The Rest Is Entertainment - Beckham's Nepo Baby Nightmare

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Is Harper Beckham being forced to become a tween CEO? Who will survive the Lively vs Baldoni legal drama? Why has Graham Norton's new show completely failed? Victoria and David Beckham have recently trademarked a skincare line in their 14-year-old daughter's name. Why are stars so hellbent on forcing their kids into the entertainment business? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde chat about the state of celebrity nepo-babies. Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively have settled their lawsuits against one another out of court. Is this a victory for their careers, or has the damage already been done? ITV's 'The Neighbourhood' has been moved out of its prime-time slot. Why is it so tough to launch new TV formats in the UK? The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at ⁠therestisentertainment.com ⁠ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠ Video Editor: Imee Marriott & Joey McCarthy Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everyone. Hey, Marina. How are you, Richard? I'm all right. It was the BAFTA's last night. Another remorse, it's the unsuccessful one for House. of games. Your streak is now incredible and sadly it's your lost. That's me done, yes. Lost eligibility. I did think maybe a sympathy BAFTA, but nothing. You know, genuinely, this is how these

award ceremonies work. I was giving out an award as well to Martin Lewis. And so when you do that, someone comes to get you from your seat, take you around to the back in advance of doing it. But the one I was giving out was quite soon after the daytime BAFTA. And so she said, oh, and of course, if you've won, then actually, I'll collect you from the side of the stage, not from the audience. And as we were getting closer to our award, we hadn't been collected. I thought,

oh my God, this is it. We've finally done it. This team, this wonderful team, I can leave them with this BAFTA for nine years of this incredible work. And no,

we still didn't win. But there it is. Thank you for taking me inside of the action. I'd like to say we had a fun evening. But even then. But do you know what, to be fair, scam interceptors that won it.

I was delighted with that. I was delighted that Catherine Parkinson one. Oh, that was terrific. Delighted. Last one, laughing one. as well. And I thought Greg Davis did a great job as well. So that was my BAFTAs. Right. What are we talking about today, Richard? We got a fun one today. We're talking about nepo babies in a very specific way. There's a couple of absolutely jaw-dropping bits of nepo babosity that have turned up

in the last week or so. And I'm going to do a sociological deep dive into what it actually means being a nepo baby. Don't people just do what their parents do anyway and don't we pass down our genes to our kids anyway? So I'm going to try and debunk a few of those myths. I am looking forward to that. We will be taking a look at the blast radius of the final settlement in the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni pretrial settlement. That case has supposedly gone away, but we're going to be looking at who of those three principles, how their careers have been damaged. And when I'm talking about the three principles, I'm obviously talking about Blake, Justin and Ryan Reynolds. And of course, generationally, they're kids. Yeah. Because, you know, it's going to affect their nepo careers in the future. She's getting the nepo's in all the way through. And we're also going to have a little chat about ITV entertainment. There's a new show called The Neighborhood, which has become sort of a poster boy for TV flops. And we're going to talk about whether that's fair or not.

And a little bit of inside gossip about that although I'm a celebrity hoo-ha as well. And also I've got a little ITV announcement of my own, which we'll put in there too. Right. Let's go on to the NEPOs. Yeah, shall we? In the last week or so, a bit longer, there've been a number of sort of NEPO announcements or pre-announcements, I would say, Northwest. Yes.

The 12-year-old daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West has released an EP. There's six tracks and it's called Northwest Forever. I'm just going to look

at the how many plays it's had on Spotify. It's been relatively well received, I should say. Do you know what? It's actually not bad. Yeah. It's actually not bad.

But of course it's not bad because, you know, yeah, 24 million likes for child like things. Piercing on my hand, three million listens. I mean, listen. It's a song about piercing on her hand.

That would do you at 12 years old, isn't it? I mean, come on. Harper Beckham is the Beckham's are trademarking something called Haiku by Harper, which is apparently going to be a skincare beauty brand. She's 14. She is 14. So maybe we'll start with her, shall we?

Yeah, shall we? It's such a tricky one. We'll say a number of things, which is, well, I'll say a couple of, just a couple of advisors that will make me more comfortable talking about it. Kids can do whatever they want at any time. That's all fine. And parents want the best for their children. And those are the two provisos.

Everything else is on the table. Yeah. I would say that her mother's brand is doing very well. Actually, weirdly, Victoria Beckham's skincare and beauty does miles better than the fashion and is potentially her route into becoming a huge kind of sellable company. Now, there's very strong rumours that Harper is going to launch her own brand. She's 14 and it's going to be called Haiku by Harper. It's interesting that the Beckham name isn't in there, I think, for a brand that tends to

put its name in everything. You think people won't make the connection? I don't know. It's interesting that it's not in there. But whether or not it's happening, I think for sure it's happening because Victoria has already started sort of laying a backstory on the various things she's done to promote her own beauty brand saying she's been sitting on my knee for meetings ever since she was tiny.

Oh, like all tweens, she ruined her skin by having skincare that wasn't ready for it. And she wants to create something that's particularly in that age. space as we know. I mean, we've certainly covered on the podcast before, although never enough, the phenomenon of sort of tween skincare and tween obsession with extremely expensive high-end skincare. Yes, which we didn't seem to used to need. Which we didn't seem to used to need. I mean, as I, you know, like to say to them all, your skin will literally need never be better than it is right now if you do nothing. And she's made a number of public appearance. She may, presented an award to her mother at a Harper's event maybe a year or so ago. But

recently she was sort of on hand for a beauty launch that Victoria did during the school term, which I don't know, in New York. Come on, nice. Yeah, I mean, I... You can't miss double French for that. I mean, sadly, as I've said, there is a space for this. Brands are now targeting under 10s skincare brands. You see people putting their daughters as young as five or six influencers with their own

daughters doing unboxing of products. I mean, it is incredibly bleak. I don't know. Is she going to be a CEO at 14? I don't know. Is she going to be a billionaire at 18? So if you own a skincare brand, if you're Victoria Beckham, let's say you're a normal skincare brand owner, two decisions. Firstly, do I launch skincare brand aimed at teens who don't particularly need it? Okay, so that's a choice. That's a choice that capitalism has always made and they'll always say at the end. Actually, yes, I do because my competitors will do this. So I need to do it as well.

And all I'm doing is serving a market. That's all I'm doing. If I'm not growing, I'm failing. If I'm not growing, I'm failing exactly. So, you know, I get that. Then do you think I've really, really been in the news recently because I've really fallen out with one of our children because he's been in the public eyes since he was a child? Please might quote the statement.

Yes. From Brooklyn. My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else. Brown Beckham comes first. Family love is decided by how much you post on social media or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo op. There will be plenty of people. listen to this in the car who will have 14 year olds in the back of the car. And what an insane

way to bring up a child. It is insane. There will be people. The last series of The Apprentice, the woman who won Karisma, who was absolutely brilliant and had exactly this story. She had trouble with her skin when she was a teen. Nothing worked for her. And so what she did, she went and got a degree in biochemistry and then has built a brand and then went on the apprentice and won the apprentice and, you know, and is brilliant. She's absolutely sensationally brilliant. There are, Victoria Beckham knows this very well, swathes of 14-year-olds who have issues with skincare products who are not launching lines because you can't, that is not open to you. You have a 14-year-old who has these issues and you can find a way suddenly to put that child

in every newspaper in the country. Should you choose to do? No, you shouldn't choose to do. But it's what I genuinely, this is where I lose sympathy. I really, really, really lose sympathy. It's a child. Some people never learn. I'm so sorry. Have we not just seen what's happened? Some people never learn.

I find it absolutely extraordinary. If you're an influencer somewhere and you're 14 year old and you do Instagram and suddenly, I 100% get that because it's the giddy thrill of suddenly you are in the public eye and that's exciting. You're building something. That is not where Victoria Beckham is. It's not where the Beckham's are. The Beckham's already have an empire.

seen every single thing that can happen if you put your children through that kind of publicity mill. They've seen all of it. The darkest bits of it. I mean, what on earth are you thinking? And lots of people want to sit there and say, oh, it's lovely, she's interested or whatever she's got ambition. No, this is just totally bleak in some horrible industry that is now catering to younger and younger and younger girls. And as I say, it's just the absolute jackbeat of the patriarchy down on your neck from what, the age of five or six, you're doing unboxing skincare videos. It's It's awful and we shouldn't think it's wonderful. And the overarching thing, often in these cases, maybe we'll talk about this, you know, maybe we might as well talk about Northwest as well.

I mean, again, look at the parents. Sorry, I hate to say it. But the overarching thing here seems to be that these children can't have a normal life, which isn't the case. There are an abundance of celebrity children who do have a normal life. By the way, almost all of them. Almost all of them. And that they are only suited, and the Beckham's particularly of all. always felt because you've seen what they've, each of the children, I mean, there were moments

where is Romeo going to be a tennis star? No, he's not. Okay. He's, I'm sure, you know, in the end, they'll end up doing modelling and brand work and that's, but the sense that they are only suited for the public eye or branches of show business. And by the way, I think these influencer-led brands are the, are a branch of show business and even with beauty or whatever, you know, you're not a CEO, you're not, as your apprentice winner, you're not building it up from the ground up. It's not the same thing. And I think it is sort of extraordinary. and particularly given what's happened to them this year. The downside, the risk reward is so extraordinarily high on the risk side of it.

Yeah. And just saying that, you know, my child is driven. They know what they want. Well, I mean, just the word no is in the vocabulary. And until they're 18, why don't you use it? Yeah, because also, who knows what Harper would have grown up to do? Yeah. Something interesting, something unusual, something helpful as possible.

You know, if a 14-year-old, say Harper had just designed and invented a brand new stent, which would revolutionise heart surgery and no one had seen before. By all means, by all means monetise that. But not this, you might as well say, do you know what? She couldn't find a cigarette she liked. And so she's created her own.

And so now, you know? And I don't, and this is absolutely no shade at all on the child who like all 14 year old girls has got a number of views about all sorts of things. I did myself and so does lots of other people. Every 14 year old child would do what Harper is doing. It's not about her. With every parent of every 14 year old child.

In the same way, we might as well move on to her to Northwest. It's not about her. She's had a social media account since she was very young. She was posting to her mother's account before that to Kim Kardashian's account. Age 12 is extraordinarily young. But then, you know, you saw Beyonce and Jay Z's daughter, Blue Ivy. They have some rule that you're not allowed to go to the MetGar, which was last week. You're not allowed to go to the Met Gala if you're under 18.

But of course, she was there. and Nicole Kibman's daughter was there and I genuinely don't think it's the kindest thing in the world to do this to people but it's almost as though there can be no other business than that family business It becomes sort of like the royal family which is If you are born into the royal family You do understand that you have a certain life ahead of you

They're not going to you I mean exactly a lot of people born into it They should have had an open audition process for Prince Harry But could they've got anyone that good There's a TV show got anyone that guy. That's the interesting thing about him is he probably would have won it anyway. Fair play to him.

But I get it. If you're the Royal Founder, you understand immediately you have to put your children on a certain track and teach some certain things. And this is the way the world is going to be for you and this is how we deal with it. And it seems there's certain show business families for whom they've gone, well, this, the same with us. But they always have been to some extent. They've been acting dynasties.

And not like this, though. I know. Why am I trying to make it sound like the Rust Belt? You know, shouldn't they not be automatically entitled to the job? their daddy did. You know, sometimes it's a sawmill, sometimes it's a mine. And sometimes, you know, it's selling eyeliners. So here's the sociological thing. So Neppo babies, there's a lot of talk about it. And there are an awful lot of people in show business whose parents were in show business one way or another. And the two ways you can argue against it, one, but lots of people do

what their parents do. And there's a huge amount of truth in that and actually a growing amount of truth in that. The last Labour survey, which was 2022, I think, 20% of doctors had their main breadwinner parents growing up was a doctor. So that's one in five doctors had a parent who's a doctor. You sort of see that. 28% of people working in agriculture had a main breadwinner parent who worked in agriculture. Even teachers, 10% of teachers had parents who were teachers. I thought it is an investment banking because some unbelievable morons going into that and seven figures is one of my hot takes. There's no easier way to make money than being in money. Oh my God. Yeah, exactly. I mean, some of the biggest morons I know probably have made a

huge amount of money and they would really struggle elsewhere. Construction, 17% of people in construction, their parent worked in construction. So we do that and all of us understand why we do that. You grow up seeing what your parent does. It's either appeals to you or it doesn't appeal to you. If it does appeal to you, you immediately have a mentor who can show you the ropes, also, you know, can get your work on the site during the holiday. And so we get it, that you can end up in the same job as your parent and that you might want to as well. Does it automatically mean that you are brilliant at the job that you are doing? And that's the tricky thing, because we see it in TV all the time, TV and film, there are actors who are actors, and you kind of go, yeah, but

they're an amazing actor. So, of course they, they're, you know, they got there on their own merits. the only sociological kind of comparison I could make was with sport, because that seems to me to have a very similar skill set, which is if you're an amazing actor, do you pass on those amazing acting genes to your children and then they become an amazing actor, and therefore they achieve because they have that personality type. So sport you look into and actually sport far, far, far fewer.

So many fewer, yes. Nepos. Lots of siblings, fondly enough, which tells you a lot of it is nurture, you know, the William sisters, the Brownlee brothers, the Clitchcoes. I mean, an insane amount of siblings. Nevels. The Nevels, all three of them, exactly.

But if we get rid of the 1860s and the 1870s with old Tom Morris and young Tom Morris, no father and son or mother and daughter have ever won a golf major, ever. So loads and loads and loads of kids go into golf and go into, you know, but none of them have ever matched what their parents did. Likewise, there's lots of kids who had parents who were the sort of, amateur golfers and stuff, and they've massively done better than their parents. But there is absolutely no correlation.

Same with tennis as well. There's not a single example apart from the Sutton's again, which are many, many, many years ago, of a parent and a child both winning a grand slam tournament. Sebastian Corder might do it at some point, but no examples of it at all. So absolutely lots of examples of kids who have the skill set, but they never quite match what their parent does.

That's the best way I can look at it. It was fathers and sons as well. You know, look at, you know, Maradonna's son never really sort of pulled up trees. You know, Erling Harland, his dad was a footballer, but not kind of world-class, world-class footballer, you know. Whereas in acting, there are so many parents and children who have won or been nominated for Oscars. I mean, Henry Fonda, both of his kids, Jane and Peter Fonda, John Voigt and Angelina Jolie. Liza Minnelli, when she won her Oscar, both of her parents have got a Oscar. Oscars.

Vincent Manelli and Judy Garland. Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Lee, both nominated for Oscars, Jamie Lee 1-1. Walter Houston, John Houston, Angelica Houston, all Oscar winners. The Coppola's, of course. Laura Dunn and Diane Ladd both nominated for the same film, their mother and daughter, and Bruce Stern as well.

Rambling Rose, exactly. And Bruce Stern as well was nominated for an Oscar. Kirk and Michael Douglas. Michael won, of course. Kirk didn't. Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. Goldie Horn and Kate Hudson both nominated. I mean, that's the highest level you can reach in your profession.

And it happens time and time and time and time again. And no one is saying these are not talented actors, because they definitely are. What we're saying is, are they more talented than people who didn't get their opportunities? A really, really, really fascinating thing I saw the other day. And this to me encapsulates the whole thing. And it came from a guy I like very, very much is Brian Cranston. So Brian Crenson, I think, I love Brian Cranston. You know, he's interesting whatever he talks about.

He was talking about his daughter, Taylor Dearden. Who's in the pit and who is great? Genuinely great actor. By the way, there's lots of genuinely great actors who never ever got on a stage because they didn't have the opportunity. He's talking about how she got her break. And she got her break in,

and again, this is zero shade on her. Zero shade on her. She works incredibly hard and all that stuff. It's always, which is always the case. So that proviso. She got her break with a speaking role on Breaking Bad, an episode directed by Brian Cranston.

And Brian Cranston is asked about this. he says, well, it's interesting because this is sort of the opposite of a nepo baby thing. Because I knew this line was there. And I said to Taylor, you could audition for that. And she said, I don't really want to. He said, well, if you don't want to, you, don't have to, but you could do. And he said, and then he said, she got really, really brave and said, you know, I will. I actually will audition for this.

He said at that point, I said to the breaking bad people, I won't be in the room when she auditions. And you must only give her this job if she is the best. You have to just, it's only if she is the best that she gets the job. To repeat, this is the show in which he is the leading man and is directing that particular episode. And God bless him. When he's saying this, you can see he genuinely means it. And every parent wants to do the best for their kids. They absolutely 100% do. But the one key to any sort of social mobility, the single key, and I see it time and time again with the people I grew up with and the people, you know, who I then was in education with, is you have to get into the room.

You have to get into the room. Brian Cranston got her into that room. And once she's in the room, that's her business, you know, and she takes care of it. But almost no one can get in that room. That interview was really, Dad, you're not helping. I'm just having a real triumph with the show. Please don't say any of this like that. But, you know, and that's the key.

You have to be in the room and most people don't know where the room is. They wouldn't have a clue about how to get into the room. And if they did, if every single person had the same opportunity that Taylor did and did, then the Oscars of the last 60 years would look very different. agree. I have to still say that we talk so much and you hear so much of people talking about Nepo Babies and Chobas and I agree, you know, and everything we've said today. But let's be honest, the worst nepo babies are like, you know, I don't know, Don Jr or I don't know, Kim Jong-un. I mean, you know, the Murdox. Yeah. But it's always all. The New I atollah. I mean, he's useless.

Come on, he was in the job two days. He's one leg down. But seriously, okay, these, you know, we never see him in public. These... Kim John Un. Yeah, like a... Yeah, absolutely. That guy and... What's the night? Aliaf, the one in Azerbaijan.

I mean, there's some real horrors out there. Yeah. And those are the worst nepo babies. And we just... We are an entertainment podcast, so we talk about entertainment, but don't think for one second that the entire history of capital is to do with nepo babies and to do with people ring fencing every single penny they ever stole from you

and giving it to their children and their children and their children. That's how our world runs. We're allowed to talk about the entertainment bit of it. If we want to talk about the entertainment bit of it, about the socio-economics of how the whole world is put together, then we can do at a later date. But it's, let's clean our house first. But I just would say to anyone a home who's got a kid who wants to be in there,

is getting in the room is the key thing. And to anyone who is a gatekeeper in any way whatsoever, the amount of times, even at end of the moment, someone say, oh, can my kid do work experience? And we absolutely put a rule in it and said, no, your kid cannot do work experience. Work experience has to come from somewhere outside the building. It can't be from someone else in the industry.

It can't be. We cannot do that. It has to be from open applications. You have to open up industries to people because... And classes, we always say, the hardest thing for them to do that with. For definite. Class is the hardest of all of the different bits of it. It's the hardest bit.

And it's the bit we have a big problem with in this country. And probably the 10 greatest actors ever to live have never acted because they've never got the chance. And the 10 greatest writers ever to live never wrote because they didn't get the chance. And, you know, it's all out there. You know, you just have to open doors in a slightly different way. But yeah, listen, every parent wants to do the best for their kids, and that's why it happens. And so there's no shade on the kids in any way whatsoever. But there is on the parents.

Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes. On certain parents. I certainly think letting your 14-year-old have a skincare line. My God. Yeah. My God. Which is where we came in.

Shall we go to a break? Let's go to a break. Where our children will be reading the adverts. This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's. who you can rely on to keep life running smoothly. Now, you know what isn't celebrated enough? Is the behind-the-scenes work that makes successful entertainment seem so smooth?

You know, you go on to any sort of set, and there's the talent, and everyone's even having to run around after them. But the people are having to run around after them are the runners. And there is not a single successful television show that isn't powered by brilliant runners. Whenever you hear a director or actor say, you know, we're all just one big, happy family.

I always think, yeah, and you're the children. And the people who are like running around are actually always the youngest people on set because runners are always really young. It's an absolute first job in the business. And the other key thing is if the runners are good, you don't notice them because nothing goes wrong. And it's very similar to your bank. You just need them to be there when you need them. Well, like with the Lloyd's app, you can check lots of handy things, little details,

what payments you have coming up, what subscriptions you're paying for. It is this kind of helpful, smart stuff that makes 14 million people bank on Lloyds. and that's based on Lloyd's internal customer data from March 2026, but we just want to say thank you to all the runners and thank you to Lloyd's. I think this is a great question from Khalid. He says, as someone who's been extraordinarily famous for possibly the longest time of any famous person, can you describe how being famous has changed in your lifetime?

What did it feel like to be famous in the 60s versus today? Yeah, I think the big difference is in yourself. When you're first famous, you love it. Because it's what you're trying to achieve. So you actually get a little hit or you know, something goes well and people in the street know you, you love it. Yeah. There's never any of this sort of, oh, people are bothering me.

Dear, you know, there's not a... The modern affliction. Yeah, no, we loved it, you know. And you learned to deal with it. I remember going to a gig once and I took the train out of London to the station near this gig and I walked

in just on my own to the gig and there's a little gang of girls found me and they're all screaming around and I'm going girls girls calm down calm down now listen here's the deal if you keep quiet I'll do your autographs

we'll walk in and it would be great so you learned how to deal with that and they got it and they were very good. They'd realize they'd get some special time, you know. As time's gone by, the times have changed. So now, phones. Yeah.

Yeah. Phones. So if I meet someone, it's like, oh, oh, and they're reaching for their phone, you know. And I say, I'm sorry, I don't do pictures. And that is like radical these days. Yeah. Because I told that, I'm a name dropping her, I told that to Oprah. She goes, you don't, what?

You don't do pictures? I said, no. She said, why? I don't want to. You know, and it's like as simple as that. Welcome back, everybody. That was a small part of our interview with the legend, Paul McCartney. Sir Paul McCartney.

We absolutely love doing it. He was a complete joy. That is available for everybody on Thursday. But if you can't wait, it's available for me. members now. It's so nice doing those interviews with listener questions rather than our own. It's a really nice vibe to doing an interview, I think. Yes.

And so, yeah, have us and see if your question got through. You get to ask some quite cheeky ones, which I might have not actually asked myself. Let us talk about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settled their long-running feud, which was in two weeks was going to come to trial. Yeah. They settled it last Monday. And she appeared at the MEP Gala completely unexpectedly, just a couple of hours later. I don't think it was settled for any money.

There was a statement which I have to say I find completely hilarious. I mean, this is the defining, without any question, the defining Hollywood feud of the era. You love a statement as well, do you? Okay, well, I love a statement. This is a statement. The end product, the movie it ends with us, is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life, raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors and all survivors is a goal that we stand about.

It's like, wait, that's what this was about? I'm so sorry, because it didn't feel like that for a while. But just as a reminder, very, very brief reminder, started off with behind the scenes conflict. It ends with us, which was the 2024 movie adapted from the Colleen Hoover bestseller, was a smash hit. Baldoni's a sort of male feminist

who wrote and directed it and starred in it. Blate Lively, who's a bigger star, also starred in it, very quickly escalated into suits of sexual harassment. and countersuit, smear campaigns and all this sort of stuff, it will have taken eight figures in legal fees to get, even before we started the trial. Being a lawyer is a grift, isn't it? Oh, my God, it's such a win, isn't it?

Why is that? But genuinely, why is it? But I've never understood why it's paid so well. Don't you think that of all the jobs that is vulnerable to AI, it's surely one of these incredibly, you know, these incredibly expensive on the clock things that are, I don't know. I mean, I think that will be interesting to see what happens there. If I was a lawyer, I would just start a law firm that charged half the money.

Yeah. Because I still think you're making a lot of money. And you're making $5 million instead of $10 million. You still be getting seven figures. Yeah. Today we're going to talk about how this has affected the careers of Blate Lively, Justin Baldoni, and in my view, as I said, the third principal, Ryan Reynolds, who's Blate Lively's husband.

Should we do Justin Baldoni first on the basis that it will take the least time? I still would not recognize him if I passed him in the street. Okay. Well, that to me is the most interesting thing. because it's one of those things where the case has been going on, so what, the movie was a hit, whatever. Sorry, who the hell is this guy? He's like a clean skin. He came from nowhere.

He played a sort of telenovela character from 2014 to 2019. He was a sort of male feminist. He seemed to have done some TED talks. I mean, he proposed to his wife, I discovered, so much came out in this case that it's just so detrimental to my phone. He proposed to his wife in a 27-minute video, which he put on his company's YouTube page. Wow. Which I guess is a character note. Is that available?

Yeah. Yes, you can see it, I think. I think it's still available. As for what will happen to him. I mean, at the start of this, I said bye-bye, Justin. I stand by that particular verdict. Maybe he'll direct some low-budget, something or other. He's kind of an ick.

I have to say, I read through it. I think he behaved in a creepy way. I read all of the stuff of this case. The long period of time it's been running. Yeah, I think, yes, I think on my judgment, some of the behaviour, and his own messages and his emails. Gotcha. Yeah. I don't love it. Yeah. So obviously the case was taken up bizarrely in the way that our cultural work now

by sort of conservatives and all right figures. So maybe he'll, I don't think, I don't see him as going in that kind of slight like, oh, Lawrence Foxxas is the only place I can get at work or like Kevin Sorbo, former Hercules, you know, starring in those type of movies. I don't really see that. So maybe he'll direct low-budget things. But I don't think we're going to be hearing a huge amount more from him. Blight Lively. This is, I mean, it's fascinating. You know, really big and gossip girl on TV, but this is her step, and she's obviously

married to a huge star who we're going to get to. This was her step up to, and to the top A list, I think, really. From the discovery, which is the legal process file, which we get all the emails related to this case, so before she even launched her actions and her sort of, her campaign against Justin Baldoni, we now know what the Sony executives were saying about her. Sony were the people who bankrolled the movie. The chair and CEO of Sony said she did bring it all on. This is before she, this is before it's become lively Vial, only this, they never think these emails will be made public. She did bring it all on herself by refusing to listen to advice and by

selling her products. Remember, she used this movie about domestic violence to launch her new hair care range. The head of comms at Sony. She orchestrated all this drama in a totally unsavvy and amateur way and basically threatened Sony and now is mad it back fired on her. Another Sony executive. This is my favourite one because this tells you everything about the entertainment industry. Privately writes in emails describing her as a fucking terrorist. When the movie comes out, writes to Blake, Blake, $50 million, your blood, sweat, tears, brilliant smarts, heart and soul in every single frame. My God, it's incredible.

Thank you 50 million times and it's only Saturday night. Wow. So many executives must really love seeing their emails in public. How are people still writing things in emails? But remember, again, it's all before she's. launches the legal action, says it's quite ironic because she has a huge hit movie to head it to 300 million plus and she'll probably never work again or not for a while. Although even Hathaway recovered.

Tom, this is the Tom, the CEO of Tom Motten's CEO at the time of Sony pages. Tom thinks she's probably and bizarrely unharrible right now. This is before anything became public. That Hathaway reference is interesting. That is a reference to Anne Hathaway. At the time of the Les Miserables sort of Oscar campaign, which she eventually won the best sporting actress Oscar. there was a huge backlash, public backlash, internet-led backlash against Anne Hathaway.

I think that was probably just down to sort of misogyny. They thought she was too staged, too ubiquitous, too keen to please, you know, to something. Yeah, yeah. But there wasn't really anything that you could say she'd done. So there's no particular reasons. So to go back to Blake Lively and whether she could recover in that same way, because Anne Hathaway is obviously has recovered from that, I do not think so. She had a whole load of witnesses lined up.

So much had been struck out by this point. What they were really going to say in the trial is, Blake Lively is commercially toxic. You're going to have a parade of people saying, yeah, no, she can't get this work, she can't get that well, we've got a million units of a hair care unit that we can't shift. Are you really going to get up on the stand and say that?

I would launch a podcast called Blake Lively is commercially toxic. Yeah. By the way, we'll get some real numbers because people do not like her now. So she's, you know, if you look at her upcoming projects, there's a film in development directed by Paul Feig. Will that go forward? I don't know. There's a sort of element where you think, you know, like in panto it happens and, you know,

for a certain amount of it is you play a woman, plays the principal boy and then something it's like, oh, now you're the wicked queen. I don't know if she graduates from nice girl to gossip woman. To sort of villain roles. Yeah. Because images do go through these cycles and backlashes and what have you. Okay. get on to the real degraded brand here because Ryan Reynolds, now he was an absolutely

Teflon A-Lister. He is very clever. He's successful. He writes. He performs. He has a gin brand. He is a co-owner of Wrexham. He's got, he's diversified in all the ways the modern celebrity must be.

And he's got a sort of guy next door, sort of fun kids watch movies with him. He's a kind of four quadrant guy basically. Now, we've all now seen his text, which are. sort of withering as to be brutal. People now think, people think they know stars. They've got a certain persona. But now we all know, everyone knows stars act like this or they suspect they do, but we now can see it. By the way, everyone in Hollywood who has to work with talent doesn't love that, even though he's not their client necessarily, no one loves that this has come out. Yeah. Because the whole business is a business of artifice and wonder. Once you see that people who seem like

so chill and really fun and just like a laugh a minute guy, behave like this behind the scenes in a way that other people would perceive to be bullying or just like unbelievably the big I am persona, which I know I always bang on, but it's taken a beating for definite. I think that that settlement was to salvage him more than her because I think she's regarded as a busted flush now, but you've got to protect that investment. Taylor Swift has former best friend forever. All eyes on the Taylor Swift wedding, because if those two aren't at it, it, that's not going to... Oh, really?

Oh my gosh. I mean, that would be... I mean, I'm sure they will be. But we're almost at move to the Cotswolds territory, if I can say. I mean, they'd be a lovely addition, wouldn't me? The scorched hour, let's move to the Cotswolds. The poor old Cotswolds. Never litigate unless it's...

I mean, I've written about this so many times before, but don't, unless it's desperate, don't litigate. What you've seen here is at every single stage of this, their talent representative should have said, don't do this. Clearly, what they're... have shown themselves to be by continuing with it are stars that are uncontrollable or have just not taken the advice. And if the advice has not been at every stage, let's exit this gracefully, there's different

ways we can go about this, then the advice has been incredibly poor. Or maybe this is a hangover of people thinking that Hollywood's old ways, which is sort of legal power, status far power, by saying, well, we'll get rid of you from our agency, Justin Bell, only because obviously these two are more important to us, that those ways would work. And actually the really uncontrollable thing in this case, even though the stars might have seen uncontrollable, is the internet. And you cannot under, you can't predict where it will go and you can't predict backlashes. Maybe you can, who knows, synthetically stir them up. But you don't want to get into one of those cases because, again, the risk, reward is too, is not a balance in your favour.

Because even 20 years ago, we never would have heard a whisper of this. No. Absolutely would have disappeared. A couple of lawsuits, blacklisting, everything doesn't. was certainly 40, 50 years ago. I mean, this stuff happened all the time, but now you can't hide anything. Everyone who has lost here except potentially Cotswolds Estate agents.

Who could be in for a big payday. They always win. Why not just be a lawyer or Cotswolds a State agent? Just seems like that's the right move. Yeah. Talking of estate agents, talking of lovely bucotic neighborhoods, I want to talk about the new ITV show, The Neighborhood. The reason we're talking about it is, so you may not have heard of it.

You may have done. We've talked before about BBC ITV Channel 4, taking fewer swings but bigger these days of far, far fewer shows in the mid-market and they're spending all their money on three or four, really, really big swings each time. And at the moment, that's all

sort of in the tale of the comet that was the traitors, which showed that you can go from a standing start and create, like, this huge phenomenon which really kind of energises terrestrial television. Almost always, these things fail. ITV's new versions called the neighbourhood, and for whatever reason it's become a poster boy for how

dare they. Can I quick described the premise of the show just because quite a lot of people haven't seen it. The premise is it's set in this dedicated village, a holiday village in fact, but in the Pete district and it's like a whole, it's almost like a 360 degree immersive set. Would you describe it as that? Six families move in, some other families kind of come along the way. They do neighbourhood challenges. There are evictions in the form of something called removals. There's a 250,000 pound prize and Graham Norton is the host. Now, obviously, Obviously, he is one of the biggest stars on TV. They've got everything in this.

There's a town square. There's a pub. There's a cafe. All of that sort of stuff. It's a prime time show. So now already been pulled from prime time because it was doing so bad. It was getting half a million viewers, which is not what you would wish for. And I mean, it's replaced by things like, you know, speak the chases, celebrity versions

and Davina show on repeat, which are getting higher viewers. Yeah, it's very difficult. And there have been quite a few shows. We should say that, by the way, this is not alone. And in the old days, it would have failed with 4 million viewers. It was still failed. I don't think it's, but now it fails with half a million. There are lots of shows like The Fortune Hotel or the inheritance,

Rise and Falls, that one. Yeah. That various shows, these big swing shows that have not worked. It's interesting. I mean, talking to people, you know, within that business sort of saying, well, it's easy to forget this sort of one in ten maybe works and becomes a big thing anyway. and that nothing can have a chance really now beyond the first series, which is something different than would have, you know, happen before.

It's no longer the case that people will turn up, even if you've got one of the biggest names, best love names on TV, Graeme Norton. They don't feel they have to until people say, have you seen that thing, that's good, until they've had a recommendation from someone or some thing, some outlet, something they trust. Yeah.

They don't actually turn up to look. Well, there is any one way to draw people in this, to make a show that people, want to watch and you know you can start on 900,000 and then your second episode I mean don't forget when traitor started the overnights for the first couple of episodes were terrible yeah I mean really low and everyone was like oh no bizarrely it became a huge show catch up even after the final had aired but if people it's like anything it's like a book it's like a song if a few people watch it or listen to it and like it they recommend it and that's how that's how

a show goes every single person making these things wants this to be yeah a hit the pedigree of this show. It's not just Graham hosting it and is absolutely one of our best presenters. It's lifted, who make I'm a slave and all sorts of shows and the garden who make 24,000 police custody. It's really amazing chops. I think

the format is perfectly acceptable. It's sort of like Big Brother, but for families. I mean, that's an interesting pitch. And by the way, we found this amazing location, which already exists. It's a place called Dermont Lake Holiday Village. You can rent it out if you want to. If you look on their website at the moment,

it's like come where the TV stars are. I think, okay, I didn't go quite as well as you'd hoped. But I think it's a great pitch. It's a really interesting pitch. There's wonderful things like with the removals, things, everyone's staying inside the house, they're looking out of their window just to see if they're about to get removed. When you watch it, I hadn't watched the first couple,

and I watched it when everyone had said, oh my God, this is terrible. This is a disaster, et cetera, et cetera. And I watched it. I thought I'd really rather enjoyed it. because, you know, in any other generation, it would have been a perfectly acceptable mid-sized hit, but because we've only got a couple of these a year now and there's a lot of pressure on them, it has to hit immediately.

And it absolutely shows there's like a certain little sprinkling of stardust on shows like this, which is whether it's casting or whether it's serendipity. But I think they set up everything they could set up to make this a hit. I think it's a really interesting location. I think it's a perfectly acceptable idea for a show. Some good bits of casting. You know, I like how it looks. The people behind it are super, super smart viewers if they watch something and it's not for them.

It's not for them. But I do think Trader started exactly the same. Started very, very, very low and just grew and grew and grew and grew. And yeah, this one, it looks like it's not going to. But it's the idea of saying, oh my God, who'd commissioned this? I tell you who commissioned it everyone. Every single person at home if they were working at ITV would commission this. if lifted and the garden came to you and said, here's our location.

I said, look, it's an eviction show. Right. People like eviction shows. Right. That's something that people like. What's the twist? The twist is, oh, it's family. So it's not just families, but it's households.

Yeah. So there's like a house for the uni students in there. And they're saying that Graham's interested in doing it. So you know, you've got a big face and a big name who'll, you know, go on shows and puff it. And they spent plenty of money on it. almost impossible to have a successful television show. I agree. And I have to say that I think what people are doing now and I so many people now say much as you can see they have in Hollywood, maybe we just reboot something that there's some

kind of residual memory of some IP that we do you know or we you bring Hell's Kitchen back because it's huge in America and now we do it you know the ITV studios make that or you do people might turn up for that for the sort of some sort of. Whereas I like I like that the channels of still taking big things on things like this on new shows. And it's so hard. If I was making this show now, if I was at the channel, it's like, it's so demoralizing. And no one feels sorry for anyone. We get that. But everyone is trying to have a hit with a new show here. And you can say, oh, good, it's so derivative. Every show you've ever enjoyed is derivative. It's all,

Gogglebox. Well, that's soccer Saturday. I mean, it's everything is derivative. You literally, it's impossible not to be derivative. You want to be derivative, but incredibly entertaining. Studio Lambert, who make the traitors, who make Gogglebox, who make race across the world, three of the, three ideas which are absolutely not original. And what Studio Lambert do is they make them absolutely brilliantly. Yeah. And, you know, all three of those shows are shows which absolutely could have failed, absolutely. But they made other things like Rise and Fall, and they've done it brilliantly, but it just, it hasn't taken.

Yeah, the inheritance, that's one of theirs. And, you know, the viewers just go, this one is not for us. It's still a fantastic hit rate, by the way. I mean, please. Oh, it's. The people don't see it as that. The best hit rate in the business, absolutely. Greatest feeling the business is when you have a hit and when you do something where the viewers go,

this is the version of that that we wanted. But no one beforehand is predicting that. You've just got to give good people time and money to make good ideas and you hope it lands. So I really enjoyed the neighborhood. Something that landed with me, if I may say, on ITV, that is an old format. We know very, very well. And this is even a sort of retread of that format. the I'm a celeb all-stars thing that came to place, you know, a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. The final. I'm only just going to talk about this really briefly because I think something quite interesting has happened within that. Yeah. The final was essentially a reunion show. Bear in mind, they shot this show in South Africa and last September, I want to say. And yet the final took place live in London in April over a period of 28 minutes.

I can't believe it because it felt like 28 days, but also like 28 seconds. It was pure chaos and drama. I loved it, in my view, in a good way. These huge showdowns, mainly between Jimmy Bullard, the eventual winner, Adam Thomas. By the way, when he's crowned, his face was just like, I mean, talk about the hollow crown. It really was. You've never seen more one, anyone. David Hay, who, you know, I mean, it was a call, I didn't think any of those three gentlemen had covered themselves in glory, if I may say so.

But obviously, David Hay remains the worst always. There was a huge amount of people shouting, I take full responsibility for my actions, while taking absolutely no responsibility for their actions. Sanita walks off at one point. Gemma Collins then thinks, hang on a second, she's walking. I mean, I should have been the one to walk off. And then this extraordinary green feather confection flounces off after Sanita. They were pursuing Antindek into the car park afterwards.

It was unclear who could go on any of the after shows. In fact, even the King of the Jungle couldn't. Everyone has been on podcast since telling their side of the story. The reason I'm going to say I love this, first of all, because it was absolutely hysterical. But you see the afterlife of it rolling on. That is something quite new. That's something that is an old format. We know it's an old format.

And this is very American what's actually happened. This whole idea of effectively a reunion show, which is what the housewise is. It's huge. These reunion shows are the biggest things. Everyone's waiting for the reunion show when they've all seen how they've been portrayed, which didn't used to exist. That's the key. So normally on I'm a celebrity, you'll have a reunion, so it'll be the next week, and people haven't really been able to catch up with everything.

This is months later, so everyone knows exactly how they've been portrayed. They've seen every single bit of social media comment, and they are absolutely ready to go at each other. David Hay claims to be, well, it was claimed that he was suing ITV for 10 million pounds for giving him a villain edit. He's now said, this is absolutely ridiculous. I would never sue for that little money. It's much, much more. The whole thing is just pure poetry.

But it's very American that. And to have done that and to suddenly, and when things escape the bounds of the show and then you realize it like, oh my God, this is sustaining about almost, you know, two weeks on, it's sustaining several of our leading podcasts, the fallout from people turning up and saying all sorts of things on it. Shows like this now have to leap out of the,

leap out of the confines of the, you know, the transmission slot. And even on, they sort of need to be happening and to be kicking off all the time. talk to everyone who's working on that show and it's literally hilarious people who worked on that 28 million thing just going like the phone calls they're making. If I go, is this okay? This seems like something terrible has happened. Remind me what our duty of care rules are?

By the way, you can still watch this on ITBX. And as I say, how can it only be 28 minutes? It's hysterical. It's absolutely hysterical. Jimmy Bullard was shouting at the audience, you know, that, sorry, for us, this is just a job. He was on some point of celebrities And we'd go and talk to everyone beforehand, Jimmy Bullard And I shook his hand

I said, hi Jimmy, I'm a Fulham fan And he goes, oh really? I used to play for Fulham I said, yeah That's why I told you Exactly that Can I make an ITV announcement? I wanted it as a say, can you? I can indeed

So I've just, obviously I've left the House of Games And pointless and all of that You know, I want to do a bit of TV And people pitch me various quizzes and studio Lambert, funnily enough, though that's not why we were big in the mucks, we slag them off as well.

Didn't we talk about Rise and Fall as well? They came to me with a show called Golden Elevators, which is an ITV quiz, which I'm going to be filming this autumn, and I'm looking forward to it very, very much indeed. And with my, I always think if someone pitches me a quiz, do I like it as a quiz? Our viewers are going to enjoy it?

And then I think is there something I can do that would make this better? And with Golden Elevators was the first one where I thought both of those things is super, super simple, but it takes a lot of skill to win it. And I can present it in a really interesting, slightly unusual way, not kind of shiny floor. And I can give away a big prize.

Well, you, I was just going to say that your dream is always to give away a large amount of money on television with a sense of occasion. With a sense of deal. And I'm not talking about anyone who's failed to do that in the past, although you know my thoughts. Yeah. But so it's got a hundred thousand pound prize. So I get to do that stuff, which I've done in run-throughs,

a million times for other people's shows where you go, okay you have said Anne of Cleaves Marina if Anne of Cleaves is correct you're walking away with one

hundred thousand pounds if it's wrong you walk away with nothing I haven't broth in that bed you know so that's the thing that I want to do and this show gives me the opportunity to do that

it's a really really fun show and you know everything fails etc etc etc but I I'm looking forward to doing it very much. Autumn schedules, Richard? I don't know, actually, because we're filming it in the autumn. And again, it's studio and Amber and Talpa, the team behind the traitors.

And so the Americans and the Brits and various other territories will do it at the same time. But really, we've been doing loads on those of run-throughs in the last couple of weeks. And it's really fun. Every version of it has been completely different. Yeah, I mean, listen, we still see, but it's nice for me. And it's eight episodes rather than 110. And I can do that and write as well. is a different number.

It is a different number. Exactly that. Any recommendations this week? I am loving Legends. Oh, that's what I was going to recommend. Sorry, I'm sorry, but why would we not? No people are only going to get one recommendation. Well, Legends is written by Neil Forsyth.

I love Neil Forsyth. I love him so much. Did the gold, if you love the gold, and I certainly did. And it's with the same team he did the goal with, with objective. I was, I was sat across the eye from Joshua McGuire from the gold. and I was like, oh my God, I was so excited. And anyway, you don't need to know that. Well, it's a fantastic cast.

Steve Coogan, sort of the lead, but it's long and strong this cast. And it's about undercover customs operatives in the 80s, going undercover to beat herrimand smuggling rings. And it's sort of based on something that's real that has never really been talked about. And I just think Neil Forsyth is brilliant. The way objective makes it, it's fantastic. It's just a great crime. I love it. It's like if Guy Ritchie had a sense of humour. Yeah.

But you know what I'm like, there's stuff in there really early on where you go, it's just a great gag. It's believable. It comes from character. There's still tension and all of that. Exactly that. Absolutely real people talking in a real way. Both series of the gold, I just, I loved. And this is, yeah. That was on BBC. This one's on Netflix.

Let's recommend both of those. Yes. Yeah. That about wraps us up. We will be back with something you all have heard of on Thursday. So Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney, we loved interviewing him. If you want to listen to that beforehand,

it's The Restors Entertainment.com for membership and advocacy listening. Otherwise. And apologies once again for having no visuals in this episode. We are very sorry we have no video in this episode. But lovely for people who only listen in an or who only ever listen. Because it's like everyone's on a level playing field. I just want to say I looked incredibly hot, maybe my best ever, but fine. Yeah, I was wearing, you know what?

I thought just for once I were wear a top hat. Yeah. But now I just, now I feel like it was a curse. Just wasted. Yeah. Next week, hatless. See you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.