sad. I bought hats, T-shirts, and cell phone cases. Again, why would you do that when someone passes away? Anthony Bourdain specifically. I love, Matt

Kelleher once gave me one of the greatest compliments. He said, you write like Bourdain writes for TV. I was like, wow, man, that's a great compliment, right? What is the connection with Bourdain? Is it the combination of authenticity with him tackling the mental health stuff? This really hit me hard though, you know. Now, let me just get back into a space here. He died the same week we lost Amadeo. I didn't, you know, know it at the time because I was in the hospital with Enzo,

you know, and all this stuff. So he died in June 2018. So I didn't even think about, maybe I didn't know for a month or something like that. That's what it was. So then, then you know you're finally back bringing up for air and it's okay to be affected by the death of someone you don't know I interviewed him once for good morning America I did a silly game I was trying to do rogue TV where I would have a second camera lens do it and I had them

play basically a charades game. So I'd been such a fan of his, I knew what I wanted to do. And then they had Nigella Lawson on, who was also pretty perfect. And I was gonna have them charade mime, eating a food, and then the other person had to guess what they were doing. So for Nigella Lawson, of course, I'm having her do spaghetti, you know,

because you want Nijella Lawson making a kissy face. And then for him, I had him doing a dish called Ortillon. I hope I'm pronouncing that right, which was something he mentioned in his book. This is a type of quail that is like a baby bird where the French cook it in like champagne and they eat it whole, including the baby bird's bones, you've heard this before, and the story is you're supposed to wear a napkin

over your face while you're doing it because God should not even see you delight in something like this. So I had him doing all this. So we shared a real moment together. He he hates interview or hated interviews and he was really schlepping it out there for whatever it was the name of his tv show at the time but it was six in the morning and i'm getting good boarding and i'm really around someone i admire he was doing is to do to at that moment it is why are

you in school this is just a session space and air with the wants but i definitely felt the loss of them months after he lost and of course he was cool. This is just to say I shared space and air with him once, but I definitely felt the loss of him months after he lost, and of course it was a death by suicide. So this is an incredible gut punch to me in that somebody who was modeling in so many ways, for me, somebody who's going through something like anxiety, but somebody who is navigating life's up and downs

in a way that I felt was publicly showing people, you know, life's hard. We're going to get through this together. And his life ended alone, death by suicide. Man, I mean, I've read everything about it afterwards. I've read the books that his producers have written. I'm still trying to get to that person who was both, he went through different stages of the library.

He's the meanest cook and he's the tattooed covered guy and he's a celebrity. He doesn't want to be a celebrity, but the way he wrote, the way he connected people. How can I connect with people? That's started a nugget in my mind on around the horn. Again, I'm not elevating this art form espy at five o'clock

who you got panthers or oilers but still little bits of other stories little bits of other parts of our lives can i open this up and i think i tried to do that and the next show will try to be bored in for sports right so at the boarding uh... a guy too. You asked me for the thunder. I'm gonna I'm gonna get to Sam in a second, but you made me think of something else before we get to the story of your Matrimony or wife just a majestic majestic love

Yeah, it is it is but when you mentioned Robin Williams earlier now you've mentioned Bourdain When you mentioned Robin Williams but when you mention robin williams earlier now you've mentioned for dane uh... when you mention robin williams i remember sort of not being able to quite get my head the mental health conversation wasn't as prevalent as it is today so i had some difficulty getting my head around how someone that publicly uh... giant would have the private issues that would surprise people and my question to you about smart and you're right. You're getting to something here

Well, I'm wondering if you've had any of these thoughts first of all because I This is this is something I'm still working on You know, I have not had any thoughts what I had was and a very exact Feeling I had was a very exact feeling around the time my first child was young and my wife was traveling globally, where I've talked about this publicly, but I'm a little bit hesitant. It may have been called postpartum anxiety by a doctor, and maybe I attached it to in the first interviews I did, it may have just been generalized anxiety disorder

with a postpartum bulb or something like that. But I have had the scariest thoughts you can possibly have in that instance, and that's what prepared me and projected me forward into maturity and into talk therapy, into treatment, and into Amadeo and everything like that. So that actually was, that is an origin story for me, for being out of my skin at one in the morning with an infant in the house, my wife 4,000 miles away, and online calling what is a phone number, not a hotline, but the TV host to me wants to make a joke, I called the hotline and the hotline wasn't there, you know. and having a sleepless night and

Calling the hotline that morning and talking and and wrapping my I wasn't too In in the sand to know that that men could experience anxiety around around Parenting and young birth and post whether that's postpartum or not again. I'm not a doctor I'm not even trying to define things, I'm just trying to explain the feelings I was feeling. And then going to therapy that morning and then doing around the horn and then, you know, my parents did come that day or the next day or sometime at that point. And I was, you know, very honest about all that. So ideation, and now with Robin Williams and with Anthony Bordana, clearly we're talking about a suicidal ideation, which is not something I have.

I have fears of people in my greater family, you know. Those were whether they were real or not. It is certainly something that has kept me up at night. I have worked with suicide prevention, specifically someone in my life who we know, who has talked about it, and I have hosted events. I have a best friend who lost an uncle, and I knew that uncle, that's how I knew he was a best friend. Been to concerts with that uncle. And that has resonated. So death by suicide has been something that has occupied part of my head space and my greater,

it's almost like it's not that I'm thinking about it for myself or anything like that. Just that this is like an impossible thing for me to get my arms around that exists in the world. That the solution to your pain would be suicide. Would be to kill yourself. For someone's solution to be at that moment. You know this is now part of the Catholic faith too. Like what can be, a lot of faiths, you know, what can be, can you get to heaven if you die by suicide? And so I've actively, so in the things in my life, that's one thing, and the second thing is people who live life with disability, mental disability. I've surrounded myself with

Special Olympics and things like that because it weighs on me to a degree. This is now transference, alright, if we wanted to slowly. Like I feel these feelings in a heightened way that needs to be taken under control a little bit. Like I have to have a second breath in my head saying now what you're doing now is you are attaching, like I see a father with a middle-aged person with a disability, a mental disability, and I am now in tears for that father that his life at 63 is still where it would be for someone. And I don't know if that father's sad about that. I don't know.

It may be a wonderful relationship that they have. It very well may be. But for a lot of my life, I could not get to that place. And then I done work with Special Olympics. And I've done work with Suicide for Prevention, but specifically for someone like Bourdain or Williams, people I admired, and I love the way they worked that room. I mean, I could definitely think I said the line they worked that room.

I could definitely think I said the line. If that's where it ended for Bredain, what hope is there for anybody? Like something, a feeling like that. If he was that expressive about his inner workings and the struggles he had and how, the tools he used to get past his struggles. These were type of words that he would use. And it still ended with him in the middle of that night.

To me, that is, there is so much sadness to that. Right? The mentor who was teaching people how to model, not better behavior because he would never use those words, but one way that could work. Here's one way that could work here's one way that could work well it did not work for him that one night this is something I've taken away from the families who I've been near in those in the vents like that you know that was a moment there was it was a moment and and there's an easy road to say that that defined their existence. I

don't believe that to be the case. The ways people in my life who have struggled with things have demonstrated to me and put good into my heart that then I project upon other people. That's amazing value. So my hardest relationships, I alluded to, relationship with my brother specifically, has affected me in the greatest ways that I can imagine. Amadeo has affected me in ways that now I know I have reached people

and what a positive thing that has been. Feelings and connection are important to you, so the thunderbolt story uh... in washington d c for the second week since p t i started in a foreign city i don't know anything i'm running through the mall so i gotta get my exercise in underneath the washington monument i look out and i see a flag football game that's pretty terrible well these'm like, ah, these guys need some help, they need an extra player at least, let me go be

quarterback for them. We'll have a fun game. Come meet me out tonight, Kevin says. Kevin go out and there's two women with Kevin at the moment. I walk into a double date unbeknownst to me. Kevin's a pretty cool guy. All right, I'm on a double date. Neither is Sam. But Kevin takes us out on a double date and it's pretty...

there's a Starsky and Huss joke in here like which one do you want? Which one? I don't know either. I'll take either. You know, his vibe is giving me whatever. You know, I'm like, neither for me, but thank you. You know? And he's, you know, still moving the light night along and he takes us to a restaurant the light night along and we takes us to a restaurant uh buffalo billiards is the name of the place uh bar all the great your romance are buffalo billiards uh because he used to work there so he can get us in and maybe and sam's the

waitress and that's where the lightning bolt that's me you know i love it first sight uh... you know or their cheeks you know huge dimples their cheeks you know uh... and uh... that's just melted uh... and um... so i i go up to talk to her at that moment she had already asked kevin what's it was your friend so i went up to talk to her and she

already had her number written down a piece of paper wow yeah that she she don't fuck around uh... personality but i will say that without saying she had already talked to kevin i did not but um... she says come back at the end of the night you know i come back but she's a waitress so she's still closing a table seventeen men at this point at three in the morning about it easy and i'm drinking you know at this point site a tranquil little don't drink at all now

trying to get the nerve but that was it that was our that's a little bit outside the story i don't know but just tell you so we're together for all these years now and i want to marry sam and she knows this and i'm pretty sure she wants to marry me so we're already talking about rings. We're talking about the idea. Okay. And she tells me at one moment the type of ring she likes. Princess Cut, Moonstones on the side. Okay, sure. So that's what I'm going to do. So I talked to my guy in DC.

You got a guy? You got a guy? You got a guy? That's some Rayleigh Odor shit. You got a guy? And she wants a Princess Cut with Moonstones Moonstones you sure yeah, I'm not really You know you what you want your ring to be the star of the show don't you you know? Stop the stuff on the side so all right Moonstones. Let's get it, so he gives me the ring. I say all right here you go Okay, thank you. Thank you Now I want to do it in New York because I want to do it in New York now It doesn't have to be anywhere specific

But I just want to do it on a nice getaway vacation. And we're happen to be going to New York for another friend's engagement party. So now I really cannot do it that night because you can't show up at somebody's engagement party with your own ring. So now it's in a box, in a shoe, in a bag, in the safe at the Hotel in New York, the Chambers Hotel,

very nice hotel that was on 57th Street. And we go out all day, Friday night, we have a great night, and I'm with my best friend at the time, you know, and at the time I tell him, you know, I got the ring in a box and a shoe in the safe, you know, you doing it this weekend? Yeah, I'm doing it this weekend, man, I'm doing it this weekend.

So we go out, this is hilarious, we go out Saturday morning, and I'm thinking I'll do it Saturday night in the hotel room and we walk down Fifth Avenue You walk past Tiffany's and you walk past Harry Winston, and you know we've talked enough, so no we're just I'm not running away from these places And if she she's just all over that one over there that one looks great. Oh, that would be the type of ring I would want it's the exact opposite ring. I have in the box No moonstones right you want to start a show so now my head. I'm like you know what yeah, that's the exact opposite ring i have in the bottom of the group no moonstone's right you want to start a show so now my head of my cano what yeah that's the type of r i'm gonna go back to my guy we're gonna just changes up so

now we're in the city canceled your body it's a little plans in my head whatever just go back and we'll just refit this and that'll be great saturday night it's a crazy big you know i got this ring in the room, but I'm not doing it. That's all right. Sunday morning, we still have some time before we fly home. It's the Dominican Day Parade in New York, which is a big festival, you know?

And I'm not gonna walk around with a box in my pocket, you know, as we're all dancing. So, oh my God, I'm stuck between a rock in a hard place right now Dan and I say to the manager a literal rock inside if you could just lock this in the safe behind the desk yes mr. reality whatever you need they give me a ticket which is very comforting I've got a ticket now I don't have the ring but I have a ticket so we're we're stout we go out drinking dancing all day Dominican Day parade yes baby let's just stop by the hotel they got our bag it's got our

apartment keys car keys in it yeah yeah keep the meter running she's in the cab I go inside oh mr. reality good to see you how's everything going yes this is my ticket of course they open up the safe the safe behind them is absolutely empty okay so now I have a A1 steak sauce. It gets you here, it gets you right here. There's like a little pang of something in my... Like, wait a second. There is the ring.

Wait a second. That's not insured. Wait a second. You know? No, Mr. Reality burnt it up to your room. Funny story, I checked out of the room, 12 hours, 10 hours ago. They go upstairs, they come back down empty-handed now it's

you know no mystery i would be moved into the backup safe backup safe by definition i think this was to be okay at its own so now it's really clear to me i gave the keys of mazorati to somebody said all right see you later and said come on back whenever you know they're gone they're gone Sam's also been in the cab

now she's like what are you doing the meters at like 50 bucks you know so now she could see like I'm sick and she's just like what no no our car keys our apartment keys we can't get into when you go outside and move the flight back just for a couple hours. She goes outside and I say, okay, listen to me and listen to me carefully to this gentleman. Inside that bag there was a shoe. Inside that shoe there was a box. Inside that box there was a ring.

I've yet to fully engage myself with my girlfriend. She starts crying, which is not the greatest sign that we're going to get this together. Mr. Reali, go have a drink or something drink I'm gonna start throwing up in the side of the street I go outside I'm getting ready to tell Sam and out comes running the New York City Porter who is central casting fat Italian guy with a mustache look like walrus he's running and he's got the big belly and he we found the bag we found the fucking bag it's at LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport two couples had just checked out right before us

they gave them two tickets or they gave them one ticket and they gave them both bags in the safe they got to curbside checking at LaGuardia and they called the hotel and that was the only, the hotel was looking for like underneath pieces of paper. And we got in the town car with the general manager and the girls were making small talk. This is a story of Queens. There's a lot of them. And I'm like, there's a lot of Greeks, everybody knows that, yeah. My head's out the window like I'm Labrador. And we get to curbside check-in at the airport

and I see this couple from Iowa and I always now associate people from Iowa as good people. And they said, is this your bags, sir? And I totally bowled them over, just push them to the side, rip open the bags, feel a little bit better. I see the shoe, rip open the shoe, feel a little better. See the box, rip open the box, pull Sam in between the men's and women's bathroom at LaGuardia Airport. Romantic.

And I propose right there. Did she like the ring she loved the ring she wore that ring for many years and we upgraded after after a while and and we survived and if you can make it through that you can make it through well a closing note though because I want p.i. I mean I do love Sam to the degree I know her I believe she's a bit hard to know. She's just, she's got a stoicism about her, but explain to me the rock that she is to you because I know her to be a rock for you.

Yeah, I mean, it's about strength for me. I'm a strong person and I feel that way, but my wife has an inner strength that defies exactly how she came to be. You know, she's a Peace Corps baby. Her mom, her family is half Moroccan and half white New Jersey. The most magical of combinations. The most magical of combinations. Morocco, the New Jersey of Africa. So, it's as in the Peace Corps. You know, Mom is a teacher, but a village family.

You know, these are the Berber people of North Africa, the tribe, right? And that was, you know, a wonderful union, of course, and also that's going to have its problems. And that then became, you know, dad and now a stepmom and mom living close and all these things. And then she had spent time, you know, of course, with both. And then she had spent time back in Morocco.

This was in Baltimore, Maryland, where she grew up. But then she spent time back in Morocco. And then there was maybe school year missed, and there was certainly a disruption for any young person. And the strength, inner strength to get through that. And then the intelligence and the brilliance is amazing. And you know, speaks so many different languages and had an interest in investigative journalism which I find to be very, very cool. Well you respect and admire her career.

For her career and for intellectualism and and and for Foxiness and for parenting and I needed that as a co-parent and you know the good times are great the great times are the best ever, and the stinky times are manageable. And that's a goal. That's now what I write on wedding cards, if you want a TV button there. I mean, I'd have my TV button.

It's aspirational, the marriage that you two have. And I also think I have this right although my Information I don't have enough information to surmise this but I feel like you would need to lean on her more Emotionally than she would need to lean on you I mean, I mean that's that's clearly true and it has been true the last nine months as she used her business acumen Most of all to figure out how does somebody like myself not be in the situation it was eight months ago when I got the news around the horn was ending and the same day I'm reading the hot ones is selling for

millions upon millions of dollars great show incredible host aspirational host and 200 episodes was selling for millions upon millions and I was saying goodbye after 4900 and I didn't have IP at that moment, you know, so you're not gonna be in that instance ever again and The literal sleeves rolling up. I mean, I mean love the way she walks She's a bad way she rolls up her sleeves and then like this So now I am I've taken 300 meetings in the last nine months and i have i've enjoyed a lot of them and i've loved thinking about taking more as a win rooms and get incredible feedback about how those rooms are great

i never doubted i could win the room but it's just like here i go again you know but i'm not going to get on my own i'm going to uh... again with her i will tell you though that I pulled her aside on your last day at Around the Horn. I didn't need to say this to her,

but I'm like, don't let anyone take his power. And don't let. She doesn't need to hear that. No, she doesn't need to hear that. And I'm like, don't let anyone fuck him. And she doesn't need to hear that either. But what I remember about that day for you is the very real and palpable joy i

felt seeing her with your kids knowing what knowing a fraction of what that journey was for you having that there in the center of the right i was with the other that's works that could be that's work anymore you know because that's all that's what they know for it you know uh... and and you'll know i i don't even think she saw the end of that show she was with the kids and they were gone already I mean I think she's seen two episodes shows never she

is not sports fan none of that I mean it is nothing to do with our relationship other than she knows that I love it and performing it and I think she's she's down it's a little sickening that she's got awful announcing on her home page now or some it is but but but I do love that while she might not have an interest in this the ingredients you will find in love all the time the best kinds of love or understanding and acceptance and she meets you there on my words one a triviamas party trivia at her work as they were asking which country this is she was working in emerging markets which country

has an a k forty seven on its flag and i said mosaic because i believe that's the correct i believe it's the correct and i want that in the in the west african business po so let's give some credit that i was also dominating her her works i don't think that credit is necessary i think i think that's a shitty punctuation i think she held on over here i uh... i think i'm gonna make it feel good again but i don't know if you know i'm not gonna edit it out

uh... i love you that's you know i love you you tower over a number of different ways uh... and i'm all my only regret in the entire time i've known you and this I love you, you know I love you, you tower over me in a number of different ways. And my only regret in the entire time I've known you and this interview is that we didn't spend the entire thing holding hands like this. Two hours like this, we could have broken the mold on how these interviews are done for male intimacy. You are enough, Dan.

You're just the perfect amount. I love you, buddy. I love you too, Dan. Thank're just the perfect amount. I love you, buddy. I love you too, Dan. Thank you for spending this time with us, and thank you for being my friend for a quarter century. A quarter century? Yeah, thank you. A quarter century.

You look better now than you did then. I was so bloated, so inflamed, and I was introduced as the hateable Dan Levitard. Well, again, I mean, I would never forgive you and ride home for that. I was in the room for that. It's wrong, it's wrong. You know what I want, so I was a bit,

I love the Peres Prado music. I wanted us to clear Peres Prado and then we had to come up with our own little version of that that wasn't him but I wish I could go lower than this this is the lowest this chair goes I'm sure you you can go lower I can it doesn't doesn't go any lower goodbye he's one of the best soon you will see him bigger better than ever thank you tommy