The Megyn Kelly Show - Ariana Grande Is Being FAILED by Those Around Her, Meghan Markle ESCALATES Feud with Martha Stewart, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1379

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Megyn Kelly is joined by Maureen Callahan, host of “The Nerve,” to discuss the surprise closure of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, Oprah's sudden public appearance with Stedman, whether the publicity is meant to distract from the school's closing and troubled history, Meghan Markle's feud with Martha Stewart, speculation about Harry and Meghan seeking a return to the royal family amid financial struggles, their ongoing relationship with the monarchy, David Foster's apparent red-carpet snub of Markle, his response denying he avoided her, Markle's past controversial moments, concerns about Ariana Grande's health and well-being, the inconsiderate remarks from critics, whether Grande's team is failing to give her the support she needs, recent reports on Brad Pitt drinking again after publicly discussing his sobriety, family annihilator Chris Watts reportedly remarrying 8 years after murdering his pregnant wife and children, the disturbing question of why someone would marry a convicted murderer in prison, new legal developments surrounding the Michael Jackson allegations, the conflicting accounts from former associates and accusers, questions surrounding the credibility of the claims, speculation about a potential sequel to the 'Michael' movie, and more.     Subscribe now to Maureen’s “The Nerve": Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-nerve-with-maureen-callahan/id1808684702 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4kR07GQGQAJaMNtLc9Cg2o?si=fba09c64894845fc YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TheNerveShow?sub_confirmation=1 Sundays for Dogs: Upgrade your dog’s food without the hassle—try Sundays for Dogs and get 50% off your first order at https://sundaysfordogs.com/MEGYN or use code MEGYN at checkout. BeeKeeper's Naturals: Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/MEGYNor enter code MEGYN for 20% off your order Ethos: Protect your family’s future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get a free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/MK Relief Factor: Reclaim your mobility and celebrate your freedom from aches this year by grabbing your $17.76 3-week QuickStart at https://ReliefFactor.com or by calling 800-4-RELIEF.     Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and happy Thursday. So many stories in the news this week that are perfect for my guest today. There's Megan Markle reportedly snubbed by yet another celebrity and now apparently at war with Martha Stewart. When will she get the message? Plus, Oprah is shutting down her school in South Africa and appearing with Stedman for the first time in almost seven years. as all close relationships, you know, do. Eventually, you will be seen together after seven years.

It'll happen. Here with me for the full show to comment on those stories and many others is Maureen Callahan. She is host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan. That's on the MK Media Podcast Network. You can subscribe on YouTube and on all podcast platforms. Just go in there and type in the Nerve. And it will come up and you can subscribe or you can just find all things at NerveCentral, which is thenerveshow.com. Is your dog a picky eater? It's stressful when that's the case. You try different brands, you mix in toppers,

but those processed brown pellets just sit there. Maybe your dog simply knows the difference between junk and real food. Sundays for dogs is different. Founded by a veterinarian, Sundays starts with over 80% all-natural meats, blending them with superfoods like kale, ginger, and blueberries. No fillers, no synthetic chemicals.

Because it is gently air-dry, instead of blast it with high heat, it looks and smells like premium human-grade jerky. Best of all, it requires no fridge, no prep, and no mess. It's the quality of a home-cooked meal with the ease of a scoop. Plus, Sundays just launched a brand-new fish recipe. Made with 80% fish, it offers a rich flavor-packed with omega-3s for healthy skin and a shiny coat. It is the ultimate upgrade your dog deserves. Consider switching now to Sundays.

Go to Sundaysfor-Dogs.com slash Megan, and that'll get you 50, percent five o off your first order. Or you can just use the code Megan, type that in at checkout, to get 50, meaning half off your first order at Sundaysfordogs.com slash Megan, or use code Megan at checkout. Maureen, so good to see you, my friend. It's so good to see you, Megan. I wish I was there with you in person. I'm so sorry. This summer bronchitis has got me down. Yeah, and you've been battling it. I've been listening to it on the nerve as you've been going kind of steadily down Hill and your loyal listeners have been telling you to take some time. So I wasn't even sure if you're going to make it today. Thank you for doing the duty. Oh my God. I'm so glad. I was just saying to Allison,

one of your book, your booker, I had this stress dream yesterday. I took a nap and I thought I was going to go down for like 30 minutes. It was two hours. And I woke up completely disoriented. I didn't know what day it was. I didn't know how I got on the couch. And then I was like, did I sleep through Megan? Did I sleep through going on Meg? It was awful. That is the worst. So we have to start with Oprah. I think she drags Stedman out for you. I think Teddy Van Halen was on the case.

That's Maureen's dog, who she's been on, she has sicked him on the case of finding Stedman. He runs homicide. And I think this is a huge victory. It's a huge victory for him. Listen, Megan, I would, I'm going to be a little bit more conservative in this appearance. It's Stedman. Like, it's a still photo. We have no.

actual video or audio of him speaking. I was discussing this with Teddy yesterday and we both agree, we need a proof of life video with like, you know, a newspaper day and date. Because this is too convenient for me. I just, I love it though. I love it. This was right after we did our mini on why, wondering openly why Oprah's closing her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

Africa. And one or two days later, we're dragging them out. Yeah. I know. She's like, don't pay any attention to my girl's school closing. Well, here's Stedman. This ought to satisfy Maureen Callahan. There is a tiny bit of video of Stedman here in SOT 6. Let's, Blinking, you'll miss it. So stay wide-eyed here as we roll it. The meeting in Harpo Studios in the studios right now. I can't even believe that as of next month, September 8th, it will be 40 years since we first launched the Oprah Winfrey show. Thank you for being the greatest team ever. There is, Marie.

That's it. Did we hear him speak, though? No. See, I'm highly suspicious of this. Also, my favorite part of that, Megan. She's running the audio track. Do you remember this is when Oprah, we all knew, truly lost her mind? She came back one season and she was singing her own theme song to the Oprah Winfrey show.

That's what that is. Oh, my, wait a minute. No, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. That happened. That did sound like her. That's Oprah singing about herself and her greatness. We're all going to run on.

Like, yeah. Wait a minute. I, like, they're celebrating that the Oprah Winfrey show, which has been off the air for more than a decade was launched 40 years ago. I mean, like, I don't understand the whole purpose of this. Like, Oprah had its day. A lot of us watched that when we were, you know, coming of age in the 1990s. It's 2006, Maureen. Like, what are we doing here? I think, Megan, what we're doing here is attempting to distract from closing the school. She's been making a lot of the rounds. She's been doing a lot of press. She doesn't have anything in particular to promote. She really doesn't.

And the canary in the coal mine for me was, you know, she sat for that vanity fair video series where she's reviewing like iconic moments from her career and then expounding upon them. And she chose to revisit the Harry and Megan interview. Why would she choose to revisit that? Which is one of like the biggest stains on her on her image, brand legacy, what have you. Why res? Why exhumed that? I think it was. to get people talking. She did glamour magazine. In the middle of it all, she issued a very anodyne statement to People magazine about how she's closing her school in order to reach more girls. Through scholarships?

Oh, it's ridiculous. The spin that is in her statement is so absurd and all the media is running with it. Like, yeah, the whole point is to help even more girls now. And this was always going to be contemplated that she was going to give the school back to the local town. But meanwhile, every girl there is getting kicked out. Like they're actually, it's not like somebody's taking over management of the school.

The school is closing, which is obviously it didn't work out. I mean, you had a good run. I guess it was there for 20 years or so. But let's not pretend that closure is not closure. Well, the thing about this, too, is that it's not just any school, right? Oprah launched this school almost 20 years ago with Nelson Mandela by her side, right? no greater moral beacon of South Africa. And she was using Brand Mandela to elevate herself from a mere talk show host into a philanthropist nonparell. She said the school would be her greatest legacy. These girls were the daughters she would never have.

They were her greatest joy, greatest purpose. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic. These are all things she said. And within nine months of that school opening or 10, nine girls came forward with claims of sexual assault. or abuse against a dormitory matron. And from there, you know, the school has suffered major, major scandal, including a 17-year-old student who gave birth on that campus. So she was walking around this boarding school for months, visibly pregnant, gave birth on that campus. The baby was discovered dead in one of her bags. And, you know, it's barely a blip in the American media. they went to Oprah for comment. Oprah said, or her people said,

she won't be commenting because a minor is involved. Yeah, a minor is involved. It's a boarding school for girls. You know, I think she's trying to get ahead of something. This isn't just any school. It's a school that was meant to be a refuge and a safe haven for these young girls who are at extremely high risk for sex trafficking. On the nerve, we aired a fairly recent news report from a South African

owned and operated news station reporting that sex trafficking rings have only gotten stronger and more well organized. So girls are at higher risk than ever. So my question, Oprah, is, what are you doing? Why are you closing your school? Yeah, why is she? We don't know the answer. Other than maybe she's lost interest. You know, she wanted the good PR. She wanted to look like this big philanthropist. And now she's living her best life out in Montecito and she's skinny now. so she's feeling good about herself. But I don't get this. Like, David Letterman, he could be out there doing the,

oh, it was 40 years ago we launched the show and be having a self-celebratory party that he's got to put all over the airwaves as remember me during my heyday. Remember me? It's like she can't stand being out of the spotlight for two minutes. We've got to go back to her glory days and try to celebrate her again,

her magazine where she's on the cover every month celebrating herself. It's just like her whole life is so self-exempt. celebratory. It's kind of the opposite of how I think most people are raised, which is to say I less, me less, but it's her bread and butter. My favorite announcement about Oprah closing her school, which you can find online, is it's on Oprah Daily, like an Oprah part of the Oprah magazine. And it's got the Oprah logo. And then the headline is Oprah on closing her school by Oprah Winfrey. with a side photo of Oprah.

So it's Oprah, like, we get it. We get it. Okay. But number two, to your point, like, let's say she lost interest, which has been posited to me as an active theory, that's fine. But I think when you take on a responsibility like that and you use an icon such as Nelson Mandela, and you've had problematic, very close friends in your life, such as Harvey Weinstein and Sean Combs. I think what you maybe do is you assemble a highly trusted consortium of people. Much like you know, Valerie Jarrett is really running probably the day-to-day at the Obama Library,

right? Why can't she just install a trusted board to oversee it and make sure, again, if this is her legacy play, if she wants what the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls has been doing to be the first line of her obituary, I would think she'd be way more invested in this. And again, she is a stated, self-professed survivor of childhood sexual assault. I mean, I just would think that this would be so close to her that she would never consider abandoning it. And yet, I don't know. I think she's lost interest. She's got to move on to her new vanity projects, which will not include another sit down with Megan Markle. I heard you and Rob Schueter discussing on the

nerve how Megan and Harry would reportedly love to have another sit down with Oprah. She's not into it. She knows that she stepped in quicksand on that first ridiculous sit down with those two. It really was the low point of Oprah's more recent career, at least, and she doesn't want another round of humiliation with these two grifters. No, you know, there's this, there's a new verb in the lexicon called Markled. Like you got Markled. And it means if you get in any kind of business with Megan Markle, if you have any proximity to her, her stink is going to be left all over you.

And we can see all the Hollywood power players like have slowly, slowly backed away. And you know, Oprah's just as bad. Like I really do think this like self, I agree with you. like, why is she celebrating the absence of her talk show, which when she was retiring that thing, do you remember this, Megan? It was a year of a goodbye. Yes. It was never ending. It was like, just please go. It went on and on. It was like Stephen Colbert just did the same thing. Yes, they treat themselves like there's some sort of a queen or king stepping down from a rain. It's like, it's television. Okay. I hate to break.

it to you. It's TV. You peered in the little box and you had little conversations and they were entertaining while you did it. But none of us should take ourselves so seriously as to think, like, we can't be easily replaced or forgotten. Certainly Colbert. And yes, Oprah too. I mean, it's fine. People like you and I who were of the right age when she was at her pinnacle will remember Oprah. My daughter has no idea who Oprah Winfrey is. She doesn't care about Oprah Winfrey at all. She has no idea that she is. No, she's totally irrelevant to the next which I think is why she's so insistent on celebrating herself. Like, and not anything she's done lately.

But like, let's go back to my long since defunct talk show and celebrate when it launched 40 years ago. 40 years, Maureen. I mean, even I was what I think a freshman in high school, maybe a sophomore, whatever. It's just she is a narcissist. Oprah Winfrey is a raging narcissist. We have proof of it every day. Okay.

I wanted to get to Megan Markle because there was an extraordinary thing that happened that relates hello to our parody of the absurd with love Megan Netflix show. You and I got together and we did it much better if I do say so myself than the original, making fun of that absurd atrocity that Netflix foisted upon us. And what we discovered, you and I, while we were making one pot chicken from Megan Markle's stupid Netflix show, is that she stole it. from Martha Stewart, the recipe was identical with like maybe one sprig of something that was different. But it was all but identical to Martha Stewart's one pot pasta. We made it. It wasn't bad.

It wasn't bad. And I think it wasn't bad because it came from Martha Stewart. Exactly. Somebody who actually knows what she's doing in the kitchen. So Megan Markle and Martha Stewart met. They met recently. And in a people interview dated August 3rd, Martha Stewart said she overheard Megan Markle at a dinner party recently talking about a private family reunion she had with King Charles with Harry when they went over there. And Martha said she talked about it. She just gotten back and she talked about it. And that's the comment in which she said it's very hard to transition from a princess

into a homemaking professional. Okay. Like not everybody can do it. And Martha doesn't, she doesn't spew shit. Like she gives it straight. And so then the Duchess of Duplicity couldn't stand it. She was so pissed that Martha had taken a shot at her and told everybody that Megan was mouthing off about her visit with the king that she had her people, somebody, contact, well, it was in the daily mail. And, yes, and report that, quote, Martha must have. have been confused because Megan was not seated anywhere near Martha. And then the Daily Beast reported on this saying, Megan did something incredibly stupid here. She seems to have gotten the host of the party to call up People magazine and say that Martha's account was simply untrue and that Megan did not talk about her European vacation other than to say the family had a great time.

worse, they called Martha confused, implying that Martha 85 is a doughty old lady. And the position here is that this is incredibly stupid, writes Tom Sykes of the Daily Beast, because Martha's not going to take well to that. And though she may be 85, she's sharp as attack. And this is not the way. But Megan can't have anything written about her without filing a lawsuit, threatening a lawsuit, having her people call, issuing some nasty bar back, even if it's an 85-year-old who said something very innocuous about her, she can't stand it.

She is her own worst enemy. I completely believe Martha Stewart's version of events, because her version of events, Martha wasn't, she made pains to say, listen, I don't know Megan. I didn't even really speak to her. We weren't seated near each other, but this is what I heard. And this is in direct contravention of the king's edict about that meeting. And it also kind of is this nice distraction. This is a controversy I feel Megan wants because she wants us to forget things that are very recent and much more of an obscenity, such as taking a photo of Harry and the children on what looks like their way.

to visit Diana's grave. Disgusting. 100%. Disgusting. It did. That's what it was. I know somebody who's got an inside connection there, and that person confirmed for me.

That's exactly where they were. If they were, like, this is them on their way to Diana's grave. The one thing that the owner of the estate, Diana's brother, did not want them to do. Do not publicize anything around the grave. But she's a disaster tourist who couldn't help herself. She's such a ghoul, Megan. She's such a ghoul. And she's a child.

With Megan Markle, don't say the thing you don't want her to do. Don't give her ideas because she will do it. And by the way, we've all dropped what was a major talking point mirror months ago. Hey, go talk to your father, okay? Who's lost half of his leg. It was amputated and he was begging from his hospital bed. I would just love my daughter to call me. She's got ice in her veins.

She's a reptile. Yeah, she's not going to go see anybody's father unless he has a crown on his head. That's the father she's willing to spend time with. Not somebody with half a leg. Ew. Megan's Markle's not going to be seen with that. Gross. It doesn't elevate my status.

Not like being with the king, which is something I can package and photograph for Netflix. Megan, she won't even bother to open a store-bought bag of pretzels, decant it into another plastic bag of pretzels, and send it to her bother as a get-well gift. She cannot be bothered. No, and what I love, too, is this report now that Harry and Megan are openly discussing, issuing a formal apology to the king and what they may take responsibility for and what they may not. And, you know, again, why the mainstream media won't just draw the direct correlation. those two seem to be out of money.

Harry's on the hook for a $63 million lawsuit. He launched and lost. He launched it against all best advice, and he lost. And I also think this is why we're seeing more sniping through the likes of People magazine and the Daily Beast rather than the threats of lawsuits. They simply can't afford it anymore. So now they really want back in,

and they're willing to play nice, just when they need millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to survive. It's very sad to me, though, because I think the king is going to allow it. I think he's going to let him back in because he's a dad. He's a dad before he's a king. And, you know, I've seen it time and time again where the parents are softer when it comes to their children. It's a sweet thing, really, if you think about it, you know, the parents, they love their kids. they want to be connected to their kids, they want to be connected to their grandkids. The siblings

less so. They see the abuse that one sibling has foisted on the whole family, and in particular, an aging, not well father, in this case the King of England, and they're less forgiving. And I think that's why Prince William is a hard no on letting these two back in. But I think the King is going to allow it. And right now he's in charge. And it's just going to be incredible to see them try to go back over there and re-engratiate themselves as royals in a country they called racist, right? How are they going to spin this magical turnaround where the family is racist, they said, the country is racist, and they were so nasty that they actually were telegraphing. They might not love their children if they were too dark.

And on top of that, when Megan Markle was allegedly suicidal, they didn't want to get her any help. Like, how do you walk back in and be like, just kidding, we're fine? we're good. I love them. It's really, it's like truly unbelievable. It's truly incredible. Charles is, I think, you know, I think Diana had it right all those years ago in that panorama interview with Martin Bashir, which was problematic for many reasons. I mean, we now know she was duped into it. But she's, I think she told the truth when she said Charles was not up to the top job. And at the time it was written off as, you know, a woman scorned trying to, you know, knife her ex-husband who left her for another woman. But I think she knew him.

And I think she knew exactly right. He did not have the strength or the spine. You know, Harry and Megan have done nothing short of attempt to bring down the British monarchy. That's what they were trying to do. They were trying to destroy it. Those two stew and marinate in rage and resentment. And I completely think William is in the right here. I think William also knows the resentment and the jealousy that Megan harbors towards Catherine, Princess of Wales.

Every time Catherine does something, wears something, issues a photograph, Megan single white females her. It's beyond creepy. Yes. Yes. So the latest incident with this pair is they went to this charity event. It was on August 7th to support their longtime friend David Foster and celebrate his foundation's 40th anniversary. This is up in Canada. They help children who need life-saving organ transplants.

So they showed up at the gala and there is video. This guy Foster is married to Catherine McPhee, formerly of America. I'm pretty sure that that's his wife. And the video shows that Megan gets basically snubbed by David Foster on the red carpet. Here it is. Let's watch video one. Okay, there's she and Harry. And he walks right by right past her. She tries to reach her arm out and he does not want to do the hug. He just keeps going. Then they go back to have the photo. No. No. It's a no. There's not going to be any hugging. Now, the Daily Mail is reporting. They reached out to him and no, that it wasn't a snub. They didn't mean that somebody on his team said, oh, they're very close and they would never snub anybody associated with Megan and Harry. But it certainly looks like a bit of a snub to me, Maureen. And I do think Hollywood and the people who are in this stratosphere, whether it's a billionaire or it's big celebs, have gotten the memo. You don't want to be in a hug with this girl.

You don't want the one-on-one photograph. You don't want anything about this pair rubbing off on you because their box office poison and their brand poison. What's doubly fascinating about this is Harry, when he and Megan made their freedom flight on Tyler Perry's private jet to Montecito, Harry said that David Foster was his American father, his American father, his American father, So for David Foster to just blank Megan like that, just ice her out is so brutal. And the statement is like Celebrity 101. Now, of course, everything that we have all seen with our own eyes, and I've watched that thing in slow motion like a million times, it's hilarious. He sees her. He claims he didn't see her. You can see his eyes look at her. Because later he's like, oh, I didn't see her.

We see you, David. We see you. I see you. her out. We see you talking to Harry literally behind her back. Like he reaches back rather than forward to avoid any even eye contact with Megan. And then he said, he said, or his people said, absolutely not a snub. He would never do that. He loves them. He loves them. But he also was a great admirer of Princess Diana. Again, we loop back to just like a mere two weeks ago, Diana's grave attempting to commercialize that visit, attempting to attach herself to the remains of a woman who is buried on a private island. Her burial site is a literal symbol of giving her the dignity and solitude that she was not afforded in life. And that's what the school does. I think for so

many people, that was it. It was worse than the reclining while crossing our ankles in the limo while driving by Diana's death tunnel in Paris. Nothing was worse than Yuvaldi. Oh, my God, I forgot about that. You're right. No. That's, I mean, I, that for me was a before and after moment on this woman. Like, I could not believe she showed up to Yuvaldi and made sure she was photographed, laying flowers and on camera. That everybody knows you don't, there are a lot of celebrities who helped. I'm pretty sure that's Matthew McConaughey's hometown. He and his wife, I think, were very involved there. You don't see them on camera. No one felt the need to make it about themselves except for her. I just want to be clear. Foster didn't say he didn't see her, but that was the

speculation when the video hit. Here's what he said. Source is close to Foster, speaking with The Daily Mail said Foster wanted Megan and Harry there that David genuinely just didn't see Megan. So it was like his sources close to him said he just genuinely didn't see her. They had already said hi before the photo moment. There were lots of hugs. And David introduced the two of them to his other family there. He's always been a big fan of Diana.

He would never snub either of them. We report you decide audience. He looks right at her as he was. he is walking by, he clearly could have leaned in for the hug on camera, which is not the same as the hug behind the scenes. He didn't. It was a perfunctory, okay, stand here on the red carpet and be photographed. They know he's not an idiot. They all know. All right, I want to keep going. This is a quick one, but it flows, so I'm putting it here. Megan, of course, tried her hand at podcasting and failed. She did that ridiculous archetypes podcast.

about female empowerment, as if she knows anything about it. Truly, she wants us to behave like she's Marie Curie. Like, you've done nothing. You were deal or no deal and then suits, girl. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with being an actress and a model. But stop pretending like you were Queen Elizabeth, because you weren't. You've done nothing. But anyway, she tried her hand at podcasting and failed. And now, you know who's trying his hand at podcasting is Barack Obama, this is why you shouldn't become president too early. This is why it's better to do it the way Trump did it. Live a big life. Accomplish a lot in the world and in business. Put your name on things in a way that people remember. And then, then if you want to like make the presidency like your crowning professional achievement, when you really don't have anything to lose, I think that's great. That works well because you're really kind of like your give a ship meter changes when you're, at that point in your career. But Barack Obama didn't in his young 40s, and now he wants the job you and I have more. He's fine. Our job is good. We like our job. But like,

eh, you kind of hope, like, you'd be doing more if you were the president. He's launching a podcast. And to be specific, it's more like he wants the job my husband, Doug Brunt, has. Because it's going to be, it's called a great book with Barack Obama. And he's going to talk about books. on this thing. But weirdly, it seems like not just like books that are coming out. The report via radar is that it will focus on influential books that have impacted him. And it's old books, like by Tony Morrison, James Baldwin, books that had an impact on Barack becoming Barack. So they're going to discuss that. And the way the tagline, I guess, is I invited some friends to explore why these books resonate, how they can shape our understanding of ourselves and each other,

and why literature matters. Okay, I hope you'll check it out. I'm a board already. If you want a good podcast on books, you should listen to Dedicated with Doug Brunt, which actually talks with authors about their process and their books, and it's fun. You get a drink. But I, I, I, what do you make of Barack Obama now officially saying what he really wants to do is podcast? Barack Obama, you know, it's such a disappointment. Like there's so much he could be doing with his post-presidential life and legacy. And all he wants is to just be a celebrity. And, you know, it was never more clear to me than I think he was celebrating his 60th birthday on Martha's Vineyard.

It was the height of lockdown. But Barack was still going to have his big 60th bash. The rest of us had to stay inside, but he was going to have a major party. And Martha's Vineyard, where they are beloved, even the residents there were like, this is too far. The catering staff was like, this isn't safe. So he agreed to then call his list, right? He was going to call his guest list just to his nearest and dearest.

You know who got the shaft? You know who was told you were invited, but no longer, we cannot accommodate you. David Axelrod. the guy who got Barack Obama elected as the first black president of the United States who built Brand Barack got tossed over so he could have the likes of like, I don't know. Like, you know, the celebrities there were like ridiculous. CLEBS.

That's what he's obsessed with. He's obsessed with the-He loves the celebs. Have you seen, I caught this just randomly, you know, Larry David has done this new comedy series for HBO about like the founding fathers or whatever. There's this huge bit he does with Barack Obama at, I think, like, the new Obama library. And Barack is very wooden and he can't really act and he's just being Barack. Like his library. Yeah, you know, it's just like, what are we doing here?

Your wife is busy also just wanting to be famous, being a celebrity, being adored. She has a podcast. And aggrieved. And aggrieved. And her podcast is unlistenable. You know, and nobody's going to go listen to Barack's, like, sizzling podcast. You know, there's only six episodes, too, which tells us a lot. You know, I don't think Audible really think...

Just the books that matter to him. Not current books. Just books that have impacted me over my life. My God, again, how narcissistic. I know you all love me so much. Let me show you how I got this way and the books that I read 30 years ago that had... Like, who, honestly, who would listen to that, Maureen? I just, like, those two...

Yeah, her podcast is not a hit. It hasn't been a hit. And by the way, what did we say? Agreeved and what was the thing you said about? Agreeved and adored. Something like that. That would be a great. That would be a better name.

That would be a better name for her podcast than whatever it is now. One other note on the subject of Doug Brunt. The audience knows that Doug has a book out right now. It's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. It's a thriller. And it's about Emmanuel Nobel, who is the most successful but least famous member of the Nobel family prize family. And he built the Russian oil fortune. That's still funding Vladimir Putin's Russia to this day. And the reason you don't know his name is because when he was coming up,

a little boy named Joseph Stalin was coming up at the same time. And the clash of those two Titans is really what this book is about and how a fortune was stolen, basically. That book just got reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. And I want to show you what they, what they found. They said the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. They said it is enthralling, accessible, and they called Doug a skillful storyteller. They recommended it to all of their readers. Doug's been getting tons of great feedback on the book. It did, of course, hit the bestseller list and is still doing really well. So for those of you who have not yet read it, highly recommend. It's very fun. It's a thriller, but it's also historical. So you learn something. And unlike Barack Obama,

and his book interest. It's authentic. It's well researched. And it's interesting. So, yay, Doug. Congrats to Doug. Oh, my God. It's incredible.

He came on the nerve. We had such a great conversation with him for the book. Yeah. You know, it's hard to get those long reviews where you get a major paper to sit down with your book and really do a deep dive on it. It's like they don't do that many of those anymore.

And so he was thrilled. He had nothing to do with it, The Wall Street Journal. And neither did I, obviously. not on the best terms with Fox, but they decided to do it, and it was a great, it was a rave. So thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. Thank you very much to them for such a lovely takeaway on the book. Okay, I want to keep going.

Ariana Grande, we've been talking about it here. You've been talking about it on the nerve. She's dangerously thin. She is disturbingly thin. And the outrage is that her team doesn't seem to care. they seem to want her to keep going. They seem much more focused on making money off of her than actually checking her into a facility,

which is very clearly, in my opinion, where she belongs. Now she's becoming fodder for these late night, so-called comics, like Bill Maher, who he's right on brand. He doesn't give a shit about any woman, much less Ariana Grande, and here he is the other night on her. Sot 10. The administration this week, just a few days ago, maybe yesterday, they unleashed.

a new trove of UFO files. Interesting things in there. Triangular craft, weird lights over an army base, a stick-like figure with large eyes. That was just an RER in a Grande video. I'm sorry. That was a big check. We can,

we wanted to, maybe that joke will make her eat something. So it's, I'm doing my, I'm saying it, maybe it'll help. Fuck him. It's really not funny.

Fuck him. Yeah. You know, I spoke about on the nerve the other day when we were covering Ariana, my own experience with an eating disorder and how painful it is and how treatment resistant it is. And I look at her and I think she should be in a hospital. She is probably at the point where she can't physically eat. At a certain point, your stomach, it certainly happened to me. It shrinks to the point where you can't take food in. like your body doesn't want it.

Somebody wrote in with another... Look at that picture, Maureen. Look at that picture. I mean... She is skeletal. And, you know, I put a lot of blame on the mainstream entertainment media as well, which does the kind of whistles right past this stuff

or they turn the conversation into some meta impersonal debate about should we be talking about women's bodies? Should we be body shape? That's not this conversation. It's not. And the question I now really do have is, you know, there's a thing that happens, and we saw it with Michael Jackson, who was, I believe, near bankruptcy when he died.

Elvis Presley, same thing in a lot of trouble when he died. The artist's value tends to go up when they die. And the younger they die, and the more tragic the circumstances, the more the interest in the music and the catalog grows and grows and grows. So I look at this poor young woman and I think she is surrounded by nobody who truly has her well-being at the top of the list. She is a cash cow. She makes money for people. That is it. She's been famous since the time she was very young. She came up in the child star. I believe it was Nickelodeon. We all know. Yes, the sick, sick Nickelodeon. We all know how dark.

that is. And I'm also sure that what she's being told by her team, who is allowed, I think, listen, I just saw this report the other day and I thought this is, this is the right thing. Rod Stewart had to cancel his tour because he underwent emergency heart surgery. They canceled the tour. You can cancel a tour. They're making Ariana Grande finish out this tour that she's on. Finish it out. Are you really going to tell me she's not being given drugs to finish this? out because this is the kind of skinny where you can't even climb a flight of stairs on your own. That's right. That's absolutely right. She's like beyond the point where she should be walking around amongst us. Somebody, I mean, where are her parents? What like what, where are they to say,

honey, we love you, you have enough money, your team around you has made enough money, you need to take a step away. It's, or you're going to wind up like Britney Spears just today before we came air. There's another Brittany video online of her inappropriately twerking. She always looks like, you know, she just like got out of bed with somebody, like with the mascara running down her face. The weird twerking, it works, I guess, if you're 20 and you're young and fit and super youthful, it doesn't work for Brittany. Like the same little sad dance routine she keeps doing and putting online trying to sex pot her way back into our, you know, feeds. That's where Ariana's, heading if she keeps going at this rate, if it's just a life full of self-abuse and churning out

content for other people's pockets. She has more money than she could ever spend in 20 lifetimes. This is like, where are the people who love her? You know, there's no spouse. I don't know about the parents. Where's the manager? Where's the talent agent, the agent, right, who should be able to say, Ariana, you're going inpatient. Instead, they released the video of this pedal, which we aired on our show last week and our audience responded. It couldn't believe their eyes. That appears to be like highlighting her bones

protruding here in video four. Like the collar bone is like I'm trying to make mine do it like shoving my, look at this. They want us to see look at this. Look at the chest cavity. It's all bone.

That right there is someone who needs help. And that very video to me she's she's telling us something whether she's dialed into it or not you know that this is the cost of being her i i actually don't think that ariana if she continues this way will wind up like brittany i just don't think she will live much longer i think she's clearly on the karen carpenter trajectory where that eating disorder does so much damage to your internal organs your heart can no longer take it we we talked about karen the other day and you know she was at at right before

her death, she was admitted to the ICU, I think at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and they put her on an IV drip because she had done so much damage to her digestive organs that she could not take physical food. I mean, it, it, this is, I know Ariana Grande, her mother's in the picture, her brother, Frankie Grande is in the picture. But I mean, these people will all have blood on their hands if something happens to her, which I, again, as someone who suffered from this, like I, it's, it's beyond clear. Like, there's no debate. She's a very, very, very sick young woman. She's very sick. She needs immediate help. This is our opinion. We need to make clear. It is our opinion. We don't have any confirmation.

She's got a, yes. Yeah, allegedly reportedly. But we don't know that she's got anorexia, but I mean, our eyes would certainly suggest she does or some sort of eating disorder. And you're right to raise Karen Carpenter because one of the most disturbing things about Karen Carpenter's case, for the listing audience, for the young audience who doesn't remember her, you know, rainy days and sundays always let me down. Something like that. I can't remember the words, but something like that. And a voice is smooth as velvet. I mean, just one of the most beautiful voices we've ever had in American songmaking. And she died at age 32 after she'd gotten help. She was on the way back to wellness if memory, it's been a while, but if memory serves.

but it was too late, Maureen. She'd already done so much damage by the deprivation in calories. And she looked, she looked 70, even though she was 32, you know, Karen Carpenter. Then that's what's going to happen to Ariana, too. There's only so much all the silicon and Botox and plastic surgeons can do with somebody who insists on making themselves look like a corpse.

My mom is in the mental health field. She spent her life at the Albany V. helping veterans, but she also had a private practice when she was younger with mental health. And she said this is one of the hardest things to cure in eating disorder. Like it is just so hard to break somebody of it. And then you add all the pressures that a huge celebrity like Ariana would have if she has this. And it would be 10 times harder, even more. Part of what also makes it so treatment resistant is, you know, a sufferer.

And again, I'm not saying she is. but you can get to the point where either you're in real denial, like you think people around you are overreacting and you are justified and you really like the way you look or the extreme weight loss, it becomes like a high. It's like a dopamine hit. Like how much control can I exert over my body over this primal meat? Like you have to eat to survive, right? But if you can control that and then couple that with the era of Ozempic that we're in. You know, this kind of stick thin look

we see celebrities on the red carpet all the time. We're being told by the media. They look great. They look like death. They look like death. To me more. Charlize Theron is way too thin. Margot Raleigh. She's gotten so thin. Margot

Robbie and that other girl. Who's the name of, what's the name of Olivia Wild? Olivia Wild. Also, I said, look like a corpse. Now she came out and she's a attacking me. I'm sorry. Look, I'm sad that you've let this happen to you. I used to be a big, you're a big fan when you were on house. But she looks skeletal now. She was, oh, it's the camera angle. Okay, it wasn't the camera angle. A camera angle doesn't make bones protrude when they're not actually protruding. It doesn't make your eyes completely sunken in your head like we see in a

skeleton when they're not. I mean, we all know the difference between thin, even very thin, and skeletal. Like, it's plain as the nose is on your face. And they can they are the ones who don't see it. They are the ones who don't see it and think they look good in this very corrupt industry that will just continue exploiting them. So I really hope she does get the help she needs. Brad Pitt is also in the news. And I'm worried about him too.

So Brad Pitt is drinking again. There was an in-depth profile on Brad Pitt by who did it? who did the original, Esquire did the original. And the guy did a great job reporting on it. But he exposed, he broke the news that Brad Pitt is drinking again after having been on the wagon for many years, seven years. And now, like, he offered this guy a glass of wine. And the reporter was like, is it just for the guests? And Brad's like, no, I'm drinking again.

And admitted and is talking about how he can have. have, the reporter said, oh, just a glass. You can have just a glass. And he's like, no, I can have, you know, more than just a glass, like a few glasses, but I can't have too much. Okay. If you're an alcoholic, I'm pretty sure this is not how it works, Maureen. And I think once again, there's probably not a lot of people in Brad Pitt's life who can sit him down and say, Brad, no, for an alcoholic, what is it? One drink is too many and 1,000 won't be enough. So I think this story is fascinating on multiple levels. So, Brad Pitt designed that tableau in order to get this story out, right?

He was the one who brought out the wine and served it to the journalist and sort of, and that was the prompt. Like, oh, is it okay for me to drink in front of you? Like, are you sure like you are on the record as being an alcoholic in recovery? And Brad says, oh, well, I'm drinking again. It's a cover story in Esquire. He knows it's going to make headlines, right? So why?

Why is he telling us this? my question is are we trying to get ahead of something? Because back when Angie deplaneed with those children, fled in a limousine, 2016, and the next day filed for divorce, which was shocking and made worldwide headlines. Like, I'll never forget, like, I was working at the New York Post. I got, like, an emergency call to come in early. And then I looked on the Daily Mail website, and I remember the font size about the Brad and Angie's split. It was like the font size you would reserve for World War III breaking out. It was like an enormous story, right? And then Brad, like a couple of months later, does like a cover story for GQ in which he says, hey, I'm an alcoholic and I'm in AA now. And I really had to get my stuff together. And I remember saying to this guy who was one of the top reporters on page six, what is the play here? Why is Brad Pitt doing this? he doesn't have to. There are plenty of people in recovery in Hollywood that we don't know about. So why is he being so public about this? Brad Pitt, Hollywood's wholesome golden boy, you know,

all like the way he spun that, that split from Jen Aniston, it was like, he just wants babies. What else can he do? He's no choice. He had no choice. You know, so why is he doing this? And Ian said to me, I think he's trying to get ahead of something. And lo and behold, we later learned what went down on that plane he was on a drunken rampage he poured beer over angie and one of the kids hiding under a blanket by angie's report to the fbi i he assaulted her in a in a bathroom on that plane it was a bad bad scene and so when brad pitt who has been famous for like the bulk of his adult life who knows how the machine works does this like i raise an eyebrow I like it. I think you're probably right now that I think it through because it doesn't make sense. Everybody knows if you're an alcoholic and he's been in AA, you can't drink. You can't drink one. You can't have two, can't have three. Those days have past you because you have this thing that compels you to drink more than one, two or three if you pick up the bottle. I mean, maybe there's the rare case. I'm sure there are who are able to do it. But it's the exception, not the rule. So why would he be public?

It's a very good question. Well, we will see if there's another shoe to drop on that one. Put a pin in that. When we come back and update, Maureen mentioned Michael Jackson, an update on a lawsuit against the Michael Jackson estate, a setback for the plaintiffs, and Chris Watts, a family annihilator, is getting married. Stand by. Back to school season means busy mornings and inevitable classroom germs. It's time to completely reinvent the the family medicine cabinet with beekeepers naturals, a clean health company delivering real non-toxic wellness solutions. So before heading up the door, consider daily defense with just four quick sprays of the adult and kids' propolis immune support throat spray. For clear breathing, consider swapping drug-filled nasal sprays for propolis nasal spray max. This non-habit-forming drug-free formula is a non-toxic way to flush out irritants and breathe deeply. Keep the entire

family protected this season, discover beekeepers naturals for clean, highly effective, proactive, and natural daily defense. Today, beekeepers naturals is giving you an all-exclusive offer. Go to bekeepers naturals.com slash Megan or enter the code Megan when you check out and that'll get you 20% off your order. That's beekeepers naturals, plural, dot com slash Megan or enter code Megan when you check out and that'll get you your discount. Bekeepers naturals products are available at Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, Amazon, CVS, and All Greens. Updates for you now and a few

legal matters that we've been covering, including the Nick Reiner case, the Chris Watts case, and a massive case brought by alleged child molestation victims against the Michael Jackson estate. Maureen Callahan

is my guest today. She is host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, which you can find on all podcast platforms and YouTube. Go and subscribe now so you don't miss a moment of Maureen. Your loss if you do. Trust me. If you haven't sampled the nerve or the nerve at night, you're missing out. Okay. This Chris Watts case, like I'm, I've just been thinking weirdly about family annihilators because we've been doing this MK Confidential series at night. And we have been this week, tonight's the fifth of the five episodes, doing John List,

who was a family annihilator who killed his whole family in 1971. If I do say so myself, it's a riveting series, please go and check it out. It's on the Megan Kelly podcast feed. You don't have to look hard for it. But anyway, Chris Watts was kind of on my mind because he is one of the most notorious, infamous, awful family annihilators in American history. And he's still a relatively young man serving time for his crime. I'll get to the update in one second, but just to set the stage for people who don't

remember this case. It happened in Denver, Colorado, and on August 13th of 2018, Watts would strangle his wife, Shanon, to death, and kill their two daughters, Bella, four, and Celeste three, and then dispose of the children's bodies in the most detestable, horrific way possible. I'm just going to start by showing you a little bit from the Netflix documentary on Watts, where you will see Shanan and the girls and Chris. in their so-called happy phase, which was not long before he murdered them all. Sot 39. Hey guys. My name is Shanan. I just want you to know a little bit of my story. I went through one of the darkest times of my life.

And then I met Chris. And he's the best thing that has ever happened to me. I've done everything in my heart to make my family's life better. No, he turtle. No, he's turtle. I think about like, did I cause this? Did I cause this? That was his confession to his dad when in custody, which, of course, I mean, it's so passive voice and it's such a pathetic.

He caused it. You did it. You did it affirmatively. One more. When after he killed Shannan and the girls, he pretended like they disappeared. Like, she just took the girls and he didn't know where she took the girls. Meanwhile, like her purse was still there. Her medication was still there.

it was like, oh, she just, she just walked off without any, like, kid supplies. And I believe her car was still there. Like, she just, so literally she just walked away without her purse. Okay, sure. But anyway, he gave an interview to a Denver news outlet at the time and pretended like he had no idea what happened to her. I'll show you a part of the interview. This is him knowing that he strangled her shortly before and that he killed his daughters as well in SOT 37.

I left work for work early that morning like 515, 5.30. So like she barely let me, she barely got barely gotten into bed pretty much. This might be a tough question, but did you guys get into an argument before? It wasn't it wasn't like an argument. We had emotional conversation, but I'll leave it at that. But it's, I just want them back. I just, I just want them to come back. and if they're not safe right now

that's what's tearing me apart because if they are safe they're coming back but if they're not this this has got to stop like somebody has to come forward Shenan Bella Celeste if you're out there just come back like if somebody has her just

please bring her back I need to see everybody I need to see everybody again this house is not complete without anybody here please bring her back It's chilling to look at that, knowing what we know. He knew very well that Shan would not be coming back because he looked her in the face and strangled her to death night before that interview.

Not to mention what he did to his young daughters. This is so graphic of a viewer warning. This is him in a Denver interview from prison, March of 2019. And again, here he's going to detail how he killed. his two young children very disturbing but it's relevant to what we're about to discuss so 38 see is first okay where exactly what she would happen in the backseat okay was she just right next to bell okay so um so once again was it a hand over her face was it there was a blanket over and my hand and then went down to bellow tell me what happened there she said what happened to cecy

She asked, it was the same thing, the exact same thing that happened to me as CC. Did she ask you that? Okay. So that was pretty smart. How does she sound what she asked you that, right? She said that, that, that, that, what she always said. Yeah.

And what exactly did she say? She said, exactly the same thing that happened to me at CC. And then I said, I don't know if you remember what I said. I don't know if I just said yes, like a horrible person, or if I just put that blanket over her too and did the same thing. It's so awful. This four-year-old girl Bella knew what was going to happen to her because she watched him do it to her little sister Celeste, who was three. And then he put their bodies in an oil tank at a field where he was employed and left them there. They left Shanan not far from there.

not in an oil tanker, but not far from there. This man would ultimately confess his father extracted a bit of that confession from him, which we showed in part. He was sentenced to life in prison, and he is in prison right now. He is in Wisconsin. He was relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin, and Maureen, he's going to get married again. There is a young woman whom the Daily Mail found and an exclusive got an interview with her. Her name is Lizzie Henderson. She is a realtor.

She's at least a licensed realtor and was it, we believe it, for a time working as a realtor. She's got a license to do it in Wisconsin. But they report is currently working at a local supermarket. it. She has somehow fallen within this guy's crosshairs, and he's 41, she's 39. She moved to be near him. And I'm sorry, she's the one who relocated from Ohio to Wisconsin to be closer to his cell. And she has applied to marry him within the prison system. She has reportedly also submitted for a name change on September 12th, 2025. She is wearing his name already.

She's going by Lizzie Watts. They've been seen making out at the prison, saying that they love each other to one another, and have become, quote, increasingly physical, right? It's the Daily Mail. You can't have a conjugal visit in his prison, but they're doing what they can, shall we say. When the Daily Mail spoke to her,

they said she spoke in a scattered manner that her responses were often disjointed. And when they asked her about what she's doing, she said she knew it could be perceived as weird. She would not get specific about how they met. They asked, what do you think about his crime? She said, how I feel about it? He knows.

He knows how I feel. And then she described the killings as, quote, something harsh for anyone to experience. The Daily Mail concluded she was seeming to downplay his the extraordinary brutality of these crimes she visited him 20 times last year i i'm so fascinated by women who do this maurine like i and not just any criminal it's fascinating enough you're going to get married or date a criminal a criminal a prisoner but a family annihilator someone who would do that what we heard in that soundbite to a four and a three-year-old and you're out there

selling groceries and selling real estate and like functioning in this world as a semi-normal human being and interacting with people, the levels of unwellness here are like off the charts. There's so much to discuss here. First of all, I saw you were doing John List on your new show. And John List was, I knew about that case from a very young, too early, because that happened in Westfield, New Jersey. And my dad was raised in Westfield, New Jersey. And that crime shocked

Westfield, New Jersey. Really lovely bedroom community. It was, I think it was one of the first cases where the American public had learned of like a family annihilator. Now we know about them. You know? Number two,

I didn't know any of those details because with these cases, the Clancy one that's going on right now, that kind of grievous harm, murder, leveled against children by their parents. Like, it's too much to take. Like listening to that was awful. Thirdly, how?

I'll bet you I know how they met. I'll bet you. She doesn't want to admit it, because she wrote love letters to him. He's the woman for him. She's gonna fix this bad boy. Number four, how is it that, family annihilators aren't ripped to shreds in prison.

How is this guy still walking around a prison? I'm surprised. Very good question. I'm surprised. Number five, how is it that family annihilators are allowed to date, get engaged, and get married? How? Can we just come up with a law in the books that you have to suffer? If they're not going to put you down like the rabid animal you are, you are not a human,

you are a rabid fucking animal. If we're not going to put you down, and there are just people who need killing on this earth, Brian Coburger is one. You know, the Menendez brothers were hot pieces. They were hot tickets. You know, they're both married. Yeah.

What are the Menendez brothers? We just look that up. The one brother, Eric, the younger one, has been married for 27 years. Lyle was married, I think, for 23 and just got a divorce. But the marriage held for more than two decades in prison. Megan, you want to know, why Lyle got a divorce.

He had another woman on the side. He's with her now. What? Yes. Yes. You know what I mean? It's like I don't know if the thinking is like just keep them as happy as you can't. Like I don't get it.

Like I don't get why a Chris Watts isn't in a federal supermax. Why he's not in solitary for 23 hours a day, let alone able to get married. And I guarantee you this crazy woman. This really fucked up individual has lost her job selling real estate. And that's why she's bagging groceries now at the local stop and shop. This can't be a well person. There's just no way. With all the respect to her, I'm sure she's going through something because why else would

you ever do something like this? Here's my team tells me that there's been a lot of notorious, like, serial killers who have gotten married. Of course, Charles Manson presided over a group of shaved head groupies and he got four fan letters a day. He sought a marriage license in 2014 to wed Afton, Elaine Burton, a 26-year-old admirer who'd been visiting him for years.

Ted Bundy, you're the one who turned me on to that amazing book about him. Yeah, that was crazy. Wound, what was the name of that book? It was so good. The stranger beside me. Yes, yes, she was his friend. Andrew.

They were working as, when he was really young. They were working a suicide hotline together. That was talking people out of killing them. I was reading that this time last year. I was listening to the audio and I was taking these long walks and no one knows you're listening to a story about Ted Bundy. I bumped it to somebody in the grocery store that was a kid. It was like, hi, Mrs. Kelly. I remember you telling me that. I remember you telling me that. It's crazy. And the, and the, that was a great book. That was such a great book. And I knew you would love it because one of the most amazing details of that book to me, you know,

she was a, Anne Rule was a single mother. She had young children. She was volunteering at the suicide hotline. And every night she worked with Ted, he would walk her out to her car because he was like, I want to make sure you're safe. She was one person who he seemed to actually enjoy an experience as a friend. It's so bizarre, one of our most notorious serial killers, but she did have some weird friendship with Ted Bundy. So he wound up married. He became a father after committing at least 30 murders, despite being locked up for three decades. Richard Ramirez, the night stalker.

He tied the knot with a reporter who saw his mugshot on TV. So I look this up. This is sent to me by Debbie Murphy. Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic. Why do women fall for imprisoned men? There tends to be this trait

of intense mothering in prison wives. I think these women tend to be very nurturing. They have a sense of wanting to be caring for someone else. and men in prison for obvious reasons are quite needy. Now, I pulled up some interesting facts on this, okay, which I want to run by you. I actually think this is just fascinating. Okay, one possible reason they get married to prisoners.

In a prison marriage, the partner on the outside holds most of the power. They decide when to visit, whether to accept phone calls, how much money to send, which can appeal to individuals who have felt powerless in past, trauma or in relationships. Okay, I like this as a theory. Like you dated an abusive asshole. And so you marry some other abusive asshole, but now it's on your terms. They can't hurt you. And you're in control and you're in the power position. Whether this is, you know, this I think would not be an on the nose thing. This would be a subconscious motivator for you. Then there's the savior or project complex. Some women are drawn to the idea of reforming or fixing an inmate.

seeking emotional fulfillment from engineering a redemption arc. I like it. Yes. Then there's something, get this, called hybristophilia, a specific psychological condition or parapheria, where a person feels sexual or romantic arousal and attraction specifically because their partner has committed a notorious crime, violent act, or murder. It turns you on to know. that they've murdered someone, that's got to be related to like, I'm the one who's going to tame the lion, you know, like, he's dangerous, but not with me. Yeah, I don't, I, like, right? There's got to be that dynamic at play at some level. I'm special, right? It's, it's like every woman who's ever gone after a bad boy, like this notion that, like, you're the one to fix them. You are somehow

differentiated in that way. It's never true. And I also think there's something to it. And I also think there's something to it about, I mean, I like all of those theories. I think they're great. I also think there's something to it where it's like, it's a way of having a marriage without having a real marriage. You're not in it in the day to day. Like, you're not grinding it out, paying the bills, raising the kids, like, whatever. Like, it's, it's that person can remain a fixed idea somewhere in another location that is difficult to reach. You may or may not, like, Why would you marry, Megan, as this woman is going to do, a man with whom you cannot have conjugal visits? Like, there's something going, was she abused as a young person?

You know, is this a weird, weird, morbid kind of safety to her? I don't understand. I mean, I'm sure this is a completely understudied phenomenon. I personally would love to see female academics and research in this phenomenon. on. I think you need women in this field for sure. You know, it's interesting to me that they're saying, possibly you had trauma in a prior relationship that would make you choose somebody like this, not just a prisoner, but like a murderous prisoner, somebody who murdered his wife and family and two beautiful,

innocent daughters in the single digits, that maybe you had trauma in your past relationship. And so you're looking for a redemption arc or you're looking for to be in a more powerful position, vis-a-vis the man in your life because Shanan Watts, his wife, she in that Netflix documentary, talks about how she was in a very bad relationship prior to Chris Watts. She, something very bad happened to her in her first relationship. And she found Chris Watts. And Chris Watts was heavy. He was like obese when they got together.

he wasn't like I'm he's a it's hard to say this about such a monster but objectively he was he turned into a decent looking guy at the time of the murder now he looks like a prisoner who's let himself go and disgusting but my point is simply did she intentionally did she repeat a pattern you know consciously or subconsciously I think a lot of women worry about this with themselves not on the level of like I'm going to get murdered but They repeat patterns, whether it's consciously or subconsciously. And so it's almost like if you've been with somebody who's abused you or really hurt you, like intentionally, who's a bad person, you have to actively do something in your life to make sure you don't invite that back to you, whether it's on the nose or not. Like there might be something in you that is attracting something very dark and dangerous. That's why I always say when you have a relationship blow up, the number one goal is to work on yourself, to work on yourself, even if you think it was all his fault and he was the douchebag and all that. Still, the goal remains the same. Work on yourself. Improve yourself. Make yourself better in every way that you can so that you will attract something better. You know? I know exactly what you're talking about. The thing, though, with the Chris Watts thing, you know, He is a psychopath, okay? He is a stone cold psychopath.

The way in which he relates what he did to those girls. He is, and the passive language, the refusal to, you know, Narcissus, malignant narcissism, psychopathy, all of it. But guys like that look for women like Shanan, you know? And I think in the world of those, those of us, Megan, who are like emotionally regulated. and like fairly, you know, I hate to use the word, like, normal. But like, you have a relationship blow up and yes, you go, okay, like, what in me was attracted to that guy?

What in me allowed myself to overlook the following red flags that wound up hurting me, right? That's the goal. But this is another level where, you know, you can sense when a guy is a bad guy. You can sense it. I don't know if you've ever met like a male psychopath in your life I have. And to me, I can see all the signs. I can see them. And I see other women going, oh, he's really something, right? Really good looking. Like it's, I don't, I think that these guys pray on broken women, like profoundly broken women. Because, you know, again, as another fan and student of the

Gavin De Becker book, The Gift of Fear. So good. Chris Watts, that doesn't just explode out of nowhere. And I am in no way blaming Shanan. In no way. No, of course. But there were definitely warning signs. There was definitely violence in that house.

There were definitely moments where I am sure she thought should I pick up the girls and leave. And I am sure as a psychopath, he was charming and manipulative and knew how to breadcrumb and withhold and give and withhold until, you know, it ended in the way it was probably just going to. I mean, I did think it was very interesting. The day she went missing, so she got home from a work trip with her girlfriends, you know, with whom she worked. And she got into the house overnight, like at the one o'clock hour, I think. And they were trying to call her the next morning, and she wasn't picking up.

Of course, she'd been killed. And they knew. those women, God bless them, they were over there in two minutes. They were like, where's Shinnam? And they were the ones dealing with 911, like, she should be here. This is her medication. Why is her medication still here? And he was like sheepishly standing there guilty.

I mean, you saw that news interview. He looked like he knew he'd been caught. He wasn't caught yet, but he would be. All right, I want to keep going because there's another legal update in another case that we've talked about before. and that is the Michael Jackson case. Now, this family, the Cassios, they've been defending Michael Jackson from the start. They,

Michael Jackson went and stayed with them for three months after 9-11. It's the craziest story. The dad worked, I think, at the palace. Oh, yeah. as like Chief Belman or, you know, some sort of middle-level management, but was dealing with hotel guests. Michael Jackson lived in a modest home in New Jersey, but he had a bunch of kids.

Four or five, it remains unclear to me which one. I think he had just the four. Whatever, I can't remember, but it's irrelevant. So Michael Jackson starts coming back to his house. I mean, this is not a good, no normal parent would be like, sure, and come sleep over and in my kids' rooms. It's just not a good idea, obviously, but it's what happened.

He came with his little chimpanzee and speak. Oh, Bavos. I just speak about it, Maureen. If you're the wife and your husband works at the palace and he comes and he says, I met Michael Jackson. Oh, cool. The next thing you know, Michael Jackson has moved in with his chimpanzee. He's literally the biggest star on the planet and he's on your little foldout couch.

So that happened. That's a real thing. They got very close. the Casios and Michael. And he brought all the children on tour with him. He made them feel like special favorites, which they clearly were. In all the years, they've defended Michael Jackson. Never laid a hand on us.

Three boys and a girl. Never once. These are lies. Stop it about Michael Jackson. Then we find out that, allegedly, when they saw the leaving Never, leaving Neverland, documentary, which was not a documentary. I've got a lot of issues with how that was done. I know a lot about, in particular, that Wade Robson that I've told the audience about in part, serious credibility problems by at least the one accuser, none of which were raised.

Doesn't mean he's lying about Michael Jackson. But as a filmmaker, doing what you call a documentary, you have an obligation to tell the audience. Anyway, they said that that triggered something for them, that it, quote, deprogrammed them, and that now they've realized they were abuse victims and did they go out to the camera? to just say this happened to us and we want to set the record. No, they put their hands out. They went to the Michael Jack and estate and they got a payout, a multimillion dollar payout, reportedly. And then in 2026, after or just as the MJ mega movie was coming out, they went back to the till reportedly wanting more. And now, and they wanted the lawsuit to be

heard in court because that's where you can get big bucks. Everyone's thinking, if I can just get in front of a jury, I'm going to win because I'm just going to tell a sob story about something terrible that happened to me. Here's a little flavor of the Casios and them alleging the abuse by Michael Jackson in a piece they did in May of 26. This is just a couple months ago for 60 minutes Australia. Feraldo, the family's youngest, at times the fear was overwhelming. Did you find his appearance scary as a kid? Yeah.

Yeah, especially when you're in bed with him at night and he turns into the zombie and you don't love me, you don't love you. His eyes were like this. Learning there were other victims meant this was no longer. just his secret to keep. And I was like, oh my God, he did this to other kids. That was enough for my courage to just blossom. I was like, no, no, no, no.

This isn't made up. This is real. Alder decided to tell his family of the abuse he'd endured. Unaware he would also be opening the lid on the suffering of each and every one of his siblings. I called everyone to meet at my mom and dad's home, and I said, I just want you guys to know that everything that they're saying is true

because it happened to me too. Aldo's courageous admission led to all his siblings, finally sharing what they say Jackson had done to them. It was the hardest thing for me to do was to admit it. Oh, yeah. I can't describe the feeling, the range of emotions that I was feeling at the time in coming out. Okay, so they've tried now to crack open this settlement they entered into in 2019 with the Jackson estate.

And they filed a lawsuit in California federal court trying to get their day in front of a jury. And the California court just tossed the lawsuit saying, you signed, you signed a deal to arbitrate all claims. That's where you're going to have to resolve this, if at all. you're going in front of an arbitrator, as you agreed to do by contract back in 2019, which is a very, very good ruling for the Michael Jackson estate. They'd much rather be in front of an arbitrator who will be a somber, serious, probably retired judge who will now find whether this settlement agreement they've reached can be voided.

I guess that's what they're asking for because they want more money or what. But this, I tell you, Maureen, I don't know about the Cassio family. I got real questions about them and this belated attempt to cash in on Michael Jackson's renewed fame and success. They had no money in the estate for a long, long time. Now they do, and they're back again. This one is so interesting. I watched that 60 Minutes piece when it aired. I am of the belief that Michael Jackson was a pedophile.

I think that, you know, as you were like laying out in the very beginning of this, the father comes home with like Michael Jackson and bubbles and is like he's going to be living here indefinitely and like, and it is weird, but it's like he's, he's a lowly, he may be the head of the bellhops, but like he's a lowly guy compared to Michael Jackson. And now Michael Jackson thinks I'm special, me, with my like two-car garage. You know? Like, okay. And, you know, and that, that was sort of the thing with Michael, right? It was like he had to be around children, but it was always said that it's just because he didn't have a childhood, you know. And I went back and watched that Oprah special with him as well,

where he's like touring her around Neverland. And it really does to me, it did look like a pedophiles lair. Now, the thing about the Cassio story that raises questions for for me is that the girl, the sister, the lone sister says he did it to me too. And all the allegations, the history of this has been that if you do believe Michael Jackson was a pedophile, he was inclined to little boys, not little girls. For what it's worth, the last reporting I read on this said that Paris Jackson had been in conversation with the Cassio family and does believe them. And I think this has caused a significant estrangement between Paris and her brothers. I think that's right, but she couldn't know. She could, like, it's,

to be honest, like, I'm sure she's got a better informed opinion than most of us, because she's had access to the estate, and she knows all the players and so on. But I mean, she was too little, in other words, to actually have seen much that would have shown her, whether he was or he wasn't. his entire family says absolutely not. His family has stood by him, except for Latoya, who for a brief time said she believed these allegations, but then recanted that and said her abusive husband kind of made her say it. But I think this is a very good ruling for the Michael Jackson estate because they signed a deal. They were trying to get out of it. They wanted to get it in front of a jury, which most plaintiffs think they'll do better in front of. And this judge

did the right thing by saying nobody forced you to sign an arbitration agreement for any future claims. That's, you signed it. And honestly, like, to me, Maureen, if they had just come forward to say, this happened, we want to set the record straight, it happened. It, it would have been a game changer in the whole narratives around Michael Jackson because there's so much he said, she said, or he said, there's so many credibility problems with his accusers that you could really, like, I can see why People are like, absolutely not. I don't believe them. And every plaintiff has had their handout.

I want to get paid, including these for. And in this 60 Minutes, Australia Peas, like, they seem very affected. The one Aldo, who we showed was like, oh, no. And he was like, there was no tears. It was like, yes. That was my problem with that, too. I'm not sure I buy this. That was my problem with that, too.

It was very affected. But I will say this. If I say my claim, And let's say I'm coming at this and it absolutely happened to me, right? I was serially abused by this guy who was like the biggest pop star on the planet and there was an entire infrastructure around it that allowed it to happen. I would want money. I think that this is, I think that this is also kind of like the Pandora's box that the Michael Jackson biopic opened, right? That movie has grossed over $1 billion.

And that movie was a definitely. legacy play and it was restoring Michael Jackson into the pantheon as just an unbelievable artist of one of a kind. The problem now is that that movie is so successful, they have to make a sequel. They can't leave money on the table. Oh, yeah. But they will. Where do you go with this story when we all know what chapter two is? I have an idea. Tell me. I have an idea. Because in the original, they did reportedly cover the abuse allegations, obviously it would have been in a way that was favorable to Michael. And they had to take it out because somebody at the last minute realized that they had signed deals with these accusers who they were featuring in the movie that required them to never speak of these people again.

So the estate is bound by those agreements signed by Michael. And therefore they couldn't do like some hit piece on the early accusers in movie form. They would have gotten sued. they would have lost every, every dollar of that billion. So they lobbed off that portion of the movie, and they left it just like, look at the singing and the dancing. But I think they will do something like fictional. They, they will say something like, you know, some of these allegations have been fictionalized or these people have been fictionalized. And they'll portray the scandal in a way that's very favorable to him and show that, oh, these are all grifters who try to make money off of Michael,

etc, et cetera, et cetera, in a way that they think is exonerating but doesn't violate the agreement. They'll find some clever way of like getting around the actual named plaintiffs and their actual stories. I think so. Because I, my information is they're in the process right now of making part two. So this is so fascinating. When this movie dropped and the Cassio piece on 60 Minutes dropped, I went and found there are two celebrity memoirs that are like out of print very hard to get and they go for like hundreds of

One was LaToya's memoir, which I got, and the other was Catherine Jackson's memoir, which I got. And I need to go through them because in Catherine Jackson's memoir, she's the matriarch. Apparently she does write about Joe, the patriarch as a very, very, very abusive guy. And that book is like out of print. You would think these books would be coming back into print with the renewed interest. Yeah. The other thing that struck me as very telling, telling. The second most famous Jackson is Janet Jackson, who is beloved. Like you and I have a

similar vintage, right? Janet of good times, right? Like, sweet little Janet Jackson, everybody loves Janet. She was nowhere to be seen during this major media rollout for this movie about her brother's life, starring her nephew. She's never spoken to it. The younger audience may not realize, like, Janet was almost as famous as Michael. Oh, yeah. I mean, she, She was huge in her music career. The beginning of the end of it was that Super Bowl stunt, which she says she paid for with her career. And Justin Timberlake suffered no consequences. I agree with her.

Where he ripped down like a patch over her and exposed her naked breast. Yeah, no, it was total bullshit. But yet, I don't think she's ever said anything about any of it. So you're right. She's the big sort of the white whale of this whole thing. like, what does Janet Jackson think? But you're right, she wasn't anywhere near the movie apparatus. Okay, got to take a break. We have more to do. Update on Nick Reiner, what we just learned from the court proceeding about his alleged crime. One of the moments that

really changes how you think about your future is when you start taking responsibility for other people, right? Whether it's getting married, buying a home, starting a family, you realize that planning ahead does matter. And that is one of the reasons I think life insurance is so important. I know nobody wants to think about it. But if you just a lot of you just to do that you just to be a home, just think about it for a very short time and take care of it, then you don't have to think about it again, right? Just having coverage can help provide financial security for the people you care about most if the unexpected happens.

I mean, it's not unexpected. It's expected, just like the timing of it could surprise one. Let me tell you about ethos. They make getting life insurance simple and convenient. Everything is done 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and even get same-day coverage. So you truly won't have to think about it for long. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions online, and you could get up to

three million bucks in coverage with some policies as low as $30 a month. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash mk. That's ethos.os.com slash mk. Application times may vary. Rates may vary too. When it comes to supplements, there are two things that matter, that it works and that you can trust it. Rather than just tell you about relief factor, we often bring you what their real customers have to say. Like me, I have to say great things about relief factor because it's helped me repeatedly. One customer, Jim, said he ran out of relief factor twice, and both times his aches, stiffness, and pain came back. Once he restarted it, he says he felt better again. As Jim puts it, quote,

you know something's working when you run out of it. They make it easy to find out if you will be the next person telling relief factor about how much it helps you tackle your daily aches and pain. three weeks for just $17.76. Simply go to Relieffactor.com or call 1-8004 Relief. You will connect with their friendly local team, and they will do everything they can to help you. And maybe you'll be sharing your story with them soon too. Hey, everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly.

I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megan Kelly channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halpern, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Dershinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news only on the Megan Kelly channel, Sirius XM 11 and on the Sirius XM app. Maureen Callahan's back with me. She's the host of The Nerve. Go and subscribe now. Maureen, a Los Angeles grand jury has now officially indicted Nick Reiner 32 for allegedly murdering his parents. as director Rob Reiner and producer Michelle Singer-Riner in their Brentwood home on December 14th,

2025. The July 20th indictment was unsealed yesterday. He's pleaded not guilty. He does remain jailed without bail, but here's what's interesting about it. The prosecutors are now alleging, we know, just learned, that Nick intentionally killed his parents by means of lying in wait. He was lying in wait apparently in their home. waiting for them to get home. We believe from that Conan O'Brien Christmas party, right? Wasn't that

where they were earlier that evening where they said that he had been behaving erratically and that there was an argument? The indictment also alleges multiple murders, use of a knife, and acts demonstrating a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness. Lying in wait is an enhancement to the charge. He could potentially face life without parole or the death penalty, realistically, they're not doing the death penalty in California, but it is a death eligible crime with this special circumstance added to it, I believe. The prosecutors have not yet decided whether, in fact, to seek the death penalty. But wow. I mean, wow. And now the DA, Nathan Hockman has said this, quote, this is a profound betrayal

by someone who is loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing. That is, Pretty remarkable. I mean, if they are, there's, I just feel like there's only one reason why they would even introduce this that he was lying in weight, this enhancement into the case. To me, it suggests they may indeed be considering going for the death penalty against this guy. I just seems hard to believe. I don't know why. I guess just because he seems so drug addled. But anything's possible. What do you make of it? When I heard this yesterday, I was so, I mean, is gratified the right word? It just felt, I was like, okay, like the DA is going for what seemed to be clear from what we learned in the aftermath of this horrific double homicide. He, I believe, if I recall correctly, left the party before the parents. Did he? Yes. Okay.

Well, he was asked to, and he wouldn't at first, but I think he did. Because then he had a fight with Rob. And the reporting also out of that was that there was an admonition to the catering staff that night to hide the knives. Once Rob asked Conan if he could bring his very troubled drug-addicted son. So that alone, him leaving before they got home, you're premeditating this. you're premeditating this. Then based on what we know of the crime scene, it seems that he, like the coward he is, waited for them to go to sleep because it's much easier to commit, he's one guy trying to commit double homicide. And Rob Reiner's a substantial guy. So you wait for

them to go to sleep so you can get this done. The reporting is also that the mother's body was found, I believe, in the bathroom, which seems to indicate that she tried to flee and lock herself in, and he went after her. So he absolutely was lying in wait. And what I also love about this is it completely dismantles what we all know this guy is going to go for. Mental illness, a drug-addled brain. It shows malice of forethought. And, you know, if they don't go for the death penalty, I'm sure some nice woman somewhere will be waiting to marry him. Sadly, you're right. But it's just so dark to think about him lying in wait for his parents in their home.

They come in. They're getting changed. They're probably talking about him because he caused a scene at Conan O'Brien's house earlier that evening, which I'm sure they were embarrassed by and I'm sure they were angry and concerned about him. and so he could be for all we know what sitting in the closet where was he where on the property was he waiting for his parents to get into their bed so that he could slice their throats i mean this guy is beyond sick and he's got two other siblings who are still alive who will probably be consulted

on what the what the DA seeks and whether we turn this into a death penalty case i mean that's you know further updates to follow okay ending it on a somewhat lighter note. Big news out of Washington yesterday as we learned that Caroline Levitt is stepping down as White House Press Secretary. She served honorably. She did her duty spectacularly. I mean, better than anybody in recent history, in my view. And of course, she has been, and the resignation is fodder for the late night hosts, including the normally nice guy, Jimmy Fallon. This is how he handled it. Some more big news today. Trump announced that Caroline Levitt is resigning as White House press secretary.

That story again, Caroline Levitt was definitely one of these staffers left on Air Force One. It's like, oh, really? You didn't take me? Yeah, apparently she's moving on to an easier job working as the press secretary for Taylor Farms lettuce. Oh. Okay, it's fine. It's not great. I just feel like Caroline Levitt has taken a beating by the left-wing press who really thinks she's like a handmaiden to the devil. And all she really is is a 28-year-old, extremely talented young Republican who did her patriotic duty and served a president she loved, managed the very difficult dual role of mother-to-two babies while doing one of the most difficult jobs in the world.

And this is totally foreseeable. I don't think there's anything about, oh, she had to leave the, she's mad that she was one of the decoys on Air Force One or any of the other bullshit I'm reading about her online by the left-wing rags that can't stand her. I think she genuinely wants to be at home with her baby daughter and her son who's only now about two. And good for her. We're in her debt.

Well, I have to say, I read the Daily Mail coverage of this yesterday too. And I was like, oh my God, did he leave her on Air Force One? When he was getting wheeled out and that catering thing, like Taylor Swift and the Arestore? Like, to avoid an Iranian hit. Like, I quit too. That's kind of, like,

you can't come back from that. You can't come back from it. Like, I wait, I wait the memoir. I don't think that was it. I really don't. It was kind of funny. For the listening audience, if you don't know, Trump, when he was ushered off of Air Force One onto another plane coming back from the Middle East, we now know that it was a whole switcheroo that he did because he'd been told by Israel

that the Iranians were allegedly going to take a shot at him in the air. Our own intelligence services said, don't believe that. That's not true. we're really not convinced that that's real. But the Secret Service, it's their job to assume everything's real. And they got him off. And they left the press corps and some of his admin officials on the original Air Force one. And some of the press in particular has been like, what the F? Like, were we sitting ducks? You left us there? But clearly they didn't, there was reason to discount the intel that had been given to us. So in any event, I wish her well.

Maureen, it's very hard to do that kind of a job. Very hard. She was nimble, professional, smart. Pugilistic but likable. That's a very difficult combo, especially in a young woman. And she just did it with finesse. So God bless. Godspeed. And I really hope she looks forward to those beautiful babes. And I look forward to seeing her in her show on Fox News, which is inevitably where this will go. Great to see you. Feel better, my friend. Oh, thank you, Megan. Again, I'm so sorry. I'm not there with you in person. But you don't want anything to do with this right now. I can't wait to see you in the fall. The next time, exactly. We'll do it 30 days or so from now and face-to-face and maybe with some liquor. I'd love it. See you then. And I hope all of you have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.