Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Kanye, Control, & Celebrity Abuse: A Lawyer’s Unfiltered Take

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

In this jaw-dropping episode of The Determined Society, host Shawn French sits down with powerhouse Texas attorney Michelle O’Neil to unpack the disturbing headlines around Kanye West, Bianca Censori, and emotional abuse in celebrity relationships. Michelle brings 30+ years of family law experience to this raw conversation, revealing what the media won’t tell you, how power dynamics play out behind closed doors, and the legal red flags that shouldn't be ignored. Plus, the duo dives into the Diddy trial, the manipulation of media narratives, the downfall of public trust, and why real leadership, in life, law, and politics, has to come from purpose, not performance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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For one less Sunday scary, we're here. Kanye, the Super Bowl thing was an absolute shit show. What the fuck's this guy's deal? Wife wears a naked dress and then there's talks of a separation now. And here she comes in her beautiful coat. And then all of a sudden he like whispered something at her and she drops the coat like a robot. Some media reported, you know, that he said that he has, this is the quote, complete dominion over his wife. Dominion.

For the next day or two, it was like she's going to consult a divorce. and then a few days later, it's like, we're going to try to reconcile. And so, you know, me, I'm like, are we trying to reconcile or is he silencing her again? As a lawyer who represents women? I'm going like, who do we need the call to help you leave? Shout French, what else? Let the pain inspire me. I put my all and everything I'm doing.

Up until it's done, I meet for the entirety. I'm putting over time. I'll be working. Just know I'm a go for mine because I earned it. They watch and I know it's time. I confirmed it. A whole society determined. what's up everybody welcome back to another episode of Determined society i'm your host sean french

i have an amazing guest today but first please hit the button uh to follow the show on spotify apple podcast and youtube i have an amazing texas attorney today one of the top attorneys in the state of texas she's amazing she's dynamic she has a hell of a resume and we're so blessed to have her today michelle o'neal welcome to the show thank you thank you for having me I'm excited to be here today. I'm super excited. You know, we had a good conversation over the weekend before, you know, we recorded. We had a fun kind of off the air conversation prior.

So the juices are flowing here. We've got the creative juices going right now. Yeah, I'm ready to talk. What are we going to talk about? Let's do this. Well, first, let's talk to the, tell the audience a little bit that may not know who you are. Get them a little rundown of your background, you know, where you're from, what you're doing, and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah, so I have been a lawyer for 30 plus years. We won't go into the plus part. And mostly I've done family law, but within family law, I tell everybody the thing I love about doing family law are for those who are more refined domestic relations law. You know, for those of us from the streets or from the country where I'm from, we call it just family law. you know, what I love about doing family law is that we actually touch on every single practice area there is in law. Like, you can't name a practice area that I probably haven't touched in 30 years. I've done criminal law within family law, you know, which that's kind of obvious. But I've done a shareholder derivative rights lawsuit within a divorce. You know, I tried a marital rate tort claim to a jury trial within a divorce. Like so it's and most people don't understand that family law kind of has this all encompassing thing that anything that touches a family can happen inside of a divorce case. And maybe that's a whole other episode.

We can talk about that. But that's what I love about family law. And so it makes my experiences really diverse. And so I know a couple of the topics we're going to talk about today, you might think, what does that have to do with family law? But they actually do touch family law because, you know, they have. these intertwining into the family or children or contract rights that can, you know, come into the family law aspect. And they're actually things that I have dealt with in my practice. And, you know, so I tell everybody that I learned everything about business and running a business,

which I own my own business. We have four offices, Dallas, Frisco, Texas, Houston, Texas, and Fort Worth, Texas. And so we can handle family law matters all over the state of Texas. Only in the state of Texas, though, because we're not licensed anywhere else. But I learned everything about life from my mama. I learned everything about business from my daddy. There you go. Some good influences in your life.

I'm actually going to be in Houston the end of this month. Awesome. Well, that's a long way from me. I wish I'd known that. We might could make a plan. Maybe you should hop on up to Dallas and I'll buy you. buy you a drink or a steak. You know, Dallas is known for a steaks.

I would love that. I would love that. It's for a wedding, though. So I can't bolt, you know, got to be there. Well, I mean, you could add on a day and just drop the end to Dallas. We're a steak and a drink. Done. Dinner and a drink.

Absolutely. We could talk about that for sure, for sure. But no, family law's crazy. There's a lot of different things that can go on in family law, right? And, you know, I think the big thing that you always ties in, if there's kids involved, you know, property assets. But, do, there's some interesting things going on right now in the news media. Did you just tell me, dude?

Well, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm from Cali, you know. I'll do you up, you know. I'll be a dude today. It's better than being an un. No, that could be bad. That could be bad. It's all good. I'll answer to whatever.

Okay. Awesome. So, Kanye, I mean, there's been a lot of stuff going on with them, right? The Super Bowl thing was an absolute shit show. Oh, my God. What the fuck is this guy's. deal. Has he lost? You know, I think whenever people are celebrities and they're so used to getting all of that attention and then like as what happens, like this is what happens when you're in

the limelight and you're the current flavor of the monk, eventually that shit slides, right? And so then the attention of the media, the attention of the public, the lemmings, like they go on to something else. Squirrel, bright light. Like, we're going to look at somebody else. Somebody younger, cuter, smarter, sweeter, better looking. And then you start to slide and you don't quite know what to do with that. And so you start, you know, kind of pulling these stunts to try to get the limelight back on you. And I think for some of them, they start kind of losing their marbles a little bit.

And maybe that's what's happened to Kanye. I don't know. I don't know what. You never met him. I feel like that's happened to him five times. Yeah. It's constant. It was Taylor Swift.

right? I mean, that was a long time ago. Now we have this. So the most recent one is what? Wife wears a naked dress and then there's talks of a separation now? Yeah, I mean, she wore the naked dress. And, you know, in Texas we said naked, not naked like y'all doing California. Naked dress.

Yeah, I mean, I was watching that on the red carpet. And here she comes in her beautiful coat. And then all of a sudden he like whispered something at her and she goes. drops the coat like a robot. And I'm a divorce lawyer, right? I'm pretty jaded and cynical. And he whispers and then she drops the coat. And it's like, what, what?

Whoa. Like, I'm sorry. You or I dressed like that out in public? We getting arrested. Like, I mean, first of all, nobody wants to see all that for me. Me either. You got some washboard abs or something really fun to see. But nobody wants to see that.

Who told you? Who told you? told you about the washboard abs. But, but, like, I mean, she was very lovely. I mean, her body was lovely and, and worth seeing. But, I mean, you or I or I or anybody else in the world goes out there and drops their coat and has on a neck a dress that looks like panty hose. I mean, or do people even know what panty hose are anymore? I'm not anymore.

I don't think so. I know what you're talking about. Got on a panty hose dress, right? Yeah. and and anybody else is getting arrested. I mean, I mean, down to like showing you hoo-ha. So, I mean, they showed her who,

now on TV, it blurted out, but I mean, we're showing our who-law. Wow. So, you know, I mean, we're getting arrested for that. And so as a divorce lawyer, I'm sitting there going, like, wait a minute, there is something really wrong in this situation. And so the next day, he came out and on some media reported, you know, that he said that he has complete, this is the quote, complete dominion over his wife. Now, family lawyer, I'm like, dominion.

That's a word. That's a word. And then, you know, the next day or two, it was like she's going to consult a divorce lawyer. And then a few days later, it's like, oh, we're getting back together. And, you know, we're going to try to reconcile. And so, you know, me, I'm like. Are we trying to reconcile or is he silencing her again? Because the reports of her being silenced and not being allowed to speak in his presence,

like those reports are widely reported in the media. And so I'm sitting here going like as a woman, as a lawyer who represents women, I'm going like, do we need to call somebody, honey? Do we need to call the police to come help you leave? Like, do we need to call your daddy to come beat his ass and help you get out of there? Like, do we need to call to help you leave? Because what I'm seeing is psychological abuse. I mean, I don't know why.

I'm not accusing him of it. I don't know anything. I haven't been there. But it's just these signs are just, I mean, I'm just so concerned about her. What it sounds like from what you're saying, you know, obviously the quote of, I have complete dominion over my wife. That's an abusive statement, right? Yeah.

It means you feel you own her, right? Is that what that really means? Right. And then also the whispering in the ear, do this now. Do this now, right? It's kind of how I'm interpreting it. And to me, it's just like, what do you think is really going on? When you say silencing her, like, I don't understand this, right?

There's another topic we'll get to it a little bit that has been, you know, widely talked about by silencing, right? it's like I guess I just don't understand that world right it's like what does that actually mean and how can it actually happen I don't know I mean nobody's ever been really successful at silencing me there you go in a lot of instances people might would have wanted to silence me but but nobody's been very successful at it so I have I have zero understanding of that concept but but it is definitely you know when when you look at the signs and symptoms of the emotional control or emotional abuse or psychological

abuse, I mean, that's definitely one of them. And when you look at the reports in the media that have been reported about their relationship where people are reporting that she's not allowed to speak in his presence and she's not allowed to speak out in public. And she's never, as far as I've been able to find, never done a media interview. And certainly not since all this has broken. she's never, you know, spoken to anybody about what's happened in the last week or two. And if she were acting under her own free will, like, why doesn't she go talk to, you know, to somebody on one of the news channels and give a little interview and say, I'm fine, I'm good. I wanted to do it. I wanted a public of my entire lovely body because I like the way I look and I want women to see my body confidence or something.

I mean, but she's not doing it. that. And when you add to that, Kim Kardashian actually spoke out the other day. There's a media report of that where she talked about some of the control of her and so not, now, nobody ever accused Kim Kardashian of being silenced either, but there were some similarities in what she said to what's kind of happening now, that it's just very concerning. At a minimum, it's odd. Yeah. And weird. And at a maximum, I mean, it's very concerning. Now, so when you were talking about Kim Kardashian,

were you hinting around the fact that there was moments where Kim was also controlled or potentially controlled by Kanye OS? I mean, I think she's kind of said that. And then there's been some discussion even after the divorce where he has attempted to exercise some coercive control of her over their co-parenting and hiring private investigators. and, you know, following her around and stuff like that. Now, I don't know that he's been that successful with her

because certainly between her wealth and her security team and, you know, she has ability to get out from under any control that he would attempt to exercise and her family unit. You know, she has some different abilities. You know, where this other gal, Bianca, she doesn't seem to have that same support. system that Kim Kardashian has. And I think, you know, when generally, when there are people and we can be sexist about it, but it's not always men, but when men are in this position where

they're controlling of women like this, they tend to prey on women who don't have that support system, who don't have a daddy or a brother who are going to go beat their ass if they treat, you know, this woman wrongly. and who don't have, you know, the wealth or the means to get out from under it. And so I don't know these people. I don't know what's going on. I sure wish that we did know a little bit more about what's going on behind the scenes because it's, you know, it's very strange and very concerning.

And I sure wish I could get her in with a lawyer. You know, I know a few in L.A. that are really, really good. So I'd love to get her in with one to see what actually is going on. So there's a massive difference between Bianca and Kim Kardashian, right? To your point, right? You know, just from like a family standpoint, Kim's unit, everybody's together. I'm not saying Bianca's is not. I don't know about her family.

Just the Kardashians are public eye, right? You see everybody involved, right? But the big thing is I think financially, right? Kim has fuck you money. Like you can't control her, right? The family has fuck you money, correct? like you're not going to get the same result she's going to be like yeah okay dude try it like yeah go ahead i think more people like me than they like you dude right yeah um but for this girl it's

concerning right because well she may not have that financial stability like a Kardashian has yeah i think the media has reported um you know that that it appears that she doesn't because when they first started reporting the possibility of divorce they were talking talking about the fact that it appears that they don't have a premarital agreement. And California is a community property state, which the media reported, I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion, but the media reported that under some scenario, because he is apparently greatly in debt and has very little in assets left, I don't know this, but this is what this report said, that he had a lot of debt and that if they got divorced under the

community property scheme without a premarital agreement that she could get sacked with a with a bunch of his debt instead of getting any assets. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that because I think there'd be a lot of factors like was the debt incurred, you know, before the marriage or because he was a schmuck or because of some wrongdoing. And is it, there's a fairness element to that that a judge would look at in California. So, I mean, I'm not a California lawyer, but I know enough to know that there would be a fairness element and the judge would have discretion not to sack her with all the debt also. So I don't think, I don't think that's a realistic assessment of what would happen to her in that scenario. But certainly the report

to me says that she doesn't have her own source of funding to get her out of it. So what do you think, like what do you think's going on, right? Because we have, we have reports stating that they are they are not moving forward. They are rumors. We're staying together. We're looking to work it out. Like, yes, like, what does that look like, though? I mean, you're a family law attorney.

You've seen this many times play out, right? Like, where does this go from here? Like, where do you think it goes? Yeah, you know, I'm as much of a media conspiracy theorist as anybody. So it could just be that the media found something salacious to report about because she wore this neck address that was a bad attempt at getting, you know, some media attention where there wasn't any. And so it could be that it was a stunt and everybody's happy at home and the media is blowing some things out of proportion. Or, or it could be that, you know, that there's really something

to be concerned about and that, you know, that Kanye is exercising his dominion. And, you know, when women are under this control, this trauma bond or this manipulation, you know, maybe he has manipulated her back into the fold and through money or or some sort of psychological control. And she's now kind of brought back in the fold and is either through physical manipulation or, you know, or monetary manipulation, she's just not able to get out and go see the lawyer she wanted to go see. So I don't know. I mean, I hope that if that's the case, that she's got somebody somewhere that cares enough about her to help her, you know, go get her nails done and then get to a women's shelter or something and get out.

But, you know, but if, you know, if everything's fine and she's happy and everything's happy there, then, you know, then go be happy and the media needs to leave them alone. but I don't think anybody knows the truth except those on the inside of that situation. And I guess at the end of the day, we can just send her good vibes or prayers or whatever works for you and hope that she's okay. Great points, right?

We don't know. Like, we don't live there. It's not for us to judge. We can only assume and kind of put the storyline together. And it's, you know, it's entertainment, right, as well. But how, here's my thought. what if it was just a fucking stunt? Yeah.

What if it was staged? That's what they reported yesterday. I mean, Kanye came out with a statement or his publicist did that said that there was some sexual, something lawsuit against him by somebody. And they did it as a stunt to like take away attention from that lawsuit. I'll never understand it. Yeah, maybe. Wouldn't it bring more light to it? Like, here he goes again.

I mean, look. I mean, I think it's a bad stunt. I need a good one, but neither was a Super Bowl link. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one t-shirt? Yeah. I mean, I have a swastick on it?

Like, yeah. Let's get real. That's, you know, also too, shame on, I'm sorry, shame on the TV, right, shame on's a Super Bowl. Like, how do you not proofread or look at what that link's going to pull up when you, when you put it on the TV? Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many things that, you know, kind of go into this. And, you know, I hope that, you know, I guess I kind of hope it was a stunt. I mean, like I said, we started this conversation with me saying that I, you know,

I think that sometimes celebrities, when they start losing their celebrity status, start doing desperate things to get that limelight back on them, especially if they've lost their money. and I wonder if that's kind of where he's at. Like he's trying to get some fame or infamy back and trying to find a way to get some sort of contractor, you know, something back to get to earn some money. And I don't know. I mean, maybe that's what he's doing.

I wonder how many streams of Kanye West on Spotify or Apple music or any Pandora or any type of platform has taken place since the super. Bowl and since this has gone out. I imagine a lot. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know. I think it's going to be interesting. You know, we were talking offline about the Diddy trial.

I mean, there's also some parallels. Sorry. Here we fucking go. You know, there's some allegations of parallels between Kanye and Diddy too. And so I'm wondering if there's going to be some, you know, some parallels that come out in the Diddy trial with Kanye too. I mean, maybe that'll be his next claim to fame. I don't know.

I mean, I don't know. Okay. So let's, let's spill the tea here. So two months before that trial, the Diddy trial. Yeah, two months. Two months. May 5th, something like that. Shit, man, that's my grandma, like my late grandma's birthday.

Can they come up with a different date? Shit. I know, right? I just hope they televise, like at least some portions of it. I mean, I do hope they come up with a, way to protect the victims because certainly the victims don't deserve all the publicity that's going to surround this thing. You know, but I mean, the publicity is going to be what it's going to be, whether they

televise it or not. But I, I mean, I have to confess as a lawyer just from the pure legal drama of it, you know, I don't know that there's been, you know, certainly the Johnny Depp trial. was legal drama. You know, I go all the way back to the OJ trial. You know, I mean, this is the trial of the modern era. So I'm looking forward to the Ditty trial. I'm ready for it to start.

I'm ready to watch the lawyering and see what goes on. I'm very interested in this, obviously, because it's, I mean, you see the, you hear people talking, you know. And there was people on social media for years warning everybody about this, right? how this was all going to all come out. And then, you know, then it did. And then there's all of a sudden these videos of, of, of,

Ditty literally beating the shit out of his girlfriend. Was it Sierra? Sierra? Yeah. On film. On film. And it's just like, damn.

And there's documentaries out already. Everything came so quickly with this, with, with, with P. Diddy. And just everything, like all the platforms like Hulu and Max. Like,

they have all. all these different, the fall of P. Diddy. Like, it's, it's a lot to take in. Yeah. I think that, and I think that may be the problem, like me being a lawyer, that may be the problem with the trial is that there's just so much. Like, and they, when they, I read that the prosecutor expects the case to take, their case to take two weeks, and then the defense expects to take a week. Now, in the grand scheme of lawyering, that's actually not. that long of a trial for as much stuff as we think they have. So how are they going to fit that all in? Like I don't know. I mean, I like I said, from just the pure legal drama of it, I'm,

I can't wait for it to start and I hope they televise it. No, I agree. I mean, like listen, you and I were talking, you know, before we hit record it, you know, going back all the way to the OJ trial. I mean, I was, you were in law school. You know, I was, I was younger, too. I remember, I remember the day. I was going to a baseball game that I was playing at. And it was his reports came out that OJ allegedly killed his ex-wife and, you know, her friend.

And I'm like, there's no way. Like, this is, this is wild. I remember I was going to Brentwood, California, to play a summer baseball game. And this, this thing exploded. And you couldn't help. but be in front of the TV and watching it. Like to see a public figure like that, be reduced to the most simplest.

You are just a normal human being. Right. You're going through this. I mean, I don't know if you remember the chase. I remember the chase. And the Bronco. And at the time, I was a country girl. I mean, here in Texas, and, you know, a Bronco was like my dream car.

And there he is, like driving in my dream. car like chasing off and yeah never but you've never got a bronco did you well i got one of the new ones but then i didn't like it so is it white no i got a red one yeah you know my red my color see look at that i love that i love that for you you got rid of it yeah i didn't like it after i got it was too big for me it was too big coming from so i know how someone like myself would view these trials is the Pete Diddy thing. I'm looking, I mean, for me, I'm just going to be honest, like. Entertainment.

Yeah, but then also like, yo, dude, if this is all true, I hope you fucking pay for it. Like, I, you know, I don't want this, you know, if the glove doesn't fit, you must have quit type bullshit. I mean, we talked about that too, you know. Like, no, if you did all this, man, and you're guilty, you need to pay for it, man, because there's all these people's lives that have been impacted over. the years that don't have regular relationships with men, that don't have regular relationships with people or even careers because they've been impacted by this trauma. And in all the while, how much of empowerment does that take away from a woman to deal with

that? Or the men. I mean, there are more victims. I mean, how about the video surfacing of Justin Bieber in the club? Like the insinuation of what he allegedly was made to do. do in a club. As a, and as a child, as a minor. As a child.

It's like, okay, so then it begs the question of like, okay, so this guy really does have this much pool in that industry that he can say yes or no on an individual as an artist to whether they are going to blow up and have a great career or not. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so from the lawyer perspective, I mean, you know, what we hope from our justice system is that the justice system is designed for prosecutors to do their job and defense lawyers to do their job.

I was a defense lawyer whenever I first started out my legal career. I represented people who were accused of crimes. And the goal of a defense lawyer, as much as the general public thinks that it is so distasteful and difficult to represent people who, who are accused of and maybe guilty of crimes. You know, the goal for a defense lawyer is that we really represent the Constitution, you know, that the lawyer represents the idea that as a person accused of a crime under our Constitution, you are entitled to a defense. And you're entitled to a lawyer to give you your best day in court to oppose the wheels of

justice just ramrodding the crap over you. And, and so, you know, as a criminal defense lawyer, like we genuinely, and I say that as we, I don't do it anymore, but I did at one time, you know, like criminal defense lawyers approach it from the standpoint of we take the Constitution very, very seriously. And I know prosecutors do too. I'm not diminishing that. I'm just saying that, you know, that's the perspective of a criminal defense lawyer. It's, it's, it's, it's, It is to present the defendant's defenses, you know, to make sure that their voice gets heard because the system is designed against them, even though it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But our natural tendencies as humans is when you first hear an allegation and you go, Ew. Like you have a tendency to believe it, but we have standards of evidence and standards of proof. And so the defense lawyer's job is to make the prosecutor jump that high. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard that criminals are entitled to have the proof. And that means 99%. Okay. In family law, by comparison, we only have to prove preponderance of the evidence, is 51% or 50.1%. So it's just that smidgen of proof. But beyond a reasonable doubt is like, I'm almost at 100% sure that this happened, right? And so a criminal defense lawyer's job is to make the prosecutors jump this high, not this high, not this high, not this high, not this high,

but this high. And if there's defenses that excuse this, that bring it down, of this, like defense of a third party or, you know, whatever, some defense that the law allows, the defense lawyer's job is to present the evidence of that. And that comes from our Constitution. And without our Constitution, we don't have a civil society. So, you know, so you hope that the prosecutors do their job and the defense, or I hope as a lawyer, that everybody does a good job and tries a clean trial, and at the end of it, the jury holds everybody to doing their job and evaluates just what evidence is presented in the courtroom, not all the crap, the circus that's going on outside, and bases it on what happens in a clean trial in the courtroom based on the rules of

evidence and the Constitution and the, you know, standards of proof, and that it happens very cleanly. Now, being, being, you know, a little bit cynical, that's not always how it happens. Like we talked about the OJ trial before we went on air, you know, the famous OJ thing, you know, Johnny Cochran gets up there and in his closing argument has the glove and he says, you know, and he's trying to put the glove on and it doesn't fit. And he says, if the glove don't fit, you must acquit. And like I said to you before we went on air, sometimes, it's not the evidence. Sometimes it's not the best.

Sometimes it's the best salesperson. Yeah. And so that art of persuasion by lawyers is so important in a jury trial because the way that we craft our message, it's not any different than being a car salesman or a salesman in any other standpoint. Like salespeople get so much training in how to persuade the person they're selling to buy what they're selling.

And lawyers are the same thing. We just sell a different product. You're selling a different product to a different subset, which is the jury, right? Yeah. And we train with trial lawyers and sales tactics, too. Okay. Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing.

Like, the reality is, like, all those things are obviously true, right? Upholding the Constitution. That's your fiduciary responsibility. But you guys are also human, right? And so it's like, when I look at this, I admire you guys. I admire attorneys, whether, even in family law. There's going to be, there's going to come a day where a family law attorney is representing a male or female that they know is in the wrong and they have to give them their best day in court.

And it could, it could conflict with their moral or core beliefs, right? Like, yeah, this person potentially could be bad. So I just admire you guys for being able to, I guess, filter that information and be like, okay, you know, the defense attorney for OJ, right? The defense attorney for P. Diddy. Right. And all those kinds of things, like to be able to flush that and do the job and trying to prove, right, or not prove innocence, but, you know, bring down the, you know, guilty

by any stretch of imagination, beyond a reasonable doubt. Like, to me, that is, that's intense. I mean, it is intense, and it is a tough job, but it is an important one. And everybody can criticize lawyers. I mean, you know, the general public criticizes lawyers about that part of our jobs until they need one. Exactly. And, you know, and so it is a very important part of our job. And as lawyers, I mean, we each have to decide on any given case.

are we, you know, are we capable of advocating for, or I call it sometimes gladiating, but advocating for that client's position in a way that we are comfortable with? And, you know, and really the way I look at it is that my personal belief system gets checked at the door. My personal belief system has nothing, or maybe I should say very little, to do with the job that I do when I enter the courtroom. You know, the, there are, I do have boundaries. I do not represent or take cases that involve sex abuse of children. That's just not a topic that I want to handle on a day and day out basis.

Too much. Well, whether you did it or you didn't, whether I believe in you or I didn't, it's just not a topic that I want to spend my day in the middle of. Mm-hmm. And that's been my policy for my entire career as representing criminal defendants, representing family law cases. Like, if that's an issue in the case, somebody else needs to handle it because that's not my case. That's not a case for me. But, you know, but mostly other issues, you know, within reason, you know, it's not up to me to decide.

And the way that I look at it, representing a client, my job is to present their perspective. not my perspective, my ego, my viewpoint, my personal moral standards, you know, whether I would get a divorce based on these facts or not, whether that would be my choice or not, that's not up to me. That's not my life. It's their life and it's their story to tell. And I am a vehicle through which their story gets told. And the way that I look at it is that I go in and I am the vehicle that tells their story and there's somebody that's telling a different story. And there's somebody that's telling a different. And I'm, story on the other side and the judge is the one that makes the decision or a jury and and i basically you know before this may be telling you a little more about me than than we intended but i go in before i go in a trial or whatever and i pray to god and i say you know help me do my job and advocate for my client to the best of my ability and present their side of things in the best light that i can and help the judge make the decision. I love that.

The decision that you, God, would have made, not me. Love it. And so it's not in my hands. It's in God's hands. You know, it's in the judge's hands and God working through the judge. So that's my viewpoint. There's so much to unpack there. Like in the thing that I can say, what I enjoyed mostly was just hearing the real time,

not the real time, but the real life process that you go through, right? These attorneys go through when they're decided to take. a case, right? Because you have certain topics, like you said, you know, any type of sexual abuse of a child you won't take. But on the outside of those things, you do have the opportunity to entertain the facts as they are presented. And if it's something that you want to take on, right? And I think that's what Joe Public doesn't understand that they don't understand the fact that like, well, how could you represent so and so? Like, how could you do that knowing they're guilty? Well, because right now, P. Diddy and anything Kanye does, they're going to be.

guilty in the public eye right away. They already are. Like literally the public has already decided the fate of P. Diddy. Yeah. Like they're like, oh yeah. Like they, it's even a verb now. Don't ditty me.

Nice tried. And I mean, in the media is so much a part of that because they believe, you know, they are not believed. They are swayed by the way that the, shall we say, salesman of the day,

whatever media outlet they're listening to, presents it. And it's not any different than political person of the day, political topic of the day, media circus of the day, whoever is in the cancel culture snare of the day. You know, it's the same problem. And it's the criticism of the media under the current standards. You know, and the media very much, very much talks about that, you know, that problem. The media swayes the public opinion, and the public isn't parsing those problems of how the media is presenting it. Yeah, it's, you know, listen, it's hard.

The public should really understand the media's job. You know, I don't think anybody at this point, trust mainstream media, right? I think everybody has a hard time doing that, right? I don't know. But it's their job to bring the sizzle. Yeah. I mean, right now, I mean, it's not like years ago when you had the six o'clock news with Walter Cronkite, who you basically trusted to give you a fair assessment of what happened today.

You know, the media's job is not any different than any influencer who is paid to tell you about, you know, the shoes that they're wearing. They're fucking getting paid to tell you this. Come on. Like, that's the bottom line. The media is getting fucking paid to get you to view their media station 24-7 and give them views. They get paid for that. That's how they make money.

We don't have advertising anymore. And so, like, they're not any different than Joe Blow influencer, you know, Joe, anything else, like TikTok of the day, you know, getting a million views. I mean, the media these days is just paid hacks. And, I mean, you have some that are more authentic and credible than others. Thank goodness. But for the most part, like, how does the media, you've always got to track the money. Like another life lesson, always track the money.

And in the media, like, it used to be that Walter Conkite, you couldn't track the money because Walter Cronkite got his, I mean, most people don't even know who Walter Cronkite is. I know who he is before my time too. But, you know, like he got paid his salary and he had ethics and he just reported the news. But now, like, you got to track the money and who's getting a bonus on their views and who's making influencer money based on their TikTok reels because they reported some salacious details. Well, the big thing there, what we're talking about here is the emergence of social media, which is another one of your. expertise is right it's like what wait a second here you know before it was just the news and we're going for ratings like and that was it right if if if if people watch revenue which was a whole different separate section and a whole different floor of NBC or CBS or whatever you know totally separate

we don't talk to each other yeah now it's views on TikTok social media right it's brought another level of dramatizing uh the drama to these stories these stories these stories Because every station is going to tell their slant on the story. That's right. And it's all about adjectives. Like, let's go back to grammar school. It's all about adjectives. Like, you use the salacious adjectives.

And what's the difference in this little adjective than that adjective? Yeah. Like, one might mean he's a slimy piece of crap. And one might mean, oh, that's not that bad. I mean, based on adjectives. I mean, it's terrible. It's so funny because, like, when I was talking about slants, I was thinking, they're going to go off their slant.

It's usually the most salacious one. And then you said the word, right? I mean, that's really what it is. Like, it's the hook. We live in the world of the hook right now. How can we hook the reader? How can we hook the viewer? How can we do that?

That's right. How can we do that? We do it here. We have to hook the audience. I think that all changed, you know, that all changed, in my view, in the crash of 08, when everything changed. Because the consumer's viewpoint of marketing changed in the crash of 08. When you study marketing and you look back at it, that's really when there was this shift, a tectonic shift in consumers' view of the authority figure of marketing, of advertising, commercials, you know, who do we rely on to tell us that a product is worthy versus do we rely on our neighbor

next door? Do we rely on some Joe Blow just like us to tell us a product is worthy? And that shift that started, to me, around the crash of 08 is when that really shifted. And since then, you see that in the growth of the internet, in blogging, which is where at first started and blogging turned to YouTube and then YouTube turned to this and then we turned to social media and then it's grown and grown and grown. And that's, you know, when we started to go from, you know, advertising and traditional television to YouTube and blogging, traditional typed blogging, you know, that's where it like kind of switched. And everybody started getting their

websites. And that's like, that's when that switch started happening and it started going downhill. And now we don't have newspapers anymore. We don't have really, I mean, we still have traditional TV, but does anybody really watch it? No. And we don't have news. I mean, we still have, I mean, they still have the six o'clock news, but does anybody watch it, you know?

And, and, you know, most people, I guess, the stats are, I guess, that everybody's watching Fox now, Fox News, National, and nobody's watching CNN anymore or something. I don't know. Like, that's a big shift in the last years. But, you know, and now everybody's basic. getting their news, you know, a couple of years ago who everybody got their news off of Facebook and YouTube, and now it's basically TikTok.

Yeah, yeah. So that's a podcast, right? Because they're typically podcast clips, right? Well, it depends on your demographic, right? But podcasts 100%. And we saw that in the election, not to get political, but we sure saw that in the election. And nobody, except a handful of people on one side,

nobody understood that. You know, I mean, that was a blind side to a whole lot of people that are blind to where people are getting their news from. And right, I mean, I mean, that is you got to understand. This is another thing I learned from my daddy about business. Like, you got to understand where your customer journey comes from. And in politics, your customer journey is voters, right? And so you've got to understand your customer journey.

and that was, I mean, for Trump, for example, talking to Barron and understanding this customer journey of where I can find some new voters, man, brilliant. I think that will go down as, you know, where a few years before Obama going to the late night shows and kind of going on some social media, that was a shift in political maneuvering that helped Obama get elected like that. rock star thing that Obama did that helped him get elected, the baron Trump factor and podcast is going to go down. They are going to study that in political science for years. Yeah. Genius. I mean, he went on Rogan too. I mean, that, I mean, that's like, you know, and not to get political, like you said, but like Harris, she went on Shannon Sharp's show and declining to go on Rogan. I, you know, I think two things. I'm, I, I, I think two things. I'm, I I am a, I try, I look at politics, again, setting us on my personal views, like, I look at politics,

like a tennis match. Like, I enjoy the, the match of it, right? And so, you know, so for me, I think, I think Harris missed the mark on two things. Number one, I think that she completely missed the mark on where her customer journey was coming from. And she was hyper-focused on one particular demographic of her person of her customer journey and not on the broad brush of what she needed to fully get elected agreed and number two i think she missed the mark on what she needed to exhibit as a woman in leadership yeah and that may be a whole topic we could discuss another day but i think you know she really didn't exhibit what i would want to see as a female leader in power.

You know, her word choices, to me, like her full presentation. Her presence just to me was just not, it was lacking. I'm sorry, it was lacking. Like, the leader of the free world, like, I'm sorry. And I didn't mean to cut you off, but everybody was saying like, oh, you just don't, you're not ready for a woman president? Yeah, I am. One billion percent.

Yeah. Dude. Yeah. Like, come on. I think, I think our country is ready for a woman leader president. And I think that by and large, most of our country would tell you that women, and I'll even take it a step further, I think our country would even agree with the statement that we would trust a mom to lead our country more than we would trust anybody else. Moms lead their families. They manage to get their kids to school.

They carry their families on their backs. and then they still go to work, and then they still do the dishes, and they still do the laundry, and they still do everything. And moms are where it's at. And I bet you that most of our country would think a mom that's also a leader could do all of it.

I don't disagree. Right leader qualities. But the problem is we just haven't found one of those yet that can balance being authentic and real and smart and all the qualities that we want to see in that. We have Hillary Clinton, who was a little over on the smart and aggressive category or assertive, you know, if you want to use the right word, smart and assertive category. And I love that she wore the pantsuits, you know, but and then, you know, and then, you know, and then there's some other women leaders. I think Nikki Haley was great and I love her, but I think she was maybe a little bit too soft in her presentation of, you know, how she was so smart and is.

so smart and she was a little bit more moderate in kind of this juggling of all the issues of the world. But I don't think she really kind of was able to overcome this Trump factor versus the other issues of the liberal side of things and get her message out there. She had a problem getting her message across. And then, you know, Ms. Harris was just unable to overcome this far liberal wing of the messaging and she missed the mark on where the country was at. I agree. I just don't think we found the right woman yet. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter.

You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at good to know facts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit good to know facts.org. No, we haven't. And that's why America spoke what they spoke, right?

And it's really sad and it's almost a victim mentality to hear like, we're just not ready for a woman president. That's not true. No, I think we are. It's not true at all. I think America is ready and willing and wanting that. wanting that. Not to go back to our social media topic, but I also think like,

who in the world is crazy enough to want to dive into politics? Like, I almost think that anybody who would make a good candidate, you know, is like, oh, hell the fuck,

no. Like, I would not subject my family to that. I would not subject myself to that. I mean, I mean, I mean, who wants to be in the middle of that,

you know? I don't want to be in the middle of that. I mean, They'd have a dope-ass house for a little while, though. Well, I mean, you know, you can make a lot more money and have a dope-ass house anywhere. No shit. No shit. I mean, who wants to be subject to a 24-7 media cycle and everybody misrepresenting your words and spinning the fuck out of you?

And, you know, and what do they call it when they call up the police and say shit's going down at your house? What's the word for that? And then the police descend on you and nothing's happening. And anyway, whatever they did. They did it. Yeah, swatting your house. Like, they did it to Nikki Haley's parents a few times. Like, yeah.

I mean, who wants that? Who wants your family and friends to be? I mean, nobody wants that. And the death threats and the, I mean, who wants to be in the middle of politics? It's gotten to be so nasty. That should be wild. I don't even think. That doesn't even sound appealing to me whatsoever.

No. And so anybody who would make a good president or who has the qualifications, like, I'm good. thanks. No thanks. No thanks. You keep the death threats. You keep all the bullshit.

I'm going to live a normal life. I'm good. I'm good with my Jay-will-Dee. The impact on the family is just so tremendous. You know, it's just too much. But well, look here. This was amazing. We talked some good stuff, man.

We talked some really good stuff. We didn't even get to all of the topics we had on tap. We didn't. We didn't. We will have to have you back. But I wanted to be in person. Oh, when I'm in Florida. Or when I come to Texas, we'll figure something out.

There you go. We'll figure something out. Hey, you know what we'll do? You know what we'll do? You know what we'll do? You know what we'll do? We'll do Valerie on it. Yeah.

No, Valerie can get on it. I've got a studio in Texas we can do when you're in Dallas or I come to Miami pretty often. Where are you at? We're in Naples, but Miami is like down the road. So if you're in Miami, we'll get it worked out. That's easy. I come to Miami several times a year, so we can do that too. But I've got a studio right down the street in Dallas that we can hook up and hit record.

I would love that. That'd be fun. That'd be a lot of fun. We'll do it again for sure. We'll do it again in person for certain. But thank you so much. We've never talked about the certain topics. So my audience is like, what's going on?

Because I'm broadening my topics and in my range here. what we're talking about on the show. And, you know, these types of things is what's in the news cycle. People are talking about it and wanting to know about it. So thank you for stretching me today because, like, for real, that's, it was different than anything we've ever done. And it was fun. Hey, I'm all about it.

Anytime. So where can my audience check you out? You do speaking engagements. Do you have, you have two books, like, talk. I mean, let's, let's direct. correct everybody. Yeah, so I have a book about social media ethics for lawyers, so most people wouldn't be very interested in that.

And then I have the book, Wisdom from Mama, that talks about the life lessons that I've learned from my mama. Both are available on Amazon. I am the Michelle O'Neill on all social media platforms. So you can find me there. And Michelle O'Neill.com is my website. And then if you need a lawyer in Texas for some family law, my law firm website, website is OW Lawyers.com.

So don't email me at my personal websites about lawyer staff because, you know, I'll just send you over to the lawyer, the lawyer website. But if you want to follow me on, on, yeah, I'll bill you a lot. But if you want to follow me on social media, it's the Michelle O'Neill on all the platforms. I love it. Michelle, thank you so much. I look forward to continuing the relationship and the new friendship. And it won't be the last that we have conversations.

I can tell you that. I dig, yeah, you're amazing, and there's a lot we could do together. So now, for the audience that had just listened or watched this show, I want you to share the episode with somebody that you know, love and trust, that needs to hear this, or that is interested in some of the topics that we spoke about, or if you're in Texas and shamelessly, if you're going through something that you need some family law advice, don't do not hesitate to look her up. and, you know, schedule a consultation.

So without being said, guys, thank you so, so much for tuning in. Once again, your viewership and your loyalties always appreciated. Until next time, stay determined. I'll be working. Just know I'm a go for mine because I earned it.

They watch and I know it's time. I confirmed it. A whole society determined.