The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 2.2 WOW! Addison Rae Scandal Exposes Disgusting Double Standard, Valkyrae, NFL Lawsuits, & Today's News

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Go to https://sbird.co/DEFRANCO  and use code DEFRANCO to get 55% OFF your first month’s sample News You Might Have Missed: https://youtu.be/gs2o0WgyepQ TEXT ME! [phone] Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco – 00:00 - Addison Rae Releases Blue Light Mist After Valkyrae’s RFLCT Controversy 04:01 - Sponsor 04:53 - Former Dolphins Coach Brian Flores Sues NFL and Teams 08:47 - U.S. Officially Sending Troops to Eastern Europe – Use DEFRANCO55 to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird https://sbird.co/DEFRANCO This month I received... Winter Oak by Raw Spirit Fragrances https://sbird.co/3Ice7M0 Fresh Blend by Sue Phillips - Artisan Scents https://sbird.co/3GHiZZr Terra by Vince Camuto https://sbird.co/3fEnTdU Guilty Pour Homme by Gucci https://sbird.co/33wf8zZ Oxford Bleu by English Laundry https://sbird.co/32cxHbV – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Addison Rae Releases Blue Light Mist After Valkyrae’s RFLCT Controversy: https://roguerocket.com/2022/02/02/addison-rae-blue-light-valkyrae/ Former Dolphins Coach Brian Flores Sues NFL and Teams: https://roguerocket.com/2022/02/02/dolphins-brian-flores-sues-nfl/ U.S. Officially Sending Troops to Eastern Europe: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-russia-united-states-moscow-e3336e8a1e04e35d29e687575b5258a9 —————————— Executive Producer: Amanda Morones Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright Art Department: Brian Borst, William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Ben Wheeler Production Team: Zack Taylor, Emma Leid ———————————— #DeFranco #Valkyrae #AddisonRae Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I need you to settle this debate. We're gonna get to the news in a second, but I need you to settle this. I am not going to tell you what side of this debate I'm on, because I don't want to bias you, but my question to you is, do you think your life would be drastically different if you were four inches taller or four inches shorter? And if so, how and why? And while some of you spill your thoughts onto the internet, sup, you beautiful bastards? Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Hit that like button if you want me to punch you in the throat, you weirdo, and let's just jump into it. Y'all, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today

is a tale of two rays, specifically the creators, Valkray and Addison Rae. Right, so Addison Rae's beauty line, Item Beauty, just released a product called Screen Break, which is a blue light anti-pollution face mist, with the website's description for it reading, "'Relieve tired, screen-drained skin "'with this hydrating boost of blue light protection.

"'A botanical blend clinically proven to protect skin "'from screen-emitted HEV blue light and daily pollution. And adding that its ingredients, quote, protect skin as you scroll, swipe, and stream. And it's being sold on both Item's website and Sephora. Now, for her part, Addison has appeared in promotional content for the product on its social media channel since last month. But for the most part, this completely flew under the radar until the Twitter account Esports shared this video on Twitter yesterday where Addison talks about the spray. And if you don't know, the blue light that comes from devices can actually cause skin fatigue. So this is clinically proven to help protect your skin

from those artificial blue lights. Right, so following that, the immediate reaction for most of the internet was wait, wait a minute. This sounds way too familiar. Didn't Valkyrae just get drug through the coals back in October for launching a similar product? Yeah, like we talked about on the show before, she announced the line called

Reflex saying that it was designed to protect skin from blue light pollution. The internet just dunked on her. They're ultimately cancelling the line because the amount of backlash she was facing for touting pseudoscience. As you might remember, there are a lot of experts who say there is simply no need for skin protection against blue light from screens. With, as you might remember, Michelle Wong, a cosmetic chemist, posting a TikTok saying, Even with a big ass monitor, you would need days or months to get the same blue light as 15 minutes of sun. And if you do want to protect against blue light from the sun, which honestly isn't a big issue

for most people, these products still probably won't do much. Kathleen Susie, a dermatologist at Yale, explaining to the Washington Post that this amount of blue light would only really affect an incredibly small group of people who are prone to pigment issues, not your average person. Referencing a 2019 study where researchers exposed

one side of a person's face to blue light equal to that of a powerful screen, but shielded the other side of the face and did so for eight hours a day, five days in a row. And explaining they found that there was absolutely no difference in the side of the face that was exposed to blue light. Right, which is part of the reason why we saw

so many people saying, why would Addison Rae release a product that literally got destroyed just a few months ago? This is like coming out with the Omicron variant for blue light protection cream. What potentially makes this especially egregious is that there's no way the company launching this and or Addison Rae was not aware of what just happened.

But seemingly, unless there's been this amazing breakthrough that just put all the other science in the garbage bin, they don't care that they're just selling snake oil. So one, if I was Valkyrie, I would just be fucking downright furious. She did joke about it saying, how is this real? But also too, it will be very interesting to see what happens with Addison Rae.

Does she kind of quote unquote get away with this because her audience is different? Like does Valkyrie end up getting hit because she has a different community that actually cares about like the moral compass of a person? Whereas maybe Addison Rae is just like little, little tiny children

that just like blindly idolize this person. They're not gonna hold that creator accountable. And I mean, that's kind of something that we see now and then. Usually it's the difference between like a mainstream artist that doesn't necessarily have to have like the amount of interaction with their audience that an online creator does.

You know, the longer I kind of sit with this story, the more it feels like what Addison and her team have done here is far more egregious than what Valkyrie did. Because at least with Valkyrie, there could be some doubt, right? She trusts her team. She maybe was misled by someone. she just kind of went along with stuff.

But the controversy around her was so big, like we talked about, it's hard to imagine that Addison and her team just weren't aware of it. And while I don't have their demographic information in front of me, I think an educated guess would say that Addison Rae's audience is probably far younger. So you're gonna have people saying, you know, she's just misleading children who are gonna be less likely to push back than other people and all for personal profit. Yeah, ultimately that is where we are with this right now. While most of the internet has seemingly sounded off, so far Addison has not publicly responded to the criticism.

So maybe she's hoping she can kind of just withstand this storm, just wait it out, or, you know, I wonder what's gonna happen from here. And so with that, I do wanna ask the question, what are your thoughts on any and all aspects of this story? But from that, I wanna take a second to thank the sponsor of today's show, Scentbird. Bottles of cologne and perfume can cost $150 to $500 plus.

And who wants to spend that much money and risk not liking the scent a few days or weeks later? And that is exactly where Scentbird comes in. Scentbird is a monthly subscription that allows you to try fragrances and perfumes before committing to one. They work directly with Prada, Gucci, Rag & Bone, and over 600 amazing brands,

which means that you choose a new designer fragrance each month before committing to a full bottle. Scentbird carries popular designer bottles for a fraction of these costs. You just slip the new fragrance into your refillable atomizer case and you're good to go. My personal favorite from this month's selection is Guilty by Gucci.

It's got a clean scent that's subtle and fresh, but it's not overpowering. With Scentbird, you can get a handful of high-end fragrances for just $16. And when you're ready, you can decide if you'd like to upgrade to the full size. And with my code, your first month is only $7. So just head on over to sbird.co slash defranconow

and use code defranco for 55% off your first month sample. So thanks again to Scentbird for sponsoring today's video and check out those links below. And then, well, maybe this morning you saw the news that the Washington football team in the NFL is now called the Washington Commanders. The NFL's race issues and racism accusations are not over. With Fire Dolphins coach Brian Flores

alleging in a devastating lawsuit yesterday that racism is alive and well in the NFL. The suit, which is seeking class action status, specifically names the NFL, New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Dolphins, but also lists the other 29 teams in the league as John Does, with Flores claiming the NFL remains rife with racism,

especially when it comes to hiring and retention of black head coaches, coordinators, and general managers. And adding that over the years, the NFL and its teams have been given every chance to do the right thing. Rules have been implemented, promises made, but nothing has changed. Saying in fact, the racial discrimination

has only been made worse by the NFL's disingenuous commitment to social equity. With the filing going on to say and pulling no punches, in certain critical ways, the NFL is racially segregated and is managed much like a plantation. It's 32 owners, none of whom are black, profit substantially from the labor of NFL players, 70% of whom are black. The owners from the labor of NFL players, 70% of whom are black.

The owners watch the games from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains, while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars. With a suit noting that with the recent firings of Flores

and Houston Texans coach David Culley, there is now just one black head coach in the league. And adding that in the rare cases black head coaches are hired, they are discriminated against in connection with the terms and conditions of their employment and compensation and terminated even as far less successful white head coaches are retained. And specifically the filing states that Flores was fired

from the Dolphins despite leading the team to back to back winning seasons for the first time since 2003. And according to the suit, Flores refused a directive from Dolphins owner Steven Steven Ross, to intentionally lose games so the team would get a top pick in the draft. Even claiming that Ross offered to pay Flores $100,000 for every loss in his first season as coach

and was mad at the coach's success in winning games. With it going on to accuse Ross of repeatedly pressuring Flores to recruit a prominent quarterback in violation of league tampering rules. And when he refused, he was treated with disdain and ostracized until he was ultimately fired. And saying that after his removal, he was defamed in the media and the league as someone who was hard to work with and cast as an angry black man.

Flores also went on to explain that he was up for the head coach position with the New York Giants, but he claims that management subjected him to a sham interview process so they'd be in compliance with the Rooney Rule, which is a rule that requires teams to interview minority candidates for vacant senior positions. With Flores claiming that just hours after setting up his interview, he learned that the Giants had actually hired Buffalo Bill's wide offensive coordinator, Brian DeBall. This after receiving texts from New England Patriots coach, Bill Belichick. And in those messages, Belichick appeared to congratulate Flores for landing the job,

which he hadn't even interviewed for yet, with him ultimately realizing and Belichick even apologizing for accidentally sending the message to him instead of Brian DeBall. With Flores saying that after that, he was still forced to sit through a dinner with the Giants general manager and quote, "'You have an extensive interview for a job

that he already knew he would not get for no reason other than for the Giants to demonstrate falsely that it was in compliance with the Rooney rule. But Flores also saying that was not the only sham interview claiming that in 2019, he had an interview with the Broncos and the team executive showed up an hour late looking completely disheveled. It was very obvious they had been drinking heavily

the night before and adding it was clear from the substance of the interview that he was only interviewed because of the Rooney Rule and that the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate. And there are other allegations, but those are kind of the top line overarching claims that Flores is seeking unspecified damages for.

Now, as far as how the NFL has since responded, they have denied the allegations, releasing a statement saying the claims are without merit. The Dolphins also saying they deny any allegations of racial discrimination and are proud of the diversity and inclusion throughout their organization. Also saying the implication that we acted in a manner inconsistent with the integrity of the game is incorrect.

So also the Broncos calling the allegations blatantly false as well as the Giants defending their selection of Deval and claiming that Flores was in the conversation to be our head coach until the 11th hour. But ultimately as far as what's going to happen with the lawsuit, I mean Flores has implied that he's still open to being hired as a coach though saying even if he was hired,

he'd still continue with his lawsuit. While it'll be interesting to see if others join his suit, already we've seen some speaking out as well. This including former Cleveland Brown head coach, Hugh Jackson, who tweeted that he knows exactly what Brian Flores feels and that there are some similarities to his experience. With both Jackson and the head of his charitable

organization posting and sharing multiple tweets that seemed to claim that he had been paid off by the Browns owner to lose games and implying he may join Flores' suit. But for now, that is where we are and we're gonna have to wait to see how this develops. And then finally, let's talk about the super fun topic of Russia, Ukraine, and definitely,

definitely not World War III. It's not gonna happen. I'm throwing that out into the world. One of the last things you might've seen with this is Ukrainian President Zelensky seemingly trying to have like a softer tone. Spending part of last week having the United States and Western media downplay its rhetoric

about the situation between Ukraine and Russia. But in a surprising turn of events, all of that might've been based off of a misunderstanding. So apparently Ukrainian doesn't have a word that corresponds very well with imminent. The closest word they have is, which means inevitable, right? With that, obviously in English,

there is a clear difference between imminent and inevitable. So apparently what Zelensky has been hearing is war is inevitably going to happen, which would explain why he's been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's chill out. Actually, as I was recording today, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki pretty much confirmed this and said the US

won't use imminent anymore to avoid unintended messaging. But mistranslation and misunderstandings aside, the concern over possible Russian aggression continues to be real, with it leading to a number of countries sending weapons to Ukraine, with the most recent being Poland promising to send shoulder-f fired anti-aircraft missiles.

Also, there's the news that leaders from Poland, the UK and Ukraine met and are working on a trilateral security pact. And while the details there aren't completely known yet, it could mean that if Russia were to engage in aggressive action, it would lead directly to two NATO members becoming militarily involved, which could be a huge deterrent.

And Russia, for their part, have been doing their own things, getting more and more troops at the border, also getting Belarus to agree to help if war happened, which is also now led to the US announcing this morning that it would deploy troops to NATO allies in the region. We're talking about thousands of troops, and the intention here seems to be to ease the minds of NATO allies, many of which fear that Russia

may not only strike at Ukraine, but them as well. This is a really big deal because up until today, the US really downplayed that possibility. But in a press conference about the move, the Pentagon's press secretary was pretty clear. It's important that we send a strong signal to Mr. Putin and frankly to the world that NATO matters to the United States. It matters to our allies.

And we have ironclad Article 5 commitments. Attack on one is an attack on all. And so we know that he also bristles at NATO, about NATO. And he has made no secret of that. We are making it clear that we're gonna be prepared to defend our NATO allies if it comes to that. You also had the Ukrainian foreign minister today endorsing a plan proposed by the US to ease tensions,

with a proposal attempting to ease one of Putin's biggest concerns, that if Ukraine joins NATO, it would allow the United States to place short-range missiles there that could reach Moscow. But President Biden countered saying that both the US and Russia should abstain from putting offensive military capabilities in Ukraine.

It would prevent those short range missiles from entering the country, while also clearly indicating that Russian troops and material in the country be withdrawn. And as the Ukrainian foreign minister put it, I would like to note that while the United States has neither missiles nor combat units in Ukraine, Russia has both.

And with all of that said, I mean, we just have to kind of wait to see what happens next, which is horrifying, especially because this situation just feels like it's escalating every single day with no end in sight, but we'll see. But ultimately that is where that story and today's show ends.

As always, thank you for watching, liking, hitting that subscribe button for these daily dives into the news. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.