The Megyn Kelly Show - Bridget Phetasy on Trauma and Recovery, Victimhood and Entitlement, and Marriage | Ep. 44

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

Megyn Kelly is joined by Bridget Phetasy, host of "Walk-Ins Welcome" and "Dumpster Fire," to discuss victimhood and entitlement, drug abuse and recovery, political hypocrisy, overcoming trauma and sexual assault, Oprah Winfrey, and Phetasy breaks the news that she's married, and what marriage has brought to her life.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we've got Bridget Phetasy. This woman is something. I first found her by following her on Twitter. And she when I followed her, we could we could correspond. And she sent me a direct message that was so lovely and really personal and made me feel so emotional that I've never forgot her for it. And I've been following her on Twitter and enjoying her ever since. But I'm going to share the message with you a bit later. She's become a star. She's got a show on YouTube called Dumpster Fire, which is hilarious.

She's a comedian in addition to her other talents. She's got a podcast called Walk-Ins Welcome. And I think you're going to appreciate her worldview. So we'll get to Bridget in one sec. But first, Black Rifle Coffee Company is a veteran-owned coffee company serving premium coffee to people who love America. Veteran CEO and founder Evan Hafer spent over seven years on the ground overseas with U.S. Special Forces and as a CIA contractor. Evan even modified his gun trucks during the invasion of Iraq

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holidays better with black rifle coffee that's black rifle coffee.com slash mk to get 20 off coffee apparel and gear as well as 20% off your first month of the coffee club. I love being interviewed by women, I have to say. I'm so excited to talk to you. Yes. Well, let's just let's just keep it rolling now. That's a good beginning. I honestly, so you and I have never spoken before, but we've corresponded on Twitter and I am a big big fan of yours I think you are one of the funniest people but like most great comedians one of the most clever and smart it's a great combo and it's why comedians are so fun to spend time with at least virtual time in my case um do you do you know you're funny? Do you know that about yourself?

That's a great question. Thank you for saying that. That means a lot coming from you. I really respect your work and your work ethic and just your whole vibe, really. I don't know that I... I grew up in an Irish Catholic, very big family. And I always joked that my upbringing was like a roast battle. You kind of had to be able to tell jokes and make fun of yourself in order to survive or you would just be demolished by... It was a huge family. So I don't know that it was something that I ever thought I was as much as just a survival mechanism growing up. And then it became a coping mechanism as my life progressed and there were some more challenging experiences. I definitely default to humor. So then it just... As far as stand-up goes, it was something I never

considered I could do. It seemed like something that just really crazy, brilliant men could do. So it's so funny because I'm noticing a theme. You're now the third guest I've had on who has specifically cited her Irish Catholic background as the reason she's so outspoken and sort of out there. First was Piers Morgan. Then there was Andrew Sullivan. Now there's you. I, too, am Irish Catholic. So I don't know if there's like a theme emerging here, but it bodes well for my little Irish Catholic Presbyterian Scottish Dutch children, I guess, maybe. I'm not sure which side wins out. We were very, very feisty and raised to be very independent. And one of the things it's I was just I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather and grandmother on that and my dad's side a lot.

And they were just so resilient and funny. And my grandmother never really took anything too seriously. They were just so optimistic. And it is that very Irish, you know, everybody's telling jokes around a funeral and getting drunk in a wake. It's just that culture of laughing through your troubles. And I'm very grateful that I was raised with that because I don't know how I would have got through. I remember I was the kind of class clown when I was in rehab, for lack of a better word. And I was just trying to keep everything light and uplifting because it was so heavy, obviously, when I was in a treatment facility. And that really really saved me that and being able to write, I think those, those two things, but that, I think that Irish Catholic thing is definitely, I always said I

was a recovering Catholic in many ways. I've reclaimed, claimed some of that, but it is that just funny way to view the world in the worst calamities. I was shown this. It was like one of those memes online that somebody forwarded with the Lucky Charms box on the front of it. And it said something like the Irish protest for the removal of the leprechaun because it's offensive. And the bottom says, just kidding. The Irish aren't offended by jack shit. We do the offending. We don't get offended. That's been my experience, at least. And I prefer it that way. I mean, I do think it's hard to offend an Irish person. I think there's something in the makeup that just makes them tougher, more like, I don't really give a shit. And I don't know, just quicker to resort to humor. You're right,

as a coping mechanism or just a bridge out of a difficult situation. I was raised to, to believe that feeling the need to be offended was really just a way of feeling self-important. And it was, you know, constantly looking for ways to be offended. It really, it drives home this idea that you're, you're thinking very highly of yourself or your opinion. And there is that whole, in my whole family, like, oh, come on bridge. What do you, what are you going to, what are you going to cry about it? You know, there's that, there's that culture. I never considered that. You're right. It's more like, how many times have I told you that you're not special? We've gone over this Bridget. Yeah. There's a, that I, you know, it has a kind of my, my grandmother came from a very, she was that kind of came from the line of the stoic Irish

women. And my dad tells a story about being at his maternal grandmother's funeral. And one of the legends in our family was just that my grandmother prided herself on really only having cried twice in her life. I don't know that this is necessarily a healthy thing, but it was just kind of the... We think a lot about the legends that were brought up within our own family story, those stories that get passed down. And my dad was sitting next to her in the funeral and he was pretty young and he started tearing up and she squeezed his hand so hard that it hurt. And he said, no. And she said, no tears. We don't cry.

And that was very much there is. And there is just that kind of East Coast. I was raised in every summer going to Rhode Island, very blue collar family like, oh, you're going to cry about it. It was, oh, you're going to cry about it. My dad's one of 10. It was, you couldn't, it was very hard to be a sensitive empath and in our family, you were, you were mocked mercilessly. I always give my mom a hard time because she's Italian. So it's, that's also a feisty side. And, uh, she's saying that was the seventies, but she used to say, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about. Oh, shit. But it was a different time, too. And it is in part generational, I think, you know, that these kids today, the really young ones, they're I don't know, they're so quick to be offended.

And I think I think back to, you know, my own upbringing where we laughed at everything. I can't remember a time when anybody got offended. We mocked each other mercilessly. It was a form of affection. And it's not that I loved every piece of it, but it does give you a, as you said, a coping mechanism for when bad things happen to you in life. If humor is a go-to, it really can be a soothing balm. And I do think that this idea I was raised with, which seems to have gone out of fashion, that life isn't fair. That was just...

I'm the oldest of five. So there was constantly bickering amongst the siblings and fighting over this or that. And the refrain growing up was, yeah, well, life isn't fair. And as much as I couldn't stand that, I'm again glad that that was kind of drilled into me. My mother too is Italian and she's very feisty in that way. And it was my grandmother used to say, go play in traffic. We were being bad. She'd be like, go play in traffic. And this is a woman who lived through the depression and lived through the war and had 10 children and all of them miraculously made it through their childhood. She lost one of her twins. I think that was one of the

only times she cried in childbirth. And she was just, even at her funeral, she had very specific instructions and she said, do not cry. I've lived an amazing life. Even from beyond the grave, she's telling us not to cry. She wanted it to be a celebration of her life. And she was always so grounded in optimism and gratitude. And as I get older, I appreciate that more and more because life, they just... Even reading my grandfather's letter, he was 21 years old and he had this perspective of, well, this is life. Humanity's always been this way. Maybe it's my time.

Perhaps I'll get through. We have to, life is weird, but it's also great and fun. And just having that perspective at such a young age is, it's invaluable. It's, I don't, my biggest issue with the culture and where I feel the most disconnected is where does a lot of the, there's this idea in recovery of playing the tape forward, where does the kind of victimhood mentality of assuming to always be offended, assuming

that you're a victim, where does that get you ultimately? The pride, the pride in claiming it. Right. I mean, they do it even when it's not true because they think there's a social status attached to victimhood and they're right, sadly, with a certain contingent. Of course. And that is true, except on, I guess, a more philosophical or spiritual level or just an internal level. It would be the same as saying, oh, money's going to fix your problems or money will fix your depression or go. If you, you know, any kind of outward searching for status, I feel leaves us empty on the inside. Ultimately, this is, and this is, I can only speak for myself, but this has been my experience, whether I'm reaching for a substance or a person or a status of being perpetually offended or a victim,

it's still not grounded in self-esteem, resilience, knowing that I'm capable of taking care of myself. Those have been some getting out of entitlement. These have been lessons that I've had to learn very, very much the hard way. And I just don't see where telling people that they're victims or telling people that this is a place where you can get status. Ultimately, they'll probably end up in the same places if you are going to tell them that they are, you know, finding wealth will be the answer to all their problems. Right. And it really just makes you an annoying whiner. I mean, that's what happens. Like no one gives a damn. We all have problems. We could all paint ourselves as

victims if we wanted to. Some of us, even despite massive life challenges, have picked ourselves up, moved ourselves along, and things have been fine. Look at Oprah, right? The number of childhood sexual abuse incidents that she suffered, among other issues, very, very poor, black in the South at a time when that was not a great status to have. There was open discrimination on the streets. It wound wound up okay for her she had a can-do attitude if even if you don't like oprah you gotta love that about her i'd love and you know i want to talk about oprah because i have some thoughts but i was just watching um first we watched the king's speech with our with our oldest child and then we parlayed that into um the one about winston churchill our darkest hour darkest hour so So it had World War II in the brain.

And I wound up those two films thinking, we really need more conflict in our lives. We need more real conflict. There's a speech with Winston Churchill, like, would you want to fight or would you want to surrender to Churchill or to, to Hitler? And the people are like, I'd rather die on the streets. And he, he's out there like,

we will die choking on our own blood in the streets before we surrender to this. And like, now we're like a microaggression. I need it. I need to save space to discuss it. Like stop it up for the love of God and focus on something other than yourself yeah it does feel very self-absorbed i'm reading have you ever read alone in berlin no it is it's a novel written by

hans falada and he wrote it in 1947 um and died short he didn't even live to see it published, but it takes place in 1940 in Berlin. And it's about the working class in Berlin who weren't on board with the party. And they were trying to... It's based on a true story of this couple who were putting postcards all over Berlin and basically resisting Hitler in whatever way they could. And there's this insane line in the novel where the wife is talking to the husband when he's telling her about this idea. And she's this insane line in the novel where the wife is talking to the husband when he's telling her about this idea. And she says, isn't this so small? Isn't this enough?

And he said, whether it's small or large, it will still cost us our life if anyone finds out. And it was just so moving to me to think about what it was like to live in this time and under Nazi Germany. And, you know, I recently wrote a piece of satire after the election. It was the weekend after and I was reading through Twitter, which is never a great. But, you know, I spent the weekend reading my grandfather's letters and then also reading Twitter and people were literally acting like

they just got back from the beaches of Normandy. I'm like, you guys, what are you talking? The disconnect is so crazy. I can't. It was just it's mind boggling to me. And then even reading this novel to think that people really think now that they're living in those same conditions where people were disappearing, where you could not speak out against the Nazi party. You could not say anything. It would, you would be disappeared that to think that people think that this is what they're living in right now. We've done such a massively horrible job educating our children. I don't know why. I've got to, I've, I've read it when you, when you published it and I, I pulled it for today because I wanted to bring it up and just so the audience understands, okay, here's your satire

about, you know, those who made it through the Trump era. Um, Here's an excerpt. It's not enough to be racist, mom and dad. You have to be anti-racist. And anti-racist means hating white people. Not a single day has gone by since the bad orange man brutally ripped our safe spaces away from us that I haven't looked in the mirror and hated myself. So I've spent the last four years being the best ally I can be. Posting truth bombs on Twitter, making resistance stories on Instagram, screenshotting people's tweets for Commander AOC. And then here's the last part. Not everyone made it. The PTSD was too much. They'd jump at the sight of red hats, constantly bombarded by violent speech like only women get periods and symbols of colonial oppression like the American flag and math.

It's just so smart, Bridget. You do a great reading of that, actually. That's my interpretation of you. You read it in the tone that it was very much in my head when I was writing it. I feel like another person takes over when I write those. It's the parody of the people I imagine. But we did see that we saw it with journalists and with people on the left who are like, I'm so exhausted from my battle before. Yeah, for you. I saw some tweets and was like, after I

after I smoked this cigar, my wife had one more thing for me to do. And then it's a picture of them hanging up, you know, hanging the American flag. I was like, you guys are, you are a parody of yourselves. I can't, how am I supposed to take this seriously? And I just, it's been a, it's been a really revealing five years for me, somebody who by all accounts is, has become an accidental pundit. It's not something I ever aspired to be. I find this space to be horrible. I don't know how any of you have done this as long as you have and not aspirational at all. It seems cynical and toxic to me. Most day on good days. I'm like, how people managed in this space. It's so hard. And, and I somehow kind of tweeted my way into the crossfire of the culture wars. And it's been no matter what, I'm grateful for all that I've learned about myself in the process.

I've really been forced to ask myself, what are my values? Which is always a huge opportunity. That's true. If you spend time in the political arena or this weird social media arena, which is pretty much one in the same, you are forced to think about that. And I mean, it's no mystery to me why you've found yourself succeeding here and you found yourself gravitating toward it because you, you are smart, you're funny and you're fearless. And that's the other requirement. You know, it may not be inspirational every day,

like the figures who are in this battle. Most of them are not. Some of them are, but I, but I feel like people who are out there like you, and I would like to believe like me, have our armor on. We got our armor on and we got our swords out and we're fighting. We're doing it. We're trying to do something to fight back. And that in and of itself is worth something in these crazy culture wars. But I mean, maybe I'm the hypocrite because I feel like fighting for the First Amendment, fighting for the rights that are embodied in our Bill of Rights is worth something. And that's not the same as I got somebody fired for a tweet today. Yay me. I just

I don't see the two things as equivalent at all. You know, they're in this fake moral battle to save us all from the bad people we are so that they can emerge victorious, a top and righteous. And I feel like then there are those of us down here are like, we're all good. We're all bad. We all have the right to say and believe what we want. Get off of our backs. It's it's it's a very this is what I've pushed back against on the left. And it always you know, I it winds. I hear the but Trump, but we don't hear you pushing back. First of all, I came from the left. So it's almost like I see it as my family more than I was not raised in a conservative household at all. In many ways, I was part of the liberal bubble. I think the best example of me realizing what a bubble I was in, and I joke about this a lot,

is when I went on Glenn Beck's podcast and he was interviewing me and I was sitting there like, did you know that the left has double standards? And Glenn's looking at me like, yeah, I've heard. I'm aware of Bridget. Exactly. It's like an adorable, naive person who got stumped. I am that kind of that classic person on the left who really just repeated what I heard from CNN for all. I mean, there's really not a great word for it, but I would say I was a quintessential libtard and I definitely didn't really do any research. I just parroted what I heard and thought I was, because it is so much, Michael Malice does a great job of kind of explaining this idea of the cathedral,

which isn't even his concept. I always forget whose concept it is of the media, academia, entertainment, and me being so lost in this or, or kind of, it's the water that I swam in. I didn't really even realize that it existed. And coming out of that being, I guess, for all lack of a great term here, either that it's being called red pill to a certain extent. For me, it was just being exposed to the whole entire spectrum of media and seeing how much I didn't know about anything. That's been the most humbling part of the last five years. And it started really when I was a playboy and I was tweeting about something about there was a mass shooting and I was tweeting about guns and then I was getting pushback from my audience. And some of the critique was fair and accurate because I sat back and realized

I know nothing about guns. I don't even know how to shoot a gun. I don't know anything about the gun laws in California. And I'm 100% just reacting emotionally to this, which fair enough. It's a horrible tragedy, tragedy, but I don't know. And I don't know what I'm talking about. And so I had, I solicited emails from my audience to tell me what they thought about what this gun debate is and what should be done. And I got so many interesting, thoughtful essays from people all over America. And I sat back and it really was a big moment for me of recognizing my limitations in the space, recognizing how little I know about mostly everything. And from there,

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and then you came to the very fun, if somewhat puzzling, realization, and I quote, that boobs could save the world. I really do think they can. I do. They're the universal. It's funny, if you say boobs in a diner, men will pop up like meerkats. It's just like, you can just say the word anywhere and men's heads will just pop up. I think that there's something just softening about it. And I've been joking about this. I was very provocative and very much an exhibitionist. Some of this, again, I've been on just a very public learning about myself journey. Some of this has come about because I got sober in 2013 and then stumbled into this space. And now looking back, I'm even looking at how so much of my trauma played out publicly really without me even realizing it things that I

totally buried have come up and things um so I think that reclaiming my sexuality reclaiming my body and you know this is a conversation that I don't even really know how to get into. I've been trying to write about this for years, but there has been this awareness of how I feel that I regret being a slut, which I don't necessarily like saying because I really don't like slut shaming. But I also think that I was kind of lied to, and I'm not saying this as some victim, just that the culture was very much that if you use your sexuality, it is empowering. And I have found that to be the opposite. And it's been a long road of healing and self-esteem and in some cases abstinence and lots of dirt bags in my life before I came to realize that I really had no self-esteem. And if you're coming from that place and weaponizing or using your sexuality, and again, it's kind of like trying to find status or fill that hole. Stop it. Yeah. Sorry. No pun intended. With something else. First, you're talking about the men popping up in diners at boobs and now you're talking about filling the hole.

Good thing we have the explicit warning on this podcast. Everyone I go on always gets the explicit. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely been a journey for me to, to really see the, those, uh, that's, that's the weird thing is reclaiming my power as a woman, but actually coming from a place of self-esteem and confidence and not coming from a place of desperation or, um, no, I know exactly what you mean. You get, sometimes women will look at other women's, uh, behavior, you know, if it's promiscuous behavior and they go from man to man and you as a woman can see there's an issue there, like not in every case, but in a particular case, you can see a woman's looking for love and all the wrong places, right? Like she thinks it's going to be fulfilling. And you can say like, I don't, I don't like it. I wish you would make

a different choice. And the response to that cannot be your slut shaming. No, it isn't it. Like I'm trying to figure out why she's doing that and whether it's well-motivated. If you're just somebody who loves sex and you love multiple partners and you go in and out of it with a clear head, right on. That's not anybody's business. But I, like you, have seen a lot of girls, younger women in particular, late teens, early 20s, play this game where they mistake physical affection for love. It's somehow in the moment, an ego booster. And then after the fact, anything, but, and like a drug, they keep doing it over and over and expecting a different result, you know, like a drug and a crazy person. All right. If you go to the old definition and it's damaging, it's unhealthy. That's not judgment. That's keeping it real. Like,

yeah, that's not a good choice. It's certainly not a choice I want to see my daughter make. So we've weirdly, I feel like there was an overcorrection and then there now seems to be another strange pivot where there's, again, it seems there's a moral, it seems strange, but it's strangely coming from the left. There's a lot of weirdness around sex, which is something I wouldn't have necessarily expected. Wait, but what I don't follow because I don't read the confusion around sexuality and gender and the conversations around this are so confusing. And I think because of the Me Too movement, which is absolutely something that we needed, there again feels like there's an overcorrection and now we're having um just having to walk through every step of for instance a sexual interaction and getting affirmation every step of the way and having these what are normally awkward situations that we all have to go through and navigate, I feel like we're trying to hack our way out of it. And there's no way to avoid that awkwardness in sexuality. You will have to go through that, whether you go through it when you're 13 or 14, or whether you go through it when you're in your 20s. There's no way around that awkward learning about yourself. And I feel like now there is this very strange kind of trying to micromanage this process.

And it's not possible. It just seems like now kids are not having sex at all. You know, the numbers are, I think it's the first time in a generation that the generation below Gen X, Millennials, and then Gen Z are having less sex than ever before. I would attribute a lot of this to just being kind of addicted to their phones. And perhaps they're doing it in a more virtual way with sexting and whatever other ways they might be getting that fixed. But

it still seems like there's less in real life interactions happening. Well, it's interesting. So it's virtual and not virtuous. Abigail Schreier was saying something along these lines. She wasn't like, yeah, let's get all of our kids sexually active. But she was saying that one of the things you want to do in a young girl who, and you know, her, her theory based on a lot of research is that there's what's happening with our young teenage girls right now is a social contagion of transgender issues. And, and so in talking about, well, how can we prevent that in our daughters? She was saying, you should encourage your daughter to explore her own body, to be comfortable

with her own body. And again, she wasn't saying like, yeah, have her lose her virginity at age 15. But she was just saying, watch the shaming and things like that. It's normal for you to be curious about your body. For you, most women are straight. Most men are straight. To be attracted to the person of the opposite sex and to want to like figure that out a bit. And if you have too puritanical an approach, it can backfire in severe ways. And so you got to figure out how to thread that needle. So your kid treats themselves with respect, but doesn't get a

complex. Yeah. So I can't imagine being a parent right now, teens or young, even young kids coming up. There's so there seems to be so much confusion. And even just from the younger generation, the kids that I'm talking to, it just seems like there's a lot of fear. You know, they're an abnormal amount of fear. And I remember, I remember my, we all remember our first kiss. I hope most of us have the benefit of that first kiss. I remember mine, it was at a dare dance. And I remember going to the anti-drug thing. Yeah. You found another vice. Yeah. Right. Right. Um, I mean, it's ironic. And they, then I remember going to second base and I didn't lose my virginity until I was 17, which was actually pretty late for most of the girls in my high school had serious

boyfriends and were already sexually active just with one partner. And so it was pretty, I'm 40. I just turned 42. Okay. Okay. Keep going. Yeah. So I, I was of that, um, younger, I guess I'm an ex-annual technically. I'm like the younger end of Gen X. But I feel much more aligned with Gen X. And I just remember all of the awkwardness. And I wonder, this is why I'm not too judgmental of any of the kids in these positions is if I was a teenage girl, I hated being a woman. I hated it. I've had the worst penis envy my whole life. So much of my life has been defined by this, this just feeling like men had it easier. Writing for Playboy was eye-opening, really hearing men's struggles around things like erectile dysfunction,

balding, being short. I had no idea men suffered as much as women did. It was eye-opening for me because I always thought they just had it easier, period. And so that was just, I don't know if I lived in a culture where I could just all of a sudden decide that I could be another gender or not any gender when I was feeling awkward and my boobs were coming in and, and I was just the awkwardness of puberty. If I could have found some way to short circuit that or to, to change, I might've been all for it. Yeah. Yeah. I can't. Which would have created a whole host of new problems in your life. Yeah. No, but I, I think you have a, a, a great point. Which would have created a whole host of new problems in your life. Yeah. No, but I think you have a great point.

And also, you know, the number of layers now that we want to put between young men and women about to have sex for the first time, thanks to, you know, all of the awful incidents of assault and misunderstanding and actual rape and date rape and all of it. It's scary. You know, in addition to having a girl, I have two boys. And the last thing I want is for them to find themselves in a situation where they've had what they fully believe is a consensual sexual encounter, only to find out the next day the woman feels or is claiming she feels like she did not consent. And now they're being looked at as criminals. And that's why you have things like sign this piece of paper before I get on top of you. It's like insane. But on the other hand, you're like, shit, it's a really litigious society.

We are seeing women have what we used to call Sunday morning regrets, you know, which is not the withdrawal of consent. It's just you're sorry you did it. Now you want to blame somebody. And it terrifies me. I mean, back in my day, Bridget, I'm 50 now. My first experiences, I remember being like, no, no, no. But I did mean yes. And my no actually did mean yes. And I mean, I'm sorry. I'm not saying it does in every case. But I was just trying to be a good Catholic girl and protest when I didn't really protest. And now everything's on top. The world's on top, you know, it's upside down. It's, it's something I've really learned a lot from the younger women that I, when I was writing particularly about relationships and I, I definitely understand, you know, I was waiting tables up to three years ago. And I worked with a lot

of younger women. And they were so funny with the men who would touch their butt or all the guys who were in the restaurant industry. It's like if I fought every one of those battles, I would be fighting all day long. But these girls were like, don't touch me. Don't touch my calf. Don't do that. They had language for it and they would stick up for themselves. And I was so impressed with them. And I was like, wow, I never even thought to push back. I just kind of took it. And they're like, well, just because you old ladies took it doesn't mean we need to. And they're not completely wrong about that. That's awesome.

They definitely grew up in a... I'm happy for the younger women that they grew up in a culture where it's not acceptable that their manager is cruelly touching their leg when he's holding her while she's standing on a crate to get some coffee down. Those little things that happen, happen all the time. And it was great seeing these 19, 20-year-old women being like, don't touch my calf. You're making me uncomfortable. And yeah, no, that's, that's the good part of the meat. Yeah. That's the good stuff that came out. Yeah. There's so much. And this is, I've written a lot about this because I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. And, and then there's the other side where I, I just, they're just questions I have where I don't understand why too, if you're at college, you go get drunk, you both sleep together. Now men are reporting women and I don't have any numbers on this. I've just read a couple of stories about how there's a race to almost report because the first person who reports is it's the victim.

Exactly. And so there, there's this fear. And generally I don't understand why if a man and a woman are both intoxicated and they're, they're the same level of intoxication, you know, not a man who's slightly buzzed in a woman who's completely blacked out.

Why a woman, why she is kind of automatically deemed the victim in that situation? She shouldn't be. She shouldn't be. I mean, true equality means no, she doesn't get some special consideration just because she happens to be female and you can have female harassers and you actually can have female rapists. And I don't, I, if I were a man who thought a woman who was going to do that to me unfairly, I'd have I'd have to seriously consider that, too, because some women do use it. And that and that undermines all the real victims. It does. And and this was kind of my I'm I say this as a woman, just so your audience isn't thinking I'm this, you know, heartless person. I say this as a woman who is, who is drugged and raped when I was 18. So I had, and this was a situation where it was,

I was clearly the victim in a situation like this. And, and it's a lot of, you know, me too, all of this stuff that's come up, all of the Kavanaugh hearings were really hard. All of this has forced me to do a lot of work around that trauma that happened to me. But then seeing I'm a woman who believes in due process. And even if a bunch of women came forward, I would about the person who did it to me because I never said anything because I was so young and I felt bad and I felt ashamed and I felt like it was my fault and all this other crap that wasn't true. And I thought that he was, you know, I had I really had an interesting realization. This was the summer of Monica Lewinsky. And I remembered being, I remembered looking at what was happening with her or around the same time as Monica Lewinsky's stuff was going, you know,

very public. And I obviously thought I didn't stand a chance. I was looking at this poor woman who is 21 years old and seeing what, what was happening to her on a public level. I'm like, yeah, I'm not saying anything. And I wonder how many women who came around that era kind of was looking at this and feeling very similarly. So I just decided not to say anything. And and if somebody came forward now and accused him, I would definitely be right behind them. But I would also feel like he deserves his day in court. You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't be like, hey, let's go to Twitter and ruin his life. I would want to have him go through the process that everybody deserves. Well, so. So, yes, the, the me too movement was largely good,

largely good just because it wound up, I think dying as a political movement, it got hijacked by political people and used as a weapon, uh, which was always like Kavanaugh. Yeah. And so that's, that's when I said, you know, I, I don't want to associate with that term or these people, Alyssa Milano. No, she doesn't. She and I have nothing to do with one another. I believe in the noble effort to protect women in the workplace and women who are sexual assault victims and women who are placed in these impossible situations from the really severe to the one you mentioned of the waitresses. That's not okay. And it's right for women to stand up against it. Something not just when you were younger, we'd never been doing. We really as a gender had never been doing. I too was raised to think you just got to suck it up. And it's only very recently that I think women in this country have started to think, no, I don't. Actually, I don't. But to round back on your larger point, it's interesting to hear you say if someone came forward against your rapist, you would stand and say, me too. But is this somebody you've never named? Was there never any accountability even after those Monica Lewinsky years? Yeah, no. But what made me think about this was the whole Bill Cosby thing. And I wrote an essay just on Medium, Bill Cosby raped me, kind of. It's obviously not true. But it was me reacting to all these women coming forward. And my initial reaction was,

oh, isn't it a little late, ladies? Don't you think? And I was shocked at my own reaction to it because what happened to these women once I actually read about it is pretty much exactly what happened to me almost identically. And I really had to look at how much of the internalized shame still lived in me because I asked myself if a bunch of women from the, that, that time and place came forward and they said, this is, this happened to this,

to me with this person. Um, I would, I would definitely back them up. You know, I would definitely, um, but what would you go first? That's a great question.

I guess because it's been so long. I and I. That's a good question. I never even thought to. I never even until this moment you know I've told men and they're like I'll go kill him and then you end up kind of taking care of them emotionally when you're telling them this horrible thing guys don't do this um and and so I guess there's been moments but it's never really even occurred to me. I think it just seems like, um, something that I don't want to put myself through just because I've done. I respect that. I respect

just because I've done so much. Yeah. I mean, maybe I don't know that it's happened to anybody else. You know, I don't I only know that it happened to me. And I feel that. I guess it never even occurred to me to do that because I've done so much work around it myself. And I just feel like it was something. God, it was like over 20 years ago now. It's like, do what I want to relive that all over again for, I don't think so. I don't, I don't. That's, that's a very valid concern. I, I in no way think you are obligated to do anything there. I think you're obligated to do what's right for you. And that's why I hate when women who find themselves victim number nine somehow feel the need in the press.

It's never victims one through eight or rather victims 10 through whatever. The ones who came after don't blame them. But the press is constantly asking questions like, well, why didn't you? You know, like as if it's your fault, anything happened after you. And that's bullshit. You, every person has to do what's right for her. And this is not an, an, an area in which every woman is, wants to be Joan of Arc and totally understandable. These are deep wounds that are deeply affecting. Especially when you're 18, Bridget. It changed my life. You were a girl.

Oh, God. I mean, yeah. I wish I could go back and give that woman or girl. I felt so old. There had been so much stuff in my own family life that I already felt so old, but I wish that I could have given her the kind of compassion and just, I don't know. I didn't have the support that I think you should give somebody in those circumstances. And it ended up, it changed the way I felt about, I mean, I felt dirty for years,

years and dated men who didn't deserve me. And, um, yeah, I was in rehab for a heroin addiction a year later. It was not, you know, my drug use escalated drastically there. If there are moments in my life that are pivotal where you can put markers down as to my behavior going from one way to another, one would be my parents divorce. The other would be this. It was like I was kind of already slipping. I had been doing drinking and smoking pot all through high school and then everything just escalated. I could not get out of my brain fast enough. And then you put yourself in situations doing that that pile onto that shame and pile onto the feelings you're already feeling, which is why I think if you're a woman who's struggling with any of this or has had any abuse or any assault in their background, and then they're like, oh, I'm just going to try and sleep my way through this, which I really did try to do. I'll just try and weaponize sexuality and use it as a powerful tool. It was like a lie. I told myself for a really, really long time, a very, very, very long time. And it didn't really

start healing until I got sober. And I mean, for the past seven years, it's just been weeding through so much of all of that confusion and self-loathing and shame. And so, yeah, I guess it just never even occurred to me because I was really on just like a 20-year bender afterwards. And also just, you know, your character, again, I refer back to what I saw even someone like poor Monica go through. Your character just gets so assassinated. Even if I went on trial now for something like that, I asked myself, do I want to put myself through what their lawyers are going to put me through?

Here's everything we know about this girl from the past 20 years. And knowing my, my reaction to, um, you know, I was basically rehab right after that. So I, you'd get dragged through the mud, even if you didn't go criminally file, even if you just came out publicly, there's very little question you'd get, you get attacked as well. It's why it's like, it's totally personal. And it's not uncommon at all to, after a sexual assault or a rape, go from man to man, looking for a different result, looking to feel empowered, looking aimlessly for just something, something better than what came. I see your reminders when you reach your anniversary, your sobriety anniversary on Twitter, and you never make them about yourself. You always make

them about all the people who are out there struggling and how you're thinking about them and how you know how hard it is. And just hearing you sort of fill out the story makes it more meaningful and also selfless of you. I mean, I knew that you'd been addicted to drugs, including heroin. I mean, not that it's great to be addicted to cocaine, but heroin is its own special lane. But you're very giving to others, even in a form in which you're bullied mercilessly, right, in which people are nasty. I know you've called Twitter the high school. It's like a public high school again for adults. It really is.

So is that scary for you to be on there talking about things as deeply personal as this in a place that really is not safe and not necessarily rooting for you? That's another great question. I think I have to take breaks and make sure that I'm okay. And that I really, you know, I had a great experience. Um, there's this kind of idea that in recovery, no matter how far down the scale you've gone, you'll see that your experience can benefit others. And I never really understood how this can apply to all things. And I was in, um, a meeting one day and a girl walked in. This is pre-lockdown. And she was really young and she had this look on her face.

And I knew it right away. I was like, she looked like she'd been crying. And I was like, this girl is traumatized. This is not like I'm having a bad day in sobriety. Something happened. So I just sat next to her because I didn't want some like, you know, there's often like weird creepy guys in those rooms and whatever. They're just weird or like a busybody.

There's just all kinds of personalities and I love them all. But I've been around long enough to know that, you know, I felt protective of her immediately and she couldn't really stay present uh, present. And she, I was like, do you want to go outside and talk? And she went outside and her, she just kind of started confessing to me about what happened to her the night before. And it was exactly my story with variations, but very similar thing. And, um, I looked at her, she was the same age as me as when it happened to me, 18, 19. And I looked at her and I said, the same thing happened to me. And I'll never forget her looking at me and being like, really? Like that relief that somebody kind of understood. And she

said, what do I do? And I said, I don't know what to do, but I know what not to do. And it's everything I did. And so I said, let's go to a rape center. There's so many great resources in California in particular. And so we went, we did everything I didn't do. We went, she got a kid, she had counseling. They were amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. I would donate all my money to the work that these people do. It is unbelievable just the way they treated her and they gave her so many resources and, you know, she ended up, um, she was scared to tell her family. She ended up telling her mom things that I just didn't do. And now it's like amazing.

She's, she's, you know, been sober. I, it was just like, if I went through that to be it for that one moment in my life, it was worth it. It was 100% worth it. And I think that's kind of how to answer your larger question. I think that's how I look at the dealing with the kind of being open and then dealing with the thunderdome and the negativity. and reach out to one person who's depressed or anxious or has been sexually assaulted or feels crazy because they feel like they're politically homeless and no you know I hear this all the time is like thank you I just don't feel crazy any any of those that connection is worth it to me ultimately because what else is all the crap that I went through for, if not to try and lift other people up?

It just, I don't feel like a, you know, you said earlier that it's fearless and I don't, I don't feel like I'm fearless. That's one area where I might feel like I'm funny, but I don't feel like I'm fearless. That's something I feel like I'm just speaking.

It seems like pretty unremarkable kind of common sense things. I don't feel like I'm saying anything that's like radically. But knowing what's going to come your way. I mean, like that's that is what you do. But then you're very well aware of what's what's going to come back. I know you've talked about the messages back to you messages back to you aren't just like, you're wrong, you're stupid. It's you're a hack, you're worthless, you're garbage.

I mean, it's like the worst, the worst shit on there. I mean, Twitter is vitriolic and toxic. And so it is brave to be out there fighting on nonetheless, trying to create a soft landing space for people who are also hurting. And I just, I, I do have to tell the audience, I hope you don't mind. Um, that's how you and I first connected. I was, I was seeing you get retweeted by people I knew, and then I followed you. And it was literally, I mean, gosh, it was like almost to the day, I think, three months after I left NBC and I was still reeling and in a rough place mentally, just

upset and sad and very teary and not totally understanding what had just happened to me. And you DM'd me, you direct messaged me on Twitter. And I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to read what you wrote. You wrote, I wanted to say, I wanted to say, I love you. I'm so sorry what happened to you. And I know you'll land on your feet because you're strong and brilliant. You inspire me. And I wrote back. Thank you so much. You are so sweet. Just when I occasionally start to veer toward the place of do people get it? Do they see the truth? I get a message like yours and it shores me up. I'm doing well, enjoying some time with my family and deeply grateful for people like you. Oh, I, it's funny. I, you know, I think I underestimate how much something like that can mean from even just somebody, a random person. And I know now, but from my

perspective, just seeing, you know, you're in a different position completely, much more public, obviously a household name. It's like what I go through times a million. And so on days when I'm getting it, I do look to people like you or Oprah or people who have kind of carved their way. And I guess I felt really compelled to reach out because it had happened to me, but I don't, I guess I didn't think it was something that would even mean anything. You know, I'm like, I'm sure she's got tons of people around her.

It meant so much to me. And I do have people around me, but I, I, the fact that we didn't know each other made it all the more meaningful in a way. You know, that you had no reason to try to shore me up. You had no reason to say what you said. My good opinion of you wasn't relevant in your life. So it was sincere. That's how it felt. And it was just like one of those thank God moments, because when you're getting attacked and that the mob is coming for you, one of the things you do wonder is, can I still be seen?

Is the real me still still visible? Yeah. You know, I know who I am, but I'm I don't know if they've succeeded in just painting me as this vile person and whether I can still be seen in messages like that. Or I don't know, you know, I'll be sitting on the streets of New York and somebody will come over and say something lovely. And, you know, like, yeah, good for you for standing strong, this bullshit or that stuff. That's amazing. Right. And you, I know you're a big writer about grit, resilience for better, for worse. That's the kind of stuff that gives you grit and resilience.

If you don't fall down into a puddle and knock it back up, you emerge from those kinds of experiences grittier and more resilient and better able to fight the next one. It's though. And it is those random things that I can't tell you how every time I felt like giving up or just I'm not even giving up, just ask myself, why am I doing this? Why am I? It feels masochistic at this point. Why am I putting myself out there? And every single time I've had that thought, I've received an email or a DM or a random message from someone just out of the blue saying, I just want to thank you. And Glenn Beck gave me great advice. He said, keep all of those things in a file for the days

that you feel like when you're asking yourself, why am I doing this? I want to disappear. Because that's where I go to is I just want to disappear into the woods and have no Wi-Fi and become a writer or something, you know, or like a or a Unabomber. I don't know. I don't know what would happen to me alone with my tomato. Yeah. He wanted to be a writer. I feel like that's really what we're wrong. I think we figured it out. More with Bridget in just one second. But first, I shared a hot story a couple of weeks ago, and it nearly crushed the Scoremaster website. That's your power, people. That's your power. The story is this. The average American has 97 points, 97, that they can quickly add to their

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That's ScoreMaster.com slash MK. And now before we get back to Bridget, I want to bring to you a feature we call Real Talk here on the Megyn Kelly program, where we just talk about something in the news or something on my mind or, you know, something interesting and relevant and it being almost the new year. I want to just take a minute and talk about 2020 and the coming end to 2020. What a year, right? I do not agree that it was the worst year ever. Um, you know, I think some folks who lived during the Great Depression or during World War II or some other terrible times in our country's history, like slavery, might disagree that this

was the worst year ever, but it wasn't a great one in many ways either. Just looking back, and I hate to ever mention names because you always invariably leave one out. But some people who we loved very much in the public eye died. The year began, don't forget, with the death of Kobe Bryant. It seems like so long ago, the country's been through so much. That was so painful for everyone. And then we lost some greats like Chadwick Boseman. Herman Cain died. That was personally sad. Regis Philbin, Alex Trebek, people who have brought a lot of joy into a lot of homes. Um, and of course, COVID-19. COVID-19, that is what this year is going to be remembered for and the hell that it unleashed on the world. You know, the number of deaths, not just in our country, but in so many countries

and the pain, the financial pain caused by the pandemic and the quarantine and the shutdowns, the anger caused to business owners who just wanted a chance to make ends meet and were told no. The death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter protests in the street, the anger we saw, the craziness in places like Seattle, where all hell seemed to be breaking loose, the divisions that were sown in our country, both on cultural issues and political. As the election geared up, Joe Biden emerged as the victor over Bernie, over Bloomberg, to take on Donald Trump. The doubts Trump sowed about the election results and the ongoing anger over whether he got a fair shake. You know, the country suffered.

The wildfires out in California were still not healed from all of it. Definitely not healed, but we will be. We'll be okay. That's just the nature of America and Americans. You know, I saw one of those little memes online that had the number 13 saying, I'm the worst number. And the number 666 saying, no, I'm the worst number. And the number 2020 saying, bitches, please. Made me laugh. I don't know. It's not all bad. It wasn't all bad. I don't know about you, but I had time with my kids. I never dreamed I'd have, you know, and part of it was stressful for sure. Distance learning and all of it. Part of it was totally magical. Part of it was magical. And as I held my son, whose teacher died, Mr. Sorrell, who we all loved, I didn't know him,

but I loved him through Yates. I loved him through my son who loved him so much and talked about him all the time. And he got COVID-19 and died too young. But in the midst of all that, I was with him. I was there to hold him. We were together as a family and we had stolen moments that just otherwise wouldn't have come. One of those videos that was shared, there were so many funny ones, weren't there? During COVID, my favorite was of the woman, the blonde woman drinking the huge glass of wine outside going, you okay? You all right?

You need help? You're running. Oh, you're running by choice, right? She's like, anyway, it was great. And she goes, it's seven in the morning. Oh, you're running by choice, right? Anyway, it was great. And she was seven in the morning. What are you doing? She does it better than I did it, but it was a great one. But there were really good ones that help bring us together too. There was one that talked about sort of a bedtime story being read to children about COVID-19 and the quarantine. And it was about how, despite all the awfulness, all the lives lost, and the pain people felt, real tears fallen, there were these

moments of togetherness and reevaluation and new perspective, where the earth had a chance to heal in some ways. We gave it a break. You know, we let it breathe. Where overworked parents got some time to take a breath as well. Where kids who normally are run from one activity to another and then to a sport and then to a challenge after school or a club, instead had to sit at home with family and talk. Right. You can't spend every hour of the day on electronics. You know, there was more talking, there was more eating together as families or

as partners. And when you saw your friends, it was so joyful, right? It was so joyful when you got to see your friends, you got to see your mom for the first time in a long time. My friends and I did a beer pong, you know, flip cup via Zoom, which was hilarious. I'm like, things like that. That's what I'll remember. And then reuniting with them after so long and the way it made me feel, right? The way we're starting to feel now, we're not out of it, but we're almost out of it. The vaccines are coming. They're being distributed. They're being taken. And we're right around the corner, right around it from normalcy. One final piece of advice and thinking as we go into the new year.

Whenever I start the new year, I try to say, before I say happy new year, the one word or motivation that I want to channel this year. 99% of the time, it's love. And I just make that my own first word privately that I say, just as soon as the clock turns, uh, to the next year. Um, but it's something to consider doing. And after that, I actually think there's much more value in just taking it day by day, just taking it day by day and looking for little things to be grateful for in a day by day basis. As you know, I'm, I'm not big into the, though, if it helps you, I'm all for it.

I kind of do live my life in the moment and I think it's the key to health and well-being. Just look around you and figure out what makes you happy. Put some flowers up, you know, look out the window. If you don't like your view, try to improve it. Call a friend, do something small. You don't have to go for the home run, right? Just go for the single on a day-to-day basis though, and see how it makes you feel. But try to choose wellness. That's for sure. Try to choose wellness.

You know, the things that are good for you and little steps like that will get us out of 2020 into 2021, hopefully a little happier and a little wiser for the wear. Now back to our guest. I really loved what you said about, um, do people see me because we all, you know, there are parts of me there. We all become a little bit of a two-dimensional version of ourselves, particularly on social media. And then the world tends to kind of flatten the personality down to our worst moments or the worst tweets we've had in those moments when you might be going viral. And it is... I'm not even kidding when I say some of my favorite moments

are when I'm cleaning up my dog's poop in my backyard alone because I'm like, okay, you're Bridget. You're cleaning up your dog's poop. You know, you're just a little human trying to get through just like everyone else. There's lots of other people cleaning up their dog's poop right now. You're connected to them. You're in the, it's just that now. You're connected to them. It's just that grounding. I need to be grounded. And a lot of the people who reach out, and I will say this to the people who listen to people and have fans, and I consider them less fans and more just friends.

You never know. Reach out. Reach out to those people that you see. And also just like people in your life who are, who are going through it because you don't know when that is the right timed, exactly right timed message that somebody needed. You know, I'm getting more and more to the place in my life where I think, I was just saying this to Abby the other day that, that where I think that my assistant and like my little sister, um, I, I think when tough times come, I'm putting more and more value into getting yourself out of that place mentally, even when it's happening. Like it's cognitive behavioral therapy, but I used to be much more like, you've got to feel the pain in

order to get through the pain. Otherwise it'll all be bottled up inside of you and then it'll spill out in some negative way. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I, having been through quite a few of these, you know, public things that are painful personally, I really kind of think, do what you need to do to keep your mind off of the awfulness as it's happening. And then when your mind eventually does have to go back to the awfulness as it's happening. And then when your mind eventually does have to go back to the awfulness, hopefully it's not so bad. That's, that's kind of been my experience for me. Can I tell you the things that I did that like really helped me over the past couple of years? Um, number one, crossword puzzles. The New York times crossword puzzle is a

son of a bitch. Monday's wonderful. Tuesday's great. Wednesday's still doable. Thursday's an MF-er. Friday is okay. Saturday, I don't want to talk about. Anyway, it really does keep your mind off of problems because you must think. It's not even just mindless work, almost like a crossword puzzle. I mean, an actual puzzle, you know, where you could still think as you're looking for

the piece. Crossword puzzle, you have to be thinking using your head. So I really recommend that. I'm going to confess that my other vice that really helped keep my mind off my troubles was Dateline podcasts all about murder. Yeah, women, women and their murder, their murder. They're funny. I get it now. I used to think we were just sick. For me, it really takes your mind off of it. I think most women are obsessed with crime because let's face it, we're usually the murder victims.

Yeah. And we grow up knowing that we get exposed to the news. And I do think most women have terrible, not fantasies, but like nightmares about nightmares. Yeah, being killed. Yeah, it's my worst nightmare. Yeah. In a way, it's taking an awful thing and turning it into a slight positive for yourself mentally, only that not that you're reveling in somebody's murder, but it just gets your mind off of things. These are compelling, intriguing stories that you fear one day may have personal relevance, but you know, logically likely will not. And it's just, it's, it's jarring enough to get your mind off of it. Like if it were something like, I'm going to watch an old episode of Little House on the Prairie,

your mind would wander back. But you're talking about like a serious crime. No, it works. And the third thing I will confess, cause I've never been a big, well, I used to teach aerobics, but since I became a lawyer and like kind of gave up all things to working at the office, including working out, I haven't been a big exerciser, but I got into exercise. I started taking this thing called The Class here in New York City and it really helped, really helped. It's like getting in shape physically and group exercise with other people is before COVID. I loved it. And just for what it's worth for people who are out there struggling, I think some sort of group exercise where it's not

like a personal trainer. It's not like something where you could think, but stuff where you can't think. And before you know it, you're across the bridge and the water's less stormy. It's so true. We started doing these in my little community that I have in lockdown, I definitely need to sweat in order to stay sane. That's just been a huge part of even sobriety for me. But also just, I know that a 20 minute sweat can completely shift my brain chemistry and my entire perspective and mood. And then I started doing just these group workouts where I would stream the workout on Zoom with people in my Phetasy.com community, the women. And it's been amazing. It kept me so grounded.

We were accountable to each other. It's been something to just take our minds off being a lot of this stuff going. It's a half an hour, 45 minutes where we just get to focus on sweating. And there's a really big feeling of sisterhood. I definitely have to lean into that. I love the crossword puzzle is a good idea. I think that meditation has been life-changing for me just from looking at noticing my thoughts instead of identifying with every single one that has been just so helpful to me. I love pretty much any and all meditation apps, but I, I do, I do listen to Sam Harris's

a lot because his is a lot more, um, you know, science scientific in many ways. And see, I can't do meditation. I, when I sit there, it's same as me getting a massage where I'm like, ah, I'm drifting my problems, problems, problems. That's why I need it though. That's why I need it. But I can't, it's still there. The problem. Yeah. Like that's why I need something more demanding. I started with three minutes and now I can, now it's, now I love it's just, but it's, it's been the, it's just but it's it's been it's a challenge there are days it's absolutely a practice just noticing my mind and how different it is and where it's at every single day is fascinating it's just fascinating how about massage are you

when you get a massage can you quiet your mind I mean it's tough I'm pretty chatty a lot of the time but I I'm like the girl that gets a massage and just wants to know everything about the masseuse the entire time. So you're the one who ruins it for the rest of us. I try to relax. Yes. I try to relax. And it's, I do think that massage bodywork in general, acupuncture. There's something about acupuncture where you put that needle right between my eyes and my brain is like, like it just goes flatline. It's silent. It's just there's something about acupuncture that has been helpful. I've joked that it takes a village to keep me sober. The other thing that really helped me is being of service. I will say there's

a difference, I think, too, between... I mean, I don't know, maybe not. I think because one of the things I've noticed is grief behaves in a very different way than I think what you and I are talking about challenges in our life or picking or picking ourself back up or overcoming hardship. And then there's grief, which is like a completely other animal where you'll be standing in the grocery store and you'll start, you'll be fine cruising along and then you'll be crying. Grief is weird. I completely agree. Although I will say I was recently looking for this quote by Ethel Kennedy, you know, the, the matriarch of the Kennedy family, who's obviously she had two sons assassinated. There was so much tragedy in that family.

So much. I couldn't find the quote. I'm going to have to look it up. But it was somebody was asking her, how did you deal with all of this? You know, good God, how could you possibly? And her eldest son was killed in, I think, World War II in a plane crash. And how did you possibly know her eldest son was killed in like world war two and a plane crash. And how did you hear? And she, her answer was essentially, I just got through it. I just like, she didn't, she tried not to stay wallowed in it. You know, she was like onto the next thing.

And that's so much easier said than done. I know. I wish I had gotten to ask her those questions because I would have been like, well, but how, but what exactly? Like, what about when your mind got overwhelmed with sadness? Then, you know, how did you avoid that if you did? Or, you know, there's so much more to know because you're right. Grief is in a special category. But when you mention it, when you mention the word, I go right to the loss of my father. When you talk about grief, what what are to? Um, I lost a lot of friends young. So I, I mean, by the time I was 21 years old, there were just, I had been to so many young people's funerals that I was like, I cannot ever watch a parent bury their kid again. I, I just,

it was ridiculous. And I don't know if it was because I moved a lot. So I had a lot of different friends all over the place because I ran with them more. It was a lot of just young teenagers, drunk, getting killed by drivers, driving, really tragic, amazing lights. And I think about them still, still, still to this day. And so my mind goes to there. And then my grandparents were really hard. I feel like there's just been a lot of loss and a lot of loss around me. But I agree that there is something to be said for just... I also recommend therapy. My therapist has a great technique where when I'm in that kind of... If it's grief or even if I'm feeling sorry for myself, she says, self-pity is totally normal. It's not something you indulge in, but give yourself... If you're feeling grief or loss or you're feeling sorry for yourself, give yourself a time. She's like, close the blinds for two hours. Feel sorry for yourself.

Or maybe it's a day if it's something really bad and eat your ice cream and cry. But then you open the blinds and you basically put guardrails around it. Like, here's the time you're allowing yourself to feel this and allow yourself to feel all those feelings. Don't judge them, let them come and then open the blinds and start your day again. And I, I like that. That is how I used to, I see it by the way, I was talking about Rose Kennedy, not Ethel, but, um, that is how I used to see it. But I am telling you, I morphed away from that. I'm not sure you even need the couple of days. I, I might be becoming a true Irish woman and advising you to swallow all your feelings. I'm with you because I'm definitely the tough, I I'm not the friend people. They're like, Oh, you're my friend. I come to when I need my butt kicked. So I'm definitely not the friend that's going to coddle you. I'm the tough love friend.

I mean, I'm just like, bury that shit deep, like the greatest generation and get back out there. I think we're onto something. I think there's a reason they handled as much as they did without whining. You know, like my Nana, my Nana, she died in 2000, 2016, right after President Trump, right before President Trump was elected, she died. But she was born in 1915. So she was 101 when she died. And this is a woman who, you know, she went through the Great Depression.

She went through World War. She went through the Civil Rights Movement. She went through like all the stuff that she saw, the Vietnam war. And she had to drop out of high school to help support her family. And their money was tight. They had no dough, blah, blah, blah. She never complained about that stuff. She complained about like, she, she wanted to make sure she got the right table at the diner. She wanted her free bread. She wanted her senior citizens discount. It was that shit. You know, I was like, don't you worry about all this other nonsense. But wait, so I want to, I want to, I want to back up to a couple of things. Uh, number one, let's not, let's not move on without spending a minute on

Oprah because I've had evolving feelings on Oprah. And I, I heard you, you said you loved her. I used to be obsessed with Oprah, obsessed. I wanted to be just like her. I loved her show. I want to tell my Oprah story. She was so helpful to me. You know, just I didn't know her. I just mean her show. I found it so inspirational. She was just in my head, like her advice over the years, whether it was about physical safety or mental well-being or dealing with tragedy, blah, blah, blah. But I didn't like it when she got political, even though I'm an independent, you know, it wasn't like, Oh, how could she support Barack Obama? I was like, okay. Then she seemed to get more and more political. And I, I started to feel a distance from her, which is why they say you

shouldn't go political because you're going to create a distance between you and at least half your audience. I felt that. And then she started started to sign on to some of the victimization talk that we're hearing now, which she had never, ever done before. This is a country that's made her a billionaire a couple times over. She literally lives in a ranch called the promised land. I don't think a lot of people want to hear about how hard she's had it as a black woman in America. I really don't. I think it's like Meghan Markle, like you married a prince live in a. I really don't. I think it's like Meghan Markle. Like you married a prince, live in a castle.

Boo fucking hoo. No one feels sorry for you. And so she started to lose me because she just started to sound more leftist in her narrative and less inclusive. And I just sort of felt myself like separating from her, like in the long hallway in the movie theater where you get pulled apart and you're reaching out for the other person. Of course, she wasn't reaching out for me at all, but I was reaching out for her. And then before I knew it, I could no longer see her. Here's my theory on this, and it's based on a tweet. I was tweeting about somebody who was going off on billionaires and they were talking.

I think it was when, um, the Howard, whatever, the guy who started a Starbucks, what's his name? Schwartz. Is that his name? Um, Schultz. Thank you. He, when he was running for president, they were all like, Oh, a billionaire, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, so you guys are going to be mad if Oprah ran for president. And I was schooled by all of the blue check leftists who thought, oh, you thought you were funny and dunking. And they were like, yeah, we would this is we do think that she's that it would be bad and that it's bad that she's a billionaire because a billionaire is a failed policy. This is like that that kind of rhetoric. And I was shocked. I was really surprised to hear this because here to me,

Oprah is the epitome of the American dream. Somebody who picked herself up, overcame her own internal demons, started an empire, helped millions and billions of people and made her own way and made billions of dollars. You would think this is somebody that they would say, hey, look, this is my theory is that Oprah sees that,

that this is actually a class war and that there is some resentment towards her because she's a billionaire. And so she's pivoting into that place that you are talking about to try and maintain a connection to who she thinks is her audience. This is only my theory. Now, I went to the taping of Ellen and Oprah that happened recently in the past couple of years. Say what you will about Oprah or Ellen. They were dancing with this woman who I came to find out had a couple of years. Say what you will about Oprah or Ellen. They were dancing with this woman who

I came to find out had a couple of months. Her husband was sitting there crying. I'm like, these people, they move people. Oprah has been in people's lives and hearts and minds, but then they sat down and had the most unrelatable conversation that I've ever heard in my life. Because here you have a lesbian woman and a black woman who are basically, I mean, billionaires. I don't know that Ellen is yet, but I'm sure she's on her way. And they're talking about, joking about how they wanted to buy all the property. I don't know if it's ever aired. I hope I don't get in trouble for telling you the story. I think, I don't know. So they're talking about how they were joking about how they were were neighbors at one point and then they weren't. And then they're like, we should just buy all the property in between our new

houses. And I was laughing, but I'm like, this is probably not the most relatable story to be telling. That's that's one of the problems. I mean, listen, I hate wealth shaming because it's part of the American dream. But it definitely I think for Oprah to sort of pretend that she's still a woman of the people while she's out there every other weekend on David Geffen's yacht. Maybe it's time to admit that's been like about 50 years since you really understood how anybody lives in America. And that'd be fine. You know, like you've got to own that. But Ellen does have something like I don't even know how many houses, dozens and dozens of houses. And yet she's supposed to be America's sweetheart. And then all these reports come out about how nasty she is. People do do that to you when you're well known. But I will say in the case of Ellen, I know somebody

whose sister worked for her who just had the most awful things to say. So I've heard the opposite, though, from people who have worked for her who say she's lovely. So it's I mean, that's all that seems to me like it. I don't necessarily want to litigate whether Ellen is a horrible person or not. I do. I just don't. It's funny to me that I feel like so much of the divide that's happening in America is a class war. It's much easier to keep us divided by race. This is something I've been talking a lot about and by

victimhood and by this oppression Olympics and dividing us all up into groups then because the American working class, if we were all not divided like we are, we'd be an enormously powerful block of people. And it's much, I just think that these, there is a lack of, this is the funny thing about once you are wealthy, you do just lose touch. You saw this, we saw this recently with Cardi B tweeting about her $88,000 person, whether or not she should buy it. And her audience came for her. And, you know, this is and I was joking on Twitter like this is a woman who promoted Bernie and like you fed this beast. You said there is absolutely a resentment towards wealth. And I would say that Ellen and Oprah, for all of their personal flaws, like whatever they might be, they have touched millions of people and they've brought joy into the hearts of millions of people and help people get through struggles. And they are massive because that's what they've done.

You know that they built their empires on truly connecting to people. And that is. But I don't think any And that is, I don't begrudge them any of that money. But don't you see it? Like, I don't begrudge them any one ounce of their success. It's all earned. But the problem is, in both cases, really, they got very political. I mean, Oprah got very political and alienated half of her base. You know, I mean, I don't know a lot of Republicans who still love Oprah. And same with Ellen, who said, you know, I mean, I, I don't know a lot of Republicans who still love Oprah and same with Ellen who said, you know, she would never let Trump come on her show. She got shamed after that picture with George W. Bush. And then it was just like coming for it. That's a hundred percent

when they started coming from her. And instead of, you know, that being like a moment of Kumbaya, it was a moment of Ellen sucks. I mean, that's our country right now, but I do think if you're, if you want that universal love and you want to be that transformative figure, you got to stay apolitical as hard as it may be. You got to do it. You got to be a Dolly Parton, you know, or a Betty White who never touches it. Cause it's just, yeah, as you well know, when you get political, people get angry. They get angry with you. How do you think they do that, though? So, A, I would never, if they feel that it's their, this is where I feel really conflicted about these things, because if somebody has that kind of platform and wealth, I feel like it's well within their

rights to say whatever they want to say. And if they feel like they need to get political at the risk of alienating their audience, I think J.K. Rowling is a perfect example of someone who might be doing exactly this. Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I just think be prepared. Be prepared for what's coming, because right. You will like Ellen's learning. You will no longer be America's sweetheart. You know, and like you can't hold both roles. I do. I do. Because I think most public people need that affirmation. I do. I think it's a lifeblood.

I mean, I wonder, that's what's so interesting is that you become kind of disconnected, I think, by the sake. I dated a very wealthy man who's in that level of wealth. And it was, I call it the zoo of the 0.01%. I'm like, this is another league entirely when you're that wealthy. It's so to finish my Oprah story, I was she's after she does her whole little talk, she's standing kind of right in front of me and the crowd is is waving. And she basically puts her hand up like a queen and is just letting people kind of touch

her hand. Like she's royalty. You hated yourself for wanting to do it, didn't you? Oh, no, I absolutely. It was funny because I was like, I'm touching her hand. And I was like, I hope I get Oprah's pneumonia because she just talked about how she had pneumonia. And it was just a funny, it was a really, it was really interesting because I have, I think there's what we view these people as, then you see them as people. But like I said, I mean, I was at a show at Coachella and VIP once and Beyonce and Jay-Z, I felt them walking towards me from behind before I turned around. You could feel their star power is just... That level of star power is so crazy. Rihanna, I was at a restaurant once and Rihanna came in. And their level of star power is... It's like something I've never seen in my life. And that has got to alter you, like your brain chemistry. When you have everyone around you, I don't even know how you how can you possibly stay normal in those conditions? That's like Rosie O'Donnell when she used to be a nice and famous. She she openly guys love her, too. Boy, oh, boy, did she change. But she thought she could go through the red light without, you know, like that she was entitled.

So it can be you see this with celebrities like Tom Cruise or whatever. They morph into otherness because that that level of fame and money. I don't think it's good. I definitely don't aspire to it. So long. I mean, and this is the question. Do you so do you aspire to be not political? No, I don't. I have no aspirations. I don't. I want to be a good mom. And I am. You know, it's like I wasn't. And then and then I

changed my life. And now I am. I wasn't like a bad mom. I just wasn't a present mom. Right. But honestly, other than that, I want to do right by others while I'm here. I don't care. I never even now. OK, now I have dough in the bank and I am well known, but I don't really give a damn. And it was that was never the goal.

My goal was always to do well. I love to be excellent at something, but it wasn't even to be relevant. It certainly wasn't to have power. It was just the, the, the joy of a job well done. That is a pleasure. And I'd like to continue having that feeling. And I, you know, I can, I, one of the things I love about journalism is each day, you know, it's a show and you have the chance of doing, if not the perfect show, then close to it. And if you don't, tomorrow's another day. You could try it again. Whereas the law was incredibly frustrating because it never went away. It was just this mountain of paper that continued to build, increasing acrimony, nuclear war style, you know, fighting. And you could you could say hand in the perfect brief, but there's just be no time to sit and enjoy the spiking of the ball is on to the next battle and the never ending fight. So I don't know that that's one of the few things I can say that's positive about journalism. Is it is it just is it just that you I guess my question is what I, I'm not surprised by Oprah's kind of pivot to where she pivoted.

I don't necessarily agree with everything she's saying. And I guess I haven't really, yeah, I guess I haven't listened to her as much. You know, I, I, I really don't, I, I think I understand what you're saying and that it does cause a disconnect. But I don't know if that disconnect is because she just hasn't really been connected to the common person and now she's trying to reconnect through politics. And oh, so my other question is, do you think that they

feel pressured? You know, there's an enormous amount of pressure for people all the time, which I think is crazy. And I'm always saying this people during running up to the election, when I was saying I wasn't voting for anyone, people were like, this is just shameful. You, it's your, you need to speak out. You people are bullying me basically into being a bully. They want me. Everyone who has a platform is supposed to speak their opinion and tell people other people what to do. And I'm I'm not even I feel no I'm not really it's not my place to tell people what to do. It's I have no desire to do that. That's not what I'm here to do. And I,

who am I to tell anybody what to do? I don't know anything. I know a little bit about my life and even that is questionable. And I think people would like Oprah and Ellen, you know, this whole idea of like silence is violence. That's kind of taken over our culture is what are they supposed to do if they if they're silent? Sadly, all the people who are telling you you had to speak out, you had a responsibility work in the

straight news roles of CNN, totally misunderstood what their role is as well. But no, I am. I look, I'm a news person, so I don't really have any obligation to tell people my opinion on, you know, how they should vote. And I, I wouldn't, you know, I can help them understand the issues and I can certainly try to separate nonsense from fact. But I've never been somebody who tells you who to vote for. And I've never revealed who I voted for ever. And I, and I wouldn't. It's just, I agree. For me, it's not, it's not my place. And I know you're not a sort of straight news journalist. You're a commentator, but you don't have to take that on as bullshit. Somebody else putting their shit onto you. You don't need to take that. Everybody else can figure it out. And I think the big thing with Oprah was she was looking at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And here, Oprah is the most famous black woman in America. And her audience was mostly women. And I think people were wondering if it was somehow a betrayal, you know, that she went with the guy. Yes, he's a black man, but she went with the guy instead of the woman. And, you know, she sort of had a choice to make. And she some of her audience felt abandoned. Some Republicans felt abandoned. Some women who wanted Hillary felt

abandoned. It's once you go political, it's fraught. All right. Let me take a step back with you, because we did jump. We started at the end. Well, not theught. All right. Let me take a step back with you because we did jump. We started at the end. Well, not the end of your story. Let's certainly hope that's not the case. We started at the current day. It might be after this podcast, Megan. And only if Ellen and Oprah are listening. I love them. I love them both. We have to go back to not the very beginning, but I did in reading your story. Gosh, I felt for you because you talked about how all of your middle school report cards said extremely bright that you were a model of discipline. You bet your cousin you were going to get into an Ivy League college. And all the while you had no idea what was coming. Chaos and a life that would be

upended very shortly. When I learned that it was because of your parents' divorce, that I didn't understand since so many kids get divorced and it's hard, but it doesn't normally lead to as much awfulness that came into your life. So what, what specifically do you think changed your life? Well, we moved away from my dad and my kind of whole family support system. So that was one thing. I would also say, gosh, it's so hard because I don't really love talking about like other people in my family story. It feels like airing dirty laundry, but my, my, um, my stepdad was kind of fraught with a lot of challenges. Uh, the, I don't know that my mom was aware of when they got together. Although, I mean, even as a 13 year old, I pretty much could have seen that the writing on the wall was not great. Um, and it, he kind of dominated her attention from thereafter. And it caused a lot.

It was very, very, very dysfunctional and chaotic. And we never really knew what to expect. My younger brother moved out pretty early back to live with my dad. And then there are, uh, four girls in my family. So we were there and it was, it was just, uh, a lot of mental illness and, um, kind of in and out of mental wards and uncertainty and, and, uh, yeah, that, I think that just the, that chaos and trying to cope with that and then just being isolated, those two things combined really after a while. And this is why I have so much compassion for even let's, you know, seeing these lockdowns and what's happening with the schools and I'll see people and they'll say, oh, the schools need to be locked down.

I'm like, well, you must come from a great family. Because for me, school was, even though I didn't want to necessarily be in school, it was, I never knew what I was coming home to. It was an escape from a lot of the chaos. And at a certain point, it becomes very hard to care about your grades. If your mom is in a ball on the floor and your stepdad, you don't know where he is and if he's even dead or alive. Those things become... Grades start seeming very adorable and simple. And all of a sudden, you're taking on grown-up problems and you're around very serious things. And I think that I just really lost my way. I feel like I've lost myself many times in life. And that was the beginning of a long loss of myself and who I was and and and potential. Could you not go to live with your dad when things got like that? I could, and I did my senior year. So I went, um, after my junior year, I went and lived with him for

half of a year, but then my little sisters were calling and crying. And I mean, my mom and I were very connected and I felt like I was her kind of best friend in many respects and her confidant, which I do not recommend if you're a mother out there. And I couldn't live with myself. I felt like I was abandoning my younger siblings. Whether or not any of this was true, any of it, obviously looking back,

none of this was my responsibility. None of this fell on my shoulders. I couldn't have saved my mom. I didn't go to college where I wanted to go because I thought I needed to be near my mom and my stepdad. One of the biggest mistakes of my life when I did go to half of a year of college was doing that and being still so close. It was a very dysfunctional codependent. We protected her. My dad really didn't even know. My aunts and uncles have since come out and said, we had no idea what was going on in the house. And again, if you looked at our behavior, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out something's going on. These kids are acting out. These were really well behaved kids and now they're partying and doing all kinds of, of nonsensical things. But, uh, there,

there wasn't much, my dad was kind of, I think just wrapped up in his new relationship. And, um, we, I just always joke, my, my siblings and I always joke, you know, we did a really horrible job raising our parents. No, but you're right. Like I remember when I was a teenager, I was saying something to my mom about, you know, being friends and, and it was a kind, lighthearted moment. It wasn't something profound between the two of us, but she stopped me right then and there and said, I'm not your friend, Megan.

I have enough friends. So do you. I'm your mother. That's good. I mean, at the time I was wounded at the time I was like, wow, harsh. But now I look back and I'm like, you know what? She was exactly right. And she was creating a boundary that was important. That's an important boundary, a healthy boundary. Yeah. And I, I really, again, I have, I, I will, I will say that my mom and I didn't talk for maybe six or seven years at certain points in my life. And we've been through hell and back together and we have a loving, compassionate relationship now where I feel it's, we're building more and there's a lot of forgiveness on both of our ends and, and just healing. Um, and she's, I can't walk a mile in

her shoes. She had five kids under the age of basically seven. We were all like a year and a half apart. Yeah, all in diapers. We moved every year and a half when we were with my dad. So she was, we weren't wealthy. So she was unpacking boxes, getting us in different schools, getting us different piano teachers, doctors.

I mean, you know what goes into having kids. And she was doing that with five of us every single year and a half. And I don't know, I don't know. I don't know how she stayed sane. It's not, it's not, it's not, she, I don't know how she did it. And no, I look at women who are doing that. I mean, then and now, and I'm not saying anything about your mom, but a lot of them develop substance abuse problems and other ways of coping because it's really hard when you're, when you have no help like that, especially no, no help from the father. Right. It's like start there. I mean, just having a partner makes all the difference. And then if you don't have that, you don't have help. You don't have a babysitter or a nanny or you're like a close family friend is going to

help you and you have to put bread on the table like that would drive most people to drink. I mean, it's. Yeah. And she wasn't like a substance abuser. No, I haven't gleaned that. I haven't gleaned that from what you took on that role. Yeah, no, she she was really kind of against all that stuff, which was it's my there's a lot more of that on my father's side, just being Irish Catholic. And, you know, just to kind of circle back and, and make one point I wanted to make earlier to say, we, I jokingly say, you know, bury it like the greatest generation, but I also did see the effect that that had on my grandfather who was in war

and never spoke about it and buried it deep. And it manifested in all kinds of substance abuse issues that had a big effect on things in his life later. So I do think there's a balance that we have to find in our lives. I'm a big proponent of dealing with that stuff and talking about it, even if it's with a professional so that you aren't necessarily self-medicating through some of that pain that the greatest generation buried. But you can't do the New York Times and listen to Dateline 24-7. At some point, you're going to have to reflect and hopefully learn. But yeah. So what happened with you?

Because you started like a lot of kids with drinking. Yeah. And then pot. I mean, I knew a lot. Do you believe I've never tried pot? I can see that. You can see that. I mean, I've been drinking sadly since my teenage years,

but I've just never gravitated toward it i don't know my my mother really did stigmatize it in my head and i was like at my school it was like something out of a movie there were clicks there were like they call them the swelts the dirties the creamies the jocks it truly was like uh like one of those movies and the dirties were the ones who who did drugs and pot was a drug and i was like like, well, I'm not a dirty. So I'm not going to, you know, like I was a swelt. The swelts drank. So I drank, which I wish I hadn't.

I really if I could go back into my high school years, I really wish I hadn't started drinking. I wish I had kept sort of that young, healthy body healthy for longer, you know, but I keep I was joked to Doug. Now my husband, I'm like, we have like two more years. My oldest is 11. We had two more years and then we have to convert to Mormonism. I really, I want like, I love how like the Mormons, they don't drink and they don't do drugs and they always stay a tight knit family. I'm like, this Catholicism Presbyterian thing, it doesn't work out. People do drink and they leave their mommies. And I don't, anyway, I digress. But so you start by a little drinking and some pot.

And then how, how does it take the next step? I mean, pot was my true love actually. And I just, I still, if I was to say I miss anything in sobriety, I still have moments of missing pot. It was from the minute I smoked it, I was just a daily smoker basically. And that was when I was 14 or 15. I started drinking. I loved the oblivion that drinking brought me. I never drank to fit in. I drank to fit in and that it's easy to move schools and find the party crew anywhere you go. It's much easier than having to just be myself. But I didn't necessarily drink to be more social. I'm pretty chatty and social anyway, but I really loved the just oblivion that came with drinking and my mind kind of shutting off, which is why I inevitably think I found heroin to be in my life. And then I did, you know, some psychedelics in high school.

It was pretty normal, not normal. Looking back, I was a fully functioning alcoholic probably by the time I was 16. And I think I knew it and pothead. And then I started doing harder drugs when that first right after that summer. And then that first year in college, I think the first real like white powder I ever did was speed, which I hated. I hated it. I hated it. I couldn't. All right. This is a dumb question from somebody who's never done a drug. Is speed the same thing as cocaine? No. So this is more what we would think of like crystal meth now. I guess we called it speed back then, but now I think it's pretty much just crystal meth. And so it was very, it just made your brain race and no cocaine is I, I had many years of that

too. Uh, that went hand in hand with the restaurant industry and drinking and just the entire restaurant that, that rut that I was in, in a resort town, those things are all, um, just part, part and parcel of the whole kind of lifestyle that you live. And, um, so that's after this, I was later after rehab. So then I started, um, then I got introduced, Then I started doing, I think I tried cocaine around that time. I dabbled in things and then I ended up getting together with a guy who was, he had access to a lot of these other drugs and then started doing that. But it was, it was a very quick bottom for me. I was pretty much in rehab a year after I started doing heavy drugs, any of them. Like I started doing, sorry, go on. He's the one who introduced heroin to you? Yes. And other drugs. I mean, we were doing all kinds of drugs, cocaine. I think crack. There was some crack in there. That was a that was a very God that that it seems like another person. I when I think of that girl and that time in my life, I was so, and then going to rehab for seven

months, I was in a halfway house. I was just, and then getting out of rehab and what followed, which was even crazier, just in personal stuff. And then I ended up moving here when I was 20. I moved to LA. And then I was back doing drugs again. And then I would kind of rescue myself and pull myself back from the brink and stop doing hard drugs and only smoke weed or stop drinking for a while. And then I moved back east to try and repair things with my family. And I was only going to stay there. But then I ended up marrying a Belarusian and I joked that I married him in a year-long blackout. It's not entirely false. And we were together for a while

and both in the restaurant industry. And so, yeah, it really started that year right out of high school, the harder drugs, and then it just escalated. Because I do wonder if even though you've taken drugs before, is there a moment before you you take heroin that you stop even in that state and say, well, this is an escalation? I remember I smoked it the first time and I remember vividly knowing I was crossing an invisible line that I had put down in the city. You know, it's like even doing math, which I hated.

I have a journal where I was always writing and I have a journal where I was just trying basically to write myself down from the high because I was, I felt like I was losing my mind. Your mind just races. And I, I knew that that was an escalation. I remember vividly the first time because you kind of chase that emptiness forever and things just got, I was just so, I don't know why no one noticed. I don't, that's what's so crazy to me. I was so clearly, I was 89 pounds, Megan. Like ribs. I had a horrible cough because I primarily smoked it and snorted it. And I had a, but because I primarily smoked it and snorted it. But because I was

chasing the dragon, you put tar on a piece of tinfoil and the whole process is very ritualized, like all drug use ends up being. But it just destroys your lungs. I mean, you're inhaling chemicals from the tinfoil, you're inhaling horrible black tar. So I had bronchitis and this was one of, you know, there's a lot of shameful moments in my life. And my grandmother, who was the greatest generation, Irish Stoic woman, she, one day we were driving, she was driving me somewhere and she had this pickup truck. She was just such a character. And she said, you need to watch out Bridget because you have the gene. And she was kind of referring the gene that my grandfather had. And she, she just saw it in me.

She was probably the first and only person who really saw it. And she said, you have to be careful. And I was like, whatever, ma'am. I don't know. Okay. And I was, uh, I was on heroin at her funeral. I was, I was, um, she died when I was like in the middle. Oh, oh, that time of my life was so dark. It was like, as I just remember feeling so alone and feeling so lost. And then she went into the hospital and it was like, Mame was invincible. She was like the person I thought she'd still be alive. I never thought she'd die. I certainly didn't think she would die before my grandfather who almost died in my childhood. They gave him his last rites. They still have no idea how he even survived that. Um, he's now

passed away as well, but, um, we all thought grandpa would go before her. He had so many health problems and, um, she just went into the hospital with this lung thing and died. Like it just happened. It was a rare lung disease. I can't remember the name of it. And I was kind of in the midst of it. And I had just been home visiting and I was so sick. I had bronchitis and, um, I came back and then she died like two days later. And then I had to fly back East. I was in Minnesota at the time. And I had to speak at her funeral. And I remember being high and like having to write this eulogy and being so ashamed that she was, A, the last time I saw her, I was just so messed up. And B, that she was right. I knew she was right. I knew while I was standing there at her funeral. I think everyone around me was just so shocked and grief-stricken

that they didn't notice that I was on the roof smoking heroin before I was going to her funeral. And it was like, I don't think I've ever even talked about this publicly. It took me three months to even talk about it in rehab because I felt like the guilt that I felt. And then I ended up really, I mean, that was another thing that I just spiraled out. And I think the week before I went into my, my, the only rehab I've been in was that rehab then, although that's not when I got sober fine forever. And finally, but I, I would jump in and ask you something about that. Why, why did you feel guilty about that? Uh, I felt guilty that I was on drugs at her funeral. Like I just felt horrible. This is, and she warned me that I was, that I was on drugs at her funeral. Like I just felt horrible. And she warned me that I was, that I had that gene and I just felt guilty. Like it felt disrespectful to her to be in that state.

It still feels disrespectful to her. I still feel like I, you know, I think part of the thing that keeps me sober, I have, I'm looking at a picture of her right now on her wedding day. I stay sober for her, you know, part of the living amends that I make. And there are many. But one of the biggest ones is to her, to just live every day sober in her honor because she was right. And I have to remember that. And I have to remember that on those days

when I'm like, I don't want to be sober anymore. I don't want to be in my head that it's a way of honoring her life and honoring everything that she so selflessly gave to all of us. She was just so giving and amazing by staying sober. And that guilt, I mean, I lived in the shadow of that guilt for a long, long time. It's so upsetting to me. It's so, it's. But it's so, when you think about it, but when you think about it, it's, it's, it's so crazy, right? Because she loved you and

she saw, and she tried to throw you a lifeline, which you caught, you know, and you didn't use it immediately, but you did catch it and you got yourself out. She, she wouldn't give a shit that you were high at her funeral. She wouldn't have cared about that. You know that in your head, right? Like she would have wanted what was best for you. She would have wanted you to just get well. And not only have you gotten well, you're living a well life. Yeah, I try. I mean, she's, I miss, I miss both of them every day. I mean, they were both just so, they really did take care of us when we would, because after my parents got divorced, we would go, we were with my, we barely saw my dad,

but we would go spend summers with him sometimes. And they would end up taking care of us basically. And we were like these feral children who had no parents. We would be, you know, my aunts and uncles joke, like we were these like grimy little teens who are totally underweight and we'd be eating, you know, raw spaghetti, drinking pickle juice. Is this Minnesota? This was in Rhode Island, which is where my grandparents were. So, and we moved to Minnesota. I was born in New York City and then moved every year and a half. We were in Connecticut. We were in Minnesota. We were kind of all over the United States. But my family's from Rhode Island. And so that was really just the home base. And it's where my

dad ended up going back to after my parents split up. And now most of my family is in the Northeast. But that was really the only real stability I had in my life was them, was my grandparents. That can make all the difference. You know, I know a lot of people who have parents who are not that great and but who have great grandparents who step up and a grandparent can save you. Yeah. I mean, I think they tried and, and my, I really do. I did. They did. And I do believe that my parents did. I do believe that crap that

people are doing the best that they can, even though I've had a hilarious conversations with Pete. I once had an Uber driver and he was talking about his brother and how he was on cocaine. And I'm like, well, just try and remember he's doing the best he can with what he has. And he's like, no, he's not. Oh my God. And I'll never forget that because I was like, okay, fair enough. He's like, he's being lazy. How did you get that deep into conversation with an Uber driver? Was it a very, very long ride? No, it's just, I mean, that's just me. I like you're the one who talks to the massage therapist. What am I saying? Again, the one who ruins it for all of us. I don't do not want to chit chat while you were rubbing my behind. I'm the girl on the plane that will be like, tell me your whole life story.

Oh my God. You're my worst nightmare. I'm like, lady, can you see I have headphones on? That's a universal time where I don't want to talk. I'll leave people with headphones alone. But I have met some amazing people on planes that I'm still friends with. Oh, you are. Oh, okay. Now wait, this is a great transition. I was on a plane, I don't know, 15 years ago, not even happened to be seated next to the man who had just bought penthouse out of bankruptcy from Bob Guccione. And it was a fascinating plane ride. I did not have the headphones on in that ride. And he was a great conversationalist. He was telling me his wife was a fan. So we wound up chatting. He asked me if I would talk to his wife before we took off. I said, sure. He called her blah, blah, blah. So he, he's telling me all about, he was a real estate guy from Ohio who wound up, you know,

owning this pornography magazine. And, um, next thing, and they also owned properties that, you know, had actual porn on them, you know, like live porn, I guess you should say porn on video, whatever. Um, and he, he would go to the porn Oscars every year, you know, where like you you'd win like best anal. And Oh yeah. Yeah. The ABN. Right. And the girls would be like, yay. You know, I won. And I was thinking, Oh, it's confusing. Um, anyway, we had a great airplane ride together and listening to his world was really interesting. So I get back to Fox sitting in my office and the mailman comes in with this box that is like two feet by two and a half feet and all over the box. I mean, every square inch of the box reads penthouse, penthouse, penthouse, penthouse, penthouse, penthouse,

penthouse, penthouse. And of course, the mailman's got eyes as big as silver dollars. He's like, whoa, what's this? I'm like, oh boy. I open it up and it is a huge book that is a retrospective to 30 years of penthouse covers. And it's on the cover of the book is a very ungroomed circa 1972 picture of Madonna, the singer Madonna in full, you know, full regalia. So, and then I open it up. It's all penthouses, greatest centerfolds. But I'm thinking, oh my God,

like where am I going to put this? Where does this go in somebody's house? And as it turns out, it's actually right next to Doug's side of the bed, which is not there for the reasons you think, but it makes a great conversation piece whenever we tour somebody through the house. you weren't with penthouse but you were with playboy writing you're like the one girl who could both be in in playboy and write for playboy i mean like that's not the only one i don't mean to diminish the others but i'm just saying it's rare to have both a rocking body like you do and the smarts to write an article that could appear in there and um maybe deborah so too she's writing for them she's also gorgeous um but, so I know you're a writer and I get writing for Playboy, but let's just rounding back to the naked Bridget. Like, what do you get out of that? Because I know you don't go like full frontal, but you definitely post naked top pictures of yourself a lot. And I know you like it like you're getting something out of it. What are you getting out of it? Well, I mean, I don't do it as much anymore. Um, uh, because I'm married, which no one knows. And I was going to tell you right now. Yeah, no, I just got married on

November 10th. I know. Thank you. Thank you. Who'd you marry? Oh, I hope it married on November 10th. Bridget. I know. Best wishes. I know. Thank you. Thank you. Who'd you marry? Oh, I hope it was the rich guy. No, no.

Damn. He's the opposite of a rich guy. No, he's a, we met in recovery and he is a therapist and also works at a nautical themed grocery store. And yeah, we met. It's a crazy story. We met in recovery like a couple years ago and had a whirlwind romance, but he was pretty new in recovery and I never felt okay. I was like, I'm robbing you of this first year that's so important because I know what it's like to get sober and I know felt okay. I was like, I'm robbing you of this first year that's so important because I know what it's like to get sober. And I know you need that year to really just be with yourself. And I could never get good with it and broke his heart. And then 15 months

later, we got coffee. And then, God, we've been through a lot actually in the last year even. And so, yeah, that's I'm sure people kind of notice that it's dialed back, but that's pretty much why. No, I haven't announced it or anything yet. Because I feel my private life has always been really mine. You know, there's so I put so much out there and I've just I've always this is the most public I've been about really anything. I don't really like to talk about stuff that's happened with my family other than in a kind of writing controlled environment, just because it feels like it's not my only my story and other people are involved. And I try to do right by everybody. I think everybody, you know, I don't consider myself a victim. I think that, that, um, my mom and my stepdad and

all the people involved, my dad, uh, did, they did do the best I could at that time. And I'm sure they live with their own regrets. And I know that, um, we still, you know, things are, I would say great now between me and everybody. And so I try, I just have always been kind of fiercely protective of the people in my life. They didn't ask for me to be out here publicly talking about things and also just protective of my private life because it feels like one of the only things that's mine. But now it's bordering on the point of feeling like I'm not lying. Hiding. Yeah, hiding. Yeah. Now it's bordering on the point of, OK, your secret.

It's a secret. And yeah, I don't want it to be a secret. I'm proud of. I love him. I'm happy for you. What's his name? Because what's his first name? Jaron. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So.

Well, that's awesome. I'm so happy for you. I feel like a good relationship is such a good deposit into one's emotional bank. Like I didn't know this, Megan. I didn't know. I mean, it's been so crazily. I really, you know, talk about the stories that we tell ourselves.

So much of my life has been losing myself and finding myself over and over again and hitting 15 different rock bottoms and kind of bouncing back up. And I really thought of myself as that girl that was single forever and that I didn't need a man. And I had so much kind of damage and trauma around those relationships and being in what I feel is it's a very healthy, loving, just I didn't know how much of a difference it makes. I underestimated it because I didn't have very many models of it in my life. So I just was very jaded and cynical about relationships. And when we first started dating the first time I cried every day, I had no idea how to deal with intimacy.

I ran from it. I did. I just did not know. I didn't know how to give it. I didn't know how to receive it. I didn't know, I didn't trust it. I, and then we took that break and he did a lot of, you know, his own work and time and it really did come down to timing. And when, then when we got back mean, it's been, it's been, um, uh, a kind of a miracle really. I, I didn't weirdly, one of the ways reasons that I trusted so much is because it's so not something I feel like I'm manipulating in my, in my past, in many relationships, I felt like there was always this power dynamic and I was trying to manipulate the situation or manipulate the man. It felt very insidious and kind of squirrely. I don't know how to describe it. I've never talked about any of this stuff

publicly ever. I've talked about feeling like I was manipulative as a woman, but I just, with him, it feels so pure. There's just no sketchiness. You know, it's, I want, I want it to, I value that, that core of our relationship. Well, I really feel like now this is when everything, everything grows because like, I, I do think that having a healthy love relationship in your life, especially with a partner, but it could be with a friend. It could be, you know, somebody else, but especially with a, with a sexual romantic and life partner that just, it's like the rocket ship, you know, that it's like, I won't say that it's not, it's that no one can hurt you because you can still be hurt, but man, they can hurt you a lot

less. It takes a lot more, a lot more to really ding you up. You know, is it's like, I remember after many low moments over the past few years, looking around and saying, you know, if this is my floor or my ceiling, right? Like that I'm with Doug and I've got these three kids. Good. I'm good. That's just fine by me. And I felt that for years. I do think we put too little time into nurturing relationships without because we fail to realize how important they are to overall happiness. So I'm thrilled for you. But he doesn't like the nudes, I guess. He wants you to just stick with what you put out there. No, it had nothing to do with him.

He actually never said anything about it. It was all me just feeling like I was evolving and changing. And no, he was never... I'm sure he had his own field. Like this is the beauty of marrying a licensed marriage and family therapist is that he knows how to do his own work. And he definitely, he just, we're very much about allowing us to grow individually. And he never, I felt like I was kind of already pulling away from it because it just felt like it served this time. And, and, and I just didn't,

it wasn't like I ever needed to do it. I wanted to do it. And then I just stopped wanting to do it, you know, and that, that was really it. I've, I've always done what I wanted to do. I never wanted to feel like I had to do, like had to post nudies or had to, I always, it was always on my own terms. A lot of it was just taking, like I said, I wrote a whole piece about it in Playboy that I actually think is still up and it's all the, what I learned from being, you know, sharing nudes online and being part of it was also just taking control. I was very, this was at the dawn of being able to send a man a nudie. And I knew that I wanted to be a writer.

I didn't have any clue how this would all play out, but I just wanted to take control of that. I didn't want anyone to be able to post nudies that I didn't, I didn't want to live in fear of that. So part of me was like, I'm just going to take control of this. Yeah. And I also just, it was, it's a lie. I mean, there's like 15 different pieces. I could talk to you for two hours just about what I learned about myself, what I reclaimed, what, um, all of it. And, and then just really, I think being in a loving, intimate relationship has, I feel again, it's like going on, going back

and saying, Oh, I didn't know that there were double standards. This is like me be coming to this very naive realization of, Oh, a loving and intimate relationship can give you. I can be very uplifting and stabilizing. I'm obviously very hesitant about all of this. And the fact that I'm even talking about it is actually really good. But he I think that, again, I I default to this is not about us. He has been through so much on his own. He has grown and uplifted himself out of stuff.

And we are both very late bloomers. And I think one of the lies that I've told myself and all of my rock bottoms is that I was too old, whether I was 20 or 25, to really make something of myself. And if anything, I think that he's just a really necessary voice for young men. Just having somebody who's kind of irrational, just pretty common sense, and he has a lot of street smarts, too. I don't know. I just I feel my personal and very biased opinion is that the world could use his voice out there, too. So listen, here's to late bloomers and second chances. I'm all for it. Great partnerships. Good luck to both of you. Gosh, thank you been a pleasure getting to know you. This is the first of many, I hope, Bridget.

I hope so too. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. This was really fun. And I really appreciate, I don't know, there's something about, you're an amazing interview what you do. But there's something to just as a woman, I'm so often interviewed by men that I do. I mean, I cried twice and I never cry when I'm being interviewed. So I that's a testament to you allowing me to feel safe and being kind of there is something about just that, you know, female bond, I think. Thank you for saying that. It means a lot to me. And if I, if I did provide that space for you, it's, it's minuscule in comparison to the feeling you gave me that day and, and have ever since. I really love reading you and I love watching you and she's well worth the Twitter follow, especially, uh, notwithstanding the breaks she takes for Lent now now and then like for the love of god she gave up too many vices that she doesn't have to give up twitter too but anyway thanks for all the laughs and uh to be continued today's episode was brought to you in part by black rifle coffee roasted by veterans black

rifle coffee is the freshest brew in america go to BlackRifleCoffee.com slash MK to get yours now. Do it. You're going to love it. Before we go, I want to tell you, please take a minute to subscribe to the show and download it. Rate it and review it. Please review it. Tell me what your New Year's resolutions are and what you're hoping for for 2021. We'd love to hear it.

Any guests you'd like to hear on our program, too. By the way, we have some surprises coming your way in the New Year year too. Just FYI, I got a little present for you. You will see and hear about it very soon. You'll hear about it here first. But I want to tell you that on our next episode, we've got Mike Rowe. And so if you subscribe now, you'll make sure that you get a little notification from me when he is on. He is great. He's got the best voice in broadcasting, first of all. And this is a guy who's got the best voice in broadcasting, first of all. And this is a guy who's going to talk to us about the value of hard work, work ethic in America, the worth in getting your hands dirty, and what you learn by doing the so-called dirty jobs,

right? The elitism in America against these folks and how fast backwards it is. He's sage and has been through it and knows these guys and gals doing these jobs and understands what really makes America, America. And he'll have some thoughts on that. Plus a great, great Donald Trump story and a story about charitable giving that he's told before, but it's been updated in a way that will make your jaw drop. Let's just say this country is full of good people, really good people, better than you, better than me. But they'll make you want to stand up and cheer. You're going to enjoy it.

Mike Rowe is a great interview, and it's coming at you next show. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.