The Megyn Kelly Show - Savile's Horrific Crimes, and Life After the Cancel Mob, with Dan Wootton, Joseph Massey and Dr. Robert Maloney | Ep. 296

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

Megyn Kelly is LIVE after her LASIK surgery with a full slate of guests, including Dan Wootton of GB News on Prince Andrew getting publicly embraced by the Queen, Andrew getting in trouble again, Jimmy Savile's association with Prince Charles, how the media covered up for Savile's horrific crimes, Savile's pedophilia and necrophilia explored in a Netflix documentary, Harry refusing to go to Prince Philip's memorial, the health of the Queen, Meghan Markle continuing to play the victim, transgender kids issus across the pond, and more. Then poet Joseph Massey joins to discuss his new book "Rosary Made of Air," how he got into poetry, when the cancel mob came after him and life after cancellation, how to disrupt the toxicity of life and Twitter, and more. Plus, talking LASIK with one of the experts, Dr. Robert Maloney, about Megyn's surgery, what recovery she should expect, how glasses and contacts will one day be obsolete, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find 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. The sun never goes down in cool town. I had my LASIK surgery yesterday, and for those of you who are just listening, I've got my sunglasses on because two things. Number one, first of all, it went great. And I'm going to have more on it for you in just a bit. But number one, I have, I mean, like very bloodshot eyes, like very, very bloodshot eyes, like patches of blood. It's not quite Joe Biden debate level bloodiness, but yeah,

it's not attractive. And number two, I'm not allowed to wear any eye makeup at all until Tuesday. And there's really no reason to subject you people to that. So I'm wearing makeup on the rest of my face and sunglasses. And you know what? It's working for me. I see why Comfortably Smug does this. I think I might be glomming onto his game. At the end of the show, we're going to be joined by Dr. Robert Maloney. He's a very, very famous LASIK doctor. I doctor, he does cataracts, he does everything. He wasn't the guy who did my procedure, but he did do all of the Kardashians. And he's one of the guys who helped like get this thing going back in the nineties when nobody would do it. So I'll give you the full report of how it went, and he'll walk you through how it would go for you and what the concerns might be and so on.

But so far, so great. Okay, before we get to Dr. Maloney, two of my favorite people. One I know very well. One I'm looking forward to meeting for the first time. In a second, we're going to be joined by Dan Wooden, our friend across the pond. But before we get to him, well, after we get to him, I want to tell you that we're going to be joined by poet Joseph Massey, aka Paul, to me. Remember? In my audience, I love him on Twitter. He sent me a nice note and I responded and I'll explain in a minute. Anyway, before we get to poet Joseph Massey, the first poet I think I've ever interviewed.

Do you remember me ever interviewing a poet, Abs? I don't think so, but I'm excited. I'm excited for you to meet him. And you must, must, must follow him on Twitter if you want to make your life better. But we're going to begin across the pond with multiple scandals involving the royal family. Prince Andrew is in hot water again. There was like two minutes he was out of hot water. And now a new Netflix documentary about a notorious British pedophile and his association with Prince Charles. And there's always something going on with Harry and Meghan. My God,

you know, the little barf emoji like that. That's what I kind of see now whenever I read their names. We're going to cover it all now with my pal Dan Wooden. He's host of GB News' Dan Wooden tonight, and he's a Daily Mail columnist and he's an all around great guy. Hey, Dan, how's it going? Megan, I am great. But firstly, I have to say, wow, you pull off the sunglasses. And boy, oh boy, I didn't even think you would be here today. I certainly didn't think you would be on camera. So my respect for you as Wonder Woman just grows because it's pretty big surgery, isn't it, really? It's not nice anyway, what they do.

Well, it's certainly not. I'm impressed. It's not flattering cosmetically in day one. I can tell you that. I showed my team my eyes without the sunglasses on. They were like, we've seen enough. We're good. You can put those back on.

Well, I'm super impressed that you're at work. Thank you, sir. I actually feel a hundred percent fine like physically i'm i'm totally normal uh as normal as i'm ever going to get anyway um okay so let's let's kick it off with prince andrew so something nice happened to prince andrew where the queen selected him to be with her and i know it was sort of controversial he was going to escort her to was was it a Prince Philip's memorial? And then he screwed it up by diverting press

to his misuse of his royal title. Explain what happened. This is absolutely fascinating because what it shows, Megan, is that the queen at 95 years old and certainly in the twilight years of her reign, I mean, I'm known for saying I want the queen to go on for decades and I mean, I'm known for saying I want the

Queen to go on for decades and I hope she can. But very sadly, Meghan, this appearance at the memorial service for Prince Philip could even be one of the last times we ever see her in public. And for the British people, and I think folk all around the world, that is hugely significant. We don't know life without the Queen at these national events. So it was a big moment for the Queen. We knew it was going to be one of her final appearances. She is struggling to walk. So she was brought in through a special entrance at Westminster Abbey. The eyes of the entire country were on her. And guess who she chose to escort her to her seat? Prince Andrew, the man who all of the courtiers in the royal family, who all of the other senior members of the royal family,

including Prince Charles and Prince William, they want him out the way. They want Prince Andrew never to be seen again in public. And I've been investigating this a lot over the past few weeks, because you know I do cover the royals on top of what I do at GB News. And I write about them a lot for the Mail Online and DailyMail.com. And this was the Queen making a big public statement that she believes her son, that even though he settled the lawsuit with Virginia Dufresne, she doesn't believe the allegations against him.

She wants the world to give him a second chance. And this is one of the first times, Meghan, in her entire reign, and this is why I find it so historically significant, where the Queen has put family ahead of Commonwealth and country. Because you remember, of course, she denied her sister, Princess Margaret, the opportunity to marry the man who she loved because he was a divorcee. And so I thought this was such a significant moment. And what was particularly fascinating about it is the Queen ignored Prince Charles and Prince William, who did not want Prince Andrew put on center stage at such

a significant event. You've said it before, they covered it in The Crown. He's her favorite. I mean, he's her favorite. I mean, he's her favorite. She's not afraid for people to know that. So, right. She doesn't believe Virginia Giuffre. Neither do a lot of people. I mean, you know, we've talked about this before. Just because Virginia Giuffre was definitely a victim of Jeffrey Epstein's does not mean she was Prince Andrew's victim of anything. And she's made allegations against other men, including Alan Dershowitz, that I don't believe for one second. Her stories have been inconsistent very often. So I don't know whether

Prince Andrew did what she claims or not, but he's been punished for a colossal lapse in judgment in going back to Jeffrey Epstein as a friend and staying with him in his New York mansion after the guy pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitutes who were understood to be very young. So anyway, any royal, the dumbest royals got to know you're not supposed to do that. And that's really what led to his public's shaming. I know. And I think that's what's unforgivable, Megan, actually in the eyes of the British public. Although I will tell you,

there is a growing group of people, especially folk like me, who are very much against cancel culture and believe that you should be found guilty before you lose your career who say, hang on a moment. What's Prince Andrew actually done? And of course, he's got lots of friends behind the scenes, including Lady Victoria Harvey, who was very close to Prince Andrew in the years where he knew Virginia Dufresne, who's working hard behind the

scenes. And I had Lady Victoria on my show, actually, and she is convinced that she will be able to clear Prince Andrew. Now, personally, Meghan, I don't take that position on this because I think Prince Andrew had multiple opportunities to clear his name. He could have done it in the civil court case, which he said he would do. He could have done it by travelling to New York to assist the FBI in their investigations. He refused to do that. And of course, remember that cringeworthy but very famous car crash interview with the BBC and Prince Andrew, probably actually the biggest royal car crash interview in history where he said he doesn't sweat. And she said he was sweaty. I mean, he was ridiculous about it. So he behaved like a buffoon, but I, you know, I might, I might be leaning more in your friend's camp because I just think like the, the proof isn't there.

I want due process. I want due process for guys, even if they're Royals accused, there's no question he behaved badly and he made stupid decisions. But that's a world away from you knowingly sex trafficked a 17-year-old for self-pleasure. My God, that's a world away from that. So I guess I'm with the Queen. I'm not sure I believe these allegations against him. And to try and explain the situation

from Prince Andrew's side, even though I will repeat, I think he's acted appallingly at certain points throughout this whole scandal. But from his point of view, he was almost pushed into a corner in terms of having to settle with Dufresne, because all of the drumbeat from people behind the scenes, the men in gray suits, as they're described at Buckingham Palace, was that you cannot overshadow your mum's platinum jubilee by pressing ahead with this civil court case. So the idea was he had to settle to save the Queen all of this embarrassment in what is a very big year for her. Okay. But then, because he is sort of the buffoon of the family, he's he's a little Fredo ish. He he has his moment with the queen.

She's trying to rehabilitate him. That's nice that, you know, a mother's love knows no bounds. And then there's some other moment. I don't know what I don't know what he was posting for on on his ex wife's Instagram, Fergie's Instagram. He takes over the pen and decides to post all about his service in the military to commemorate this day. And what does he do? Because he screwed it up again and he gained headlines

for the wrong reasons. Yeah, it's the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, which is, of course, a major event in British history. No one expected Margaret Thatcher's invasion, sorry, Margaret Thatcher's defence of the Falklands after the Argentinian invasion to be successful. And it was, and that was the time that Prince Andrew was a national hero because he fought in the Falklands.

And as you say, Fergie, who, let's be honest, has gone into so many scrapes over the years and certainly is not the person that you would want to turn to Megan if you were seeking a crisis PR advice but really she's the only person who has publicly stood by Andrew and to all intents and purposes Megan they are in a relationship I'm not saying it's a sexual relationship, but they live together. They are each other's rock. And a lot of people believe that at some point they will actually formally remarry. And she posted these words from Prince Andrew. He was talking about the Falklands and the context of the conflict in Ukraine at the moment, and talking about how we should avoid war at all costs. Slight problem though, he signed off the message, His Royal Highness, the Duke of York. He used the HRH title. And again, if you're into the British royal family, that's a big no-no for Prince Andrew

because he's not meant to be a working royal. So it summed up what I've been saying for a good couple of years, Megan. Prince Andrew doesn't believe he's going to retire in disgrace from the public spotlight. He's going to spend the rest of his life, however long he has left on earth, trying to cleanse his reputation. And that poses a really big issue for Prince Charles and Prince William, who are trying to modernize the royal family. And having Epstein's BFF hanging around in Prince Andrew doesn't make that easy for them. And yet, Andrew gets a card to use against Prince

Charles, just as if from the heavens, Netflix drops this documentary about this apparently very, very famous British guy. He's dead now. And he was accused of pedophilia during the course of his life, I guess, or some sort of child molestation or inappropriate behavior with kids. But now it's coming out. He was 84 when he died. Now it's coming out.

It's much, much worse than we knew. And he was a very close confidant and friend of Charles. I should say, no one's suggesting that Charles knew that this guy was hurting children during the course of their friendship. But who is this guy? And how did he get so close to so many royals and other muckety mucks in Great Britain over the years? So Jimmy Savile, Megan, is one of the most famous figures in the UK. While he was alive, he was the most popular TV presenter in Britain. He was attracting 20 million viewers for his shows on the BBC, and he was friends with Charles and Diana. He was friends with Margaret Thatcher. Problem is, Megan, he was also Britain's most notorious paedophile and necrophiliac. And it was known over the course of his life that he abused young girls. And what ended up happening was, I think, one of the most shameful establishment cover-ups in British history, the think, one of the most shameful establishment cover ups in British history. The BBC, the organisation that is meant to be the public broadcaster of this country, covered up Savile's behaviour.

They knew and they covered it up. Megan, when one of the news programs at the BBC Newsnight wanted to broadcast a tell-all investigation about Savile's paedophilia, they were banned from doing so by BBC management. Now, the issue is the first person who offered a full and wholesome tribute to Jimmy Savile following his death was Prince Charles. And this Netflix documentary couldn't come at a worse time for Charles and the entire British royal family, which has been rocked by a series of scandals, of course. And clearly there is an argument for Prince Andrew to make. Hang on a moment, big bro. Yes, I was pals with Epstein, but you were close pals with Jimmy Savile, who was widely known behind the scenes to be a dodgy pedo. And the notes between Savile and Prince Charles, which have been included as part of this Netflix documentary, show just how close their relationship was, Meghan. Savile was actually offering lots of communications and PR advice to the royal family,

including advice that was shown to Prince Philip and the Queen. He also offered, sorry, Prince Charles also asked him to provide PR advice to Fergie, the Duchess of York, who was involved in all of her own scandals at the time. So look, I'm not saying for a single second that Prince Charles was aware of Jimmy Savile's behaviour. And remember, lots of other people were sucked in, including Margaret Thatcher, the very well-respected First British female Prime Minister. So maybe we should give Prince Charles a pass on exactly what he knew

about Savile, but you can understand why it's particularly uncomfortable given what's just gone on with Prince Andrew. Well, was there, you say that there, a lot of people knew he was a dodgy pedo. When did they know, right? So that's relevant. Did Charles, in the way that Andrew did with Epstein, continue the friendship after it was known this guy was likely hurting kids? took underage girls back to his apartment following filming of Top of the Pops, which was a really big music chart show in the UK, quite an iconic show where all of the big pop acts would perform every week. Now, Savile's argument at the time was that, oh, yeah, I'm taking the young girls back to my apartment, but nothing sexual is going on.

And obviously the culture was incredibly different back then. And that argument was accepted and BBC bosses turned a blind eye. Of course, what we don't know is how aware Prince Charles was. But look, there were various newspaper reports throughout Savile's life about some of his dodgy practices. But again, the British libel system makes it incredibly difficult for British newspapers to publish those sorts of allegations without hard and fast proof. And Savile would boast while he was alive that, oh, well, every time the newspapers publish one of these exposés, it's great because I just get thousands more pounds when I take them to court. So at the very least, it's hard to believe that Prince Charles hadn't heard that he was a dodgy character. The full extent of his reign of terror and his shocking abuse of children didn't fully emerge publicly, though, until well after his death.

Here's just a bit from the Netflix trailer. This is Soundbite 2 on Jimmy Savile. He knew everybody. Thank you for everything you do, for every good cause. How on earth do you raise ten million pounds in three years? With Jim, you accept

he thinks it's normal, but it was abnormal. That is supposed to be me. What did I ever do to you that you would draw that picture of me? He's very intuitive. You do a terrific job, Jimmy. No, that's all front. That's all lights. He was making the screen in front of him.

It's like you couldn't see through it. He knew fame and power gave him every door i am a voluntary helper sometimes when nobody's looking i help the losses it turns out everywhere he'd been there'd been abuse oh my gosh and you mentioned just in passing necrophilia yeah yeah and uh it was well known that he would maintain these relationships Megan with hospitals and children's hospitals so that he had access to dead bodies so you know this I mean this is the worst story of celebrity abuse. I think that exists. And I can completely understand why Netflix has decided this is a big story in Britain,

but no one outside of the UK has even heard of this bloke. Plus, there's a royal connection. So let's turn it into a big series. But at the same time, time Megan there are questions being asked about Netflix as well and I wrote a column for the Daily Mail about this yesterday because very interesting isn't it intriguing you might say that from the moment that Netflix signed their big multi-million dollar deal with Prince Harry and Meghan, there's been a slew of negative programs about the royal family. And they seem to be targeting Harry and Meghan's relatives.

Oh, that's so interesting. And soon to be followed by a Spotify podcast audio series along the same lines, I'm sure, since that's the other entity with whom they have a deal. Okay, now wait, before we, I'm going to take a break in a second, but I do want to ask you on the subject of Harry. So we started it off by talking about Prince Philip's memorial service. That was Prince Harry's grandfather, the Queen's husband, that's his grandpa. And he refused to go home to England to say goodbye. He didn't show up. And to me, it's like, once again, his reason is incredibly flimsy, pathetic, and all about himself. Will you tell us what he said? I mean, Megan, I just have to be honest now. Prince Harry is a complete and utter scumbag. He has spent years saying how much he cares for the Queen and how much respect he has for the Queen. This might have been his last opportunity much to the Queen, Meghan, because you might remember those horrifying pictures over the course of COVID lockdowns in the UK,

when the Queen sat alone at Prince Philip's funeral without a soul nearby her because of the ridiculous and actually quite inhumane government restrictions when it came to funerals. So this was the opportunity for the Queen to give Prince Philip the funeral that he had wanted. Her entire family was there. There were only two people missing, Harry and Meghan. And the reason they weren't there, Meghan, is because of a pathetic and petulant row with the British government over who gives Prince Harry security when he comes back to the UK. Because he wants, Meghan, even though he's no longer a working royal and he's in Hollywood making tens of millions of dollars, he wants to still be treated as if he's a working royal. And he wants the British government to provide security for him. Quite rightly, in my opinion,

the British government is saying, you are now a private citizen. That is the decision that you made. So you have to provide and pay for your own security because the Metropolitan Police are not security guards for hire. And if we make that arrangement for you, we're soon going to have Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg or whatever celebrity chooses to arrive in the country asking for privately paid for metropolitan police security.

But for me, it actually doesn't matter what the reason is. He let down the queen. And I think if he doesn't get to see her again, we know she is 95. She is Aileen. He should never forgive himself for a decision like that. I think it just shows how destroyed his relationship is now with the royal family. Of course, Meghan plays a big part in that, in my opinion. And do you think, Dan, with the British people too? I mean, I feel like the British people, they must have been horrified by that decision. He's got tens of millions of dollars pouring into him from the two companies we just mentioned.

And he's not wanting for funds to begin with, thanks to Prince Charles and the Queen. So he can't hire a bodyguard to go over there. I mean, like, what does George Clooney do? He doesn't get the royal guard. He gets a private bodyguard to walk around and make sure he stays safe. And that's what Prince Harry could have done. Or, well, I'll play the soundbite. This is Prince Philip's former Royal Personal Protection Officer. You tell me, but it sounds like being, I mean, shockingly candid for somebody in that role on his thoughts about Harry's

decision. Listen to Richard Griffin. Weren't people talking about that? Yes, they were. What were they saying? Certainly around where I live, they thought you should have been here. You know, and all this nonsense about he couldn't get protection. You know, as far as I'm concerned, that was a pathetic excuse. He should have been here to honor his grandfather. There is certainly a great deal of security here today, isn't there? So there wouldn't have been any question about that. At the end of the day, if he was that worried about security, he could have stuck with his brother and his father,

who've got wonderful security and he'd be more than safe. Fair point. Oh, absolutely. And Megan, do you actually know what this is about? It's about the fact that when he came over in July for the unveiling of the statue of Princess Diana, we had where he had a very awkward meeting with his brother, Prince William, in public because the relationship between them is, for the moment, at least more than a little icy, let's just say, Virgin on Toxic. Basically, some photographers followed him in a car when he left the service. There was no security scare. There was no issue with the photographers following him. And by the way, Megan, if he drove through Hollywood, he would be trailed by photographers too. That is part of his life. And of course, since the death of his mother,

there is so much regulation in Britain about where photographers can go, about how they can behave. So in my view, Prince Harry has been looking for a reason to avoid the UK, looking for a reason to create drama with the British government. But I just think it makes his decision to name his daughter after Queen Elizabeth II, using her nickname

Lilibet, feel particularly hollow, given that the Queen hasn't met this young girl. She hasn't even met her namesake. Wow. I hadn't considered that. So what about the British people? How are they feeling, do you think, about these two? Oh, they've lost patience completely. Their popularity is at an all-time low. It's particularly shocking for Prince Harry, who at one point was more popular in public opinion surveys, Meghan, than the Queen or Prince William or Kate. He was the most popular member of the royal family. And now, aside from Fergie and Prince Andrew and Prince Andrew's daughters, he's one of the least popular. Who's your favorite? Are you allowed to say? I of the least popular. Who's your favorite?

Are you allowed to say? I know you cover them. Who's your fave? Of course, the Queen. Of course, the Queen. And I think she has acted impeccably throughout her entire reign. And at the moment, Meghan, it actually makes for people like me. And yes, we do cover her and we have to cover the royal family, I believe, critically through a critical lens

and treat them as public officials. But when you see the Queen struggling to stand up, struggling to walk, but being so stoic because she knows that she has to be seen to look regal, she doesn't want to be in a wheelchair, she doesn't want the public to see her fade away in the same way that they saw her mother, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret, fade away in public. It just gives you goosebumps. And as she stood in that memorial service at Westminster Abbey for Prince Philip, and the congregation sang God Save the Queen, there was a particularly emotional moment because I think a

lot of people in the room felt this might be one of the last times we get to do this for the Queen. And she stood and there were no issues. And I just think it says a lot about the stoicism of the generation that we're so tragically losing, who lived through World War Two, who know what it's like to be in a house as bombs rain down on London, Hitler's bombs. And that's my grandparents' generation. And for me, I've lost all of my grandparents and the Queen is almost like that last remaining connection to those wonderful people. They are the greatest generation. And even though I think we know it's coming because the Queen's health is deteriorating, Britain certainly isn't ready for life without her.

And a new poll this week, Megan, showed that less than half the British people are comfortable with the idea of Prince Charles becoming king. So there are choppy waters ahead for the royal family. That is for sure. You know, the thing is, you look at her and you think selflessness. That's what I think when I look at her. She just her whole life and all the bios about her documentaries about her show that that she puts service above herself and others for years. And boy, it's tough to find that. I mean, I think Prince William's living up to that more and more.

Princess Kate, they I think more and more people over here are falling in love with them because you don't hear about too much drama. They're not constantly trying to make the news cycle about themselves, unlike his little brother and his American wife. And they're the opposite. Harry and Meghan are the opposite. While they want to be seen the same as these selfless, I don't want press. I don't need it. My sunglasses right now are perfect for this. No cameras.

No lights. No press. Of course, they're like, but I'll be at the Beverly Hills Hilton at 2 p.m. on Sunday if you want to get me in my gray limo, right? Like that's what that's who they are. And people know it. They may not know all the ins and outs of how they manipulate, but you just know it on a gut level because if you are a manipulator, it comes through.

Their latest manipulation is where I'm going to pick it up with Dan right after this quick break. More with Dan Wooten in one second. So, Dan, the this pair has decided to unleash their their messaging. They're finally going to get going on their Spotify podcast, but I guess it's just Megan as it turns out. She couldn't get Harry. So it's just going to be her. What a shock. She just wants it to be all of her airtime.

Although I can relate. And she has decided that she wants to trademark a word that is 476 years old as hers in the broadcast of her new podcast, which I guess is going to hit this summer. The word is archetype archetype. It's something you would use. For example, you might say, you know, in any given I don't know, crime drama, you could have the villain, the hero, the consoler. Those are archetypes that we are sort of familiar with. She wants to use it in the context of women, Dan, because she's a champion for female empowerment. And the statement is that she wants to address the labels and stereotypes that try to hold women back. And then the articles add, in our patriarchal society.

So she's going to fight the patriarchy after giving up her entire career, her religion, her country, and her family for a guy. You might say, Megan, this is an archetypal Meghan Markle move because it's just crass, isn't it? It's crass commercialization that makes no sense. It's like you're making your tens of millions of dollars from Spotify. You don't have to try and own a word. It reminds me, Meghan, when Victoria Beckham, you know, the Spice Girl, who's nicknamed Posh Spice, tried to trademark the word posh. And she was roundly condemned for it because it's ridiculous. I can use the word archetype in whatever context I want to, I'm afraid, Megan. But it just shows you how bad their advice is and how

they're surrounded by this sort of ridiculous Hollywood types who think like celebrities. And I feel like Megan's rebrand is just to say, I'm a victim. And she's about as far from a victim as you could possibly get. I think it's bad because to me, all right, I have a saying and I say to my kids all the time, it's about the people who brag about how much money they have or how smart they are or whatever it is. The seven foot center doesn't tell you how tall he is. There's a reason for that. He doesn't have to. And they're trying to use like the fancy word to make her sound smart. Like, you know, something the regular people here in America, what laws are we like?

Arch type Archie is an Archie type. What is it? Even I was like, what is that? Why don't you ever use that word? I had to look it back up just to remind myself, what is she trying to say? That's a bad sign. You want it to be relatable to as many people as possible,

unless your name is Megan Markle, where you've spent your whole life trying to be less relatable to the common man and woman. You want them to feel that you are above them, smarter than they are, richer than they are, and now at the same time, more of a victim than they are. And I wonder, Dan, whether there's any appetite from people here or in Great Britain to listen to this woman talk about how hard it is to be female. Absolutely not. And what I found so hilarious, Megan, was when the other Megan, the Megan we don't like, who spells her name funny, unlike you, said, oh, goodness me,

maybe I'm going to have to leave Spotify unless they sack Joe Rogan. And obviously Spotify said, hang on a moment. Take care. Joe Rogan ain't going anywhere. And so Megan very quickly said, oh, well, in that case, okay, I'm okay with it because look, they need the moolah. They need the big bucks. This is all about the greenback. So they can be as pious and virtue signaling as they want but actually when push comes to shove megan will share a platform with uh joe rogan because she needs the money she would share a platform with anyone as long as the check cleared who is she kidding there yeah the statement from their spokesperson basically said, well, the release

of this podcast was originally delayed due to concerns over Spotify's role in spreading misinformation, in particular, with respect to COVID. I challenge,

I want, I'd love to talk to her. Name three. Name three facts. Just any, you know what? Doesn't even have to be misinformation. Tell me three facts

about COVID at all. Let's see if you get them right. You know what? I'll give it to you multiple choice. You just, you know what? Doesn't even have to be misinformation. Tell me three facts about COVID at all. Let's see if you get them right. You know what? I'll give it to you. Multiple choice. You just, you click the one you think is right. Miss backup, Howie Mandel. I opened the suitcase girl spokesmodel.

She doesn't know anything about anything. She literally knows nothing about anything. Megan, how dare Megan accuse Joe Rogan of misinformation? She is the queen of misinformation. You remember the Oprah interview. She even lied about when she got married for God's sake. The interview was literally two hours of misinformation. So to me,

the biggest irony is Megan lambasting anyone about misinformation. It's just it's laughable now. It's actually laughable. And we see through it. It's so true. I've had just about enough of these two. And by the way, just one other small point. They on their website, you know, they're partnering with women's groups again to lift up women, women, the very women who choose not to leave their country and their religion and their husband and everything that they hold dear, abandon their entire family so that they can marry a rich guy in Britain, which was her goal from the beginning, as we've discussed in other episodes.

OK, she wants to lecture those women about how to empower themselves. So we do not need her advice. Last week, our friends at the National Women's Law Center released a new report providing a timely snapshot of the continuing multifaceted impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and mothers, and then in particular women and mothers who are black and brown and so on, blah, blah, blah. Beyonce's not her friend. George Clooney's not her friend. Oprah's not her friend. Gail's not her friend. All of these people showed up at the royal wedding and go on her stupid website and do her little PSAs for the only reason she got married to Harry, because it's access to the royal family and it makes them feel somehow better, smarter, more fabulous. That's all that's going on there. And these people, like the use of my friend, bull, you know, to me, it's so pathetic that like she did abandon all of her friends and all of her family for these people like the use of my friend bull you know to me it's so pathetic that like she did abandon all of her friends and all of her family for these people she doesn't know at all and she's still referring to them as like her friends she doesn't know she doesn't know

these people and they don't know her and she wasn't friends with oprah and gail king who wanted nothing to do with her when she was a D-list actress on Suits. They became interested when she got it on with Prince Harry. And look, I've actually got to know Megan's family really well over the past few years. And her father, Thomas, and her sister, Samantha, to me, are good, ordinary Americans. I'm not saying they haven't made a few mistakes, Megan, but anyone who is thrust into that sort of worldwide spotlight are going to make a few mistakes. But I'm a good judge of character, and they are good, honest people. And I just cannot believe that Megan won't drive down that highway to Mexico, a couple of hours, and at the very least,

just allow her dad to meet his grandson and granddaughter. I just say shame on you, Megan. Yep. No relationship with the grandparents on either side, even though one of them is the Queen of England. Okay. So that tells you something. All right, moving on. On your nightly show, you cover all sorts of news in the UK. It's fascinating. I watch it on YouTube all the time just to keep up on what's happening across the pond with my pals, my actual pals like you, not the fake pals like she has. And one of the things you've been covering is you guys are going through the same weird transgender revolution that we are, where it's crossed over to the point of absurdity. But your leader,

old Bojo, has handled this a little different than, I'm sorry, all I can think is what Ben Shapiro says. He calls him president houseplant. It's not nice. But I mean, he just, you know, he's not, we're not sure he's still alive. That's the problem with our president. So as I understand it, Boris Johnson has come out and said, because there was a debate about whether the that they should ban, quote, conversion therapy for young gay boys and girls and young trans boys and girls. And they came out and said, definitely conversion therapy is totally inappropriate for young gay people. That's absurd. We've known that for decades. But young trans kids, this has been looking more and more like a social contagion, and we're not prepared to do that. And Boris Johnson came out and said, I've got my concerns about all of this, too. Here he is talking about transgender

issues. This is Soundbite 4. I don't think that it's reasonable for kids to be deemed so-called GILIC competent to take decisions about their gender or irreversible treatments that they may have. I think there should be parental involvement at the very least.'s first thing second thing i don't think that uh biological males should be competing in female sporting events and you know maybe i'm maybe that's a controversial thing but i just it just seems to me to be sensible and uh i also happen to think that um women should have spaces which are whether it's in in in hospitals or prisons or change rooms or wherever, which are dedicated to women. Revolutionary. So how does that go over with the British public? Where do they stand on these issues? Well, incredibly well. And obviously, very few people, Megan, would listen to what

Boris Johnson just said and think it's at all anything other than complete common sense. But to contextualise what's been going on here in the UK the past couple of weeks is that the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, the bloke who wants to be prime minister, and at the moment, Megan, is actually leading Boris Johnson in the polls, has been asked numerous times, what is a woman? And can a woman have a penis? And he has stuttered. And he has been completely pathetic and unable to answer the question. Even Boris Johnson's rival for the main job within his own party, his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was asked to define what a woman is and he refused to answer the question.

So this is a big win for Boris Johnson electorally because a new group has just been launched and they've been all over the media, including the front page of the Daily Mail, which is the most read newspaper in the UK. And it's called You Won't Get My Ex Unless You Respect My Sex, because we have the local elections coming up here in May. It sort of plays a similar role as the U.S. midterms. And this group describe themselves as the most important feminist movement since the suffragettes. And it's actually very hard to argue against that, Megan, given we're currently living in a world here in the UK where British cycling want a competitor called Emily Bridges to be able to compete against biological female cyclists. When, Megan, Emily Bridges was competing as a man just a few weeks ago. So Boris Johnson has tapped into the anger and the frustration going on here about trying to erase women from society. And I really think we are at that point. So few are willing to do it, are actually willing to stand up for women and allow just the complete

takeover of traditionally women's sports, locker rooms, whatever areas. You were not to be left sitting on the sidelines on this one, Dan. You sent out one of your fearless producers onto the streets of Great Britain to figure out what's the pulse of the populace on this important issue about the penis. And here we have a clip of that. Quick question that Sakeer Starmer has struggled with in recent days. Can women have penises? You'll have to ask the Prime Minister first.

What does he think? Do you know? I don't know. Take into consideration how women feel about it and women's rights. Surely it's a simple answer that women can't have penises. He's asking if women can have penises. Is this something you'd like to elaborate on? I don't know. You don't know? No, the cat can't have penises.

Can women have penises? I'm not going to answer that. I'm just asking people a simple question whether women can have penises. I'm not prepared to answer that because I don't know enough about the subject. But thanks very much for asking. You don't know enough about men or women's simple biology? Can women have penises? Can women have penises?

Sir, Ben from GB News, can women have penises? He doesn't know enough about the subject. Remind me never to sleep with him, Dan. Don't let me sleep with that random man. They are some of our political leaders. You know, they are cabinet ministers. They are party leaders. And it is gutless. But I think folk like that will be punished at the polls because it's not just women who've had enough,

Megan. I mean, I speak as a bloke. I'm a massive fan of women's sport. And I just fundamentally believe anyone biologically born a man cannot compete in women's sport. I don't buy this thing that there's any gray area or that hormone levels make a difference. We just have to have hard and fast rules on this one. And so it's been very pleasing for me to see Boris Johnson be morally courageous enough to do this. Because interestingly, a little bit of background to this Megan his wife Carrie Johnson who is certainly uh let's just say she's on the woke side of things and she's been a bit of a negative influence in terms of Boris Johnson's policy and she is actually in cahoots uh with one of the uh LGBT that's what we're meant to say now, right? I mean, I just say gay organization Stonewall,

which very much backs the trans lobby on these issues and thinks that trans competitors should be able to compete in women's sports. So Boris Johnson, by making this public statement, let's just say things might have been a little bit difficult when he got home, if you get what I mean. Carrie Johnson wouldn't have been happy because that's not the position that she shares. And she's become, for all the wrong reasons, increasingly influential on Boris Johnson's decision-making over the past couple of years.

All right, we have about a minute left. What do we think about his chances of re-election? Well, they're looking better now. I mean, I'm sorry, if you've got a leader of the opposition who cannot answer the question, can a woman have a penis? I mean, I think that's someone who's heading to electoral disaster. We just put one on the Supreme Court. I know, I know, I know. It's bad. And I think if you look at what's happened in the Biden administration, actually, there's a great warning. And the British people are very much taking note at what happens when you have woke warriors taking over power.

I will say, and Megan, by the way, I'm not one of the people that particularly cares about what's become known as the Partygate scandal, you know, where Boris Johnson was having people over to his house when he had locked the whole country down, because I just feel like the world has moved on and all the scandal should prove is that we should never have locked down in the first place. It was completely morally wrong to ask people to go through that. But I will just say the police investigation is continuing. So there is still the possibility that Boris Johnson could be fined.

But look, I think Boris has provided great moral leadership over the Ukraine crisis. Zelensky, obviously one of the most popular politicians in the world in some quarters at the moment. I know there's other people who are very anti-Zelensky, but in a lot of quarters, he's very popular. And of course, he's bigging Boris Johnson up all the time. So no, I think Boris is in a good place at the moment. Dan, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Megan. Keep well.

Hope your eyes are okay. Thank you very much. We'll be right back. Joining us now is somebody I've been wanting to meet, poet and writer, who I follow on Twitter and who I urged all of you to follow too. And I continue to do that. His name is Joseph Massey. His work was praised by many, including the New York times, which wrote a Massey poem is a revelation until the cancellation mob came for him.

He's written so openly and honestly, and in a very raw way about what that did to him and how he survived it and what his advice is for others to survive it when the cancellation mob comes for them. I've become a true fan, and he's here to talk about all of it, along with his new poetry book, which we all have to buy to support him because the mainstream will not promote him. The book is called Rosary Made of Air. Welcome, Joseph Massey. Great to have you here. It's great to see you, Megan, or kind of see you.

You're wearing the shades. Can you see? I can see. I can't, like, when I'm reading my papers, it's hard only because my shades are so tinted. But my eyes are now seeing perfectly. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Yeah.

Amen. So there's a lot to go over. Now, first of all, should I call you Joseph or Joe or Paul? Joseph's fine. Your producer was, I think he was calling me George and he did it twice. It runs in the family, Joseph. Even after I corrected him. And then your other producer called my book Rosemary Made of Hair.

You know what? I can't get a break on the Megyn Kelly show. But you give the breaks out as often as humanly possible. I told my audience about this. I know you heard this. But for those who didn't hear this episode, we were doing an episode on time management. And I was saying I'm not very good at responding to people via text message, via email. Abby's over there going via DM doesn't matter. And you were nice enough to reach out to me via DM. I follow you on Twitter for very good

reason. You're amazing. And, um, and you, you sent me a note. So about a month later, I realized I had a note from you and I responded. And again, your name is Joseph Massey. And I responded as follows. Paul, I don't know why I, I am bad at checking DMS and apparently at remembering names that are written right down for me. Uh, but a belated, thank you for doing this and for putting beauty into my days. You may be the most thoughtful person on Twitter, which I realize is a low bar, but still, and this is the thing that made me fall in love with Joseph Massey. He writes back, he writes back, Megan, your note made my night. Thank you. Your work is fearless and an inspiration and always great company. I like the name Paul. You can call me

Paul if you want. Normally I go by Joseph. It's all very Catholic either way. Love your sense of humor. So thank you for letting me off the hook on that one. All right. So let's go back to how you got into poetry because I was just saying I've never interviewed a poet before. What drew you to it? I was very young. I was 12 years old and I was a very troubled student. And I think that was the sixth grade year. And they just told me to sit in the auditorium every day. Don't go to class. I don't know if that was legal. I don't know how that happened, but that's what I did. And during that time, I stumbled upon a biography about Jim Morrison, of all people. I didn't even like The Doors, but it was through that book and reading

about Jim Morrison's early life that I discovered the French poet Arthur Rimbaud and Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, and then also the beats, the beat poets, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, those poets especially. And yeah, from that point forward, my life changed. Was it one of those things you knew you had to do it? It was therapeutic for you? Yeah, at the time, it certainly was, because my home life was rough. You know, my family, the adults I was surrounded by, you know, they were very busy people working in factories and just trying to survive and, you know, working in diners. And so language was usually pretty coarse. And reading these poets felt like real rebellion to me.

It was a way of reclaiming this language that, as far as I had known up to that point, was only being used to curse at the Eagles game, you know, or yell at the dog or something. So I was wondering and reading more about you personally, because even before the Me Too mob came for you, you had a tough upbringing. You know, you made reference to it here, but there was abuse of all kinds. You've been very open about it. And it made me start to wonder whether, I'm going to forgive the indelicacy of it, but whether one can be a happy poet. Does one go into poetry to reflect on one's joys and happiness full time? Or do you think most people are drawn to it, at least initially, to express some form of despair?

Well, I think it's both. I don't know if someone can experience, for lack of a better way of putting it, full-on joy if they haven't also experienced terrible despair. What would they have to compare it to? And so that's, that's how I see that. And a lot of my poetry does come out of a, it's more than joy. It's, it's a static, it's, there's a mystical kind of edge to some of the things that I do. I mean, I'm constantly in wonder. I'm in wonder of the world around me all the time. I'm never bored. So yeah, but I don't, I don't, I would not be a poet if it hadn't been for all of the frankly trauma that I endured. Well, this is one of the, this is the reason your name came up in my earlier conversation, because we were talking about how it's important to put down the iPhone and step away from the screens and just take a moment to appreciate the beauty in life,

life's small beauties, which of course are also its great ones. And you help do that in my life. I've been following you for years now and you'll be scrolling through on Twitter and it'll be a massive toxicity. And then you'll hit a Joseph Massey tweet, which is usually about the, the bullshit nature. Sorry, God, forgive me, Lent. I'm screwing it up again. Um, the, the BS nature of cancel culture and sort of woke ism, or it'll be an injection of beauty. It'll be, it'll be like a link to something you've done or the email is what I really recommend. And people can get this. I went and looked today. You can, you can join, you can follow Joseph Massey Substack for five bucks for month one.

You can try it out for one for $5 and you see his beautiful poems always accompanied by a beautiful photograph. And it's the smallest stuff and you can find beauty. I mean, I've read your poems. I've read your book. You, you write about, you know, the scene at family dollar, you know, like over the parking lot, like images we've all had, but we don't appreciate them in the, in the right way, in the way that you help us to, to see them. Yeah. That, well, my, my modus operandi on Twitter

is to disrupt the toxicity. I really love the idea of putting a poem without commentary, just putting the screenshot of a poem up on Twitter and imagining somebody scrolling through just the most horrible shit. And then they come and they stumble upon the poem. It must be, if they spend time to read it, it must be very disruptive, but I would hope in a hope in a very positive way. And that's what poetry can do. It reclaims, it rejuvenates language that's been so abused and used for manipulation.

It's been drained of its life through politics, the language of politics, the language of war, and the language of war, and the language of commerce. And the poem brings language back to a really human place. And the purpose of a poem is to communicate. And that's something that's lost in the world of screens and yada, yada, yada. And yet it's not as readily available as we'd like. You know, it's, you don't get poems foisted on you the way you get links to books or new podcasts or new digital shows. And that's another thing I love about following you on Twitter and also dispatches from the

basement, which is what you call the sub stack emails and links to your work because it's, it just makes it, it's right there. It's one click away as opposed to having to go look for it for somebody who doesn't follow poetry like me. It's, you make it super easy and the poems are easy to connect with. I mean, you don't have to work that hard. It's just beautiful. I'm sure for you, there's some labor that goes into it, but for the, for the reader, there's no labor. It's just, it's just love and connection and a thought or a moment of serenity. It's the opposite of what I say. Like a lot of these websites now are too cold about our feelings when they post things like about child abuse,

or like, there's a terrible story going on right now about the killing of this innocent dog in China by their crazy COVID police over there who have zero COVID. And the video is horrific. I mean, they just post this like you're just scrolling on Twitter and there's this suddenly you're assaulted with the video of animal torture. That's not OK. You're the antidote for that. You're the antidote for that. So I feel like what you're doing is important. I want to give people just a sense. This just came in my inbox on Monday. All right. This is from Joseph Massey's Dispatches from the Basement. He writes, the poet has two jobs, write and survive. And I got a list about my class that I can't read. Okay. Write and survive. Between the two, some kind of life occurs close to the ground in poverty.

And there are seasons. Even as a snow squall pixelates the alley outside my window in the middle of May, poetry is time chiseled into a shape that makes a sound. Yes, I love that. So this is obviously written before because it's April. But I wanted to ask you about that, the poverty. Because you write about, you don't have a lot of dough. You should be charging more than $5 a month, first of all. But second of all, is that also part of it? And are there any rich poets? Oh, yeah.

The rich poets are the tenured professors who are ruining poetry, in my opinion, because the MFA poetry world is quite a racket. And I think there are 300 MFA programs in the country and pumping out how many thousands of wannabe poets every year. Yeah. And so the big money is in being a tenured professor. It's rare to achieve that. But and there are poets with trust funds. I mean, the more that these MFA programs proliferate, the more you see 20 somethings who have very wealthy parents who never told them that, hey, maybe you're not all that talented. Maybe you should do ceramics and pick something more practical.

But that never happens. So no, the poets that I've loved in my life, they've dedicated their lives entirely to poetry, and there is no real financial reward in that. However, since I was canceled and then had to rebuild my life over the course of two or two and a half years, something like that, I've been able to make some money through the sub stack. And the book that I just put out, I published it myself. I've never published my own book before and I won't give the number, but I mean, I've, I've, I've made enough in royalties to pay a couple months worth of rent. That's pretty unheard of for any poet. All right. But we have to, we have to, that's not good enough.

We have to do better. Rosary made of air. Everyone can go to amazon.com and buy it. It's available on Amazon and we need it right now. It's like number 70 in certain poetry sub. That's not good enough. Let's get it to number one. Please support Joseph rosary made of air. I never actually asked my audience to go. I say, I recommend it. You should check it out. I never say, please go buy it. I'm saying, please go buy it. But we have to support artists like you who are putting out good works into the ether, who have been silenced by this group of moralists who decides if you make mistakes in your life, you are never to be forgiven. No matter how many mea culpas, no matter how much you've shown the

world that you see the error of your ways, you understand you may have misstepped, but you're like, you're human and you're on the same journey the rest of us are on, evaluating past behaviors, learning from them, if you're at all evolved, which you are, and trying to do better. So that leads us to the cancellation that you suffered during the Me Too movement. And as I understand it, and I would love to have you back another time and really get into it because the story's way, way more dense and complex than we can do justice to here. But you had a romance with a married woman. She was a poet as well. And it was bad. It went bad. It ended badly. And it was always bad. It was always bad.

Okay. So it was always bad. And as I understand it, this is my take on it. You were in a bad place. You contacted the husband on Facebook and told him that you were having an affair with the wife and the wife decided the things were going to get worse for you and started publicly making very derogatory posts about you, having her friends write long anonymous letters about what a terrible man you are. It's more than that. Contacting everyone with whom you did business in the poetry world, I mean everyone, and encouraging them, urging them to cut ties with you, all of whom did without offering you any chance to defend yourself, your actions, or really even in a lot of circumstances to know

what the specific allegations were. No one told me anything about any specific allegations. I was working for the University of Pennsylvania, which was, I mean, it just felt amazing. I'm making money doing poetry. I can possibly have a real living at this. And with a ninth grade formal education, it felt like a real coup for me. And yeah, the director who was singing my praises only months before at a fundraiser that he had me read for, he dumped me with a very legalese-laden email and said, point blank, I will not discuss any of the allegations against you. And I won't discuss any of this with you. You're done. And, um, when these kinds of

things continuously come at you over the, I mean, it went on for like a year, like this really intense, um, loss of, of what I've felt I'd earned. Um, it really starts to screw with your head, uh, not knowing what you're being accused of. And later on, I came to find out that the woman I was in the affair with had been accusing me of all kinds of things that were absolutely untrue and would have been easily enough disproven if I had been given a chance to defend myself because I never deleted a single email or text message from this lady. And there are so many emails that would exonerate me. And I was never given that opportunity, which is why I eventually wrote the essay for Quillette, which was my opportunity to give my side of the story.

But that was published in June of 2019. The cancellation happened January 2018. It took that much time to kind of gather my marbles. And the audience should know you're very open in that piece. I mean, you lay it out very, very clearly that you've made mistakes, you've done bad things, and you're sorry for them. And so it's not like you're trying to say nothing. I've been perfect man, and I treated all these women perfectly. It's it's, I'll own what I did, you know, some some verbal mistreatment, and you know, some bad incidents with me, but I'm not going to own what I didn't do. And that's the problem with

these like blanket allegations where people just want you canceled for allegations without evidence. And this is what I'm referring to in particular. So I guess this woman with whom you had the affair had an anonymous, a friend penned this anonymous letter and send it to all of your business associates. And she writes in it, a quote, anonymous person, I hope you will end relations with Joseph and make a public statement about it, especially in light of the cultural shifts around believing victims, right? Back to the, you have to believe all women. It's not, it's like not enough to have due process. You have, the woman gets the thumb on the scale and then goes

on to say, this is, this is how she writes a letter To whom it may concern, I just pulled out some phrases. Far too many people have told me about his behavior. For many people in whisper networks, it is now taken for granted that he's a predator. Well, what? That would never be admitted in a court of law. You would get an objection that was sustained almost immediately upon saying something like this. An alleged encounter the writer had, and so on and so forth. This is not proof. This is an attack that you should be given the opportunity to respond to, and yet everyone in the poetry world turned their back on you. That's right, yeah know, the main allegation in that letter was that I called the letter writer hot at a poetry reading. I know who wrote that letter. She's not hot. And I never even met her. So, yeah. And this was at the height, the peak of Me Too, when after it kind of started to spiral out of control, you know, the Aziz Ansari situation and where things really started to become kind of muddy, which was so unfortunate because Me Too was doing a lot of good. I know about your story. That's disgusting. Anybody would be treated that way in their workplace. But that energy that was behind that movement was taken and taken advantage of by people like this woman I was in the affair with who orchestrated this destruction of my life. But they failed. They didn't destroy me. It just took some time for me

to rebuild. But I have. Now I'm so glad you're in a better place. I think the openness you've shown about the pain being canceled caused is admirable. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't also relate to it. I think too often in an effort to make these stories empowering, we kind of skip over just how devastating it can get. You look around, I think you had a line in one of your pieces, the life you know is now the life you knew. It's gone. It's gone in a second. And you spend some moments in a tailspin asking yourself, what just happened? And the future, you don't know,

you have no idea professionally whether you even have a future. And it's devastating. And in your case, led to severe, severe depression and even suicide attempts. Yeah. And extremely debilitating panic attacks almost every day. Um, not the kind of panic attacks where it just, you know, uh, you know, I'm just a little uptight or something, but like I'm having a heart attack. I'm, I'm dying, you know? And, uh, yeah, that led me to, uh, being hospitalized for a couple of weeks. And, um, that was incredibly helpful. Uh, all the nurses there were so

wonderful. It was, I thought it would be like one floor over the cuckoo's nest, but it wasn't. And, um, it really saved me, um, at that time. And then also, you know, regaining my, uh, footing in a, on a spiritual path, uh, really helped tremendously. But, you know, Megan, one of the best things about writing that essay for Quillette is that I've heard from countless people, I still hear from them, who've read the essay, who've experienced something or other that I've described in the essay, and they have felt healed by it, or at least seen and heard by what I wrote. And that means the world to me. I'm working on a memoir.

And the only reason I'm writing this thing is to potentially help other people. I don't enjoy making art out of these horrible things that have happened. But I feel like it may be necessary. Yes, I feel that have happened. But I feel like it may be necessary. Yes, I feel that way too. But you talk about how you got on medication. First of all, you sought help, went to a hospital. That was good. You got on medication. You went to Alcoholics Anonymous. You got into meditation and breath work, which is so important. My sister-in-law, Diane, she loves breath work and can't say enough about it. And I know you feel the important. My sister-in-law, Diane, she loves breath work and can't say enough about it. And I know you feel the same, you know, the deep breathing, holding it

inside, you know, and then exhaling and just sort of, if you can breathe, you're alive. If you can breathe, you're still here. If you can breathe, you can, you can write the poetry, you know, you can go to the goodness. For me, that's sort of where I diverged from you because I was like, I'm not sure rejoining the world of media is goodness. You know, like I had this toxic stew still sitting there saying, come back, come back. And I was like, ew, ew, I don't want it on me. I just got it off of me. And then I kind of like you here, you know, found a different way. It was like, oh my God, wait, what if you could do it without being in the toxic stew? What if you could do the thing you love and that you know you're really good at without being in the toxic stew? That's what you're doing. That's what I'm doing. But I want to say this. Okay. Can forgive me because I'm having, I'm just really trying to manage

these sunglasses and all that. But you write this talking about sort of going for walks and feel companionship with everyone and everything you pass. You say, I know this drives against the grain of the fear and anger boiling within you, but you have to find a way of rechanneling those emotions. Don't let the mob drive you to annihilate yourself. If the sun is out, turn your face toward it. If it's raining, let it fall down the back of your neck. Feel yourself present in every given moment. The sense of loss is overwhelming, but now cannot be lost.

Now cannot be lost. And if you continue with this practice, grace will find you. Oh my God, that's so beautiful. That's not even a poem, but it makes me feel the same way your poetry does. You do those things. It's reflected in your photography, in your poems, the beauty of the puddle, the beauty of the fence post, the beauty of what's out the window on a spring day. I mean, what's it like to be you now? It wasn't just the meds that helped with the breathing techniques. It was continuing to

write poetry and continuing to take photographs and continuing to engage the world as I always had. And, uh, that is what really, I wouldn't be here without it. And, um, yeah, in that essay, I stress again and again, uh, to continue to, to do what you've always done, find a way to do it if you're able. Because some people who go through this, they're flat on their back and almost a catatonic state. They're not functional. It's such a devastating thing. And I know about your story and I, you know, I've, I've had a tiny taste of being publicly humiliated or having crappy articles written about me. And, you know, you, you endured quite a bit, but that's one of the reasons why I sent you

my fan boy note is because you did, you came back, this show is terrific. You've, it seems like you're, you're truly yourself in the show. Like it's, it's fully you. And, um, I love it. It's, it's been, it's been part of my, uh, media healthy diet. Oh, thank you so much. Honestly, it's, it's a pleasure to meet you. And, uh, I really, I want people for their own sake. It'd be great to support Joseph, of course, for all the reasons I stated, but for your own sake, follow on Twitter, go sign up for the sub stack. It's, it's inexpensive, even on a yearly basis. I'm going to get one for all of my team before, before the day is out. Abby, would you make a note of that? And just bring a little dose of lovely, of serenity, of thoughtfulness, of peace, of wellness into your life, of meaning, meaning into your life. Meaning. Thanks to Joseph. Meaning. That's right. What a pleasure.

Thank you, Megan. Thanks for everything, Joseph. Joining me now is renowned LASIK surgeon, Dr. Robert Maloney. He has helped the stars, I mean, lots of them, including most of the Kardashian family, see clearly for over 25 years. Dr. Maloney, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure, Megan. Happy to be here. All right. So I am 20 hours off of my own LASIK surgery, which I had here in Connecticut yesterday. I want to say it was Dr. Suresh Mandava in

Stanford, Connecticut, who did mine. And I love Dr. Mandava. He's wonderful. He's done a ton of these things. And I felt like I was in very good hands. You can relate to that because not only are your credentials impeccable, summa cum laude, Harvard College, medical doctorate from University of California, San Francisco. You were a Rhodes Scholar, went to Oxford, residency in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins. You were one of the first to get involved with LASIK, even having it on your own eyes back in the dark ages, 1997. So you're a perfect person to talk about. And Dr. Mondava, agreed. Let me ask you this.

One day out from LASIK, what should I be expecting? Just so we can see whether I'm doing okay. Sure. And I'm sure you're in great hands. I'm sure you're doing great. So you should have little red dots on your eye, which is, I suspect, why you've got those sunglasses on. Yes. And you're not supposed to wear makeup typically for a period of a week, which is another reason

to put the glasses on. You should have a little bit of irritation today. You should have a little bit of fogginess to your vision. I saw you struggling to read momentarily there. And that's pretty normal. That fogginess will go away tomorrow. The irritation will go away typically in a day to a week. And then your vision should

be incredible. Great. I mean, it was so great today to wake up for the first time ever in my memory anyway, being able to see the alarm clock, like not struggling to find my glasses. It's incredible. I woke up the morning after my LASIK surgery. And for a moment, I thought I'd forgotten to take my contacts out because I was seeing so well. Yes, exactly right. So I want to tell the audience that, first of all, the procedure was to me a nothing. I mean, he gave me some sort of a happy pill, which he said had Valium. I think he said one of the ingredients was ketamine, which is the stuff you get, like it's a psychedelic or something you get if you want to

take a trip with your psychiatrist and some third ingredient. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yep. Yep. It really makes you very relaxed, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly. So I was like, it's not working. It's not working. Then I stood up and I almost fell over. I'm like, it's working. So I walk in, I lie down on the table and I mean, it was at like 10 minutes, 12 minutes tops. The machine came over my right eye and it, it did like, it looked like etching. It looked like, um, I don't just lines. And then it went away and then it came back and it did something else. And then the same exact thing on the left side. And then he said, get up, you're done. That's that's, that was it. I know it's crazy. I like to say it's the first procedure of the 20, 23rd century. It just got here really

early. So I went in this morning before the show to get tested and already, even though I'm still a little cloudy already, I'm at 2020 vision without any corrective lenses. I mean, that's, it's a miracle. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's crazy how easy it is. I mean, and it's scary for people because I mean, imagine you felt this way, you're going and going, Oh my God, they're going to laser my eyeball. What's going to happen. And then you take the, you take the sedative and it really, you still feel anxious and you get in there and you're still anxious. And then it's over in 10 minutes. All of a sudden, wow, that was easy. Yeah, no, I will confess. I had no nerves about it. I don't just didn't feel nervous about this

procedure, but my husband who won't even go to the eye doctor for a normal eye exam, I have to lie to him and tell him they got rid of the glaucoma test to get him to go. Cause he doesn't like things coming near his eye. He was like, Oh, I'm going to go with you. I want to be supportive. And then they convinced him to like watch it from outside. And he wasn't expecting the closeup on the video screen. And I'm like, Oh, did you get, cause he was going to video it for my kids, our kids. And I go, did you get it? And he was like, no, I had to sit down. We occasionally have people just faint. And, you know, we're doing the surgery and it's, we try and catch them before they fall.

But it can be hard to watch. It's easy to do. It can be hard to watch. Okay. So one of the reasons. We always say, if you're thinking about LASIK, have it before you watch it. Exactly. Okay.

There you go. Because one of the reasons that I was not nervous is I did not consult Dr. Google at all about, you know, possible downsides. I just listened to my doctor on that and I didn't watch it. So I was like, fine, I don't need to know. It's like, I didn't need to watch them do my cesarean section either. Right. Some things are not necessary. They get done. Works out. Okay. But the terrible like LASIK will kill you, it'll make you blind websites. You tell me,

because my impression is those are people who chose doctors who should not be doing LASIK. Yeah. I mean, the safety of LASIK is unbelievably good. It's clear. I mean, people worry about what will a disaster happen? Will I lose my vision? It's very clear that LASIK is less likely to make you lose your vision than contact lenses. The risk of a contact lens statistic is about 1 in 3,500 every single year. That doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over time. With LASIK, the risk of infection is incredibly low. The safety of LASIK is unbelievable. There are websites out there with people with problems.

And part of it's a reflection that nothing is perfect. There's always a slight risk to any procedure. But these stories are generally from 10, 20, 25 years ago, from the early days of LASIK, when doctors were treating people who maybe shouldn't have had LASIK. And our equipment and techniques were old. I mean, it's like airplanes, right? If you're flying a Model T airplane, I mean, a Model T, a Wright Brothers airplane, a lot of them crashed. A lot of people died. Nowadays, air travel is much safer than driving a car or walking through the streets of New York, as you know. Yeah. If you go to one of those big surgical centers, that's just like they crank them out,

then that's like a volume business. There may be pressure from, you know, corners you don't want pressure from to get a lot of surgeries done. You don't want that. You want to go to an individualized surgeon who's done, who does a ton of these and who will turn you away if you're not a candidate. Like I have dry eye, which is really the reason I got LASIK. I could still wear my contacts. They actually weren't bothering me. But I know that they're bad for dry eye.

They exacerbate dry eye over the long haul. So, you know, my doctor was like, kind of should wear your glasses full time or consider LASIK. So but if you have severe dry eye, they probably won't do LASIK on you. So I needed an honest doctor, right? To say you are or are not a candidate. Yeah. So did you, were you having trouble wearing your contacts because of the dryness? Not really, but my eyes have definitely gotten drier over the past like four years. You know, if I step out into the wind, they instantly tear. If I read a lot, which I do for work,

they get very, very tired pretty quick. And did you have to use lubricating eye drops to keep your eyes moist? I'm on Restasis. Yeah, which is just annoying. You're always putting something in your eye. Contacts suck all the moisture out of your eyes. So if you have mild dry eyes,

contacts are hard to wear. And we have very good studies that show that dry eyes on average improves after LASIK because you get the contacts out and your eyes are now natural and healthy. That's not to say everybody, some people, their dry eyes get worse. And that's why we're very careful about people who have severe dry. For somebody like you with mild dry, with their contacts, it's a miracle. I mean, you'll wake up every day and you'll stop putting those drops in. You'll stop feeling your eyes tear up in the wind. It's great. Wow. See, I always said I can't lose my eyes. That's how everybody feels, right? I'm like, I'll lose my job if I can't use my eyes.

And contacts correct me perfectly. So why would I get LASIK? What I didn't realize was contacts day after day, even the daily disposables like I wore, they actually can damage your eye. They can add to dry and they can do long-term damage that you should factor into your decision. Yes. And they can cause blood vessels to grow into your eye that shouldn't be there. I mean, there's, there's, there's issues with any way you correct your vision. So you say your goal is to have a world that's glasses and contacts free, that you actually think that's a reality. Do you think that's a reality like in our lifetime? I think we're really close.

Like sort of the dream that motivates me as a surgeon is for me to be kind of walking through a museum with my grandchild someday. And he pulls on my shirt and says what's that and it's it's a display case with eyeglasses and contact lenses and he has no idea what it is wow that that's that's sort of my dream and I I think it's amazingly close to reality so we've solved almost every problem with glasses and contacts, except we don't yet have a perfect solution for the loss of reading vision that comes with age. You know, where grandma and grandpa pull out their reading glasses. In fact, it's not just grandma and grandpa. Anybody over 45 generally needs reading glasses.

And it's frustrating. You know, you see people holding things way out in front of them trying to read it. And we haven't got a great solution for that. Usually we solve that by doing one eye more for distance vision, one eye more for reading vision. So the eyes kind of work together and let you read. That doesn't work for everyone. Yeah, exactly. That's what I get.

They call it monovision, right? Exactly. And it's perfect for somebody like you who's an on-air performer. You don't want to be grabbing, you know, granny glasses and putting them on in order to read something. It doesn't work. It's too much of a hassle. Well, it's funny because my up-close reading was doing okay, but I know it's going to go

in the wrong direction. And my long distance vision was always the problem. So I put people out there who wear contacts, you'll understand this. I was wearing a minus three in each eye, minus 3.0. And I tried doing a minus three and a minus, minus 3.0. And I tried doing a minus three and a minus two. You figure out which one is your dominant eye. Your doctor does that with you and your dominant eye, they correct for the long distance. So that stayed minus three. And then the weaker eye, I guess, non-dominant, they'll under-correct that in the LASIK.

So that's going to be your reading eye. And so I tried minus three and minus two, minus three and minus 2.25, minus three and 2.225 and so on. And I wound up settling on minus 275 and minus three. And I wore those contacts for months to see if I could read that. And I love it. I was like, this one I can do. Yeah. And so kudos to, you know, kudos to your doctor, because that's what the kind of the LASIK mills don't do is you need a doctor in a system that'll sit down with you and really figure out how your vision should be corrected and what's the right procedure for you. You know, LASIK's not for everyone. I mean, it's fantastic for people who are minus three, but not for people who are minus 12. And so, you know, you need a center that'll figure out what's right for you. For the really

near sight appeal, we do something called the implantable contact lens. Yeah. What's that? Oh, it's fantastic. It's a tiny little clear. It looks like your, your old soft contact lenses, but about half the size, we roll it up in a little tube and insert it into the eye and unrolls, but it just stays there correcting vision permanently. What? Yep. It's really neat. Doesn't that cause terrible dry eyes? Yeah. No dry eyes. Yeah. That's a miracle. Yeah. Yeah. It's really neat. And the next generation of this was just FDA approved this week, actually. And so that's growing in popularity. That's for the people who have like minus 12, you're saying? Well, actually, it's great for people a lot less than minus 12.

Like we're using it sometimes as low as minus four. It just depends on the individual. But my message is you want a center that will figure out what's the right thing for you. Because there's an saying if everything, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? So you want a center that does a variety of procedures, got expertise in those, they'll sit down with you and spend time to figure out what's right for you. Well, I know that, you know, you've, you've taken care of every star in Hollywood. They all go to you. We've got video of you doing their Kardashians. I think you

did Kylie Jenner. You did Kendall Jenner. You did Kim Jenner or Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, William Shatner, Cindy Crawford, Dennis Quaid. I could go on. The list is pretty impressive of the people who have trusted you. But finding the right doctor for the average Joe out there, they probably don't have access to you. They might not have access to a Dr. Mondava. So how do they find out, okay, this guy's legit. I can entrust my eyes to him or her. Yeah. Well, 99.9% of people I correct are just regular people like, well, I was going to say like you and me, but that would be just like me actually. And yeah, most of what we do is take care of school teachers and accountants and other doctors i mean that's that's who we take care of the there's a couple things to look for in a in a surgeon one is

you want somebody who's very experienced that's kind of obvious you want somebody who will sit around and answer your question you don't want to feel like you're getting a high-pitched sales push you want people who are careful you want want people with good reviews. I mean, and you should read the reviews. Find out not just how many good ones they have, but look at the bad ones. Everybody gets bad reviews. See how they responded or if they even did respond. And then get referrals from your eye doctor because your eye doctor knows better than probably anyone who the best LASIK surgeons are. And so there's ways with a little bit of research, you can get great results like you've had. All right. So if you have a question

for Dr. Maloney, he agreed to stay with us over the break. You could call in now. You could ask the Dr. Maloney about LASIK surgery. He also is a world-renowned cataract surgeon. He does it all when it comes to the eyes. All right, let's kick it off with Steve in Ohio. Steve, what's your question for Dr. Maloney? My question is, first of all, I appreciate the segment and I've learned a lot. I actually have two quick questions. My first is, how common is it for somebody to get the procedure in one eye only, like my right eye, because my left eye is very close to perfect, far out and in close. And then my second, go ahead with that. You know, if it's not broke, we don't fix it.

So if one eye is good, we just do the other eye. So that's not that uncommon. Or sometimes we'll do just one eye for distance and leave the other eye for reading. Megan mentioned monovision just a little bit ago. Right. Okay. What's part two? Part two was I'm struggling with blood sugar that is higher than it should be.

I'm working it down. I'm not on insulin. And so going to my normal eye doctor, they realize that when your blood sugars change, your eye and your vision changes, and they don't want to invest in new glasses yet until I get my sugars stabilized. Would you recommend the same stance about getting a LASIK procedure? Yeah, kudos to them. That's absolutely the right approach and get your blood sugar under control and then worry about your vision. Look, it's real important for your health.

So don't give up. Okay, let's go. Let's hop on over to Jim in South Carolina, who's got a question. Hi, Jim. Yeah. Hi, Megan. Love the show, by the way. I had a question.

I had cataract surgery last year and they just put in clear lenses. And I am one of those people that really wants to see perfectly out of both eyes. And my right eye is still not great for distance. Can I, first of all, get the LASIK? And second of all, is it worth doing? Jim, you definitely can get the LASIK, assuming you're otherwise a good candidate. In fact, I did my mom's LASIK after her cataract surgery because she still had some astigmatism left over in both eyes. So I did LASIK on both eyes. She's had perfect vision now for seven, eight years. Yeah, that was my issue. They didn't correct the astigmatism. Yeah. So yeah, it can work very well. You know, it just

depends on the particulars of your case. Find a great LASIK surgeon and ask. So you can get LASIK after cataract surgery and you can get cataract surgery after LASIK? Sure can. Yeah. So Megan, someday you'll get cataract surgery. Everyone, if you live long enough, gets a cataract, typically in your mid seventies. But it's like gray hair. It's just a normal part of aging. So yeah, everyone gets it, even those who've had LASIK. Sometimes you see people, elderly people, it's almost like a buildup on their eye. You can see their eye is becoming, it almost looks like a scab is on it. Is that a cataract? No, you can't really see cataracts. Cataracts are haziness of the natural lens inside the eye.

So when you look out, your vision's foggy. It's just not clear, and it's very frustrating. And you fix that. Cataract surgery means you take your lens out, your natural lens, which is hazy, and put a new clear lens in its place. And that's what Jim was talking about. And that works great, clears up the haze. That thing you see on the eyes of old people is what we call a pinguicula. It's usually a little yellow spot kind of just next to the colored part of the eye. It's caused by age and sun exposure. And they can be removed, actually, and they don't look very good.

Good. I don't want that. I never go out in the sun because I'm so fair. But it's good to know that's available. All right. Stacey in Wisconsin has a question for the good doc. Stace? Huge fan.

Thank you guys so much for talking about this. I have two questions, actually. One, I'm just wondering when we're looking for the right place or doctor, is there some kind of accreditation? Is it just the American Medical Association? Is there something we should be looking for that they have done training with that, you know, kind of shows they're good? Yeah, that's such a great question. No, there's no accreditation, Stacey, for LASIK surgeons. But there's some things that are sort of like accreditation. Look for people who are

definitely board certified. Look for people who've published articles about LASIK. Generally, if you publish articles, you're probably an expert. And again, get referrals from not just one person, but multiple people. And the other thing is, here's another question. How do they make sure, Doc, that the guy has or the gal the most recent equipment? Like you made the point about the Wright Brothers flight. How do they make sure that it's the most recent laser? Great question. And one of the challenges is equipment.

I've got about a million dollars of equipment in my operating room. And so the temptation is not to buy more equipment. And so generally, places that do a high volume will have the latest equipment because they can afford to reinvest in it. So that's a good reason to stay away from people that don't do a lot of LASIK. And then just ask them, what equipment are you using? And they'll tell you. And then you obviously won't know, but then go online and Google it and see if it's the latest version. All right, last question. I'm going to steal this one.

What's the average price of LASIK? A lot of people wonder that because it's not covered by insurance, is it? Not covered by insurance. Price of LASIK per eye ranges at a good place from about $2,000 to $3,500. You can get discount LASIK for $1,000, $1,200, but usually that comes along with upcharges. So you end up paying around $1,000, $1,200, but usually that comes along with upcharges.

So you end up paying around $2,000, $2,500 by the time you're done anyway. All right. Good to know. And thank you so much for the great information and the great calls, everybody. Thanks to everyone for the support on my own procedure. I'll be looking like this again on Monday and until I can get my eye makeup back on. In the meantime, don't miss Monday because my pal Jeremy Boring of The Daily Wire is here. He's the one fighting back with Ben against all this nonsense.

You'll love him. See you then and have a great, great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.