The Megyn Kelly Show - The Truth About Netflix's "Bad Vegan" and a Crime Week Con, with Sarma Melngailis | Ep. 1221

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

Crime Week continues as Megyn Kelly is joined by Sarma Melngailis, author of "The Girl with the Duck Tattoo," to discuss what the Netflix "documentary" "Bad Vegan" gets right and wrong about her story, why "con artists" target well-educated and sophisticated women, how the man at the center of the story worked his way into her life, the way the man at the center of the "Bad Vegan" story was able to "weaponize" her ambition, why she was susceptible, the dangers he posed to her, what he did with the money, what life is like now for Melngailis, and more.  More from Melngailis: https://thegirlwiththeducktattoo.com/  Riverbend Ranch: Visit https://riverbendranch.com/ | Use promo code MEGYN for $20 off your first order.Byrna: Go to https://Byrna.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse today.  Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and happy new year. It's the final day of Crime Week here on the program, though we do have fresh programming for you tomorrow as well. This is the end of Crime Week because nothing says Christmas like true crime. My guest today built one of the most successful vegan food empires in the Big Apple. But her dramatic rise and fall would become the focus of the hit Netflix, quote, documentary, or so they call it, bad vegan. A series she says got major parts of her story wrong. By the way, this always happens on Netflix. Sarma Melangilis has a new memoir. It is called The Girl with the Duck Tattoo. In it, she aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story behind the fame, the manipulation, and the fallout of her unbelievable saga. I've been talking a lot about River Bend Ranch because I love their steaks.

Well, this holiday season, express your love with a very special gift of premium steaks from Riverbend Ranch. They have spectacular beef bundles that are wonderful gifts to friends and family. Their prime rib roast and holiday bundles are only available while supplies last, and they're going fast. For the last 35 years, River Bend Ranch has been creating an elite Angus herd by using ultrasound technology to identify genetically superior cattle with a focus on flavor and tenderness. All River Bend Ranch cattle are born and raised in the USA. They never use growth hormones or antibiotics, and the beef is processed right at the ranch in their award-winning USDA-inspected processing facility. Avoid the costly middlemen because the beef is sent directly from River Bend Ranch to your home. This is not your average Black Angus Beef. Order from Riverbendranch.com. Use the promo code Megan for 20 bucks off your first order. And let me know what you think. That's Riverbendranch.com promo code Megan. Sarma, hi. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Well, I'm sorry that you had an unfortunate experience with Netflix, but you are not alone. We've covered so many of these cases on Netflix where they lure you in and they really do sell a documentary. And it's nothing of the kind. It's a mockumentary. It's a docudrama. It's something that is not committed to journalistic fact-based reporting. So I will give you that right off the top. But I'm super interested to find out what is true. As I'm just like to give a two-line encapsulation of your story to the audience, as I understand it. You're very well educated. You went to Wharton. You worked at Bear Stearns, Bain Capital. Then you went to the French Culinary Institute. You learned how to be a serious chef.

You opened up this banger of a restaurant with raw food, pure food and wine. Everyone in New York loved it. It was going really well. And then you met this man, this man who came into your life, who was somewhat sketchy and notwithstanding your sophistication, bit by bit, he eroded your sense of self, your understanding of what was real. And before you knew it, you had lost everything. Is that a fair summation of how this thing went down? Yeah, that was an incredible summation. That was, you know, better than I can do it in a concise way. But yeah, that's what happened. And what I've learned

is that my story was an extreme version of something that happens to people a lot more than people realize. And I know this now from all the messages I've gotten in my DMs. since the show came out and since it became much more public, is that this type of manipulation can happen a lot more than people realize. And it also can happen to men and women alike. And so part of my telling of the story is to really help educate people how it happened. And that was the most important part that the show on Netflix left out and that the filmmakers left out is any explanation of how this happens, which is what would allow people to help protect themselves. And which is so unsatisfying, because what's most interesting about the story to many

of us is how someone as sophisticated and well-educated and successful as you would fall for this guy's lies. That's what we all want to know, right? Because in our heads, we want to say, oh, I would never. But, I mean, I have covered enough of these stories to know. Don't ever say that because nine times out of ten, the person being targeted has a bio not unlike yours. For some reason, these con men go for the sophisticated smart types. Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, similar with cults, you know, they actually need somebody who's got a certain level of intelligence because it's almost like you can't train a, you know, you need somebody who's got a certain level of intelligence to be able to pull off this long. slow manipulation. And, I mean, I've spoken to people who have PhDs and clinical psychology attorneys even

who've been, had their world turned upside down in a way that they never expected. And so, again, that's what I write about in my book is really taking the reader along with me through this sort of nightmarish journey about getting manipulated over time and really trying to, you know, as honestly as I could, even in places where I felt it didn't reflect well on me to help people understand how this happens and also the psychology behind it. And that's really also what was left out of the show. Have you ever heard the story of, I'm going to mess up is it Anderson Benita is her first name, NBC journalist who got lured in by this doctor who said he had figured out a way to do prosthetic.

Bonita Alexander to do prosthetic tracheas on people. And long story short, he was a big fraud. And he convinced her that they were going to go and be married in Rome by the Pope, even though she was divorced. And also, she's a newswoman. You can't find more cynical mofos than news producers. And she got lured in. And what she said at the end, Sarma, is something that you, of our interview, you might relate to,

which was, because she's also very smart, he needed her to be smart because that's where the Jones came from. Like, it wasn't going to be fun for him if she were too easy a mark. Yes. Yes. I mean, part of what, I think part of why this can happen is because certainly, you know, whether it's my wiring or whatever it is, but I almost couldn't, it's like I couldn't fathom that somebody could be so diabolical. And also his motivation, it wasn't that clear because you know, it's not like in the end of this, he walked away with all of this money that he took from me. He just, you know, spent it, gambled it away. That wasn't the point for him. The point for him was the thrill that he and people like this get from the takedown. Yes. Because again, I'm not a

psychologist, but when you're wired a certain way and you don't have empathy and you go around in this world, it's like life is a game, and to manipulate people is, I think, what gives people like this a rise. And so, you know, again, the bigger the takedown, the bigger, the high they get, I suppose. And that's really the point of it is. Well, and I want people to remember this. I want people to remember Benita, again, a hard-nosed NBC journalist who was doing journalism at the, you know, the toughest levels you can, who was convinced by this fraudster that the Pope was going to marry them in the Vatican, notwithstanding the fact that she was divorced and that Bill Clinton was going to go and Barack Obama was going to go. And the only reason she found out it was all a lie

as a friend at NBC was like, Benita, we checked the president's schedule. He's not going, even the Pope's not even going to be in Rome on the date of your wedding. Hello. And sort of the mask finally started coming off and she started realizing she'd been totally manipulated. So the point is simply, while the lies may sound so obviously outrageous to those of us in the outside. These fraudsters build slowly to gain your trust and control over you before they really start with the huge whoppers to where, you know, you're really believing what looks like to the outside world, obvious nonsense. But when you're in it, you're so far removed from your original self, it can happen. So, okay, let's talk about how it happened to you. So you're,

you did the corporate stuff using your Wharton degree and then like everybody, you decided you hated that. You go to culinary school, you open up this raw restaurant, and it's a hit. It's like doing really well in Manhattan. This is what, the early aughts? Yeah, it opened in 2004, and it was a beautiful restaurant. What I was so proud of is that it wasn't a restaurant for, you know, it was a raw vegan restaurant. It wasn't a restaurant for vegans. It was a restaurant for everybody. And, you know, the food that we made, now I realize kind of how ahead of its time it was because this was 15 years ago and it really was about clean ingredients. There were no fake meat. There was no processed food whatsoever. So, you know, and there were no, you know, 15 years ago, there were no seed oil.

So it was really about showing people how incredibly good, really truly clean, nutritionally dense food can be, not just in the restaurant, but through the brand one lucky duck where we We had products that were sold through Whole Foods and kids loved them, which meant a lot to me. So, you know, and this was my whole life's purpose. It wasn't like I just started a business and wanted to make money. This was my life's purpose was hopefully being able to have a positive impact. And, you know, it was a beloved restaurant because people came there and there was, you know, it was very important to me that there was zero judgment.

We weren't dogmatic about anything. So half the staff or more probably weren't vegan, most of our, you know, half our customers, it wasn't like that. There was no, you know, we weren't like annoyingly dogmatic about it. There was no judgment whatsoever. It was just sort of showing people how good this can be. And, you know, we were doing great with it. And I had all these opportunities to expand and take it global and open in other locations. But I was running it on my own in a way and very overwhelmed.

And I now understand more about my. psychological wiring, too, that, you know, I just, I always needed a trusted partner to help me grow the business. And I didn't have that. And I was overwhelmed. And then also went through a painful breakup and was at a particularly vulnerable moment when this man slid into my DMs. They can smell it. They can smell vulnerability. They know how to exploit women who are down. And it can go the other way too. But it's in this case. is a man taking advantage of a woman. All right, so, right, you're just out of a relationship that didn't work out.

You're growing your business, but that's tough. It's challenging on any individual. But it's succeeding. There's a little bit of this. I'm going to show some Netflix clips because it's just interesting how they documented some of the, we can see the B-roll of the restaurant and so on. Let's take a look at SOT 51, which is about the beginning of your career. My undergrad major was economics, and I feel like I got there by process of

elimination. So I went to UPenn, Wharton, and Philadelphia. I think what happened is when I was there, it was like, what is everybody else doing? Everybody's gunning to go work in investment banking. I got hired by Bearstorns. Somebody that I'd worked with said to me, do you really like this work? I mean, is this what you really want to do? And my first thought was, do you like it? I don't do people like it? No.

He sort of confronted me on that. Nobody else had really done that. He said, you seem to be interested in food. People that I worked with had subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, and I had a subscription to Gourmet magazine and Food and Wine. That might have been a clue. I wasn't going into the right field. I left after a year and a half.

At that time, I wasn't under any pressure to get a job financially, so I went to culinary school. I finished at the French Culinary Institute in 99 and then focused on working in food. Now, I understand you don't love this clip. What is it about this that's off? Well, that clip I didn't have any issues with. It was the parts that I had issues with were mostly what they left out of the series, including any explanation of the psychology of it. And then they misused a call at the end, and they moved. They actually moved my words around. Hold on, because the audience isn't ready for that yet, but we will definitely get there.

Okay, so there you are. You're making the restaurant. The documentary calls attention to the fact that Tom Brady, Giselle, Alec Baldwin came in, and actually wound up hitting on you, but you weren't really in a place where you thought you could do that. This is before Illaria, or at least was like there was some sort of a vibe going there. It was potentially an option, but didn't happen. I mean, he's got his own issues, but they're not quite as bad as. the man you wound up with um so then enters the guy who is kind of the other star of the Netflix documentary who was going by Shane Fox um but actually has a different name Anthony

is it Brugallis no uh his name his name was Anthony Strangess he since changed sorry Strangeless yeah he's changed it to Anthony Knight which I always point out just because if anybody out there, comes across a dude that a very large dude named Anthony Knight. He legally changed his name. Beware. I think to try to hide further, yeah. How did you meet him? What was his name when you met him?

Well, he said his name was Shane Fox. And I met him through Alec Baldwin, through our Twitter conversations, which is part of why, you know, I write about Alec in my book and our relationship. And then how, oddly enough, I met, it was just through DMs. and Twitter, Alec had just joined Twitter. And I think that this guy just got lucky enough that he got there early. And so Alec followed him back, which in a way gave him at least some kind of a credibility

that made him a little bit more, I don't know, legit. So I wasn't quite as suspicious as I might have been otherwise. And that's something that people like this always look for is any kind of sort of validation that they can get. How did he explain to you that his name wasn't changed? Fox? Well, that came out later, but he crafted this whole sort of persona that he, you know, worked in these clandestine operations, which of course is the perfect cover of somebody's a con artist because, you know, they have an immediate excuse to not explain anything. And so eventually

I found out his real name, but when that happened, by the time that happened, I was already ensnared. And also by that time, it was as if, you know, well, of course, that's not my real name. Of course, I have to have, you know, different identities because of what I do or whatnot. I mean, a load of crap, but at the time... Now, Sarma, did he love bomb you? Because usually that's what these guys do. Yes. In my case, it wasn't so much love bombing as it was more like validation bombing. Because what this man did, it wasn't that I was so in love with him or it was about some sort of romantic delusion. It was more that he knew, he had clocked me as somebody where what meant the most

to me in the world was this business and what I wanted it to do for the world. And then at the same time, he figured out what all of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities were. And so what people do like this, and I think cult leaders do this as well, is they present to you your goals and ideals and the best version of you and what you want to be ultimately, and then somehow attach themselves to it as if the only way to get there is through them. So I would say in my case, it was more of like, I don't know, it was like a validation bombing, like sort of overwhelming me with feeling like he recognized and understood what I wanted to do and understood all of my hopes and dreams and my frustrations and that he would be able to remove all of those frustrations

and enable me to grow my business into the business that I wanted it to be without, you know, the influence of sort of unsavory investors or, because I was in a position where a lot of people wanted to come help me expand the business, but they were not the right people or they were predatory in one way or nother. Well, the restaurant industry is notoriously sketchy and you don't know who to trust. Yes. So I can see how it would be difficult to understand, like, is this somebody whose money I want? Is this somebody whose partnership I want?

enters this guy who's charming, you didn't then know about his criminal history or what he'd done to another woman. So I get it. You're, you know, kind of willfully blind to some of these things about him. Many women go through this when they're, you know, first coupling with a man who may be the answer to their problems. But you married him, which was not a good decision. The Netflix documentary covers that a bit. Here's a little. bit and sought 52. Anthony would tell me that that $2 million debt that I'd taken on to buy the restaurant, that's like nothing.

He could just take care of that and make that go away. So he would be there with me and help, you know, support me to do all the things that I wanted to do. You know, I would be protected, at least in one significant way financially. And I remember thinking that would be like some sort of dream come true. I remember asking the accountant, would he be able to just give me that money or would that be taxable and how could we do that? And he sort of jokingly but half seriously said, well, you should just marry him and then he can give you the money without it being taxable in a taxable situation. And very quickly it was like the next day we went and got the license.

They have to wait 24 hours and it was like, boom, 24 hours, we did it and got married. we got married in November of 2012. So it was close to a year that I had known him. Oh, so you're married now. Yeah, and this was one of the parts where they edited it. I mean, there was a whole, there was two totally different parts of the interview. So it wasn't that the accountant said that. And then 24 hours later, what we were married,

what I had said was that he had later subsequently really pressured me and badgered me to marry him saying that I would be protected and it would make everything easier. And it was a whole different part of the interview where I, and then I made the point that, so I finally agreed, like, fine, I'll marry you. And we went to City Hall to get the license. And then 24 hours later, we were married. So this wasn't even one of the most egregious examples of where they changed the narrative. But this was, it was just one that, in a way, it made me look a bit suspect. to the audience because it made it seem like I just married him for the money that I thought he had when in reality it was later on and he really badgered me to marry him for for other reasons.

What did you think he did for a living? I mean, that's a good question. I write about it in the memoir how, you know, what he did was always vague and any time I asked him questions, I would always get vague answers. And what he did was drop, you know, he would say things in a very word-sallity way. So you get an answer, but it's not a real answer. And you're almost left to connect the dots and figure it out on your own. So I know that sounds weird, but that's kind of how he addressed every question that I had about everything. So, you know, and again, later on, what he did was almost irrelevant because, you know, he spun the delusion to such a extent that, you know, he kind of had me believing that

there's parallel realities and nothing is real anyway. So, yeah, what he did was almost irrelevant. So he kind of spun a bunch of bull and, but like how long into the relationship did he start asking you for money? Because he definitely said he was very, very wealthy and that, you know, you were going to be super wealthy too. But the money only ever went one way from you to him. So how early on in the relationship did that?

start? It took a while before he ever asked me for money, and the first time it was as if it was an emergency, like some last-minute thing, and there would be dire consequences, and he needed my help. And so, you know, again, I'm the type of person where if you need my help and I can do it, I'll do it. And in retrospect, it was a way of getting me tethered because then he never paid me back. And then, you know, he would, it was another way for him to get me, you know, what the show didn't cover adequately too is that this took a really long time. And multiple times after I first got to know him, I thought, all right, well, this is it. You know, something feels off about this guy. And my gut was telling me something feels off about this guy. And so I'd tell myself, I'm going to cut off communication or I won't see him again. But once he'd borrowed that money, it was like a tether. So then he would say, well, I'm going to pay you back. So, you know, let me come back and see you this weekend because he didn't live in New York. So he always, when he came, he was coming from out of town, let me come back, I'll pay you back. And so I'd agree. And then he'd do whatever, you know, mind sorcery he did that somehow by the end of the weekend, I'd have loaned him more money. And over time, I just got in deeper and deeper. And, you know, he always had these ever-changing stories about how he was, he had money, but he didn't have access to it or he was going to have it. And again, it just got deeper and deeper.

When you had given him, I mean, the final number is a lot bigger than this, but when you realize you'd given him more than a million dollars, did the light bulb go off? Like, was there any point when the numbers got huge that you were like, what am I doing? The bigger the numbers got, the more terrifying the whole thing was. And again, part of what these people do is they, they weaponize fear. And so, you know, the deeper in the hole I am, the more I need him to get me out or the way that he's promising he's going to get me out of it. And so it's almost like, you know, it's a terrible analogy because I'm not a gambler. But it's like if you think that if you just keep going, it's all going to be absolved. And you'll get out of it. If you just keep going, that's part of how they, you know, he got me trapped.

is I just, I mean, how, and by that point, I couldn't even explain what happened. So if I had walked away from him and gone and ran to somebody and said, look, I need help, I, you know, I'm in a bad situation. And they said, well, what's going on? What happened? I wouldn't even know how to explain it. And that's, that's the part that, you know, it takes, it almost takes having been through something like this to really understand how it happens.

So, again, that's, you know, why I'm writing, why I've written this book. try to help people understand so they can hopefully avoid it or potentially recognize if it's happening to somebody that they care about or a loved one and be able to help them sooner. Because people around me knew that something was wrong, but they didn't know what was wrong. I'd love to believe that your book can do that and that this segment can do that. I have my doubts. I think people make their own mistakes for all sorts of deep psychological reasons.

They need to pursue this terrible pattern of choices. Most people have to learn individually. It's unfortunate, but maybe, you know, we have a shot. Maybe we'll get one or two who are happy to hear us and read the book and feel differently when they get approached by a guy like this. Can you just put some color on how he was reeling you in? You know, like when I talked to Benita, she talked a lot about how this doctor was just over the top with like the rose petals and the gifts and she had tape of him like, my love, my love.

and she thought he was this world-class doctor-saving lives with this, you know, brand-new breakthrough technology. You know, so you could kind of see how, you know, any young woman to be like, hmm, this is a pretty good catch. He's hanging out with the Clintons and the Obamas, allegedly. But I remain somewhat mystified about what this guy had to recommend him, like how he mind-wormed into your psyche. Well, a couple of things. One is that because I met him through Twitter,

now X DMs, there was at least a month or more before I saw him in person. So he was able to sort of do a number on me before I even met him, which was smart on his part, because if I had met him, a lot of things in my intuition might have told me that he wasn't right. But by that time, he'd gotten me sort of hooked on this fantasy. And what he really did was weaponize my ambitions because I really believed in my business and what we were doing for the world and he effectively love-bombed me with validation and knew what I wanted to hear

and saying that he believed in me and that my business was so important to helping the world and helping to heal people and helping to change the way people eat and that's really what got me and making me believe that he would help me be able to realize those dreams. Forgive me for the psychoanalysis, but when you look back at how you were when you were a little

girl, have you, in retrospect, been able to, like, explain your susceptibility to that kind of, you know, your need for that kind of outside flattery and, I don't know, building you up? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've done a lot of my own psychoanalysis to try to figure these things out. And I always tell people the most important work that you can do is this deep self-reflection and looking at your childhood and whatever your specific wounds are. Because even if you grew up and had good parents who weren't, you know, abusive or cruel in any way, shape, or form, you know, perhaps they're, you know, emotionally unavailable in some way or you're not getting the validation you want. Or, you know, for whatever reason I grew up, you know, I might present a certain way, but I really was also. probably deeply insecure in a lot of ways and needed that sort of validation. And then on the other side of the show, one of the things that happened on the other side of this show coming out is that

people bombarded me, asking me if I'd ever had an autism diagnosis. And I thought, like, that had never occurred to me. And so I went and got an evaluation and ended up getting a diagnosis. It used to be called Asperger's, and now they call it Autism One for whatever reason. But that's that's another thing that shed a lot of light on whatever it is about my particular wiring that makes me, you know, that sort of allows for that paradox of being objectively, reasonably intelligent, yet also unable to see certain things that other people might have seen. Right. It's almost like a social, I don't want to say handicapped, but like a social struggle that when you have Asperger's social, it does not come easy to you.

yeah absolutely i mean and i can again and women i think are are better at masking so people don't see it as easily you know i can i can go out there and talk to people and nobody would necessarily think oh she has asperger's but yet certain things you know i certain things i don't clock people's intentions as well as other people might or it takes me a little bit longer sometimes to process things. And I just walk into interactions and have a default setting that I trust people and that I assume that they would operate the way that I would, which is in good faith. And so I just don't see, you know, there's a thing called betrayal blindness. Very, very, very silly. Trust no one. No one's operating in good faith. No, no, I have the same deficiency in some way so I can understand.

Yeah. And I mean, this wasn't an isolated event. This has happened to me. There's like that saying, you know, fool me once, shame on you. But for me, it's like, I have to take responsibility for the fact that this has happened to me over and over and over again. And so I really have had to do a lot of deep analysis on understanding the how and the why. I mean, even what happened with the filmmakers, I blindly trusted that they would make an accurate show and that they wouldn't have done something that was on the other side of it, such a betrayal. But, you know, I mean, they do it all the time over on Netflix all the time. Yeah, I mean, in this case, the filmmakers made the show and then sold it to Netflix, but Netflix

has a responsibility. They're the error of it. Like, they're the ones putting it out there. Like, I'm sick of this because Netflix has done this to so many people who even, I know. It's a pattern. Do not believe the word documentary when Netflix slaps it on any film. it's always going to be docudrama that I will never believe them when they say documentary ever just given what I've seen but let me go back to the the fraud because near as I can tell

he was taking all this money from you and he was telling you like he needed it for an emergency and he talked about like they're being kind of like another side there's some sort of family that sounded more like an ethereal family not like a mob family not like a family of origin but like some, quote, family that was evaluating you and you had to pass these tests. And this was after he had ratcheted up the trust factor. He didn't just drop that on you on email one. But eventually he got you believing that your sweet dog, Leon, a pit who you adopted, who was absolutely beautiful and very sweet, and who you were in love with,

that he could somehow provide immortality for Leon. Here's SOT 54 from the Netflix show. What eventually happens is that Anthony promises her that if she just followed along with the program he was suggesting, kept going along with what was instructed, he is going to make both Sarmah and her dog immortal, just like Anthony is. There was some magical forer.

in play here. And he's already in this special ethereal world because he's passed through the tests into this new state of being. It's like some fantastical, magical future where my dog is going to live forever and this reality didn't really matter

because it would all be reset to some sort of utopia. His happily ever after that he always referred to. now when people watching this say oh come on right like that would be a bridge too far everyone knows there's no such thing as immortality how do you explain that um well what i would say is that you know i think unless you've been through it the effects of things like cognitive dissonance and over time a ratcheting up level of dissociation it it's not that it's not that i believed things he told me necessarily, but they were things that you can't disprove. And so I didn't not believe him. I

just didn't know what to believe. And again, he had gotten me in so deep that I didn't see a way out. And so you start to cling to whatever solutions and fantasy that they operate you because by this point, you're desperate. So again, it wasn't so overt that he said, you know, Leon's going to live forever, my dog. But it was all things that he implied. And I think that the more afraid I got, the more I dissociated and wanted to believe that none of this was real because I was in so deep financially. I mean, the most painful part is that this wasn't my money. It's not like I had this money saved and he got it. That would have been, you know, for me, comparatively, that would have been great if that was the only consequence. The most painful part is that this was money that

came from the business, which ended up destroying it. And, you know, all of these other people that were hurt through me was the most painful, grueling part of this whole situation. Because you had investors. You had employees. Yeah. Yeah. You were not the only one who would go down as a result of all this. And it, as I understand it, your company had to close twice, not one but twice. One time, because of all the money he sold, then you reopened. And then it happened a second time. And that second time was the last time. Yeah. Yeah, well, and because he took me away. So when he took me away from the city, I mean, when I was arrested a year, almost a year later, nine months later, if you had told me that people had stepped in and the restaurant was still running, I would have been relieved. But the point is that the entire time that I was away, I never Googled what happened or, you know, whether or not the restaurant had closed or what happened after I left. And, you know, again, that's something I go into detail and in the book so people can better understand how it happened.

Because eventually as, and by the way, we should cover this, do we believe that he was taking all those, you know, $10,000, $100,000, $14,000 checks you were sending him, and eventually your mom was sending him and just gambling it? I believe so, again, because I think people like him, it's not about the money. It would all make much more sense if he had been stashing the money. money somewhere and, you know, and then had just dumped me and gotten on a plane and, you know, traveled, left the country. But he didn't. Again, I think the point was the takedown. And in some ways, it almost feels like the point was to destroy me, to absolutely obliterate me and to, you know,

beyond just the financial side of it, but it's almost as if he wanted me to be so utterly humiliated and broken and to have burned all of my bridges so that, you know, beyond. You know, any chance for me to recover and come back and rebuild would be, you know, as small as possible. And I'm still trying to do that. But he made sure it would be as difficult as humanly possible. Because not only did he destroy your business, but he destroyed your reputation. And no investor is going to give you money. You say this in the documentary now. And employees are going to have a care or two about taking a job with you, given what happened with your own. I know you want to add something about, I guess, did you pay the employees back their back pay?

Yes. So I agreed to participate in the show. I said I just wanted enough money to repay my employees. So as a condition of participating, I got the amount of money that the employees were owed, which was just about $75,000. And all of it went to them because that's the part that weighed on me, the heaviest. because, you know, of course, that they are not getting paid is more significant than, you know, maybe a wealthy investor being out some of their money. I mean, that weighs on me as well. But what happened with my employees weighed the heaviest. And, you know, all of those people that work there, the ones who are available want to come back if I can reopen. You know, I'm in contact with all of them. Yeah, because they knew. I mean, the people that worked there and the people who were long-time customers of the brand. They knew me. They knew that whatever happened, they knew something

really crazy happened, but they knew that I would never, ever, ever hurt that business or the people who work there. It's the other way around. I would have sacrificed myself for them and for that business. So they knew that it didn't make sense. So then eventually this, I'm still unclear even having watched the show, this guy gets you to go kind of on the run with him. You leave New York for 10 months. You guys are down in like Tennessee for some of it by Dollywood. You changed your name. Well, not legally, but you started to go by Emma instead of Sarma. And he changed his name. You covered up your tattoo that had the name of your secondary restaurant on it. So what did you think during those times. Did you think I'm on the lamb from the law?

No, I had no idea that I was, that, you know, I was being sought after. And at the time, I wouldn't even, you know, of course, the, what happened with the money was incredibly unfortunate, but I would have thought it's more of a civil matter, not criminal, because, you know, again, you think that to be a criminal, you have to have criminal intent. And I had the opposite of criminal intent in this situation. So I didn't think that, you know, I wasn't aware of being sought after by the police. But what I write about in my book and what really didn't come through is that by the time he took me away, I was so broken that there's a scene where he drives me away and I'm screaming in the car. And by scene, I mean, I write about this part in the book

because it's almost the last memory I have is being in the car and when he tells me we're driving away, I was screaming my head off, which is very unlike me, but like almost like a wild animal just screaming and he just let me scream and then I wore myself out. And it's as if that was the moment when I just slid into a deep, deep level of dissociation. And from then on was in a sort of autopilot. And so if you saw me during that time, I could function, I could, you know, talk to a barista at Starbucks, but it's like I wasn't there. And that's the part that, again, it's really hard to know how that might feel unless you've been through it. And so to answer the question, what I was, what was I thinking or what was I feeling? I wasn't thinking and I

wasn't feeling. It's like that's what dissociation is. Your thinking and your feeling is detached. So you're just like a, almost like a zombie on autopilot. And then the really gut-wrenching part is when I finally was arrested and I write in my book that it took a getting arrested to set me free. You know, I have warm, fuzzy feelings for the detective who arrested me, who's a lovely person and I think he could see what was going on. The prosecutors in New York, different story. But the detective who arrested me, he recognized the dynamics of what was going on. And then once I was arrested, it was the slow process of waking back up into a level of sanity and coming back into the real world. To me, it's like breaking a horse.

You know, it's like once the horse is broke, it does stop bucking. It stops trying to get out of the corral. Like, it's a different horse. Yeah. Or like the elephant that, you know, they don't realize that they've been set free, they've just been so trained to walk in this one area that they don't, or they don't realize that they could break away. You know, it is. It is like breaking an animal in that way. So what was he getting out of having you in this condition and just with him during these 10 months on the lamb? Because you were out of money. Now, I know your mom started to get, he started to hit her up for dough and she did it because she was so worried about you. But what was, Why keep you, in other words, once like you were kind of bankrupt and, you know, there's nothing more to get?

I have the same question. Like, you would think that by that point, he would have just, I mean, he could have just dumped me somewhere and he could have gone on a plane and left the country and nobody would have ever probably gone after him. But he didn't. And so, you know, I don't know the answer to that question. I do know that he was, you know, when he took me away, he then also took full control. he had access before, but he took full control of my phone, my devices, my email. So I was unaware of him using my phone to text people and using my email to reach out to people and ask for money, which is incredibly humiliating when I eventually got back into my email, you know, nine months later, however long it was. So he was still able to get some money out of people through me. And I think that in the end, he realized that somehow the game was over. And I can't really explain this, but I think he, it's almost as if I think he might have gotten us arrested intentionally, which I know seems like it doesn't make any sense. But my gut tells me that that's what happened because he said to me, either the day before or even that morning, he said to me, there's going to be one more gut shot.

And I was terrified because I didn't know what he meant by that, but it's as if he was telling me you're going to have to endure one more really painful thing before this is over. And then, boom, you know, we were arrested. And, you know, which reminds me of speaking of things he made me endure, there's a whole sexual abuse component of this story that they asked me about and I spoke about in my very long interviews for the series, but they left it out, which. felt really strange to me. I didn't understand it at first, but I think had they left it in, then the audience would have sympathized me to the extent that they wouldn't have able to create sort of a twisty ending and cast doubt on whether or not I was complicit. What was the nature of the alleged abuse? Well, I think that you might have spoken to people in the nexium cult in the past on your show.

And so a similar thing happened with Keith Rainier. and, you know, they create this dynamic where it's almost as if they make you believe that this sexual stuff is necessary and something that you have to endure for your own benefit. It's really twisted and hard to explain, but I go into sort of grotesque detail in a chapter in my book about what he did because, you know, I was so repulsed by this man. This is another thing that people didn't understand and that didn't come through in the story is I was so repulsed by him. The last thing in the world I want to do is have sex with this guy who, by the way... By which point? At what point were you repulsed by him? I mean, it happened over time, but it was reasonably at some...

You know, certainly when we got married, it wasn't like we were a married couple in having sex. By that point, I'm sure I had stopped wanting to have sex with him, and I think that happened pretty quickly. But he, you know, so eventually it was something that he started to force me to do. in a really disgusting, manipulative, cruel way, and it was, you know, I mean, it was incredibly painful, but it's something that cult leaders do as well. And I think it's another, it's like another element of, forgive me, I haven't read the book. I only saw the documentary, so I wasn't aware of that. But what, can you provide any color on that? Like, what, what was so awful about, I mean, I accept that sexual abuse is awful, but if you could just help us understand what

you're talking about. Yeah, well, you know, he basically told me that I had to do things. I mean, there's a, there's a chapter in my book that goes into some gross detail about this, where I come home, you know, I'm exhausted working my ass off getting the restaurant reopened after it closed because of, you know, the actions that he put me through. And I miraculously raised money, got the restaurant reopened. I'm exhausted. And I think that he felt me, pulling away a bit where maybe I sensed at that point I could get away from him and so he needed a way to exert even more dominance over me and so you know there's he told me to bring a bottle of wine home from the restaurant one night and I didn't know why because um he didn't drink a lot and he wanted me

to drink because he told me that he was going to have to force me to do stuff and it was for my own good and you know he had this whole long explanation which I don't even necessarily recall But by that point, it was, you know, he had created this dynamic where I have to do what he tells me to do. Otherwise, there's going to be horrible consequences. You know, again, what what didn't come through in the show and what people don't understand about situations like this is fear. There is so much fear that you feel like you have to do what these people tell you to do. So it's as if he, it's as if somebody said, I'm going to have to. you know, I don't know. I feel like sometimes if you use the R word, it's screws with the TV. But it's like

somebody says, I'm going to have to now sexually abuse you and you have to let me. And so that's, you know, that's what happened. And that's what I described in the book. Did you get a response to that allegation when you publish the book from him? I mean, I haven't gotten any response from, I can't even imagine. He's off doing what he did to me to somebody else right now. There was a show called Toxic that was on Discovery, HBO, that I ended up, I didn't want to participate at first. But I did participate once I learned that they were trying to track him down and figure out where he is to potentially hold him accountable because at that point, we knew that he was doing this to other people. And so they do track him down and he is doing what he did to me to somebody else. And he'll continue to do that.

This post-prison time. I should make clear these are allegations. We do not have the proof of that as an independent broadcaster, either of the. either of the sexual abuse or that he's doing to somebody else, but these are Sarma's allegations. Let's be honest. America can still be a dangerous place, and you cannot afford to wait for help when you need it. Sure, you can use a firearm, but in today's America, defending yourself with deadly force can have legal consequences. According to FBI data, 99.9% of all altercations do not require lethal force. And that's exactly why so many are turning to Berna.

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Hey, everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius X-M. It's called the Megan Kelly channel, and it is where you will hear the truth. unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Dershinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news.

Only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 11, and on the Sirius XM app. He's already been to prison because at the end of this 9, 10 month stint in Tennessee, you did get arrested. It made headlines that it was after ordering dominoes. I mean, the short form of this, as I recall, was like, she's not even a vegan. They ordered chicken wings and a pizza from Domino's.

Like, the whole thing is a fraud. She's a fraud. That's where your critics went with it. Do you want to speak to the Domino's? Yeah, that was a tabloid narrative. And I'll point out that even the lovely detectives who arrested me, who, again, I feel very warmly towards, they pointed out to tabloids that were calling him that I was in a different hotel room than him. I didn't even know about the pizza. I wasn't in the same room as the pizza. And so, you know, even knowing that information, it's sort of too juicy a headline for tabloids to claim that, you know, this New York City vegan was arrested because of a pizza. Again, I didn't, I didn't even know that a pizza existed until a girl in jail when I was in the holding cell in 10.

to see and she had seen me on a news program she came into the holding cell after me and said ain't you that girl that was on TV you know you got arrested because of the pizza and I was like pizza I didn't know anything about it so again that was just a way that the tabloids want to make a story juicier for attention to diminish you some of the abuse not sexual but verbal is captured in the Netflix film we have some of the the language he used over the phone with you captured in the following soundbite here, 55. You know what the fucking deal is here?

If I say to do something, do it. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how it works. I already gave you a fucking 100K on top of everything else. I thought you were going along with everything. Yeah. You wanted it in.

You wanted to happily ever after. And now you're talking about this is something's fucking real. This isn't real. None of this is real. Those wires are bull-hill. I took you in the fucking books. I fucking told you what was going on.

I know if you're fucking falling apart. You're fucking coming on good. Who's making all these fucking threats? Telling me this and that you're going to go do this and you're going to go do that. Because now I fucking talk to you. Who's threatening who? So I love you.

I'm threatening you. If I say you to take all your money out of the bank and light it on fire. Do it. Hmm. explain that i got i got chills listen i haven't listened to that in a long time so hearing his voice and uh yeah i mean i've i've like goosebumps right now oh um i think these people have a certain power that's really hard to understand it's it's there's something about it where it's like they get you under a spell and in my case one another paradoxical element about this whole situation is

that I was, I kept pushing back on him, and yet he'd end up dragging me in and overpowering me over and over again. Yeah, he was not intimidated by your pushback at all. Yeah. And by the way, there's an ex-wife in the documentary or whatever we're calling it on Netflix who says, he did this to her too, except she had a baby. And she claims in the film that he said to her, you know, if you give a baby salt, it will die and it won't be detectable in an autopsy. And she said, let him be alone with a baby after that. I mean, like, again, we don't know whether that is true. It's an allegation by an ex. But if so, then this guy's got a dangerous pattern here. And one might argue you should consider yourself lucky to have just escaped with debt, the loss of your business,

self-esteem, some anger from employers and investors, and a short stint in prison. I mean, honestly, this could be the lucky outcome. Yeah, I mean, there, I, you know, I say this in all seriousness. there were times where I wished that he had killed me because when I came out of the other side of this, the consequences and everything being destroyed, I just felt like what is there left for me to live for? And yeah, and he was never held accountable for what he did to me. He spent a year in jail and I ended up having to go serve four months after he was released. So he was out free, clean slate, and I had to go in and do four months. How does he only get a year for all of that? he stole 1.7 million dollars minimum from you. I saw, you know, the ultimate damages were higher than that. But like, how does he only get a year in jail for that? That's a good question. You know, I was prosecuted aggressively. He was, it's almost like he was an afterthought because the prosecution focused on the business loss. And, but there was no, he was never charged for what he did to me or to my mother. And this happened, you know, this was 26.

So I would think that perhaps if it happened now, it might be different on the other side of, for example, Keith Raineri getting prosecuted for what he did and the way he was able to manipulate people. I think maybe now it would have been different or had it been a different prosecutor or just different circumstances. Did he plead guilty to something or was he found guilty of anything? Well, he pled guilty. We both pled guilty. There was never any trial or anything like that. I mean, I think anybody who's been through the criminal justice system knows that pleading guilty is something that people do all the time because it's a better alternative than getting dragged through a trial that you can't afford or the prospect of the stress of a trial and perhaps things not being admitted into evidence and you end up with even more time and not to mention not being able to afford a trial. So, you know, I ended up pleading guilty, which was really painful because however they made it look, I'm a deeply honest person. And so to stand there in court and have to plead guilty to something that I had no intention of ever doing. What did you plead guilty to? I've almost like blacked it out, but, you know, the words fraud and grand larceny were involved. And that's not me.

I mean, I'm like the goody two shoes who never got in trouble. in school, you know, respects authority, does the right thing. You know, we ran the restaurant. I had an accountant once who I was talking to about doing our taxes. And he said, well, how many of your employees are on versus off the books? And I said, well, they're all on. He said, no, no, really tell me how many are wrong. I said, no, they're all on the books. Like, we did everything by the book. That's kind of just the person that I am. Well, the thing that's strange about it is, normally if you're committing larceny, you take the money and then you get a gain with it. You do something with the money. I lost everything. That will help your life or, you know,

I don't know, help someone you love. But what happened here was you were taking money that he was demanding and giving it to him, which he appears to have gambled away, which you do not appear to have benefited from at all. In fact, it was at great cost to you and the things that you cared about. like they don't have some Rolex watch right that you you got or some penhouse that you got you weren't taking this money and lining your own pocket with it you were giving it to him yeah and even so i mean people know me know that that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me what mattered to me was the business and um and wanting to protect it so yeah i mean he he's the only one who benefited i didn't

that's a nightmare i mean this is just a nightmare i i very much feel for you i know some people are mad at you because they don't believe that you were mind manipulated but i believe you i've seen this happen with enough people i believe you yeah i i really appreciate that and um you know i at least was lucky enough to recover enough of my communications with him that i have all the backup you know it's like i naively thought that with my prosecution the more evidence they up, and the more they were able to recover, that it would help me. They recovered a journal of mine where I was writing about what was going on, and when I was given a copy of it, I thought, oh, okay, finally, like, this exonerates me because surely they wouldn't think that, you know,

nothing logically made sense. Why would I have torched my own life? And, but, you know, that's the prosecution can handle it. Yeah, he's got a long criminal record of impersonating police officers, a very extensive criminal record, and I was completely the opposite. But I just got very unlucky with the prosecution in my case. So, sorry to bring this up, but is Leon still alive? Oh, no, he passed away a year and a half ago. I was with him when it happened, and, you know, he had a long life. He was a pit bull, and he was full.

14 and a half when he passed away, but at least I got to be with him. And yeah, that's him. He gave him a lot of love, a lot of love. Yeah, but it was here in this apartment. Yet another. I mean, obviously, like, the deluded version of you chose to believe that maybe he could save your beloved pet forever. And of course, it's yet another lie that he told you. And so now where are you and where is he? You think he's still doing this to yet another person because he's out of prison. I would imagine the Netflix film would make that a little tough for him, but who knows, women do what they're going to do? And what about you? What are you, now what for you?

Good question. I was moved back here to New York, which was, you know, what I always felt was home to reopen the business in the same location. And then what I said before about, you know, I have to take responsibility for somebody that unfortunately makes a good target. and is able to be deceived by some dishonest people that's happened, sad to say, again. And so I've been a bit reeling on how to move forward, but I still have some things in the works. And I, you know, one of the things that these people look for in a good target is somebody that won't give up and will keep going. And that is something about my personality is that I will keep getting up and I will keep going and keep trying.

and believing in what I wanted to build the first time around. And so I may be able to pull it off for it to happen again. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you can earn, if you personally can earn enough money to fund yourself, no one can stop you. I mean, that would be a great outcome here. Even if you have to do catering, whatever, like do something to use your skills to earn enough money to open something up, even if it's not in Manhattan.

That could be a first step for you. And I think, you know, another going forward now, my mission always was around food and clean eating and healthy living, but I think also on the other side of this, it's really meaningful to me to be, to have my story be as useful as possible through my book and through speaking out about what happened and this type of manipulation that, again, a lot of people don't realize that it could happen to them. And hopefully so that they might also recognize if it's happening to somebody. to a loved one or somebody that they care about and be able to intervene and help prevent

somebody going through as extensive as a nightmare as this. Alec Baldwin needs to help you. Alec Baldwin should fund your restaurant. Somebody else should control the finances. But why not? He was like kind of played an early role on this. In a way, he was responsible for you meeting this guy. He's got a lot of money.

He met O'Lariah at my restaurant. Yes. I mean, there's a weird, and I ended up getting, I adopted my dog because of him. That's another story that's in the book, but there's a weird connection there. And it's not, you know, it's a lot of things just need to go right. But for me, it's a matter of finding the right partnership and people that I can trust because, you know, it's not that I necessarily would need somebody else to oversee the money. It's that I need guardrails.

I need people that are trustworthy and honest and forthright and that I could, work collaboratively with and move forward. So that also I think it's not, it's not for you that you need somebody to control the finances. It's that anybody who is going to be associated with a restaurant is going to want to see that it's not you controlling the finances. So yeah, or that nobody could get to me. Yeah, for this next phase out, you know, maybe when you're at this for 10 years and everybody sees you're good, you don't need that. But I think that's all part of rebuilding trust and telegraphing to the world that, you know, what happened. And you acknowledge but you're going to earn back trust. I think that would be a great start. Anyway, I'm going to

text to Alec Baldwin. I'm going to tell me, no, but I do think he should help you. And if not, then you help yourself. Then you'll, you're very capable. You're well educated. You have a lot of skills. I think you're, you're, you can earn money and help give yourself the next big start you need. I hope you do it. Thank you for telling your story. I'm sorry this happened to you. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here. All the best. And we'll see you again. Thank you, Sarma. Wow. Unbelievable, right? Like, what a crazy story. The book, again, that she mentioned, is called The Girl with the Duck Tattoo. And that's where Sarma aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story. One note for you, the Megan Kelly Show reached out to Anthony Strangis for comment regarding the sexual assault allegations made by Sarma. As of now, we have not received a response. Thank you all for joining me today and all week on Crime Week. We have a new show for you.

you tomorrow, too. As I mentioned, I get so many emails from you all that I wanted to take some time to start this new year by answering your questions. There are some great questions that we're going to go over. There's some hard news. There's some personal stuff. There's some makeup advice, fashion. I mean, we covered the gamut in this thing. We had a lot of fun shooting it. And we have that teed up for you tomorrow. So we've got some new content to keep things rolling. Hope you will join as tomorrow. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.