The Megyn Kelly Show - Shawn Ryan and Charlie Sheen - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

Megyn Kelly brings you two of the most fascinating interviews from the Megyn Kelly Show archives in this Sunday "Double Feature" episode - with host Shawn Ryan and actor Charlie Sheen.     Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan and Kelly show in today's double feature Sunday mega episode. Today we're bringing you the very first conversation I ever had with two fascinating people, with whom I've developed friendships since these interactions you're about to listen to. The first is Sean Ryan when Sean flew into our studio two years ago. I didn't know what to expect. But the two-hour conversation we had blew me away. I just love this guy. I'm professionally speaking. I just adore him.

He was so open and honest in ways that many aren't and his life story from the Navy Seals to crime committing, as he put it, to finding God and redemption started our beautiful journey together. I recently saw Sean, as you may have seen, when I took a trip down to his studio in Nashville last month, which involved three and a half hours of conversation and a lot of shooting guns, which was super fun. You can go check that out on his feed and enjoy, but you'll listen to our first meeting today, which was very, very deep and insightful on his part. Then there's Charlie Sheen. Charlie came in last year for an interview about his life and career, and it became very clear why he was for a time the biggest star in Hollywood. Since this interview, we got a chance to meet in person during the MK Live tour last year,

and he delighted our entire in-auditorium audience and beyond. and I would imagine that our conversations will continue in the future. I certainly hope so. Enjoy and we'll see you Monday. On Memorial Day, we remember and honor the men and women who have died while in military service. Every year, we welcome a military veteran here on this show to share their story. And today, I'm very excited to talk to Sean Ryan for the very first time. Sean's a former U.S. Navy SEAL and CIA contractor with 14 years of service spanning multiple combat operations.

He is also the host of the hugely popular The Sean Ryan Show, where he has an audience of millions on YouTube, podcast platforms, and more. This is where he goes in-depth, and I mean in-depth with a host of guests for fascinating conversations on a whole range of subjects. Sean developed the show to document the untold stories of war, loss, and redemption. And he does that in much, much more. Glad to welcome him here in person for this special episode. Sean, welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for your service to kick it off. Oh, thank you for saying that.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate it too. It's hard on Memorial Day because it's a solemn day, right? But people are out there trying to get their big TV. And I understand that, right? People are like, they work hard and they, but you got to take a moment or an hour or two just to stop and think about while you have the freedom, shop where you want and wear what you want and say what you want and do what you want. And that boils down to you guys.

you and the friends you've lost. Well, thank you. So let's talk about you and your background and how you wound up a Navy SEAL because it takes a certain kind of person. I know this from my many interviews of SEALs over the years. It's not like, you're not normal people.

I think that's fair to say. Am I wrong? I think that's fair to say. Okay. And so when, tell us what you were like as a child because there are always some signs of a future Navy SEAL in there, whether it's a rebellious kid or a leader

or obsessive about something. Jocko said his parents wouldn't let him quit anything. Like if he took up knitting, they wouldn't let him quit knitting. So looking back at your own childhood, were there signs of the future you there? There probably were. I was definitely very rebellious, not a great student, not a great listener, very creative, and just not very academic at all. So the teams, the seal teams were kind of came on my radar.

I don't remember exactly, but I was always infatuated with the military. I was, when I was growing up, the Gulf War was going on. And I remember picking up all the magazines and all that stuff and just looking at all the pictures. Really into GI Joe's. And it got to the point where, When I got to high school, I just, like I said, I wasn't an academics guy. I didn't, I wasn't interested in school. And I definitely wasn't going to do well in college.

So I decided to look into the military. Alternatives. Did you come from a military family? Not exactly. I mean, my dad did serve. He was a pharmacist in the Army. So definitely a totally different role, you know, different direction. had no interest in the medical field at all.

So I started looking at the Marine Corps. I wanted to be a recon guy. They wouldn't let me in. I went to the Army, wanted to be a Green Beret, wouldn't let me in. And the Navy recruiter kind of stuck his head out and asked if I'd ever heard of the SEAL teams, and I hadn't at the time.

So he gave me, you know, endless material to pick through. And so I did that. very fast and and when I realized what it was, it just captivated me. So how does a guy who's not, you know, devoted to his academics, which does require the kind of tenacity and hard work you put in to become a seal, find it in order to go through Bud's training and actually perform that elite level as soldier? I mean, I don't. It's just the only thing that caught my interest, you know,

and so nothing really in school caught my interest. And I didn't, I never really felt challenged, I don't think. And so, I mean, there was a multitude of things. I wasn't the top performer out of my three siblings in sports or in academics. Where are you in the birth order? I'm first. And where'd you grow up? I grew up.

We moved around a lot, but primarily Missouri. Okay, keep going. You're first. Yeah, yeah, first born. And so. I got in there and, I mean, long story short, maybe we'll dive in, but I just wanted to do something. One, I wanted to serve my country and I wanted to finally give my parents a reason to be proud of me. And so that kind of carried me through.

And were they? Like when you signed up at first, were they, what year would that have been? That would have been 2000, 2000. No, wait. When I signed up, it was two. 2001. Okay. Right.

It was before 9-11. It was right before 9-11. I went to the Navy to boot camp in July of 2001. Oh, my gosh. Little did you know what was about to happen to the country, the world, and you. Yeah. So were your parents proud when you signed up? Were they?

I think they were definitely worried. It surprised them. It kind of came out of left field. And so, but once they wrapped their head around, and saw that I was, I seemed to be serious. They, they, they, they, they fully supported it. See, that's how I feel. I would love for, I'll be sexist, my boys to serve, but I'd be terrified.

If they actually said they were going to do it, I'd be in church every day, praying to God, lighting every candle in the church. You know, I can see what your parents went through. And I'm sure most parents go through that, especially if it's not a lifelong military family. Yeah, yeah. I would too. I have two little ones now. So, yeah.

I get it. And, you know, especially if you're looking at your kid and so far, he's been kind of a knucklehead. I don't think this kid should have a gun. I don't, I'm not sure how this is going to go. Very true. So there had to be some concerns there. And just out of curiosity, what did your siblings wind up doing? My brother is in hospitality.

My sister has her hair salon. Okay. So they were not tempted to follow you down this road. No. All right. So you decide to join up for military. service and not just any military service, not just like, I don't know, the regular infantry with the Army, you decided to go for Navy SEALs. So inside there's an overachiever just waiting

to be born. And did you know anything about how hard that was going to be? I did once I started researching that. I just, I didn't care. I was just, I was going to do it. And I felt great all the way up until I arrived at civil training. In my mind, I was amazing right up until I started. Exactly. And I mean, when I got there, I was 18 and, you know, barely a man. And when I got there, there were guys that had, there were Olympic athletes. There were guys that had already been to war and come back.

Guys that had been to Panama, guys that have been to Iraq. It was championship boxers, and I was probably about a buck 30. Wow. Now, is this why I read you got laughed out of one of the recruiting offices? Yeah, that would be the Army and the Marine. Okay, the Marine Corps told you no. Hard know. This is a common story.

I've heard this from a few of our Navy Sailbuds that they got laughed at when they tried to sign up. What is it with the Army? Are the Marines just like? I think, I mean, it's just, you know, it's pretty ambitious to walk in and say, hey, I want to, I want to operate at the top level right away. Right. And they're kind of like, okay, guy, pump the brakes, maybe do infantry, go the long route. And I just, I had no interest in going the long route. I didn't want to do regular infantry.

There's nothing wrong with that. But I just wanted, I wanted the challenge. Do you remember back in those early days when you were first starting to train what jumped out at you amongst the guys who surrounded you? Like were there commonalities in this pocket of the world that were immediately noticeable as different? Once I got to Bud's. Or even when you just first signed up and started training. Because you didn't go right to Bud's training, right? You do normal training before.

You do normal training before. I mean, I grew up in a town of 6,000 people. So there wasn't there wasn't that many. people that wanted to do this. I remember the first time I met, they called him a seal motivator. He was kind of a guy that would go around, I don't know, the country, who was a seal. And then now he's teaching how to swim and kind of refining some of your techniques with running and swimming and some things that you might expect.

and he had, he just carried himself different than, than anybody else I'd been around before. So there's, there's definitely a type. Now knowing what you know, is that, does that come from combat or just the grueling nature of seal training? Like guys who are going through it today, can they get that without actually going into combat like you have? Oh, I think so. I mean, I do believe that. So the Navy will get it into you. They will.

They will. They'll figure out a way. I'm thrilled and impressed and want to do it. And a secret version of myself would love to try this. I don't think I can. I can't really even make it through 10 minutes of jumping jacks in my hit class. But in my mind, this could happen for me someday. And we've had lots of tough guys come on here and talk about how the toughest guys they knew didn't make it through training. just couldn't make it through it.

It's just a mind over matter kind of situation. But you're telling me you didn't have anything in your past that told you could, you could put mind over matter and accomplish this. No, I didn't. I didn't. And so it was, I mean, I was an 18-year-old kid at Buds. And it was, it was, I mean, it's scary to see who quits. You know, I mean, you're seeing people that you look up to, people that, I mean,

you're constantly measuring up to somebody else and comparing yourself to somebody else and going, oh, you know, if that guy, if that guy didn't make it, I don't think I have a chance. And so you just put your head down and drive on and try to make it to the next meal, try to make it to the next day, and just keep driving on. And it, I get to the point where I did, I wanted to quit. But I could not. I could not face calling my parents and tell them that I had failed again. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I've had guys say there's no way I was going to see my father's name on that hat and ring that bell. Nope, not me. So you talked a little bit about your upbringing. Was it a modest upbringing? Like what kind of childhood did you have? Yeah, I mean, I would say upper middle class upbringing. And small town, we moved around a lot, probably moved over 10 times in my childhood. But we finally settled in Missouri in a small farm town known as Chillicothe, Missouri.

And I haven't been back there in several years. But I was, I liked full contact sports. Tried football was too small, couldn't make it, got into wrestling, was a mediocre wrestler. Nothing, no state championships or anything like. like that. Just kind of an average kid, troublemaker, really into booze and partying. And, and, yeah, I mean, that was, that was my childhood. Did you have strict parents? They tried to be strict, but, but. I managed to find ways around it. I would, that was the future CAA contractor. That's, the foundation was being laid. Little did they know. This is important research for you. Yeah,

Good point. Good point. But yeah, I mean, they were definitely against a lot of the things that I was doing. They were not happy that I was drinking. They were not happy with some of the crowd that I was running around with. They were not happy with my grades. And yeah, like I said, when it came time to make some decisions on what I'm going to do with my future, I had to take a hard look. And so I went the military. round. I was just talking to Riley Gaines not long ago. She was talking about how, you know, she's this competitive swimmer, and now she's an activist on the trans insanity that's happening to women. And she was talking about how her dad put her in the pool one time and just made her be in that pool for some eight to ten minutes, freezing cold. It was not a summer pool.

He pulled off the cover during the winter, made her get in. And it was an exercise in mental toughness, you know, just to, like, you're not cold. You got to get, that's you guys. You do that every day. day during seal training, when you're a seal, it's horrid, and it is somewhat tortuous from what I've heard. So when you finally see yourself in those situations, how do you say, I'm not quitting? How do you get through it? How do you get from minute 10 to a minute 11 to minute 12? I mean, you just have to dig deep. I mean, it's not, it's not, it is very physical, but it's more mental. And so everybody,

everybody in training is going to break. It's going to happen. And it just, you get to this point where you go numb. You get to this point where you go numb. And then it just doesn't matter anymore. Nobody really quits after, I think Wednesday night is the day where it's very, very rare for anybody to quit. But it's just, it's breaking time down and instead of going, I'm going to make it through. this entire six months.

It's, I'm going to make it to hell week. And then when you get to hell week, it's, I'm just going to make it to the next meal or I'm going to make it to the next med check. And by Wednesday night, I mean, you haven't slept. Remind me of when it starts? It starts. I think it starts on Sunday night, and I believe it's done Friday night. Okay.

It's five days with minimal sleep. But your muscles break down. get, what do they call it, elephantitis, your ankle starts swelling up. Oh, I had that when I was pregnant. Oh, really? No, I mean, it just happens naturally. Everything swells up. Yeah.

But it's just, it's doing those little time hacks and just breaking it down and making it to the next meal, making it to the next med check, checking your buddies by Wednesday, you know, it's a pretty tight group. Everybody's pretty much gone. And you kind of just go into maybe this flow state, you know, and you're just, you're just moving. Yeah, it sounds kind of transcendent in a way. So then you have to actually be a Navy SEAL, which is no easier. And especially when you complete your training in July of 2001.

All hell breaks loose in the country and the world. And how many combat deployments did you have? With the seal teams, I had two combat deployments. To Iraq and Afghanistan? Yep. Okay. And two different seal teams? Yeah.

So when I got into the seal teams, it was around 2003. And the first deployment, we went to Germany, which was a really boring deployment. And then we went to Afghanistan in the late summer of 05. I believe. And how long were you there? We were only there for three months. So it was right after Red Wings happened. Are you familiar with Red Wings?

The lone survivor. Oh, yeah, of course. Yes, I've had Marcus on. He's amazing. Yeah. So we relieved them after that happened. That was the biggest seal team, the biggest loss in SEAL team history at the time.

And it was the SOCOM was doing this surge where they needed more guys. And so they sped up the deployment cycle. And so I went from SEAL teammate to SEAL Team 2. Did my Afghanistan deployment with SEAL Team 2. We didn't do a whole lot there. There was a lot of political stuff going on after that operation. And to be 100% honest, I was really dissatisfied. I went to the teams to go to war and to fight for the country.

and I wasn't getting enough. I think we did one direct action. That entire deployment took a couple of prisoners, no shots fired. And then we got our admiral pulled us out of the country. And so at that point, I kind of made a decision for me. This wasn't what I had expected. And so I told my leadership, I said, hey, this is going to be my last. pump. I'm not doing another one. I'd like to finish by Listman out on deployment. So we had a

sister platoon that was in Baghdad that was running a lot of sniper operations. And so I volunteered to go there and they threw my name in the hat and I got lucky and went. Volunteered to go to Baghdad. Yeah. In 2000. That would have been 2008 05 or early 06. I mean, the worst absolute time to be in Baghdad for anybody, you know, who's not ready to fight and kill and risk their life. I mean, that was just a devastating time. I remember just as a journalist covering those years. And that's when all the beheading started. It was bad. It was about as bad as it could be. I mean, it's amazing. Again, it being Memorial Day, I have to think about guys like you who volunteered to go into it. The guys who volunteered to go into the buildings on 9-11 at great risks to themselves. And then, their brothers in arms in a way who volunteered to go into the fire in a different way a couple years after that we all have a lot to be thankful for so how long were you there i was in bagdad for about four months and so we got there uh the operational tempo was pretty slow at first there was an election going on if i remember and and then we we were on the hook to do like protection for the for the

Iraqi government officials. And nothing was happening. So we wound up the lieutenant, threw our name of the hat, to just help conventional units who were getting blown up on their reconnaissance routes, supply routes, whatever the routes were. I mean, they had these bombs called EFPs over there,

which were, I don't know if you remember, maybe you covered this, but they would basically put them on the side of the road, and they could be triggered by IR lasers. So they would pick up heat sensitivity to engine blocks, and they had the timing down perfectly to where the projectile will go through the passenger or driver's side door of the Humvees, and basically would vaporize everything in the vehicle,

and you'd just get sucked out of a little hole on the back end. And so that was that was chewing a lot of our guys up. And we just got tired of seeing these conventional guys just get crushed by these EFPs. And so we started attaching ourselves to these conventional units that didn't have the knowledge or know-how on how to kind of combat this, set up a targeting package to get these guys. And so what we would do is we would get in with them and be. with them, train them for a couple of weeks, bring them out, teach them how to set up sniper hides, teach them how to do a targeting package, teach them how to conduct surveillance, teach them how to start running assets within the local population to try to figure out who's doing this,

and teach him how to shoot, taught them everything, gave them a lot of stuff. We really kind of like took these guys under our wings, and then we would take them out on operations. And so we would go out, find all the places they were getting hit and set up sniper teams along all of those different routes, all those points of interest. And we would take each sniper observation team would take maybe one or two conventional guys with them on the actual operation. And we started killing bad guys. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Start and turning things the other way. You must have lost a lot of friends. Every guy who serves does, and you're one of the lucky ones if nothing happens to you to take a limb or a traumatic brain injury. As you're going through it, there's no time to deal with any of that, right? It's just forward, like we talked about in the training, just forward. There's no time to think about that stuff. But you're in active combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually that stop.

right? And is it at that point that you have to deal with that or is it later? Because I know then comes a CIA stint. It's a gradual. It just comes on gradual. And I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of coping mechanisms that we use. And that dumbs it out, booze, pills. sleeping pills, whatever you can kind of do to numb it out. And, you know, in the early days, nobody knew any better, you know, that kind of all came crashing down later on for a lot of guys. And that's what we cover on my show. But it took, it took a while, you know, for that stuff to start sinking in, probably well into my contracting career at the agency.

Mm-hmm. Well, that's the thing. If when you have massive crises, especially repeated and ongoing sustained crises, there's only one way, like you have to compartmentalize. How could you possibly function if you were dealing with any of it? Yeah. You're not, you actually are human, despite all appearances of our seals and our rangers and all those guys. So was it right after your service in Iraq that you decided to join the agency? No, honestly, I didn't want to, I never wanted to go back. and I wanted to pursue some type of a career in business. And so I tried a lot of things, civilian life. I just wasn't ready for it yet. And I decided that I had missed the brotherhood, the camaraderie,

the obnoxiousness of being on a team. And so I decided I would try to get into a fire academy. And I did. It wasn't what it wasn't for me. What do you mean fire academy? It's a firefighter. Firefighter, okay. Yeah, I wanted to be.

I just thought, well, that seems like the next best thing to what I was a part of. And it just wasn't going to work for me. A lot of family ties help in the fire service, and I had none. So I had a friend and there was in Afghanistan with me, another seal, and he said, hey, I'm working for Blackwater, and I think you should come work with us. And I had seen a lot of the Blackwater contractors and heard a lot of the stuff that was going on over there at the time. Some of it was true. Some of it wound up not being true.

But I decided while I was over there and I saw how those guys operated. I didn't want to be a part of the contracting career, and especially at Blackwater. And so I'd express that to him and he said, this is different. This is a different project. The qualifications all have to be at least six years in special operations or above. Then there's a month-long tryout. I can't tell you who I'm working for. But I think you would really fit in well here.

And it's not what you're thinking. It's very high caliber. operators working here. So I threw my name in the hat and took about six months to get a call back. And then I did. And it was just an email that said, hey, be here at this time, bring this gear with you. And it was a betting course. So it was for Blackwater.

So I don't know how familiar you are with Blackwater, but Blackwater is a massive organization. And they have, so under Blackwater, they have all these different contracts. They have the Department of State contract. They have the DEA contract. They have probably all kinds of government contracts. And then the very back of the compound, which Blackwater compound was, I don't know how many thousands of acres, is the black, the black sites. And so you go back there, they don't tell you anything. and you're with a group of guys and you start off with a PT test and then you do some shooting qualifications.

They don't really tell you what the standards are. They're just, it's just here's the time. Do your best. Or sometimes, they won't even give you the time. Just hit that target as many times as you can and as fast as possible. And so you do that and it's, you know, it's really, it's, you don't know the standard and that's the biggest stressor is there's nobody. What's succeeding? What's failing?

Yeah. You don't, you have no idea. And you don't even know if you passed at the end of the day or not. And so it's just, I mean, you know you passed if you're showing up the next day to work to try out. And so we had made it through. the shooting qualifications and then you go through a lot of kind of situational stuff they'll put you in these in these situations uh and they want to just see how you react how you can lead a team how you can integrate him with a team um all kinds of different scenarios scenarios that you're never

going to fight your way out of uh lots of uh lots of like role players uh with simonition rounds which is basically kind of like a paintball gun, but more realistic. And it would put you in all these scenarios to see if you could keep your cool under pressure, not shooting any innocent civilians. It was a protection type gig as well. So a lot of times they would have like some type of an asset that you have to go in and extract. And I made it through that. And then at the very end, there was also driving surveillance, all kinds of stuff, that they wanted to just kind of see how you were in all these different scenarios.

And at the end, they give you the brief and say, hey, you know, this is the OGA, other government agency, CIA contract. And they started looking for dates to go overseas. Yes, but you don't know for what? No. You never know for what. You just know that you've been selected as this elite kind of service member. And whatever it is is going to be very high level and complicated and complex, right? So you're in, but you don't know what you're in for.

Yeah. Well, that's disconcerting. Just listening to you. You are cool. You are calm. Like, that probably really helped you. I mean, I was just thinking, who do I know who's kind of more on the hysterical end? I don't know her, but she's the only one who came to mind.

Somebody like a Bethany Frankel. the former real housewife. I know that's a bizarre comparison. But I mean, she's tightly wound, Sean. She's like, always like everything is up here, right? And you're just the opposite of it. I just kind of a cool cat, like a low blood pressure kind of guy. Well, I mean, when you're in a job like that,

and I'm sure you can relate being on TV and with the career that you've had. But, I mean, it's so, it gets to be so high stress. Every day you're being judged. You're being graded. It's, do you have what you? takes to be a part of this team, you know, from the, from from seal training through the, through the, through the teams, the six years. I was there to CIA or blackwater training for the subcontractor of CIA contractor. I mean, it's just you have to get to the point where you can

you know, blow that stuff off. And and that that came to me in the teams. It, it, I was constantly just, it was just stress all the time. Do I deserve to be? be here, I might get kicked out this week. You know, what is my team think of me? I'm a new guy. And you have to, and that stuff can hinder your performance. And so, you know, the most stressful thing you can do, at least for me as an operator, is when you're doing the killhouse, which is entering buildings, saving hostages,

killing bad guys, all in your face, clearing houses, basically. We're talking about real life now or the training? We're talking about training and real life. Okay. But primarily, I guess primarily training. And it gets to the point where if you let this stuff get to you, every house, we call them a house from where you go through the doors, maybe you blow the doors, maybe you're climbing in a window, maybe you're coming in from the rooftop, doesn't matter. But once you enter that house and training, every move you make is critiqued. and it can make it seem like, and purposely, that they're picking on you, that you're not any good, that they don't want you there.

And you just have to get to the point where you can't let that stuff affect you. It just got to the point in the teams where I had hit this mental switch where I don't care anymore. I had like tricked myself into thinking, I don't care how this run, this house. run ends. I don't care what these guys think of me. I'm just going to do the best I can do, and that's all I can do. Do you know the free solo movie and the story about that mountain climber who refused to use any lines and supports, and he wound up dying? No. But they talk about these guys who climb these mountains, and they're nuts. They do it with no support. You know, there's nothing to, you know, and a lot of them do die. But they identify with a lot of

these guys that they've lost their ability to get an adrenaline surge. And that's actually one of the reasons why they do it, the way they do it, without all the belts and suspenders. Can you relate to that at all? Oh, yeah. Do you lose? Addition to adrenaline? Yeah.

And then maybe crossing over to, it's gone. Like, where is it? How can I get it again? Yeah. You find it through, I mean, that's why so many guys honestly wind back up in the contracting arena is, especially like these guys, you know, It spent 30 plus years at the SEAL teams or a SF team or Delta or wherever, Rangers, Marsok, you can't, you, it's never enough.

I mean, it's like, it's like a heroin addiction. You know, you're constantly looking for the fix. And then it gets so bad that even on your off time, you know, you're looking for it. It's not, you can't take six months and not feel that. It is, it's the pinnacle of your existence at the time. I can't imagine, you know, just the other night, I was at a dinner party at a friend's house in Connecticut. And it was absolutely lovely. The hostess knew all the right things to do.

We had a lovely cocktail hour. We sat down for dinner. There was even some dancing after the fact, which was a successful cocktail party, a dinner party by any measure. I can't imagine a Sean Ryan having lived the life you've lived, right, coming back. from all of that and even participating in such. I mean, I just feel like your whole life must have been, you know, when this was done, like, what is this? Who are these people?

What is, this is just absolute drivel around me everywhere. None of this matters. Did you go through that? Oh, yeah. It created a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety. I had really bad social anxiety when I left the agency. and I just, I mean, you are thrown into a world that you thought you knew, and it's just, it's hard.

I mean, it's really hard to relate to anybody who has not lived the kind of life that you've lived. Yeah. It takes a long time, you know, and it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of self-work. It's like you were on Mars for 14 years. Pretty much. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Right? And you come back,

Earth has changed a lot. You know, now there's an internet, and GPS and iPhones and social media. So it's just like the dramatic changes. And a lot of different opinions on what we're doing over there. So can you help me understand because we talked about leaving the seals and going to Blackwater? And then, but that and that, do you count that as CIA time? I don't totally understand the distinction.

Yeah. So, so I spent a very brief time at Blackwater as well. So I did two deployments, I think, with Blackwater. water and um but you're under so basically if you're going to get your house work done right you're going to use a general contractor and then he's going to subcontract out the plumbing the drywall the air conditioning so think of like think of blackwater as the general contractor for the u.s government and so then department estate is says hey we need 500 guys to in bagdad to protect all of our state diplomats.

Okay, so Blackwater goes and they, what kind of guys do you want? What do you want to pay? You know, what qualifications are you looking for? And then they go find those type of people, train them up, put them through a vetting course, and then here's your 500 guys. And so CIA does the same thing. It's, hey, we need, we have this very particular set of skills we're looking for. This is the job description.

You guys, you, Blackwater. or go find these guys for us. So we're basically subcontractors for the agency. Does that make sense? Yeah. Why, I don't understand Blackwater that well, but why would they not just go tap the seals or the Green Berets or why would they go to Blackwater for any of this? That's a great question.

I wish I could answer that. And they do go direct. And so later on in my career after Blackwater, I wound up. I had taken a break from Blackwater. And then I went to a company called SOC, did a couple appointments with them, got kind of tired of the agency stuff for a little bit. So then I jumped on an anti-piracy gig back. Do you remember the Mariske, Alabama? Yeah.

So after that happened, all these contracts spun up. And it was, all right, we need seals on ships to kill pirates that are trying to, you know, kidnap the crew and take over the ship. Just another day at work. Yeah. And ransom. No, that's like Rob O'Neill. I told him he's like the Waldo of, you know, servicemen. He's everywhere.

Yeah. Every movie this ever been made. Rob O'Neill had a role in it. He's been on all of the ops, right? But, yeah. But so I did that for two deployments and then the agency got back in touch with me, and then they wanted me to come work direct for them as a contractor, but not through any companies.

Okay. And so. But now you're actually earning some money. Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. I mean, more so than he ever got paid by the, by the, Navy.

Way more than I got paid for by the Navy. But can you get rich doing that or not really? I mean, I guess it depends on how you invest your money. I mean, at that time, a good rate was about $1,000 a day. So that would be a really, that would be a good rate. Some guys, a low rate would be about 550 a day. And so, yeah, I mean, it depends on how much you want to deploy. Where are you sitting in between deployments?

Are you back here, like going to the movies and Starbucks? I spent a lot of time. Well, I mean, it was 14. Agency was about a little shy of nine years. And so I would, man, I would go all over. But towards the end, I started going to Columbia, South America. This was not a good period in your life. You know about this.

Nothing good happens in Columbia. Nothing good does happen in Columbia. No, I do know a little bit about your troubles. And that was a rough period for you. Explain why and why Columbia. Well, originally I went to Columbia because when I joined the SEAL teams, I had always wanted to go to Team 4 because I wanted to do the counter drug ops. Well, then, you know, 9-11 kicked off, obviously, and that wasn't a focus.

at all. And so when I was in the agency, I had broken up with a girlfriend, and so I decided I wanted to travel and I'd always I was just infatu- I mean, those were all the documentaries I was watching when I went to the recruiter. That was

the only thing going on at the time was Panama and kind of the counter-drug situation down in South America, which a lot of that was in Columbia. Since documented in shows like Narcos. Yeah. Yeah. And And so I decided I wanted to go check it out down there.

And so I... I mean, that's crazy talk. Just like as a pin in this country, that's crazy talk. Nobody looks at a show like Narcos or Panama and says, yes, I want to go there. All normal people are like, thank God that's down there. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was for a number. I wanted to see, I just, I wanted to be in a jungle environment.

And so I went to check it out, had a great time. And so I just kept going back, kept going back, kept going back, kept going back all the way past my time at the agency. But then it turned into, we had just kind of spoken about addiction to adrenaline. And so I was going down there doing a lot of stuff that I shouldn't be doing, cocaine. and and and and then once I left the agency, I kind of started building a network down there. And it just, it was exciting to me. I was in overseas, building my own network,

kind of felt like I was kind of running my own operations. What kind of operations? Drug networks. And so I wanted to see how deep into, the kind of narcos network I could get myself. But this was not for crime fighting. No. This was for crime committee.

Pretty much. Yeah. So I kind of started at street level and built a network out and went to clubs and met people and found my guys and started testing cocaine and finding the best stuff. and I found it. And that lasted for a couple years, and I would bounce. I mean, it was really, I got a lot of satisfaction out of the adrenaline and just seeing, and just seeing how much I could have been, and bed myself into these different cultures.

And so then I started flying all over the, all over South America. I started going to Peru and starting to build network there. Dominican Republic and Panama all over Colombia, all over the country, and Costa Rica. And then I started looking up the most dangerous places you could go in the world. And at the time, it was San Pedro, Sula, Honduras. So I went there and started, I didn't get very far there. But that was my life for several years. Wow. And the part was cocaine and you would find what, like would be dealers, people to distribute it?

I would find dealers and then I would find their dealers and then I would find where their dealers get their stuff. And I got to a pretty high level. It's a miracle you weren't killed. It is a miracle. It was, I mean, this is what I do for a living though, you know. That's true. You had some pretty superior training. I was pretty good at it and pretty fearless. at the time. So when you're talking to your old Navy SEAL buds or Blackwater buds and you're down there

and they're saying, what are you up to? What were you saying? I would just tell them. I've crossed over to the other side. I wouldn't tell them exactly what I'm doing, but I would, I mean, they knew. Everybody kind of knew, you know. I mean, it just, I started losing friends. I know the conversations were like, oh, yeah, I mean, he's down in Columbia.

nobody really hears from them anymore. And I would resurface every once in a while. Sometimes guys would come down to see me. They wouldn't last very long. They'd head back out immediately. And it just, it got to be very dark. And, you know, I, I OD'd down there a couple of times. And I remember.

One time, I woke up and it was like it was Mother's Day. And I remember calling my mom and I was all junked out. And I remember after that conversation, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And I knew I needed to pull myself out of that. And it kind of like went right back to the time when, you know, I told you, the only reason I made it through buds was I didn't want to let my parents down. And I sure as hell didn't want my parents to get a notice weeks later that their son had OD'd on cocaine and a penhouse in Columbia. And who knows how long that would take to even get to them. And so it had painted this picture in my head.

And I started seeking help kind of. It's a big moment. Yeah. Before you begin that path to redemption. Yeah. What got you there? What made you established residency in Columbia and go all over these countries, the most dangerous countries on earth,

to mess with other people's drug rings? My God. Right? It's like playing with plutonium for a living. Yeah. And be so reckless with your life and your well-being. You know, I just, I just didn't value life anymore. I didn't care.

I mean, I had expected to, I had expected to die down there. And then when I got close, I realized there's a lot more to life than this. And so, so I cleaned it up. And truth be told, I mean, that was kind of an awakening, but I wasn't 100% ready to shut it down. And then I had, you know, I had built quite the network down there. And I got tipped off that the federal police in Columbia were surveilling me and people that I was with. And so I had,

I ENED out of the country. What's ENED? I mean, I just, I abruptly left. And I did kind of a, we call them an SDR, but surveillance detection route. And I wanted to see if they were surveilling me if I was walking around town. And so I got rid of everything, cleaned everything up. And went to an internet cafe, booked myself some tickets, to a couple different places, jumped on one and left the country.

Came back stateside? Yeah. Do we extradite to Columbia? Just asking for a friend. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, I got out of there and went home, home to Missouri, talked to my parents. They knew some something was really wrong. Tell them everything?

Yeah, I don't remember telling them anything. and woke up the next day after telling him with a hangover, and my dad was, I could just tell by the look on his face that I must have spilled probably just about everything. What did the look say? Very concerned and worried. I didn't take it seriously. I didn't think I needed any help, and I just kept out it. What do you mean?

Kept at what? I kept that. I wouldn't put the bottle down. I wasn't ready to do that. I don't think I could have done that. And then, you know, through the career, I mean, you just, you know, I had mentioned, you know, numbing it out. And, and numbing it out becomes, it's not even a cycle. It's just this, it's just pills after pills. It's a way of life. You know, it's volumes, X, Loxapan, ambient, hydrocoding, oxy, taramidol, what kind of whatever. you can just wash down to shut the brain down and get some rest. And so I wasn't doing that. I wasn't ready to clean that up. I had kind of weaned myself off the Coke. And then things just weren't getting better. My life wasn't developing afterwards.

And so I started going to therapy, which was... Talk therapy. Yeah, I started going to talk therapy. Extremely hesitant. I thought, well, I need to go to somebody. I have to go to somebody that's experienced what I've experienced. I need, like, a Vietnam vet or somebody that has seen action. And I couldn't find anybody.

And so I just Googled. I just Googled therapist, talked to two or three of them, and walked into one. which was very, it was interesting because this was kind of before, before anybody really knew about the suicide epidemic, before PTSD and traumatic brain injury and operator syndrome or whatever they're calling it this week, kind of started getting out there. And, man, it was, it took me a while to warm up, but it was, I love it. Male or female?

Female. Nice. Yeah. I love a female therapist. Mine currently is male, but there was a woman who I googled when I was leaving my first husband before there was Doug. There was Dan with whom I'm still friends, but we did get a divorce. And same thing, I googled this woman, and she totally changed my life. You never know. I mean, you can strike gold. And then they're yellow pages or Google pages as it is now. And I can relate to doing that and having it be a life changer. Yeah. Good for you. I'm happy for you. Oh, thank you. So yeah, interesting enough, she had never talked, ever talked to a combat vet and wound up, I did my own research and wound up being a pretty staunch liberal, which I probably wouldn't have gone to her. So you were more conservative going in. I know you mean right now, but back then you were too.

Yes, definitely. Probably more so. But I got to be honest, you know, that woman is like an angel. And I don't care what her political beliefs are. That woman has saved more special ops guys from suicide than anybody saved in combat than anybody I know. And she can, she still does it to this day. And that was back in probably 2015, 2015, 2016 time frame. And it was me.

And when I left the agency, I was also trying to save my best friend's life who had a terrible heroin addiction. And I talked him into going in to meet her. And then I just started telling everybody. And I remember my best friend's name was Gabe, and we gave her a seal team plaque just to say thank you. And because she was helping us out. She had dubbed her prices down. And just an amazing moment. And now you go in there, and her entire office is just plaque after plaque after plaque after.

Pretty soon you're going to see a Trump banner. She's going to be wearing the MAGA hat. Yeah, but that would be a sight to see. But, I mean, you know, the reason I say that is because there are some things that can, you know, political agendas don't get in the way. And you don't see that very often these days. And I think that's important. I love that you said that. I feel the same.

I have very strong political. views on a number of issues, but pretty much 80% of the people around me who I love in my life, the woman who raised me, all my best friends, my best friends growing up, are liberal. They're not woke, but they're liberal. They're Democrats. So I have tons of love in my heart for all of them, even though they don't vote the way I vote and they don't feel the way I do about the issues that are really important to me, but I don't care. Those don't have to be the mistakes of the relationship. Yeah. It takes a strong person to overcome that these days. But they're out there. Yeah. Do you say her name or at least her first name? Her first name is Amy.

My lady was named Amy. What area in the country was this? Missouri? Well, no, no. That was that's South Florida. Okay. Yeah. My lady was in the Virginia area, northern Virginia. Interesting. We'll talk after. All right. specifics. But same thing. And I, when you were telling me that story, it reminded me. So, you know, we, we have military guys on all the times. I just absolutely respect the hell out of you guys and what you do. And as I said, I would love to raise two little soldiers, but don't really want to for the reason it's discussed. And we interviewed Dakota Meyer.

Oh. And of course, his story is just, it's incredible, Medal of Honor. It talked about how he was drunk up there when President Bush is pending the medal on him. or was Obama. And he talked very openly about how difficult it was for him to come back and miss the guys and miss the adrenaline and just dealing with the trauma of everything he'd seen and done. And he talked about his own moment of super low and being rescued by an angel. And we pulled the sound bite.

So take a watch. I felt like where I was at in life, point that, you know, that I just couldn't get my stuff together and, and I just, I, I, I should fix it, right? Like, the fear I could see in people's eyes, you know, with me, like I was a monster, it's just like drinking and just, you know, you know, the thing is, is, and people don't talk about this much, you know, you don't fight evil with nice people. and I just remember driving home and I pulled off this highway

at my buddy's shop because I knew you know I didn't want anybody worried about me right so I pulled in and I knew that he would be in because he comes into work every morning and I just yeah I mean I was just gonna do it right there I stuck it to my head and I squeeze the trigger

and it just like it went click and there was no round in it and I don't know if you know I got I feel like I know who did it I don't I don't truly know though But he said he does believe he knows a friend had removed the bullets from the gun. Wow. He thinks it was a friend. Yeah.

Does he know who it was? He said he thinks he does. But that's an angel. That's a real life God's angel on this earth. Yeah. Looking out for him. You know, she saved him. And I believe, you know, Amy may have saved you.

And maybe my Amy saved me. It's like, yes, you can't. kind of have to be a willing participant, but I know you've found faith, and I'm also a person of faith, and I do think, like, if you're just open-eyed, you can see these angels, like, often, all around us. Yeah. And they look like mere mortals, but they were sent here for a purpose. That, that, your therapist goes home at night, and when she looks back at her day to say, what did I do today that really mattered? My God. Yeah. Does anybody have a better roster? Probably not. Probably not. She's amazing. Now you're doing it. I mean, that's kind of how you make your living now. Just talking to guys who probably aren't that used to talking about this stuff in like a safe place, right? Somebody who gets it. It's kind of a form of talk therapy just to sort of be able to speak about it. At least it's a step.

Well, it is. And, you know, I think, you know, my podcast is done. well. Super well. You're being humble. And, but I give, I give Amy a lot of credit to how I interview because I realized, you know, I realized in therapy, and she really didn't say a whole lot. And a lot of times you just start figuring things out yourself by just getting it out. And, and, and so I realized, you know, and I realized that if you just,

let somebody talk, they're just going to keep going, nine times out of ten. And, yeah, so being in therapy twice a week for three and a half years really helped me as an interviewer. Yeah, right, as an interviewer too, right? Just to let people talk and to listen. Yeah. To listen, it's helpful, too, as opposed to be thinking about your next question. So when did you find love? Because that seems relatively recent, right? You got engaged, you got married. Now you have two kids, including a new daughter. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. So what did you find your wife, your future wife, during all of the Amy time or when?

Yep. Right in the middle of it. I had a, I met my wife on a gun range at a sporting club in Florida. That's beautiful. That's amazing. I know, right? And my, my best friend, still to this day, David Rutherford had a new sniper rifle that he wanted to cite in, and he knew somebody that had access to a thousand-yard range. And so we went out there. Her dad met us, and my wife's name is Katie. She jumped out of the truck. And that was that.

We shot some guns. We went to the club restaurant. She gave me some tots. That was the... What's tots? Tater tots. Big fan. Oh, me too.

Also, because I haven't had a French fry in three years. What? Yes, it was a personal mission. I'm basically a Navy SEAL-2 in my strength and my ability to say no to the things that are bad for me. No, I decided in June of 2021 they were becoming a problem for me. I'm not going to lie. And then I need to swear off. decided to go a year, and now I'm almost three years clean. Well, congratulations. But the tot

is the back door to the fried potato. I may not pass like a drug test of potato eaters. Right on. But it's not even called the same thing. It's called the tater tot. It's not even a fresh fry. Anyway, big fan, because they allow me to still have my delicious. They're amazing. But I'm not as addicted as the French fry. They don't have the same down the rabbit hole quality for me. Yeah, you know, French fries are, it's like a conveyor belt for ketchup. Yes, totally agree. The only purpose of the tot is to deliver the ketchup. Right? I know. And then somebody will buy like the whole foods ketchup and you're like, ew, what is this? It just ruins the entire meal. Right? You need the sugar, the preservatives,

whatever Heinz does, that's what we need. That's right. That's right. All right. So I never realized it could be an aphrodisiac, but I like how Katie rolls. So she lures you in with the tots and the guns, and you were like, I'm home. When are we getting married? That's right. So how long thereafter were you married? Oh, man, I think it was, I think it was about a year and a half. So we were in Bocca Raton, Florida.

I was definitely a fish out of water in that town. Why? And, you know, there's a lot of, I grew up in the Midwest in a town of 6,000 people in a farm town. Now I'm in Boca Raton, Florida. Lots of money. Super fabulous. Okay.

Lots of that. And so when me and Katie got serious, it didn't take long. And, you know, Katie has been sober for 15 years now. And I was on a path to get, you know, It was on my radar. And so I had asked her in a couple of questions, it really resonated with me. And, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fake people in South Florida, at least in my experience. And so with Katie, I remember asking her a question, and it was something along the lines of, you know, now that, you know, how do you find real hobbies once you're

sober because I don't, I had zero hobbies other than than boozing. And she had a real answer and it was just, that's a great question. It just takes time. But she was engaged in that conversation and so I knew I was like, this is a good one. And she's real. and I had not been around a real woman in a long time. And that was, I still remember where it was. It was at a Thai restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.

And she had told me that. And I was like, the conversation just got it, it, I couldn't talk to anybody like that other than my therapist. And or anybody that had been through something like that, like what I was in the middle of. And so anyways, we got closer and I knew we were going to get married. I know I was going to marry her. And I just, I said, I don't want to, I don't want to raise my family in South Florida. So we're going to have to leave.

And so, yeah, we wound up in Tennessee. Does she have any roots there? Or was it just the flocking to Tennessee that so many conservatives did? No roots. No roots. We just. packed up and went to Franklin. At least he went from the one state with no state income tax to another state with no state income tax.

New Hampshire is suddenly amongst the crew. That's nice to see here in the Northeast. Yeah, I know. It looks like it's blown up. We were looking there for a little bit. Let's go Connecticut. That's right. It's not going to happen.

It's far too blue. That's all good. On the hobby front, have you considered needlepoint or as my good friend describes it, a high-class finger sport? Interesting. I have not. No? Are you into needlepoint? Hell no. I said we are too young to be doing that. Get off of the beach immediately with that monstrosity in your hand. I refuse to sit with you. So did you find one ever a hobby?

Business. I was going to say, it involves this microphone, right? I found business, and that's my hobby. So, yeah, my hobbies, I mean, I don't have time for them. I don't have hobbies either if it makes you feel any better. I love being in my business. And now you have two kids. And I love being with my kids. And so anything outside of that, there's just not much time for.

Yeah, no, there really isn't. I remember we had kids, a good friend of mine said, you should tell your friends, you just had your kids, and that you won't be seeing them for about 10 years. That's right. And he's like, the true friends will still be there for you when you get there. And the ones who aren't really your true friends, good riddance. We're figuring that out.

We are definitely figuring that out. It's interesting how fast your taste in friends changes. Yeah. You know, especially, I don't know how old your kids are, but... 14, 13, and 10. Oh, okay. Nice. I'm looking forward to those ages. They're great ages. Highly recommend this period of parenthood. It's awesome. Really?

They're so easy and they're so fun and they have their best personalities and they still love us. I just, I think we're in the sweet spot of parenting right now. When they're little, I know you've got two littles. It's hard. They're adorable, but it is hard. labor. Yeah, we're in potty training right now. But I love every minute of it. You know, I just, it's, it's a tough balance, you know, between work and family. But I always lean more towards family and, man, it just goes so fast. I'm already realizing that. And I don't want to, you know, I'm glad that I waited until after service for kids because it sounds like you've listened to, at least a of my interviews and man you know I'm just I'm glad that I never had to put my I will never have to

put my kids through what that was like what it would it turned to be into being gone all the time and I'm a lot better now than than than back then and you don't have to live with a regret of having missed it yeah even for a good cause you know it's hard to miss it I've talked to enough people who have made a different choice. You can just hear the regret in their voice and see it on their face and it's not recapturable once it's gone. Very true. Very true.

You know, I think in Tennessee you'll do better in instilling values into your kids that reflect your own, right? That's one of the challenges here in the Northeast. Really? Whoa, yeah. I mean, these woke schools, we fled our New York City schools because of that. Here in Connecticut, we got it made. We did our homework this time.

since we were fleeing. And we found two great ones. But it's important, right? Because you'll find out when you're, how old is your oldest, your boy? Two and a half. Yeah. So you'll find out when they start to go to school that the schools are,

they're your partners. I mean, you need to find a partner. They're the ones you're going to spend the most waking hours with your kids every day. Yeah. So if you're not on the same page about how we're raising a boy or how we're raising a girl, how we're creating a good human being and future citizen, you know, current citizen, but like, you know, responsible citizen, things can go south, quickly.

That is a constant topic of discussion at our house is how we're going to do that. Are we going to homeschool? We're going to do private school. What are we going to do? And it turns out we live in like a homeschool mecca. That's good. Yeah. So we're looking into possibly doing that.

I love the homeschooling communities. I have a dear friend who's doing that. I swear is by it. So what does life look like now? You do the podcast like 25 hours a day. Honestly, how do you do these five-hour podcasts? Man, I just, I just listen, you know, and, you know, I'm, I get people to open up about things they've never talked about before and go to places that they probably have not been in their mind in years. and you can't do that on a timeline. You can't do that in a condensed timeline. And so, you know, my longest one, I think, is nine hours.

Is that right? Who was that with? This guy, Cody Alford, who was a Marsa guy. Okay. But, Marine. But, and so, you know, and I think the first one I did was right about two hours. And but then I kept getting longer and I noticed the more time I spend on the more time I give them, the more they open up. And what it kind of developed into is I remember, I don't remember who the first guy was.

It might have been this guy prime hall, but do you have any idea how many people have been through like child trauma, sexual trauma, abusive parents, whatever it is? man, it's like everybody. And so the first time that happened, I was like, all right, I got to start diving more into childhood. And I'll bet 75% of the people have come on have experienced some type of abuse as a child. And I dig into kind of what's happening today with trafficking and pedophilia and all of that kind of stuff. And so I think it's really important to dive into the childhood stuff because it gives people that have been abused that are trying to process that still into their adult life and kids that are going through right now. I mean, it shows them like, man, no matter what I'm going through right now, like I can still find success and find happiness in life. And, you know, there's just not a lot of people doing that right now.

And so when somebody goes into their childhood experience and they're going to get descriptive about it, you know, that when they're done and we're done with that section, I always ask, you know, for a kid that's in your position right now, you know, looking back, what could you have done or what would you advise, you know, other kids that are in your position or where are there, you know what I'm trying to say? What advice do you have for them? And I mean, it's helping. You know, it's really helping. And then we get into the military stuff and it's super descriptive. And, you know, and I want it to be, I don't want a condensed format because when I started doing this, I wanted to do it because these guys weren't getting a voice in the media at all. Yep. And when they did, it was a 30-second blurb.

And, you know, so why are we having? talking heads in the media documenting what happened over there with a bunch of people that weren't there that thought they knew. And so I wanted to, it kind of started with, I wanted to just document history the way it actually happened with people that were at the events. And so now we've got, you know, just about every major operation that has happened. We got. I heard the one with, forgive me, I don't remember his name, but the gentleman who, he lost his arm. and his leg in the Afghanistan withdrawal. Tyler Vargas.

Oh, my God. And just his whole life had been rough with the dad who was a child molester. And it was just there was a lot in there. And those stories are, they're infuriating, right? Because they're recent and we live them. And we still have those same leaders who have yet to make any apology for what happened to guys like Tyler. Nothing. Yeah.

It's very discouraging. I mean, he's a perfect example, though. You know, he interviewed with Good Morning America for seven hours. Did he really? And they released, I believe he said, five seconds of that interview because it made POTUS look so bad. And so I had reached out to him. I wanted to give him the opportunity to get his story out. And he had testified in front of Congress.

And no, I mean, none of us were getting the actual boots on the ground version of what the hell happened. during that withdrawal. And so he came on. We got it out. They tried to censor us. And he had all kinds of actual footage of what was going on. And they kept dinging us. Oh, you can't have that in there.

You can't have that in there. Who was? YouTube. You know, and it's like, guys, like, this happened. Like, my not. How dare you censor what happened to a U.S. Marine? Yeah. Multiple.

It's, it's like this is actual footage. This is, a lot of this footage has been, some of it had been in the media and it's like, guys, you can't, like, this is, this is what happened. So we yanked all the footage and then put it behind, put the real version behind a paywall because the most important thing was just to get his story out. And we wound up, we wound up getting it out, you know, after several attempts. But not for nothing. I know this isn't at all why you do with this, but in any sane world, you'd be getting an award. for that kind of coverage. In any sane world, somebody like you would get recognized with a Peabody for something like that,

not the nonsense that now gets rewarded with Pulitzer's and other awards like the Kronkite. That's actual journalism, actually getting the story and being unafraid to tell it, no matter where it takes you. Thank you. We actually pulled a sound bite from that interview. Here he is. Tyler Vargas, Andrews, talking about what happened during the attack as we withdrew from Afghanistan. like 10 minutes goes by and just flash and just get hit with this massive wave of pressure.

And then I'm like my eyes are closed. My vision's black. And I'm like slowly coming to my right ear is just like super high-pitched ringing. My left ear is muffled and I can just hear people screaming in the distance. And I'm just like struggling to open my eyes. Finally can open my eyes. And it was someone else's fucking body part just like laying in front of me. And the people on the other side of the canal,

just immediately in front of me, just got fucking evaporated. I kept trying to stand up and like, fuck, like, why can't I stand up? We started taking fucking shots from the neighborhood. And, like, almost immediately after the blast. I tried my fucking hardest to crawl backwards. All I could do was, like, put my left arm on the ground, and I'm just like, fuck, like, why is my right arm not working? And I remember lifting it up.

It's there, but it's just, like, fucking shredded up at the elbow and bloody. And I'm just fucking red everywhere. Pretty horrific. We just got into this recently because President Biden's former press secretary, Jen Saki, wrote a book trying to say it's not true. He looked at his watch when the bodies came home to Dover. It's a lie. He looked at his watch several times. She's still running cover for him, and her job as a so-called journalist. It's on tape. You can see it repeatedly.

There he is in the ceremony over and over trying to sneak in glance. and some of the parents of the fallen are very angry still about that and now about the lies to whitewash it. But this is, no one ever got fired for any of it. Yeah. So how are these guys, you know, like Tyler, feeling about about that and about the administration, how it was handled? I mean, they're enraged. We're all enraged. I mean, do you know that we're sending $40 million a week to the Taliban now? Right. It's actually like 43 to 87 million a week. The Taliban.

Yep. The same people that we fought for, what, 20 plus years. Who are now not allowing girls to go to school, dressing them in full burqas, marrying them off at age 12, those people. Yeah. Cutting people's heads off, assassinating all of our allies over there, lining them up, shooting them in the back of the head. I mean, it's pretty, I just don't know how anybody can support that. Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that?

Why are we giving Iran money, you know, or we're up until 10-7? I don't, you know, I wish I could answer that. I don't, I just don't know. It doesn't, you know, what's up is down now and what's left is right, what's black is white. and it's the deconstruction of America. Well, what do you, I mean, it's got to be directly related to the recruiting rates, no? Like, guys are looking at this saying, why would I join up for that? There's no responsibility.

Our lives are taken for granted. No one gets fired. No one says sorry. we continue to funnel money to our enemies who, how much blood and treasure was lost in Afghanistan fighting the same group, which we're now funding. I just like I know people say that's not it.

No, I think that's it. We looked at the surveys as to why guys are not signing up anymore. And like the top, the top item was fear of death, which is okay, yes, normal, but for centuries and guys have been getting past that and signing up anyway, but they're not.

So what is it? I mean, I think it has, to do with a lot of things. I think it had to do with the forced vaxes. I think it has to do with the woke agenda. I mean, nobody, I mean, talk about miscalculating your body of work. I mean, it is not liberal, Democrat families that sign up for the military. It is middle class to low class conservative families. And you just

alienated your entire base. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to go to become a seal, to be going to gender ideology crash courses and pronoun training or whatever the hell else they're doing in there, how not to be a right-wing extremist. I deal with your white rage. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think it's that. I think it's the way the war's ended. I think it's the new advertising that they do for recruitment.

She's a lesbian. Her mother's are LGBTQ. It's everything. Everything about what the messaging they're putting out is, who are they going to get? Right. I mean, the numbers are at record lows, and we are precariously perched on possible conflict. God forbid, in Ukraine.

The United States doesn't want any part of that. God forbid the Middle East. And they're still talking about Taiwan. Like it's like, I don't, like we might actually get involved over there. I was talking to a former Navy Sail whose name you would know. And he was like, we're not going to win the Taiwan thing. Like, they're going to take it. China's going to take it.

And there's not much we're going to be able to do about it without actually getting involved militarily, boots on the ground. And the American people aren't going to want that. Like if China takes it, analysis was we're going to have to let them take it. I mean, we'll probably provoke them to take it just to start another war, just to spend up the military industrial complex more than it already is. And I mean, that seems to be what we do as we provoke, you know, and then capitalize.

And can you zoom out on that, Sean? Do that, like, explain that to me, because I understand people that throw that term around, military industrial complex. But you understand it better than most. Yeah. So the military, I mean, let's take it back to the Iraq War. I don't think we should have been there. At the time, I think, yeah, it was great.

I got action. I got to do what I signed up to do. We got to kill a bunch of bad guys. Now that I'm older and I'm out and I see a bigger picture. I mean, I just think it's kind of weird that Dick Cheney was the CEO, Halliburton, Halliburton was the biggest logistics, not the biggest, probably the only logistics company. in both wars. And so everywhere you went, it was Halliburton did the laundry.

Halliburton did the gas. Halliburton built the barracks. Halliburton built the chow hall. Halliburton cooked the food. Halliburton did, they did everything. The mail, everything. It was KBR Halliburton. He was the CEO of that.

So all infrastructure in the entire Iraq war was Halliburton. who is the former CEO is the vice president of the United States. That's what we're getting at. You know, there's, then there's, you know, there's Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and all of these, they make a lot of the tech and the missiles and the planes and all of these sorts of things, guns. communications equipment, everything that's, everything that is new that's being developed is, it's not the government developing it. It's these companies that get paid ungodly amounts of money to fund, to develop things you would use in war.

And then they put people like Nikki Haley on their boards. Exactly. I mean, she's not only was on the Boeing board, but she has a husband who's making military vehicles right now. That's his side business, where he's making the vehicles that will be used in war, which they profit off of. Yeah.

This is what you're talking about. And then she, you know, in her world, was about to step into the presidency and what, have zero conflicts? Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, like Ukraine. I mean, we send all of our stuff over, all of our missiles, our tanks, our UAVs, our javelins,

whatever, you fill in the blank. And so now we have to replenish all those stockpiles, which is making these companies, it's given the companies work to make more money. And that's what this, I'm convinced that that's what this is all about. The saber rattling. And the reason the politicians do it is because these are big donors? Yeah.

I mean, I can't be, you know, you would probably know more about that than I do. But, yeah, I mean, lobbying organizations, hey, you look at all the people that are supporting what's going on in Ukraine and Russia. Still. Yeah. Still. It's just, it's in why were we, I mean, why were we in Afghanistan for 20 plus years just to completely abandon it? Yeah.

And there was so many things we could have used there. We gave up Bobram Air Force Base, one of the most strategic Air Force bases in the world. Afghanistan has endless amounts of lithium that we could utilize for our Green Initiative, right? But we'll just give those over to China and let them sell us to lithium, even though we had built all the infrastructure there. And they're already mining it. Why? Why would we do that? Why would we give it up? Yeah.

Because we made a decision to cut and run. that was the decision we were going to live by. I guess. I mean, I can't find any logic. I mean, the problem is on that one, both parties are to blame, right? I mean, Trump came up with a plan, and then Biden executed it terribly. Yeah. But, I mean, Trump, too, wanted to pull us out of there and not keep anything.

I mean, I realized we were over a war. And I mean, the forever wars are a real thing. And people who grew up, I mean, I'm a little older than you are, but both of us grew up in a time where in the beginning, we thought these are just wars and we're serving a worthy cause here and we understand why the United States is doing it. It's only having sort of been in the midst of this belief and then seeing it all crashed down and then seeing the aftermath that you realize I was sold a bag of goods. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting if you can take yourself out of the, you know, the politics

and in your emotional state and look at these things from like a 30,000 foot. view and it might paint a different perspective and you know maybe maybe we aren't the good guys what do you think will happen with ukraine i mean at what point does the united states say they're not they can't win this is throwing good money after bad and get more aggressive about forcing some sort of compromised end to this thing man what do i think will happen in ukraine i think I mean, I think a change in the presidency could possibly end it. Ours or Ukraine's? Ours?

I don't think theirs will ever. I mean, why would you? Yeah. Why would you? So much, they're getting so much out of this. But I'm just saying, like, I don't know that the Ukrainian people are as insane as Zelensky seems with his, you know, no compromise. We're going to see it through the end. All your people will be dead.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think, I think. I think this bricks thing has a lot. I think that things will get interesting when China starts making more moves. That's what I think.

I don't think any of these wars are going anywhere. Should we have nothing to do with that? With Taiwan, China. Man, you're asking some tough questions. That's one I think we would probably need to step in on. Actually step in, though. I mean, do you agree boots on the ground would be required?

How are we going to fight that one from drones? How are we going to fight that? I think that I don't know. Definitely a lot of Navy. That's right. We don't have enough ships. A lot of Navy. And I think all of our allies would need to come together to, to, I mean, I think that, I personally think we're on the brink of World War III.

With China. Yeah. Over Taiwan? I mean, look at all the angles they have on us. You know, they are behind the fentanyl crisis. They're sending in all the supplies. They're trading the cartels, how to make the world's most potent fentanyl. Actually, now they're teaching them how to make Nidison, which so went from, what, heroin to fentanyl to Nidison.

They're behind that. They're buying all our farmland. They're capturing all of our elites. politicians and just tech gurus. I mean, I have to mention the spying. Yeah, I mean, we have our, I mean, yeah, that's out there, right? What's his name was sleeping with a Chinese spy?

Eric's, uh, Swalwell, right? Is that, I get, I get my far left Democrats confused. I can't remember his name, but. That's who it was. But, uh, I mean, they have, they have so, I mean, look at California. From what I understand, all the real estate signs now are all in Chinese. And I've always wondered, I mean, you see this massive migration happening all across the country with red states being inundated with people fleeing California, New York, Chicago. And I always wondered, you know, who's buying all this real estate over there?

If everybody's leaving, who's buying all this? They're selling it to China. We rolled out the red carpet for them when it came to visit. Their takeover of Hollywood, the NBA. Yeah. They have more money than God when it comes to buying things that are American or American-owned. You know, their own people can suffer. But they're very interested in spending tons of money buying up our industries and our land.

And we're just suckers for the dollar. So we say yes. Yeah. You know, that's why, that's why the NBA said, sure, we'll do whatever you want and we won't criticize you. that's why Hollywood takes anything they find offensive out of its films so they can make money over in China on, you know, the sales there. We've bent the knee, you know, to our Chinese master. So you're right, it's happening in more.

People just aren't paying attention. They're living their lives, not paying attention to, I mean, a little bit more here and there, but they're not. It's happening all over the world. I mean, look what they're doing in Africa. You know, they're settling Africa. They've, they have, they are the influence in Afghanistan now. I mean, they go in with their money and they make these countries

dependent on them. And that used to be us. That used to be the United States being the leader of the free world and being out there, helping the third world countries and creating some loyalty and some allyship.

We're not doing that anymore, but China is. You're exactly right. And then, I mean, that right there alone shows how many angles they have. And I know there's more. I'm just put on the spot.

Yeah. But it's scary to think about. It is. You know, it's very scary. And I don't think people, I don't think people understand, you know, how pertinent it is that we need to start addressing the stuff like immediate, like yesterday. I mean, the one thing we have going for us is their economy is not strong. That's what I keep hearing. But I hear both sides, you know, and, and I don't, I mean, they have so much influence across the world now. and their version, the BRICS initiative, you're aware of the BRICS initiative, you know, and devaluing our currency. And I think the last time I checked, there's like 22 countries on board that now. And it's a sketchy crew, but they have a lot of money.

Yeah. So now more than ever, we need new up and coming, the next generation of Sean Ryan's. Yeah, I guess so. So what do you do? Trump's got to win. and people have to see America as strong again. And maybe you'll be a little afraid of us. You know, I mean, that's, the New York Times just did a poll

showing that Trump's beating Biden in five out of the six swing states, same as it was in November, by a healthy margin in most of them. And they were so befuddled by their own poll. They went back to their, to the people who responded to say like, why, why again? What is it? Really? The orange man, he's so bad.

How could you? Insurrectionist. And in particular, it was interesting because they went to some black voters saying, we don't get it. Why are your numbers surging? And they said, oh, you know, we don't love Trump. He's got a big mouth. He says some stuff we don't like, but he's strong. And I think the country's going to be a little safer with him in there.

It keeps people off balance. And then others said, the economy, I don't need to like him. I need my wallet to be a little fatter. And it was. They just did some look back in the economy. It was like definably 16% more was going. into people's average paychecks under Trump than it is now. So, yeah, we need a strong leader.

There's a chance we won't get one. It's not a lock Trump wins. Robert Kennedy, also anti-military industrial complex. Could you ever vote for him? I think I could vote for him. Could you? Yeah, I definitely could vote for him. He's two left for me on many, many issues.

But I'm not as hardcore conservative as like a lot of my audience. I love that he's kind of anti-establishment, anti-military industrial complex, anti-big pharma, that he's an environmental lawyer. I'm actually, I'm kind of green. I like the green agenda, not the green New Deal or any of that nonsense. But like, as a mother, you know,

I would like to see us be a little bit more realistic about climate change. Hey, you know, that's something I love talking about this, because you do something positive for the planet and conservatives like throw a shit fit. Yes. And it's like, hey, man, we live here. Right. In case you haven't noticed, everybody's dying of cancer.

Cancer from shit in our foods, cancer from shit in the air, cancer from, cancer from everything. It might be, you know, might be good for us to improve the planet a little bit. But that's just my take. What have we had our FKJ in there saying, don't eat that, don't do that. That's not getting a blessing anymore. This is a problem over here. He spent his whole life filing lawsuits against people who are polluting. our environment in one way, shape, or form.

I love that. I realize, I mean, he said he would allow abortion to the ninth month. Then he walked it back. He's not good on my issue, which is women's rights against the crazy trans lobby. But I have more issues than just that. So I definitely could vote for RKJ. I just asked him about the full-term abortion thing. I just interviewed him last week, and he told me that the only reason that he would go full-term

would be for the mother if she was going to die if she if she if there was a life threatening so he's arrived at that a little late yeah he told sage steel it's up to the mom okay whatever she wants all the way through ninth month and then sage who's amazing was like a lot of us get uncomfortable when you say it's okay for a mother just based on her own desire to abort a baby at full term and he answered it again saying well i would oh really but then all the shitstorm came and he walked it back it was like, oh, oh, never mind. Gotcha. I mean, I understand if that's your biggest issue,

and it is for a lot of, you know, deeply faithful people in particular, he's out. Yeah. But anyway, it all depends on your hierarchy of, you know, principles. And I just, I love how anti-establishment he is. Me too, man. Me too. So, speaking of faith, you are, you've had a bit of a metamorphosis in your own life on this front.

Is that because of Katie or is that your own journey? That's my own journey. And do you want me to go into it? Yeah. Okay. Well, so I interview some really, I have some really heavy interviews. Tyler Andrew Vargas was one of them. And I mean, it's been a long time since I've seen that.

And to see a 24-year-old, you know, my studio is on the second floor. and to watch him hobble up there with one leg, one arm, you know, it's just, it got to me. And the day before I interviewed him, I interviewed a hacker who had hacked into all these websites and kind of pedophilia websites and downloaded all the user list, got it to the FBI. The FBI did nothing with it until I interviewed him. and super dark interview. The reality is, I mean, we pulled, we caught a child predator in five seconds because I didn't realize, I was like, you hear about the stuff, right? And how common it is, but you don't, I don't, I didn't see it.

And so he's in there and we're doing the interview and I said, hey, you got your laptop, pull it out, get in any, I don't care what it is, Instagram, TikTok. whatever teen chat room you want. I just want to see how long this takes. He made the screen name Ashley 13, New Jersey, literally five seconds. It's on camera. We screen record it. Until he was in like a room where... Five seconds before 40-something-year-old bam was wanting to meet a 13-year-old girl at a wherever.

Sick. Yeah. And so that's what I mean, this is the stuff that I cover. And so me and my wife were going on vacation. I just finished up those two interviews, especially the one with Ryan Montgomery, who's the hacker. That just really got to me. You know, the kids stuff really gets to me. The guys who work in that industry shutting those down, it's a very hard life.

Yeah. And so we went to Sedona and there was also, what else was happening? The Chinese spy balloon just flew over. the I saw I think it was was it Riba came out saying no I think it's freedom of speech that that drag queens should be able to you know perform in front of their kids and I'm just and I got to this point where I was like man am I the only person that like gives a shit about this stuff that actually cares about kids and like why we just abandoned our allies in Afghanistan and and and I'm just abandoned our allies in Afghanistan. and why is there a 24-year-old that was blown up unnecessarily? I mean, they had the guy P-I-Ded in his sights. They could have killed that bomber, you know, and now all of his friends are dead.

And so these are all the things that are going through my head. And I had hit this point. I was having a conversation in my head, and I had hit this point where it was like, why do you even talk about this stuff anymore? Nobody cares. You know about the maps thing, minor attracted persons. They're trying to redefine pedophilia into this minor attracted person normal, just like a fetish.

You know, like some people have a foot fetish. Some people have a toddler fetish. And we're supposed to accept this. Yeah. And, you know, and so I'm just seeing all these things. And I'm like, how can anybody like buy into this shit? I have family that like votes left, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's skin crawl like I can't I don't understand how anybody can support any of the what I just list

rattled off and, uh, so it got to me and I got to this point where I was like I'm not I can't like I can't like I can't live like this anymore. Like I can't, if nobody gives a shit, maybe I am the one that is, maybe I'm the one that has something wrong with it. You know, maybe, maybe this is all acceptable and I just, I'm not, my brain isn't switching. Maybe I'm the problem. And I shouldn't be fighting this anymore. I need to, I need to be happy.

And it basically felt like I was surrendering to evil. and I was trying to convince myself to be fine with it. So we're staying in this nice resort in Sedona. They got a guarded gate, and I pay attention to that kind of stuff because of my background. And a lot of the guys knew me that worked there from my podcast and wanted to talk. Well, we were there for a week.

The last day I walked through, and it's this old man, in there. And he's wanted to talk to me. Me and my wife had gone up to a hike because I was like, I got to get the hell out of here. Maybe a hike will make me feel better. I walk back down. And this guy starts trying to talk to me.

It's dark at this point. I had already kind of surrendered, like I'm done. I didn't feel good, but I had kind of made my decision. Like, I'm not doing this anymore. And I'm kind of looking at him over the shoulder, like, I'm not in the mood to, like, strike up a conversation. And but my wife starts talking to him. And I'm like, shit, I just want to go to my room. So I turn around and this guy, this guy read my mind from front to back.

And I mean, like, I've never had that happen. It wasn't, I mean, it was descriptive. It was, it scared the shit out of me because I was like, how are you, how are you in my head? and he started rattling off all these thoughts that I was having on that entire hike. And he's like, this stuff that's going on in China, that's not your fight anymore. And this stuff that's going on with the kids, that's not your fight either. And this stuff that's going on with the trans community, that's not your fight. And I had shut down.

I was like, how was this guy in my head right now? So freaked me out. We're walking back to our. bungalow. We were in a place where it was kind of like a duplex and we're on one side. Somebody else on another side. We got there. When we got to Sedona, my best friend that I was referring to earlier, his name's Gabe, he died of a heroin overdose later on. But Gabe was a seal. Gabe was a pro hockey player. Gabe was a fighter. We was into MMA. Gabe was at the agency with me. And no matter where Gabe was, Gabe was always known as a protector.

Like, no matter what unit he was in, no matter what, who he was with could be the manliest of all men. Like, everybody knows Gabe has got you. And he was my best friend. Well, we get there and we see this guy and he looks identical. He could be Gabe's identical twin. I mean, you could see differences, but same brow line, same jaw line, same build, same walk, same three-day shadow, same everything, muscular. And me and my wife are both like, man, that looks exactly like Gabe. And everywhere we would go, this guy was at. If we were at the pool, this guy was at the pool. If we were going on a hike, this guy was coming back from a hike. If we were out in town getting dinner, he was out in town getting dinner. And we had always thought it was

weird because I kind of had a breakdown on the plane to Sonona. And so I was in a vulnerable spot. My wife knew it. I was in a vulnerable spot. I knew it. I was with my buddy Dave. And he knew it. And it was just odd that Gabe, who's always known as a protector, is like this guy that looks identical to him is everywhere. Well, it turns out right from that gate, we walked to our bungalow. and it turns out this guy and his family is staying right across the thing from us. We hadn't seen them all week. And I'm like, that was weird. And on the way back, I'm telling Katie, I'm like, holy shit.

Like, I think that was God that was reading my mind. And she's like, yeah, Sean, that was God. And I'm like, I can't believe this. Like, how is this happening? And she's like, Sean, God's always been around you. You just don't make time for him. him. And I knew that to be true. So we get to the bungalow, Gabe staying across the way or the lookalike, whatever, you want to call it. We find out he's staying right across. This is all within

like 10, 15 minutes. Then we go in and I'm crying and I'm like, I can't believe this is happening. And right before, also right before we went to Zona, a good friend of mine, his name was Dan Cirillo, died. He was. kind of the only, he was a seal and a businessman, and he lived in Franklin. And I don't have a lot of people that I can relate to where I live now in Franklin. And Dan is one of those guys that that he's very successful. He owned a couple of hospitals. He owned a big security business. And he's like one of the few people that I can sit down with and talk business and talk friends. And he doesn't need anything for me and I don't need anything from him and those you know those relationships get

hard to come by and uh so we hit it off really fast and then he died on a hunting trip with his son had a heart attack and and and uh but hey i mean that if there's a way to go get on him but uh anyways his daughter who i had never met i'm having this breakdown in the in the hotel and uh His daughter, I heard my phone go off while I was talking to Katie. And as soon as we kind of finished what we were talking about about what was going on, I checked my phone and it's from his daughter. And it's this text. I'd never even met her before.

And she says, she must have got my number from her dad's phone. And she said, hey, Sean, This is Taylor, Dan's daughter. And I just walked into my dad's gun room for the first time since he had passed away. And he grabbed me by the arm and told me that I needed to contact you because you knew a side of him that nobody else knew. And that he wanted me to tell you that he loves you just the way that you are and that you're doing exactly what you should be doing. And then I'm trying not to lose it right now. But so that was like the third thing all within, like I said, 10, 15 minutes.

And I was like, holy shit. Like there's no to die in this one. Exactly. And a little brick wall. Yeah. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and never really took church seriously. I never did. And then when I left home, I never really went back and it kind of lost faith. And I'm not saying I wasn't a believer. I just didn't really care. I didn't think about it.

And I had definitely no time for God. And so I took that as a, I mean, that was like a slap in the face. And I decided I needed to get serious about faith and at least look into it. And so I started looking into it. And it's been great. And, you know, to be honest, It's the only thing I can find that makes any damn sense anymore. And it's all in that book. Everything we're seeing happening right now is in that book. Is that how you started just reading the Bible? I did.

I did. I started trying to read it from front to back and I wasn't really getting anywhere. Some shocking stuff in that Old Testament. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then turns out, as it turns out, my entire team, I'm really close with my team, my podcast team, the guys that work for me and make it what it is. And it turns out one guy's was raised

Southern Baptist, super well versed in the Bible. My editor, Darren, grew up a Jehovah's Witness and escaped, escaped it, but knows, I mean, knows that book from front to back. my IT guy, Adam, devout Catholic, knows it all, everything, Elijah, my production manager, he's the Southern Baptist guy, and they kind of started pouring into me. And a lot of my buddies that were in the SEAL teams, Eddie Penny really kind of paved the way for all of this, I think. Eddie Penny was a we were a team two together and then he went on to Dev group and just like a Ma like I mean not who you would expect to come to faith but he was my Christmas episode a couple years ago and ever since he came on and gave his testimony of how he came to

everybody that's been on the show has brought it up and And he became kind of a mentor mine. So I called Eddie and told him. And I said, hey, this is what happened. I don't really know where to start. I don't really know what this means. And we had a conversation. And he goes, he was like, oh, man, he's like a lot of us have been praying for this to happen.

Wow. And that kind of freaked me. I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, we've been waiting for this. He's like, you have a big voice. And this needs to happen. And so that was at about midnight. Now I'm getting into some other kind of weird synchronicity coincidences.

And so about 12 hours later, I had a meeting that Adam, my tea guy, had scheduled with me at noon. And Eddie was telling, Eddie was telling me during the conversation, he was talking about Guardian Angels and all this other stuff that was. spiritual warfare, stuff that I know like nothing about. Well, fast forward, 12 hours. I'm talking to Adam. I didn't know at this meeting. I thought it was about email marketing or something. And he wanted to talk to me about spiritual warfare and guardian angels.

Wow. And I was like, it was literally like almost the exact same conversation as I had had with Eddie Penny. You're like, that's not on the drop-down menu of message manager. I know. And they're not friends. I mean, Adam is, with all due respect. They hadn't coordinated, those two guys?

Eddie is a built like a shit brick house, a dev group operator, and Adam is a IT computer nerd, who I love to death. And so, no, they don't, they don't, there's no cross-pollination. They're not friends. They've never spoken. Exact same conversation at noon. Come home for lunch from my studio to be with the wife and kids. and Adam And anyways, I go back to work.

I look at my clock in my truck and it says it's 444. I look at the odometer. It says 444 miles left to E. And this is four hours and 44 minutes after my conversation with Adam about guardian angels. So I look up the meaning of 444 and it is your guardian angels wants you to know that they have got you. And I'm just, I'm like, holy shit, man. Like, we just had two conversations about Guardian Angels and now I'm seeing 444 everywhere

within. I saw Gabe. Yeah. And, and, and it's in the meaning of it supposedly, according to Google, is your guardian angels want you to know that they've got you. And, and so I've been in it ever since. and I've had some great mentors and started going to church. That didn't last very long.

And now we have a group of, there's four families, including us, a lot of trust, very close, friends of ours. And we just have a discussion every week, every Tuesday. So when I get home today, that's what we're doing. And it's cool. You get to ask the tough questions. questions. You don't need to be embarrassed. You're not going to offend anybody. You don't feel judged like you're going to church. You know, I always feel like I'm being judged. Oh, hello, we're Catholic. Yeah. Built in. And there's none of that. And man, you know, when you

kind of take all of the BS, the religion kind of injects into your journey of building relationship with the creator and Jesus, it's really interesting and it can be a lot of fun. I know what you're saying. My audience knows I've been having a not unrelated struggle on that exact score. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Catholic, lifelong Catholic, and I started the process of having my first marriage annulled. And instead of like bringing me closer to God or setting me in a path that I thought would land well, it really has kind of alienated me. And it's caused a bit of a crisis of faith. You know, like, who are these middlemen I have to go through in order to have a clean relationship with God? That doesn't make any sense to me. I think God loves me and God sees me in a loving

marriage with three wonderful kids who have two great parents who are in love. And he's thrilled. And he will accept me into his kingdom when it's all said and done. And if he doesn't, it's certainly not going to be because I didn't get a paper divorce from Dan, but I didn't get an annulment from a priest, you know, and then Mary Doug in a Catholic church. It doesn't make any sense to me. So that's sort of where I am right now. I'm still wrestling with it. I got tons of great feedback.

By the way, thank you to my audience because so many thoughtful emails on it, you know, from Catholic listeners, but also just Christian listeners who don't believe in that, you know, middleman thing either. I haven't resolved it. Well, I'll keep my opinion to myself. Why? The middleman is a lie. There are no middlemen. It's just about you and your relationship, and that's it.

I'll let you know that. And when you think like that, I mean, it gives me a sense of peace, you know? And then you start looking at all the stuff that's going on, like Transvisibility Day, being declared on Easter Sunday. Like you can't tell me these aren't signs, you know. And this is all, like I said, this is all in there. I'm still reading through it. I'm not through it all yet.

I don't claim to be an expert. But, you know, I see things. I have a team to lean on who's well-versed in this stuff. That was very fortunate. And it's everything we're seeing happen is in that book. And when you can, when you, come to that realization it's really odd

but all the stuff that like all the stuff that was bothering me and it still does bother me but at the same time it makes me stronger because up that was supposed to happen you know up that's in that book

up like really like transvisibility day a confusion of genders on Easter Sunday making a mockery of the resurrection. Like, that was in there. Yep. And, and, and so. So how do you feel now? Do you feel a difference physically, you know, emotionally? Oh, yeah. Now versus during the Chinese trial balloon period, which was dark? Definitely. I mean, I'm at, I'm at peace with it. I mean, I'm still going to fight the good fight and I'm still going to bring truth and uncover corruption and tell these stories. And I'm not going to

bend a need to anything. And, and, uh, And, but, you know, it, it, it, but seeing it all happen, it's, it is actually making me stronger because I found something in a world of nothing that makes any sense at all, not a damn bit of sense. This makes all the sense in the world. It's, it aligns with the values that I've always had, or maybe I align with its values, you know, but, um, but it, yeah, it's helped me. And then you start learning about, you know, maybe forgiveness is for you and not for the people that did something bad to you that was unjust.

You know, it's for your sense of peace. Not for theirs. You know, you can go on and waste all that bad energy hating somebody and talking shit about them and, you know, complaining and, oh, I got screwed over and I'm a victim and da-da-da-da-da. But the minute you forgive them, that's off your plate. And it just, it's, it's like a cleanse. Amen. God bless you. Thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and all these personal details about your life.

What a pleasure. What an honor to know you. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. And like I said, I was really excited to meet you. I'm just happy to be here. I'm honored. Honestly, God bless you.

Thank you for your service. Thanks to all of our military members, active duty and retired, and those we've lost for the service and sacrifice. We appreciate it. God bless you, too. I hope this is a first of many, Sean. Me too. That was amazing.

Thank you. We have an amazing show for you here. We've got Charlie Sheen, and we couldn't wait to talk to Charlie Sheen, And we taped a conversation with Charlie Sheen on Tuesday of this week. And he was amazing, like completely honest and full of candor and self-deprecating and very reflective about the incredible life he's had. And we had always planned with his team. They're doing a press rollout around his book and his documentary on Netflix to air it on Friday.

Well, as you know, something massive happened in the country between Tuesday and Friday. involving another Charlie. And we asked ourselves what to do about the Charlie Sheen interview. And in the end, we've decided to put it out because I think we need it. I think it's good. We can't spend every moment in darkness and thinking about the awfulness that happened on Thursday. We can't. I'm losing track of my days on Wednesday.

We can't. We shouldn't. We should take a moment to watch a silly comedy or listen to a podcast. about decorating. I don't take your pick, sports. We have to continue on with our lives somewhat normally. And so we are going to air this. We also have an hour-long program that we're airing in tribute to Charlie Kirk. But I think you'll enjoy this hour with Charlie Sheen. I really did. I did not expect to like him as much as I did. And I just adore the guy now. And I think you will too. So enjoy.

Charlie Sheen is an American actor and an icon. His life has been a wild ride, born to father actor Martin Sheen. What do you care if your brother did your school? He achieved success seemingly overnight and went on to star in films like Platoon, Wall Street, and The Rookie. Do you want to do over? No, I don't want a do over. He eventually became the highest paid actor in television history as a star on the beloved sitcom Two and Half Men. I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen.

But all of that success. came with challenges, addiction, and tumultuous relationships. Now Charlie Sheen is eight years sober and back to tell his story his own way. His new memoir, The Book of Sheen, tells all. And we do mean all. Oh, we're ready to go. And a new Netflix documentary released at the same time, aka Charlie Sheen, hits this week too. I lit the fuse, you know, and my life turns into everything.

It wasn't supposed to be. I've read the book. I've watched the documentary, and I could not recommend both more than I do. Charlie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, May. It's honor to be here.

Thank you. I can't believe you didn't use a ghostwriter on this. Thank you for the lovely intro, firstly. You bet. No, there was talk of that early on, and I just thought that that wouldn't give me an opportunity to delet me. deliver it, you know, from the, from the deepest reaches of myself, you know.

And I, and I knew that it would, to the reader, that it would feel counterfeit, you know. No, you can tell it's you. I mean, your voice resonates. Right on. Comes right off the page. And then if you read it while you're watching the documentary, it just validates that it's 100% you. It's all you. I feel like I know you so well now, having read this and watched this. And here's where I want to kick it off.

Okay. It seems like, you know, the addiction. I said to myself, who is Charlie Sheen? Like, what do I think of when I think of Charlie Sheen? Yes, Icon. Huge star. Addict, of course, is one of the words. But truly also a genius.

And those things are not unusually paired. It's not unusual to see those things together. But it seems like there was a feeling of inadequacy in, let's say, Carlos Estevez, versus Charlie Sheen, the icon movie star that we know now. And my question in watching the film and reading the book was, where did that come from? And I'll just give you my own pitch on it. You tell me whether I have anything like the truth here.

You had a very famous father. You then had a very famous brother, both of whom went before you and became famous in your brother's case or were famous in your dads when you were, you know, not. You were just a regular kid. And I think it probably had a profound effect on you being around that level of wealth and attention directed at people around you but not at you that maybe planted some seeds that weren't potentially healthy for you in the long haul. What do you make of my theory? I think your I think your theory is more than just a theory.

I think I think you've tapped into some some very solid truths about, about what, you know, what motivated me or, or at least what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, it did, because, um, you know, for, for, for, for for so long, I was, I was, I was, I was Martin Sheen's son. And then, you, you know, you, you know, out with Emilio and his crew of newly famed actors that he was making all his movies with and just seeing the type of energy and the type of access and the type of fun and and mischief that they all had such limitless access to that I just, I wanted a taste of it so badly. And it was, it felt so close yet at the same time, it was, it was, it was light years out of reach, you know. Yeah, because just because you have fame in the family doesn't mean it's going to happen for you. And so even trying for it was pretty bold on your part.

But your story is not one of somebody who knew he had to be an actor. You had the Thespian gene. You were going to see it through. It was kind of like just happened. And then it happened really quickly. Yeah, no. I got a little bit of a warm up. I'd done a couple films that nobody really cared about.

I was just trying to get a sag card, just trying to be a consistently employed actor and just kind of go from one job to the next and hopefully leave some good work behind. And then just, you know, I guess stuff happens when it's supposed to or at times how it's supposed to. and, you know, this cameo just falls out of the sky into my lap,

and that was the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What do you care if your brother ditch is school? Why should he get to ditch when everybody else has to go? You could ditch. Gosh, I'm only on film, like probably less than three minutes. And even having done a couple of lead roles in forgettable films before that, and then that thing hits and it's that thing I talk about in the book

where the day before in the grocery store, the girls thought I worked there, you know, and then Bueller hits, and I'm no longer wearing that imaginary Vons vest, you know? Well, and I love the story behind that. Jennifer Gray did you a solid.

She got you the audition. Yeah, yeah, she did. And you nonetheless showed up late. You tried to stay up all night, so you could look weathered, and tired like your character and got a little too method, overslept the alarm, show up an hour and a half late.

Jennifer Gray is like, what the hell, man? But it was a very interesting story you tell. You're very insightful about how John Hughes, you saw him and you expected he was just going to throw you out of there and you got something different. I thought he would continue the drubbing that she had initiated. But with him, it came to a Flintstone's halt. and he just like I say in the doc and in and the book when he just took one look at me and he literally just said oh good

you're here let's get started and and just that what what that did for just calming my nerves and and my confidence and just knowing that I was you know in the presence of a man that didn't care about anything that that led up to the to the you know the moment that he needed to to, you know, get his director brain around, you know. So, and then it's, it's pretty cool in the movie. You can still see Jennifer. You can still see the trailing effects of some of the, yes.

Some of, some of her ire and the animosity and just. Definitely. Yes, no, she was great in that scene too. And you stole the scene. And you could argue you stole the movie. And I, I thought about that with John Hughes. And I thought, okay. I understand why he did it because you walk in,

you're very good looking, you are like oozing the right attitude for this guy, right? He's like, this is my guy. I need him in this scene. And I think like that would come back to help you many times. Your movie star appeal,

your good looks, your charm. But it wasn't always a force for good. Like this, these things that would get you a pass from people like John Hughes that happened to you repeatedly in your life sound good on paper, but like maybe weren't because gave you a feeling of invincibility like you could get away with anything. And maybe that wasn't such a great thing for the other piece of Charlie Sheen, which is the addict piece. Yeah, no, certainly it was not a great thing.

I mean, it's nice to be forgiven. Obviously, it's nice to be given second chances and all that good stuff. And we touch on this in the dock a little bit. What was interesting that, that even after not not the biggest disasters or or you know the the the the the furthest falls but um there was there there there there was a pattern of you know fucking things up sending shit off the rails and then and then uh having a job literally on the other side of that event once i had you know once I dusted myself off and, you know, got back ready to work. So, yeah, so, but, you know, I think there's two sides to that. That didn't mean I had to take those jobs, but it, but it also didn't mean that they always

had to be there. Does that make any sense? I kind of went completely around that. I get it. But I just think, like, opportunity kept coming your way because you really do have true genius in this field. You can see it in the parts you play. You embody these characters. It seems to

come easy to you. Like to us late people, it certainly does. And yet, the universal rewards for those talents may not be a good thing. Like this kind of dawned on me while I was reading the book. Being universally rewarded for these preternatural gifts,

whether it's appearance or abilities, could in some ways be a devil on your back. Because a life without consequences can lead to some bad choices and a false feeling of invincibility. Of course it can. Of course it can. Yeah. And there's also, there's this thing about, you know, not having to deal with a ton of failure at first. You know, there's a little piece in the book where I mentioned that they teach us as kids if at first, you know, you don't succeed. You try, try again.

if at first you do succeed, that's where that saying ends because it was never written. It doesn't exist, you know. And then it's like even talking about, you know, watching dad, you know, with his assent to start him and his brilliant career and then watching Emilio, it's, you know, I thought that I would have a handle on what that might feel like once, you know, were I fortunate for it to happen to me as well? Well, even on a smaller scale at, you know, just a fraction of what they'd achieved. But there's no way to really prepare anyone for it. There's no way to, I guess in some way, be like asking, you know, Barry Bonds or Hank Aaron, you know, what it actually feels like to hit a home run, you know?

They can describe the mechanics of it, but they can't really ever put you inside a moment that you have to inhabit but to truly own that experience. And so watching it and then living it was a whole different reality. But then it's nice to have people you can check in with and say, hey, okay, so this happened with the thing. And then I saw how you dealt with that. And then any recommendations, any ideas. But even the advice sometimes, it's well-intentioned,

but that doesn't mean that it's going to be useful. And I don't mean that dismissively. Just that, you know, giving people advice for things that they have to experience. Yeah. Doesn't work. Is that making sense? Is that tracking a little bit? We all learn that as parents.

We all learn that as parents. You know, you want to spare your kids, all the pain and anguish you experienced by telling them the life lessons you learned. And, I mean, I've concluded 15 years in a month. motherhood. It's not a complete waste of time, but it's really close to a waste of time. They have to make their own mistakes in order to really learn the lessons. Sure. It's pretty close to a waste of time. That's brilliant. Pretty close. I can see, like, I'm sure Martin Sheen was like, Charlie, I'll walk you through exactly how to handle these massive challenges. He's a huge star, big movie star in his day,

Apocalypse Now. And he's probably thinking, I can spare you so much grief. And then you learn the hard way, oh God, he's going to need to experience grief his own way. And it's going to be really public, too, in your case. But isn't it interesting? In the book, there's those early examples of that he was the, you know, the voice of advice that I would seek. He was the guy that I would go to. And, you know, the thing that happened with the karate kid, the thing that happened with that early MGM deal. And he was the guy I would go to. And then, of course, you know, when it came to platoon,

and he advised against that as well is when I finally told him, I said, I got to just, I got to roll the dice on this one. Because you were offered the lead role in Karate Kid, ultimately played by Ralph Machio, and you turned it down for some film with the word grizzly in it where you and a very young George Clooney and a young Laura Dern would make a movie no one would ever remember whatsoever. And your dad had told you you needed to say no to a karate kid

because you had committed to this other film. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not the worst advice in the world if you just break it down just into the credo that he was, you know, into just the noble essence of what he was trying to get me to, to pursue, you know, or or to recognize, you know. So, but yeah, that was a hard one to watch and, you know, go get eaten by a bear and then watch Ralph, you know, do with that.

But again. But then I heard you say this in the documentary, you know, no offense to Ralph Machio, but like he was kind of typecast after that. And Ralph did not go on to become some huge Hollywood movie. star like you did. But he still had a really respectable and terrific career and still does great work to this day, you know?

Yeah. But if you think of the karate kid, it's really difficult to picture anyone except him. Even if you've just seen the first one. You know, I don't think I had the skills or the tools or the mindset or anything at that moment in time to pull off

or bring to it what he was able to. You know, so I think the film would have been different or would have started with me and that it finally just went, yeah, yeah, you know what, let's go with that Italian kid that we had a couple days ago, you know. So who knows? Instead of the Spanish kid. Instead of the Spanish kid.

You come from a long line of Spanish people, like a whole family, like Ramon, he's in the, in the documentary, and Emilio. Yeah. Your dad's name isn't really Martinism. Very Spanish. Do you connect at all with that piece of your lineage? Just through stories and just through relatives and just I don't I don't go on the pilgrimages like my brother Ramon does and Emilio and dad I guess I guess I lean more into the into the Irish side of our roots you know no offense taken yeah I know exactly where you're going with that I would say your love of beautiful women that that's very Spanish so like maybe it's in you and in other ways that are you know, more silent. All right. So now you, you get cast in Platoon. And this too was a role that was

supposed to be Emilios. This was, this was a role that was supposed to go to somebody else that you got because of timing and he took on another project. One thing led to another. So you wind up getting this role. And that, that was it, right? Was Platoon was the big before and after, like, now I'm a household name. There's BP and there's AP. Do you ever get caught in a mistake that you just can't get out of? Okay. Yeah. Before platoon, after platoon. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, again, oh, there's a nice photo. Johnny, what a trip. That's a great one. That feels like a hundred lifetimes ago, you know? You were a baby. Yeah, right? Yeah, we didn't know what we were, what we created.

You know, we thought the vets would appreciate it. We thought, you know, we thought other filmmakers would think we've given a, you know, taking a pretty good shot at it. But, um, no, it, we did not expect that the, the entire world was going to join in the celebration, you know, it was, it was a pretty exciting time. The first real movie about the war in Vietnam is platoon. Then you get the kind of fame that's like, you walk into a football stadium and everybody knows you, you, not to mention you could sleep with any woman in there, which, you know, like, that's very heady, hugely heavy.

Hattie. And at the same time, you're hanging out with all these big stars. Like, I didn't know anything about your long friendship with Nick Cage. Hello. That's amazing. Yeah. And I think what's in the dock with Nicholas and myself and what's in the book, I think there's some really cool, really just memorable, you know, unforgettable stuff between us, you know. It's not all in there. And that's just, hey, there we are. And that's out of respect to him and myself. And, you know, there's there's some stuff that it's just probably better that it just it stays between the people and exists only in that moment in time but i but i think there is enough there to to to just uh give a taste just give a vibe of of the kind of that the energy that that we were both uh you know that it was weird

we it's like we found each other right when we needed to and and it wasn't a competition thing but we just, I think I talk about something in the book that, you know, something about, we're both on the verge of complete vision and I brought the missing neutrons, you know, stuff like that. It's interesting. I just spoke with Nicholas about an hour ago today. And this dude, at 901 in L.A., knowing it was past midnight, East Coast, downloaded my

audiobook and listened to it. Like started it last night and finished it today and wrote to me, wrote this beautiful penning of just love and support and he was just such passion and excitement and I just

called him and it was really that was just like an hour ago you know because we didn't care about people about the disclosures you made. He did not care about the disclosures you made about him. No, he loved the stories. You love the writing.

He just loved that he just loved that he was a part of it. It was so cool. It was such a loving, I don't want to call it an endorsement. It was a, it was just the kind of support that I would have hoped for, but when you get it for real, you know, especially from him, it was pretty special. I hope he doesn't mind that I'm sharing this with the world, you know. Now, I have to imagine you've gotten a phone call from literally every gay man who's ever met you and has your number saying, I see a window. Is it still open? I mean, not exactly.

No, it hasn't gone there because that was a pretty isolated, isolated thing. And again, that's not about shame or that's not about anything like that. That's just about, you know, trying to just be respectful of. other people's privacies and stuff like that. But that is kind of funny. Yeah, I actually did have that thought. What's it going to be like now in the streets? Am I going to be getting the thing?

You know what I'm saying? Yes, you're going to be getting the thing. Every gay man is going to say, so you're saying there's a chance. For the listening audience, Charlie reveals in the book that he, while on drugs, had a couple of interludes crossing over to the other side. It's not declaring that he's gay or by or anything else, but is just being honest. about his life intoxicated and high. And that's why I say some will see a window. That's all right. That's flattering.

I mean, what the hell, right? It's one moment in a very long life. And I said something the other day that I guess I just wanted to have just a little bit more in common with Richard Pryor and Marlon Brando and Mick Jagger. That's pretty good company. That's pretty good company. That's some Hall of Famers right there. You know. But it does have to be a relief.

You know, you write about how you paid people blackmail money to keep that secret. You came out a long time ago as HIV positive. Sure. You had to pay people to keep that secret. I mean, this is a lot to be laboring under. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. And to always, anytime the phone rings or you see an email from a lawyer or just,

or a manager that always talks to that lawyer. And it's just, it just got to the point of this, you know, if this is prison, the only thing it's missing, the bars and the guards, you know, but but yeah, and and, you know, I was talking to Emilio and, and he said,

he said, are you, are you cool that like all this stuff is, you know, is out there and like that? And I said, well, you know, I got to be honest, man, it's, uh, it feels a lot better, you know, out there than it did in here for so long.

And so, um, And the other thing is, like, don't put something in a book and in a doc that come out, you know, a day apart, unless you're going to be willing enough, courageous enough, open enough to discuss those things, you know? Very true. Because I did the GMA piece. I did the GMA piece with Strayham, which I think went pretty good, right? Yeah. And then one of the producers came up and said, wow, that was so courageous. and you just, you didn't, you didn't dodge it.

And I said, well, yeah, I already wrote about it and spoke about it and put it. And she said, oh, no, no, you'd be amazed how many people put stuff in a book. And then when it comes to, it comes time to, you know, promote it or discuss it or whatever, they completely lose their minds. They, they just want to run and hide. Because I guess they never, or they didn't see the connection between, like, okay, it goes here and then, you know, and then does that. You're still, you know, it's, you're responsible for all of it. And so sometimes you get the annoying publicist who says, don't ask about this.

Meanwhile, the principal is fine asking about it. So oftentimes it's a function of that. Having worked on the Today Show, I know that the PR people can be absolutely awful and not really caring. They're telling you not to ask something like you just write it in the book. And then you want to tell them, but it's here. How do I know this? I know this because he wrote it. Like, he told me.

I didn't pull it out of the ether. Right. So some are good. Some are awful. I mean, that was actually one of the questions I had for you. I was on Fox News in 2011 when you had the two and a half men cancellation and the winning. And like the super torqued up, Charlie, with all the testosterone you write about like, it was something like 4,000, which is, I don't know what number is supposed to be normal. but it's like two digits, not three and not four.

I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. I'm different. I just have a different constitution. I have a different brain. I have a different heart. I have a different, you know, I get tired of blood, man. You don't worry that you're going to die when you take that many drugs? Dines for fools. So you got fired from two and a half men, and you went on this like winning tour. And what I see in the documentary really jumped out of me, which was, this is my opinion, totally douchebag managers who exploited you.

The troubled actor is taking his bizarre behavior out on the, road for Charlie Sheen live, my violent torpedo of truth. I think what your name is synonymous, and I don't mean this in a negative way, is in trouble. And I think like torpedoes of truth is so brilliant because it's like, it just sounds exciting. Who are like, get out there, go on on the stage, make money. They want to see you. Meanwhile, you were in crisis. So it's kind of irritating as a fan and a viewer to see that happen.

How do you see the role of those around you with professional people? in the middle of that whole chaos of yeah i was it's kind of a double-edged sword because i was really hard to control i i had found some different level of i don't know what there was just some other energy or some other possession or just some just thing that that i just needed to to stay attached to and I can't even really describe it. It was, I don't want to say it was out of body because then you're kind of like not owning it. I knew what was going on.

I just didn't want it to stop. And that's the part I can't really explain. When I look back on that stuff, it's like, dude, like, okay, maybe after that interview, you issue a statement or you just like go, just disappear somewhere for a month. But to keep that thing going was just like, that's the part, just the energy that requires. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore.

But as far as the people that, I guess you could say, were more complicit than not, it does take two to tango. And I say in the book that in this case it felt like, it felt more like 2000. But I also specifically write a line about, in the years since I've combed through the mental health manual and I still can't find vile exploitation as a treatment protocol.

So that is a quote from the book. So yeah, I am going to point some of that stuff out. And then when I talk about Mark Berg and Mark and I are great friends these days, but I do say Mark was the gatekeeper, and I wish he would have had a better key or a stronger lock. or something that, or a lock that looked more like a comfy chair and a, and a, and a, and a willing ear. You know, it's like I, I just think there could have been a moment in the middle of all that when coming, someone could have just said, all right, we're going to, you know, the part, you know, we're putting the, putting the chairs on the table, putting the lights on, the party's over, this guy's coming with us.

And it could have been interrupted, you know, but then suddenly there's this idea for a tour, you know, and I'm like, what would that even, what does that mean? I'm not a, did I start a band I can't remember forming? Is there some part of me, like, what are we, because touring for me is all, it could only be a musician or like a really popular comedian, right? And there was nothing fun. about my act at that point, right? But yeah, and then Live Nation gets involved and I go visit them and suddenly, you know, I'm holding a machete to a cheering crowd and they're booking dates, you know, which is why in the book, the only thing that I describe on that tour is that, is that, I don't want to give it away, but is that incident that takes place in the bathroom, you know? And I think just symbolically that that's that's really how I felt about about that that that whole that whole shit storm you know I watched it I just thought I watched it when it happened as a newswoman and I was horrified at how you were being exploited it was obvious you were in crisis I felt

the same about Kanye I did not interview Kanye when he was going on in his recent media chore because I could see the guy was in the middle of what appeared to be a bipolar episode. I did not pile on when that mayor up in Canada was going through it. Like, I just don't like it when news people. I think news people, too, have responsibility not to have you on when you're in that state and pretend that you're okay or that this is an okay interview to be doing because this is a compromised person who needs help, not to be exploited for clicks. It's very fucking annoying as a news person to watch.

Yeah, no, and that's that's great to hear. At least there's there's one of you that cares. No, there's others, I'm sure. But even the Andrea Canning of it all, right? She's terrific and I'm a fan and I, you know, she does great work. She was with ABC at the time and I put this responsibility on ABC. Yeah, but I was working out in a gym and I saw her on a monitor like up in the corner of the room with the sound off. and I knew this interview was coming

and I didn't know what the hell it was going to turn into but I was I was with somebody and I said hey, what about her? She looks pretty smart. She looks like she knows what she's doing. Maybe she'll do the interview. I mean literally it was like that. No research, nothing. Didn't know her backstory.

So she gets just yanked into this thing, you know? And then I, yeah, she was like just front and center for that thing, you know? She was like putting on the seatbelt to do that interview. So. Exactly. Yeah. I want to talk about sobriety because I think it's kind of interesting how it happened for you. But before I get to that, the hero in this story after you for rescuing yourself from your addictions, or at least from the active addiction, is your dad.

And I just, like, to me, I have such. empathy for him because Charlie I will tell you that I lost my sister at age 58 two years ago a couple years ago and thank you and she she was an addict and she had a lifetime of similar problems with her it started as a prescription pill that she was given and like when I I saw the number of times your dad intervened and tried so hard sometimes he did the right things sometimes it was questionable what he did but sure I saw was this extremely loving father who really wanted you to stop doing drugs, who desperately wanted you to get better and didn't

totally know how to stop it. And then I saw he didn't participate in the documentary, and neither did Emilio. And I know you say it's because they watched the rough and they said, you got it all covered. But I did wonder, is that the full story? Or do you think there's like a lingering resentment at all there? Because I certainly think in my family, having an addict is like having a nuclear bomb go off in your nuclear family and there can be lingering resentment. Interesting. Yeah, no, I think that's all face value. I think that's all face value with, because I was in the room with them watching both

of their reactions to the rough cut and they, they couldn't have been more excited or or were passionate about it or celebrating it more. And dad was just like, I'm in this. I'm already in this. Start to finish. And Amelia was like, geez, I don't know what I could possibly contribute beyond what Charlie's already doing. And I just, I genuinely think, like, they didn't want to get in the way or try to tell my stories through their POV. Even though that's sometimes, you know, that's part of how documentaries get to different parts of stories.

and that's a device that they do lean into. But no, I, I, because I think, you know, we started this about two years ago. So I was, I was, at that point, clean about almost six years. And so they knew that this, that, that I wasn't, you know, I was committed to this thing. And, and so. And you guys are good. So, like, you feel legitimately like you've made amends with them and you're in a good place. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. No, Emilio and I have been texting all day. He'll read something about the doc or the blog, and he'll send it to me. And we just had a terrific piece come out. He interviewed me for Interview Magazine. And so, and they just print the transcript of our Zoom call, even though we live a block from each other. We did it on Zoom, you know, and it dropped today, and some of it is hysterical. And anybody that's like, and I'm not saying, but anybody, like anybody,

might be questioning that we're on the answer, there's a thing or whatever. It's you read this piece and you can see like two guys that are there are still a couple 12 year olds like talking about jaws, you know? And it's a wonderful piece. Part of what's so great about the movie,

the documentary, aka Charlie Sheen, is the Super 8 film that you guys took of each other when you were kids. And the way to talk about LA is interesting too. It makes it sound like a city in which you might actually raise a family back in the day in the 70s and late 60s. It used to be. Yeah. It used to be. It was a more rural you're describing. And that's why your dad and your mom chose to raise their family there. But you guys with the Super 8 videos,

like pretend acting, like trying to be actors like your dad. And you were getting good at like the death scenes and the shooting up scenes. It was like pretty well done. Thank you. Thank you. We were front row watching him do it. you know, in his roles, on his sets, sometimes all over the world. There'd even be days, and this isn't in the dock, where I'd be with Chris Pan, and I'd be messing around with a cap gun or a starter pistol or something, and dad would be watching. And he'd be like, you know, doing a light workout just over in the other part of the yard

or getting some sun or whatever. And there was one day when he said, hey, guys, guys, hold on a second, hold on a second. He says, all right, if you guys are going to do. do it. Let me show you how it's going to look better. And I got this little cap gun or starter pistol with blanks. And he says, all right, Charlie, whenever you want, I'm going to be folding, I want to be folding this towel. You shoot me. And I'll show you how a guy would respond, you know, more realistically getting shot. He's in it. He's going to be pissed that I shared this, but it's really a cool, a cool memory in a moment. It's not in the dog. It's not in the book.

but it's right here. And I turned on him and I fired a shot and he took it and he, it wasn't like this super crazy five-minute dramatic death. He just buckled and then right on his back. And Chris and I were just like, oh my gosh. Okay. So now we had a template to work from. Now we had like a real pro who'd been shot on film like a thousand times,

showing us like this is going to up your game. A lot of parents will sit down with their kids and help them. with their homework. My dad was showing us how to take a bullet. How to get shot. It's quite helpful. Pretty wild. Here's a tough one for you. Who is the better actor? Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen,

or Emilio Estevez? Wow. Gosh, I think dad's the best dramatic actor of the three of us. I think I may have a slight edge in the comedy department. right um and i think amelio is more comfortable than pop and myself um with romantic stuff

i can see that yeah but i didn't answer your question did i okay we didn't go better or best you know like who's going to get the lifetime achievement award i hopefully pop because you know what i'm saying, I mean, he's, he, he, yeah. But, um, I think there's things that he, he can do that Emilio and I can't stuff Amelia can do that pop and I can't and then finish that triad with the other two that can't. Yep. You know, the scene, of course, in Wall Street with you and your dad. I told you not to get into that racket in the first place. You could have been a doctor or a lawyer. You write about. You write as follows. Uh, there are a few moments with dad. in that film that had flashes of promise from my end.

He was his usual, fabulous self, and I was doing whatever I could to not vanish on screen next to him. I mean, how special was it that you had that feeling about him and working with him, and in part that was portrayed in the relationship between Bud Fox and his dad in the movie itself?

Right, right, right. No, it was an incredible experience. I, you know, little pieces of regret throughout that, that I could have been more present, that I could have been just more dialed in, more professional. I think what's, I think, covered nicely in the book is that, you know, platoon is still burning down the box office when we start Wall Street. And so there was like a lot of distraction. I wanted the party to keep going.

And I think that I mentioned something about just wanting to be, you know, playfully drunk on a fancy boat and tropical waters with beautiful women, you know, not like working again, stuff like that. So there was a lot of distractions doing that. So some of the stuff with dad, and he was well aware of it. And so he was, I think, just hoping for a more focused me. And that's why I talk about doing my best and not vanish on screen next to him, talent-wise, but also just, you know, where my head was at, you know. And speaking of Wall Street. Is it time?

It's time. Okay. You know what? I think we should, let's play SOT 51. This is a kid. Calls me 59 days in a row. Wants to be a player. I ought to be a picture of you in the dictionary on a persistent scheme.

I just want to let you know, Mr. Gecko, that I've read all about you at NYU business, and I think you're an incredible genius. I've always dreamed of one thing, and that's to do business with a man like you. What firm are you with palom? Jackson Steinem. They're going places. Good junk bond department. You do the financing on that Jansen investment?

Yeah. Yeah. some other interesting stuff. Cosmetic company by any chance. What, you 12th man, the deal team, last to know? I can't tell you that, Mr. Gecko. Great stuff.

Is it true you don't look back fondly on that film that you've only watched it twice? I liked that scene. Yeah. What's not to like? I mean, there's some, there's a lot going on there. There's some charm, there's some heart. There's some, you know, yeah.

You know what? Maybe it's time I revisit this thing. You should, because I've seen it at least 20 times. Seriously? It's such a special film. I love the character arc of Bud Fox, and I think it totally captures what happens to young guys on Wall Street to this day. My husband actually wrote a book called Ghosts of Manhattan,

and it's all about this exact issue. And I thought you just completely portrayed it. You nailed it, and the relationship that you have with your dad in the film is just the chef's kiss on top. top. But can we both agree that Daryl Hannah was miscast? She was and she knew it. And she knew it. Really? I mean, she could feel it. She could feel it. And I think maybe some of the way that she wasn't

as embraced as she could have been by Oliver and just in certain moments, you know. And I do touch on some of that in the book. Oliver is the only guy in the book that I, I don't want to say I go after him, but I do talk about things. because I was describing these other experiences and these other films, and I'm like, okay, you know, all this stuff can't just be like this lovety-dovey, flowery, actor, director, you know, relationship stuff. There's, you know, when it got a little grumbling and a little tense, I thought that was worth sharing.

And, you know, it's not about, you know, taking him to task. It's just about, like, pointing out things about him, that he's freaking pointed out about other people for years. He's never been shy talking about certain actors and certain things and experiences. And so, and also. He can take his slings and arrows. Yes, he can. And he and I haven't worked together since Wall Street.

I mean, that shitty little cameo in the, in the ill-advised sequel to Wall Street, right? Yeah. And so, but that doesn't count. So it's not like Oliver's been banging down my door since. 1987, right? So maybe this approach gets his attention. Maybe this will get him to reach out. This he'll respect. All right. Your people are telling us we got a wrap. So I want to close with this. I know. I thought we were just getting warm. The PR people are annoying. I'm telling you. You'll give me your number later and I'll go directly to you next time. They'll love that.

Awesome. This is where I want to end it. I hope this isn't too dark for you. But you pulled, you pulled yourself with some friendships and support out of decades of addiction. And this time it seems to really be sticking. You're eight years sober, which is amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And here's what I want to ask you. So I know you knew Matthew Perry. You write in the book, we were both veterans of the unspeakable. Really well said. And we did a long tribute to Matthew Perry, who was so talented after he died. and it was obvious that his addiction had not been totally licked. And if you don't ultimately lick it and stay off of the drugs and stay clean, it ends the same for virtually everyone.

So please don't do that to us. Please know how important you are in our culture and as a figure who kids look up to and people admire and want to continue applauding and cheering for for decades to come. I really hope you know we're all rooting for you and just want nothing but good things for you. That's amazing. There's such love and compassion in that, and that is a, that is a, that, that is a, that, that is a request that I wholeheartedly, um, um, have every intention of, of honoring. Um, because it's, it's, it's like you were saying, you know, um, drugs are, are undefeated. They're undefeated. It's like 20 million to zero, you know? And I just, I even writing the book, watching the doc, it's, I'm the guy that lived it and survived it.

And I still don't completely know how. I think the why part will be revealed over time and, you know, and that's fine. That's not on, that's not up to me. But, but yeah, to get through that, you know, to get through that, you, you know, you know, several times, and then continue to thumb your nose of the universe, I think at that point, you're asking for it, you know? And it's interesting because you do talk about that Matthew, you know, was still struggling a little bit when he had to go on the tour and promote the book and do all that stuff, but I could see it. I know a lot of other people could too, and I

could also hear it when I listened to the book. I could hear just for a guy that just had such precision with his diction and his delivery and his timing and just everything um and it just it was just left of center and you just felt like and i read his book i read it in a day because i've just got so deep into it and nothing else mattered and i wasn't stopping until i finished and and i i so wanted to reach out to him and i didn't and he he died a month later and it was just you know um So, yeah, I don't want to do that to my kids. I don't want to do that to the rest of my family. And, yeah, if you get a second, third, fourth, chance, you know, wrap your arms around it and just, you know, just consider it a freaking lotto win every day.

Well, maybe there's a better chance this time because I'll tell you, I'm a little younger than you are. but not by that much. And I've referred to this as my fuck at 50s. So you really don't care what people think of you. You really change in your 50s for the better. It's one delightful thing about getting older. And I think more so when you're in your 60s. So I feel like you've got all that ahead of you.

You've got all this goodness here. You hopefully will meet somebody and fall in love, which is not a false god. You've already got enough money so you don't have to chase the dollar, which is another false god. You've already proven that. you can do all this shit to your body and still stay standing, which check, okay, we've got that. Maybe we won't continue the parties with Nick Cage. That could be a thing of the past. That's fine. I think that that might be a healthy choice. I leave it up to you. But whatever you choose, I really hope it fulfills you like from from the inside and that you have like a maybe not a

fucking 50s, but like a spectacular 60s and beyond because we all are rooting for you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That is, that is, that just, that's, that's the nicest thing ever. That is, that is so sweet and, and coming from you. That, that, that means the world. Thank you. Oh, all right. Well, I will, I will talk to you on the next episode of the Megan Kelly show where I'll be thinking of you, as I say the word, Sot 40. That's amazing. This is, this has been a pleasure. All of us, Charlie. Or SOT 60. That's right. SOT 60 in honor of Charlie Sheen. All the best. See you soon. Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.