The Rest Is Entertainment - Kevin Spacey’s “Sex Addiction”: A Real Disease?

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Why are K-pop superstars BTS back and how is the group different from American bands? Why is Kevin Spacey at the centre of a huge insurance dispute? And do writers actually make good Traitors contestants? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde assess what the return of pop juggernaut BTS means for music industry - and discuss the controversial ‘Hitman Bang’ behind their rise. Kevin Spacey says he has a life threatening sex addiction, will this help him out in an insurance lawsuit for over 80 million dollars? Richard and Marina chat about one of the maddest legal disputes in Hollywood history. And as The Traitors hurtles towards the final, we discuss THAT breakfast table scene. WIN TICKETS TO 'THE TRAITORS LIVE EXPERIENCE': To celebrate the launch of the new series of The Traitors we’re giving you and a friend the chance to get a taste of the ultimate game of deception and tactics. Sign up to our free newsletter by visiting ⁠therestisentertainment.com⁠ and you’ll be automatically entered into our competition to win two tickets to The Traitors Live Experience in central London. T&Cs Apply. 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: Adam Thornton 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

From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend, Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee, now playing in an exclusive Toronto engagement in theaters everywhere January 23rd. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osman. Good day to the Marina. Hi, internet talker.

Yeah, that's how I talk. Is that how they talk on the internet? Yeah. Do you say me thinks as well? Because it's an instant block. Oh, I see what you mean. No, I was sort of doing Hamnet talk. Oh, I see. Yeah. Ah, okay. What used to be called Shakespeare Talk. And now it's just Hamnet Talk. Yeah. Well, hopefully we're going to have a slightly cheerier experience than that particular motion picture.

we are talking about the return of BTS, who obviously the K-pop group, who became the biggest act in the world, they've been doing their military service, and now they're back. We are also talking about, I think it might be one of the wildest trials in Hollywood history,

and we'll tell you why. Kevin Spacey is back in court with his production company, suing the insurers, and we'll tell you why later. It's so mental. It is. Talking of which, speaking of which, we will also, as we head into the final week of the traitors, be doing a sort of, where are we now?

After last weeks, we have to talk about it. Oh, we've both got a huge amount to say. Oh, we have theories. We have theories. Let's begin, though, with BTS, who, as I say, they've finished their compulsory national military service. I mean, that's the mad thing, is that there's seven of them. Yeah. They started, I mean, sort of 13 years ago when really they were put together when they were all very young teens.

And everyone in South Korea between the ages, I think, between the ages 22 and 28, you have to do your national service. Although the government have just issued a decree saying if you're in a K-pop band, you can defer it until you're 30. I mean, imagine K-pop being that big that the government going, okay, we do need to just carve out vets, I suppose, and K-pop band members. But yeah, they're all back. Their National Service was staggered very cleverly so that each of them could have a slight hint of a solo career in between. But they are now all three men and they are back back. In a way. Yeah, because, I mean, they've gone from one army.

They work in the K-pop industrial complex. How free are they really? We'll be suddenly getting to that point. To another. We're going to talk about them coming back and we're going to talk about the money or making all that. But I want to posit their thesis, which is, so K-pop and, and, and, and, South Korean culture in general we know has been absolutely enormous, you know, the demon hunter, squid game. I mean, we know exactly what South Korean culture has done. And is that, do we think,

a fad, a generational thing, or is this a realigning of the spheres, has our culture, which for so long has been American-based and Western European-based, in terms of what has global reach, is Halu, which is this idea that South Korean culture... The Korean wave. ...goes around the world. Is this now the new normal? Is this something that just endures forever and ever and ever? And I think the BTS comeback might give us a big clue to that.

Definitely agree with that. I think we'll definitely be going through all that. And I'd sort of like to go back just a tiny little bit as a bit of background. Like what they gave us. Let's go back. And what that means, what you've just said, which is that I guess they gave the world this... kind of the wider world, this idea of stands,

this incredibly obsessive fendoms. Their fandom is called Army. Yeah, ironically. Yeah. The idea of super fandom as it exists at the moment, this whole idea of parasocial relationships, those incredibly sort of obsessive fandom relationships where you think that you know the artist

and they're one of your friends and therefore you have a right to kind of almost stalk them to you have a form of ownership over them. And actually, you don't know these people at You've never met them and you're huge amounts of removes from them, but people feel incredibly tight and close to people who they've never met. And that's the thing that's being monetised throughout our culture. And obviously Western Star often do call out their fans for this kind of type of

obsessional interest and in some ways desire to control their lives. Taylor Swift's done it. Chapel Roan's obviously done it several times. But this never happens in K-pop. Yeah. A lot of it comes from that very unmediated relationship that social media influences have and the way that they present themselves. There is that thing of,

while I wake up with you, I go to sleep with you, brushing your teeth. So it's that, that feeling that people are, your genuine friends. People always said with artists that social media

would give them this ability to have this unmediated relationship with fans and to be able to talk directly to their fans and not have to wait for the media or to be spun by the media or all. So it was removing this blog. And actually, it did do that,

but what it also did was bring them right up to your door and make them think okay well you do talk to me directly and to lots of degrees that relationship has tipped over into something very unhealthy certainly unhealthy for the artists involved in it but yeah we we've always had you know boy bands and girl bands and fandom and stuff in the in in the 70s and right back to the Beatles this is the absolute weaponization of that this is the heavily mobilized I mean yeah it's it's unbelievable this is like drone warfare yeah for the parasocial relationship

I agree. It used to be sort of, you know, artillery fire randomly going off in the Beatles time. It is now an absolute laser-focused military-industrial complex that absolutely drags every single ounce of passion and cash from the fandom. And it's just extraordinary how it's taken over the world. I think it's so interesting. I suppose one of the things that K-pop also gave us is that thing of absolute maximum availability of the artist. Now, by the way, boy bands and girl bands in all cultures have always worked insanely hard and you don't get a day off and we all know this and, you know, if you collapse with exhaustion,

you get a special injection and you go back on the stage. It's like the podcast industry. Yeah, very much like that. It's like goal hanger. Yeah, it's very, which we live like this, which is why we're able to talk about it. You just sort of walk past Robert Peston on a drip. Yeah. You don't really.

No. But what the Korean model of all this did was make all of the, the rest of that look like the sort of indolence, the Hote drug-fueled indolence of the 1970s LA Canyons, okay, where, you know, maybe you'll write a song this year and maybe you won't. You're like, like, my bloody Valentine, taking five years to do your next album. Yeah, they work incredibly hard. We should say actually who they, who is the entertainment company, because I find this completely fascinating. The entertainment company behind BTS is a company called Hybe, H.Y.B.E. All capitalized. Now, when BTS, it's a huge thing that

It's presided over by a guy called Bang C. Hook, Chairman Bang, Hitman, Bang, he's sometimes called, he's incredible. Hitman Bang. I've got a huge amount of time. There was a funny story about he, he, anyway, when he became very, very successful, he obviously thought, I'll buy a mansion in Bel Air or Beverly Hills or somewhere like that. And he immediately had a lot to say about American workers. He was like, yeah, yeah, I'm now experiencing this. Like, if we say we're doing something in South Korea, we're doing. it. You just mean you're thinking about it because he couldn't get, he couldn't get his renovations done.

He felt like, you just remodel that wing and it would be done within 15 minutes like it would be in South Korea. Whereas he's like, oh my God, you know, the building workers of Bel Air, truly, they epitomized the laziness of American culture. Anyway, an amazing name for a band as well, the building workers of Belair. I could see, I could see Hitman Bang putting them together. They're the new village people except they're all construction workers. And they actually do stuff. But they, they, have this relationship with fandoms and they foster fandoms. They got out of their previous distribution deal and they did a distribution deal with Universal

but they have a sort of partnership with Universal and which is the biggest record company. Is this BTS or the whole of Hib? Hybe. Yeah. But obviously therefore BTS. And Lucian Grange, who's the chairman of New Universal, said he was particularly fascinated by Hib's approach to engaging the superfan. By the way, Chairman Bang, Hitman Bang, is in a little bit of trouble in South Korea

because he's under criminal investigation for unfair stock trading in hybe shares around their IPO a few years ago. He didn't know his all the charges. It's just got everything. It's got everything. It's really serious. He's got an overseas travel ban. A lot of his stock has been frozen. He's still one of the richest men in South Korea. I bet he is.

But he was different. When he came up with his band, first of all, he wanted BTS. to be hip hop but he thought he just couldn't quite see how to make it happen but he became obsessed with the idea of like Korean fan culture super fandom and he thought

I just feel like no one has yet fully monetized this and fully understood how to rocket boost this so he made them a K-pop band but he was different to a lot of K-pop Svengallis because a lot of people will know that you know you're in this incredibly regimented life

and they you know they control everything about your life he didn't take their phones off him He didn't give them a huge number of conduct rules. I mean, obviously within reason. But the only things he said to bands in his stable were you have to grow or, you know, you get chucked out. But they were seen as much more authentic, BTS. And he went early, got them a YouTube channel. They were always on social.

So they were seen as more authentic than lots of manufactured K-pop bands. But equally, what we talked about, that lifestyle where you're constantly working, you have very little to authentically sing about. And so what he did, that's a problem often with boy bands. It's like, can I really believe any of this? Because all I know that they do is like work very hard and go on stage. So he thought I've got to create a world like Star Wars or Marvel and have all this law behind them and be more immersive. So they created this thing called the Bantang Universe, which is like a dark mirror version of the band, who were all going through like really bad things like suicide attempts, trauma.

all these abuse. They're surprisingly emo. It's so weird. Yeah. And they're trying to escape from this. And there are all these multiple timelines. And they are, it's all, they tell these stories via their videos, but they're not in consecutive order.

And it's obviously, it sent people nuts. You know, we live in an era, as we've said, of like detectives and Easter eggs and all these things. So people were trying to work out the different timelines. The fans became incredibly invested in this whole story. So it got rid of that whole problem of like, how can they even credibly sing about love when they're not really allowed to have girlfriends and they don't even have time for one. Yeah, it created a whole world. It created a narrative. And the interesting thing about BTS. But the darkness of the narrative is so horrible.

But that's, you know, South Korean culture. They're very, very good at that. The sort of crossroads of dismay and joy. Why is it, Richard, that these one-notes howls of anguish about this particular stage of capitalism have spoken, not simply to people in South. career, a turbocapitalist society, but across the Western world, why is it that there has been that cultural shift to our own country, to America? They have made the art about it, they made the TV about it, they make the deaf game TV, they make all these kind of absolutely brutal youth things. And it's so interesting that those have spoken far more eloquently to young, very young people, Gen Z and Gen A even, than many things produced in the West. Yes, anybody listening to

this who's got any children under 25 or, you know, nieces and nephews will know that America does not particularly appeal to a huge generation. They're like some American artists, you know, Taylor Swift and what have you, and there's great artists coming out of America. But the idea of American culture does not interest people. And we're talking about BTS because they were the first band from South Korea to actually make it in the States, to really properly make it in the States, number one albums, number one singles. The fascinating thing, again, just this idea, Hit Man Bang and his team, If you manage, take that, which can't have been the easiest gig in the world, profitable, I'm guessing, but it can't be super easy. Or you manage one direction. You just wait for somebody to leave.

At some point, somebody leaves. Now, BTS have had this amazing thing of they had to split up because the South Korean government wanted them to do their national service. Okay. So there was an enforced hiatus in this band. So they've had this three, four year hiatus since 2022. They've all managed to do their staggered national service. but they've also, they haven't sort of been out of the conversation. If you look at the streaming numbers for BTS themselves,

they've gone down 30%, 20%, and then sort of stabilised. Like Hybe's stock price when they... Exactly. And now it's resurgent. I mean, Hybe's stock price and the streaming numbers for BTS have very similar on a graph. But they have launched a number of solo careers, so they've kept themselves in the conversation. And now they're sort of more than the sum of...

their parts. But it's interesting how the comeback and the dynamics of it are different to the setup. Oh, talk us through that? Well, what happened with kind of traditional, with sort of Western artists, was that kind of, if you build it, they will come thing. You know, we'll invest in artists, we'll make great music, and then fans will come if it's great. And that's been the model that, you know, the American and the British music industry was

basically built on. And this is completely different to what K-pop was built on, which is involves primarily servicing and second-guessing the fandom. It's much more about where are the fans will go there. I don't really know so much about an artistic vision. It is so much more of a market vision. It's like an extreme form of sort of artistic capitalism. It's like drilling for natural resources in that they can do the sonar thing.

They can work out. I think there's oil here. We're pretty sure there is. So this is where we will drill. And then they'll adjust and adjust and adjust where the hole is. And then eventually a load of money will shoot out. And so what Chairman Bang said is that they want to bring a deep understanding of how to turn fans into active participants and co-creators, not just consumers. So there you see, well, this is a huge thing.

But you also, rather like what's happened to, just to go back to your point just very briefly about, has all culture kind of gone like this. Look at sport, okay, which we used to say is a sort of, say you're watching people drive cars around a track or you're. watching people play football, it happens for sort of 90 minutes, once or twice a week, you know, sometimes more, but just generally that's about it. How do you keep people in a kind of absolutely sensory overload of a digital world engage? And you bring plot lines in, you bring all this other content in. So actually those moments of like in, in music it would be your moments of performance all the time you release a single, that's just, they are punctuation points in a constant stream of content and plot lines around the product, which is kind of the band in their

story or whatever, or the drivers in Drive to Survive, or football where the managers have ended up coming main characters because they talk a lot more than the players. And all of these things have been, how do we just keep the eyeballs in the sort of big interstices between when the actual... Big what now? The big gaps between when the events occur, right? Gats, you say. Well, there used to be little things, and now that, you know, now you've got to keep them going.

Even more than that, it's not just the always-on nature. It is the absolute laser-focused monetisation of superfans. And you realise almost everyone in our culture is not a super fan of anything. Perhaps when we were 14, we were a super fan of something. But most people, we have lots of different things that we like. You know, I can listen to BTS, I can watch F1. You know, there's a million things that I like. But you realize that now things are absolutely being fine-tuned

to completely play to obsessional fans. And it's sort of overwhelming, if it's just like a regular fan. But the way that these industries, sport, music, movies, all these things are making money out of super fans is sort of, it's so depressing. Well, yeah, the problem with movies

is that they don't really have super fans. They lost them with Marvel's. When I said movies, I thought, hold on. Yeah, yeah. One of these things doesn't exist on that list. I wonder why that's the one that you'd think was in most trouble. Anyhow, it's interesting.

They've got their own platform for superfans. Weverse hype have got this thing. And it's like a membership culture. Because first of all, they got a bit sick of thinking, oh, we create all this stuff. And then it's monetized by kind of third-party platforms like Spotify or YouTube or whoever it is. So we want to have our own platform. But what they've tried to do is get Western artists to join this platform.

And they say it's all about super fans. There's no hate here. It's only people who, hmm, it's only people. Superfans notorious for everything being harmonious at all times. Well, lots of Western artists have joined, you know, big people like Ariana Grande, Gracie Abrams, lots of people are still kind of coming onto this. They say, but it is a huge parasocial world. And what's so interesting that the high executive who came up with this whole thing said,

the thing we're really digging into is the psychological mechanism of falling in love. So that's what there, it is that obsessional thing. And if you look at it's like the birth of, you know, advertising. as we know it in the early part of the last century, when they realise that actually there are chemical reactions in our brain that can make us buy one type of vacuum cleaner instead of another. It's like that but for hormones. Yeah, yeah.

Male and female. Male and female. Yeah. But the way that the comeback is different to the setup, I find absolutely fascinating. Well, I've just taught, you know, about the absolute maximum availability of all of these artists. Hype have said that they're trying a new experience model

based on scarcity. Oh my, okay? So given everything we've just discussed, that is... Right, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

It may be the only way... Partially, I think, perhaps that's the only way you can get the band on board because they're obviously would have said, we don't want to do what we did before. We now are worth whatever you said.

And we don't necessarily think we want to work seven days a week. And we've been in the actual army. Yeah, and we've been in the actual army and enough. But, okay, so this is the exact quote. and then afterwards I'll attempt to translate the word salad view. Scarcity is an important element that enhances the added value of the fan experience.

To innovate future fandom businesses, we will design, and this is just with the BTS comeback, we will design and test an integrated online and offline experience model based on scarcity. Wow, and they say punk's dead. Yeah. So if I can translate that, I would say that there's not going to be so much, and if you love them, you are going to have to fight for what there is. I mean, so on the notes. As I said, these one-note howls about, okay.

Now, so there may well be limited access to new releases. We can already see that members of that fan club army have a whole day where they can get tickets to the concerts before everyone else. Now, by the way, if you think that, I mean, they could easily sell out in a day, BTS easily. Look who else sells out in a day. They've only got 79 dates, which at the moment isn't that many. So they're going to do VIP events.

I'm talking to people sort of vaguely connected with this. VIP events, limited performance calendars, lots of offline stuff. And what they hope is that these restrictions will open up new revenue streams and justify the much higher prices being charged for what less there is. Aren't we moving past a Keynesian model, Richard, of superstardom? Finally. Oh, no, it's scarcity. We're not going to give it.

It's nothing to do with demand. It's to do with, we're going to change everything. We're going to, supply will control demand. I mean, I do think that actually there's a more prosaic answer to that, which is what you're saying of, that when a band is a little bit older, they're still making money, they do have a tiny bit more power. And so they can say, we're only going to do 78 days. I know it'll go up to 150 or 160, but we're not going to do the work that we did before.

And so as a cany business person, you know, it's like, if you're, if you're Debears and for Years and years, you made all of your money from the scarcity of your product and then suddenly you have an oversupply of it, then you hold it back. This is basically the Debears model. But Debears are the only people at that point who had access to those diamonds. Well, they still do, as I've talked about in this podcast before, they still do that thing where you go and sit in a room and you get shown a shoebox and those are the diamonds you'll be having. That's the choice. There is no choice. Can I say, by the way, in amongst all of this, that they're a great band.

That's the thing with all of this K-Pot stuff. There's something at the heart of this, which is you can exploit people all you want, and you know, you can exploit fans all you want. But if you haven't got a good product, it's not going to work. And there's also something so chilling about it, which is that they tell them. It is absolutely horrifying. You know Katzai, who's also a high product, who are absolutely massive. There's actually, and that's interesting, there's only one South Korean, only Yunche in Katzai is South Korean.

And they went through that whole process to find them. They modeled them on the spice scars. You know, everyone has a sort of disqual. distinct role and they made a documentary or someone made a documentary for them Potstar Academy which you can see on Netflix and if you're in my house you've already seen it three times and they were voted for on weaverse and all of that sort of stuff they'll get shouts out and photoshoots and every girl will do cool and then they'll shout moody and then they'll immediately shift into a moody pose sweet and then everyone will be sweet and

they tell them that their like body language is constantly assessed by fans who and that And the K-pop fans don't get it wrong and they'll know if there's tension between you because they'll be able to read your body language. Well, you wouldn't have had this trouble with Brian Harvey, would you? And they'll guess right. And as I say, they never hit back at fans. There's none of that.

They never say, they don't write songs about being in the midst of that fan experience. So they're very, very different from Western artists. And yet we've us, lots of these artists, for someone like Grosy Abrams, to go over to that platform is very interesting to say, okay, I commit or I submit or whatever it is, but I believe that this is the way to kind of maximise attention and maximise. And she's absolutely right.

Yeah, right. Shall we go to a break? I feel like we should. And then we'll talk about the absolute craziest court case. I think even in a city that is used to crazy court cases, LA. This one is an absolute doozy. Kevin Spacey versus the insurers. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health,

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Hi everybody. It is Dominic Sandbrook here from The Rest is History. Now, you have probably been watching the scenes on the streets of Iran. You may be wondering where all this comes from. So on The Rest is History, we have just recorded a four-part series on recent Iranian history. So it kicks off with the Iranian Revolution that brought down the Shah Mohammed Razar Pahlavi in 1978, 1979. And it's actually his son, who is now leading opposition to the Ayatollahs from exile in the United States. So in this series, we explore the history behind the Islamic Revolution in Iran at the end of the 70s. Where did people like Ayatollah Khomeini come from? Where did their ideas come from? Why did they have so much support? Why was the Shah driven out of Iran in the first place? And what did it have to do

with American intervention and indeed British intervention in the 1950s? And we look at, at the unfolding story of the revolution, and then the amazing story of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the taking of initially 66 hostages by the Iranians. This is probably the story that I most enjoyed researching and writing. So please, if you're interested in Iranian history and what's going on, check it out. And if you want to Taster, we have a clip for you at the end of this episode. Welcome back, everybody.

Now, we'd like to talk to you about a legal insurance dispute. But wait, because it sort of hinges on sex addiction and whether it is, as Chas Michael Michaels says, in Blades of Glory, a real disease with doctors and medicine and everything. The patient is Mr. Kevin Spacey, Oscar winning and formerly hugely esteemed actor whose career sort of fell apart in the wake of all sorts of allegations of sexual misconduct, some of which he's fought in court and one and some of which remain pending court cases. He denies all of them, of course. But as I say, this insurance case starts this week on Tuesday,

unless they settle between us recording this on Monday and them opening the case tomorrow. The basic principle is this. You make any sort of thing, a TV show, a film, you know, if an artist is doing a big world tour, there's a massive industry, which is the insurance industry where you, essentially, if you're a record company, or if you're in this case, a television company, you ensure your leading actors or your leading musicians so that if something were to happen to them, you are not out of pocket. So if you're making, for example, House of Cards and one of your actors breaks their leg and you're delayed by six months, that is covered by insurance. The company who made House of Cards, which starred Kevin Spacey, of media rights capital and the insurers are someone called Fireman's Fund. The Feynman's Fund, which is often the case in America,

the big kind of unions have, essentially have big arms, which are insurers. So ordinarily in this thing, someone is ill, the insurance pays out. It doesn't happen very often, but if it does, that happens. Or, you know, there's someone that has a bereavement in their family. Things get delayed for two weeks. Whatever it is, these things are all covered in these. insurance things. It's a big business. It's a huge industry. There's not a single creative endeavor that happens without a big insurance policy. The crux of this one, as you say, is whether

House of Cards was not able to continue because Kevin Spacey had an illness which meant that he was not able to do this final series. And that illness, it is claimed, is some form of sex addiction. And he said if he had not sought treatment for it, which I'm certainly going to do a big sidebar on. He would have taken his own life. And the judge is really not keen on even discussing it in these terms. But they've said, you can say that you would have, would you have killed yourself if you'd had to return to House of Cards season six?

He is going to take the stand. And according to his statement, we'll have to defend that point that he would have killed himself if he was forced to return for House of Card season six. But we'll come back to the case in a minute. Let's just pull back for a second because House of Cards is interesting. House of Cards is basically the birth of modern streaming. It's the Netflix show, or I suppose if you want to talk about it in terms of the streaming wars, this show is the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, right?

It is the inciting event. It was very, very expensive. It was prestige. It starred hugely acclaimed movie stars. It had a big, very revered Hollywood director, David Fincher EP'd it and directed the first two episodes. And it all dropped. on the same day. And so that whole binge model thing, which we now just take a standard, that all came with House of Cards. And they did five series of the show with Kevin Spacey.

Then comes what we must refer to as the unpleasantness, and it actually begins with a number of men on the crew make accusations that Kevin Spacey is sexually aggressive. Then outside this, this is in 2017, which is, you know the start of Me Too. So outside the set, and actually, actor called Anthony Rapp says that Kevin Spacey molested him when Anthony Ratt was 14 and Kevin Spacey was 27. Kevin Spacey says, I'm sorry for being drunk and inappropriate, but, you know, I don't think I did anything. And he also, oh my God, the gay community hate him forever for this, chose that moment to

come out. Until then, he had effectively been closeted. And obviously people thought, when you're accused of underage sex abuse, this is the moment you're going to come out. I mean, he loses everyone at this point. He is eventually cleared of that accusation in court, but many others come forward. And in fact, he's still got a civil trial in our courts because he was director of the old Vic and all of those sorts of things. And there was many accusations from over here in our courts in October later this year. Anyway, when all this comes out in 2017, he checks in for a stay at the Meadows, a sort of

heads bar in Arizona, which I will come to. But Netflix is content chief at that time is a guy called Ted Sarandos. Yeah. He heard of him. And he says, no, just far him. Remember, Netflix is this kind of fledgling big player. It's obviously being a successful business, but it's a fledging big player. And they've created this thing.

And everybody is moving towards what they're doing. is moving towards this streaming model. And importantly, for this case at least, and one wonders how one gets around this, there is a paper trail of Ted Sarandos essentially saying that, just saying, fire him. Fire him, I don't want this guy on the show.

And, you know, there's, again, with any of these things, there are legal things, but also there's reputational things. And Ted Sarandos is like, no, I'm not having him anywhere. And it's, as you say, enormously prestige thing that is the absolute beginning of what we're trying to build. They had these two huge shows and the crown was one and this was the other. So they kill him off between seasons as the character, Frank Underwood. It's all based on our own house of cards,

but they spin it off into this American world. So season six is Robin Wright Penn, who is his wife, and it's all a bit of a horror show because how can you not have him? And the show is cancelled, and the three spin-off shows they had coming off it are dead. Now, MRC, media rights capital, say they lost 80 million on all this and 50 million maybe with interest. So again, they would be insured for it if this was an illness if he'd got cancer or had an accident. And again, they might not be insured for that whole 80 million, but that is what they would claim for. They would say the show has been cancelled.

We had these putative spin-offs and real spin-offs. And we are predicting that that has cost us 80 million. But yet it all comes down to, was it something completely out of their control? Was it, you know, an act of God? Was it an illness or has something else happened here? Okay, the illness. Let me just do my sidebar on The Meadows, where Spacey, the Meadows class of 2017 is quite interesting. Is this like a Betty Ford type clinic?

Yeah. Like a rehab clinic. Yeah, it is. But the fact that it's called The Meadows, have you ever seen that Mike Myers movie? So I Married an axe murderer, which is familiar. The most famous bit in it is this conspiracy theory scene where Mike Myers' father, who's also played by Mike Myers, says that the world is run by a secret society called the Pantavarit

and they meet triumually at a country mansion in Colorado known as the Meadows. And in it are like the Queen, the Vatican, the Rothschild, the Gettys, and Colonel Sanders before he went to Zappa Fried Chicken. Anyway, this one's in Arizona. That's from the film. That's from the film. This Meadows is out in Arizona. But it became, for me, I really recognized it as a sort of, it's the ultimate tactical rehab destination for me too, okay?

Because Harvey Weinstein, when all the allegations come out, he goes to the Meadows. What's interesting is that media rights capital have sued Spacey before. That's the first way they tried to get their money back on this. Here's the real wrinkle of the thing. If you think it already sounds bad, it gets much, much, much worse. So Media Rights Capital sue Kevin Spacey and so. saying your behaviour, your actions mean that we have lost all this money because you have left essentially our franchise and all the spinners have come to an end. And it is your fault

because of your behaviour. And they won that case. And they won 31 million dollars in damages from Kevin Spacey, which he says he doesn't have. He says, I'm homeless, aka he later clarified that. I live in Airbnb's. Okay, that's not the same thing. So media rights capital. I've already thought, we need to make some money back of this. And the first thing was, Kevin Spacey, they win $31 million. Someone at Media Rights Capital thinks, it feels like we could get more than $31 million. And the key to it is, was Kevin Spacey ill or was he fired reputational? And if he's ill, we could get more money. We could get that $80 million we sat around talking about, couldn't we? So they then go to Kevin Spacey and say, look, we recognize that UOS $31 million. You say,

you can't pay us. I'll tell you what, why don't you just pay us $1 million? So essentially, we'll waive $30 million, but for that, you have to give us all of your medical records from that time. You have to give us access and be on our team. Testify for us. And we can use your medical records to testify for us as well. And for that, we will waive 30 million of the 31 million that you owe us. And he says yes. And which is where we find ourselves where we are today. So he's got to take the, so keep an eye on this because he's got to take, he's got to take the stand and say, I would have killed myself if I had not sought treatment for that.

It was that. It was a life-threatening illness. And that's why I went to the medicine. My sex addiction is a life-threatening. Also, we're not talking about sex addiction. It's exactly the same with Harvey Weinstein. Have you got an abuse addiction? This is the allegation.

No one is saying that you have a sex addiction. I don't care if you have sex with lots of people. what we're saying is that you have an abuse addiction because there's a number of people making sexual misconduct allegations against you exactly the same as Harvey Weinstein. It's not the same of Harvey Weinstein because Harvey Weinstein's been convicted and Kevin Spacey has not yet and he may never be. But it's the same sort of thing. So he now has to take the stand and say, I would have killed myself had I not sought treatment for that. The trouble is he's previously taken the attack of saying I was completely available to work and I should never have been fired for how. House of cards.

He's literally on record of saying that. Yeah. Yeah. And as we say, Ted Sarandas has been on record as saying, I'm going to fire you because reputationally, this is no good for my company. But the case is still going ahead. And almost always.

Well, it is a time of recording. There's lots and lots of disputes with insurance companies. It's a cost of around. Like in our daily lives, you know, something happens. They seem to almost always settled out of court by the big insurance companies and the big media conglomerates. Lots and lots of these cases, they're almost always settled.

This is, I cannot think of a similar case, firstly, of this size that has come to court. And secondly, that pivots entirely on whether sex addiction is a... Real disease with doctors and medicine and everything. Real disease with doctors of medicine and everything. So there is our primer on a case that barring last minute intervention is starting this week. So keep an eye on that one. I mean, it will be one.

Let's consider it developing. Yeah. very little good in that one, yet at the same time, sort of fascinating. Yeah. Shall we finish with the traitors? Again, if you're not watching the traitors, please feel free to switch off, but we can't not talk about it. Well, it just goes without saying that for the next basically week, every single thing that happens in our country anyway will be just seen as a spin-off in the traitors universe. But we're generally defected last way, and it was impossible to remove for people just doing it as a meme of traitors.

So, I mean, I'm just going to throw something out there, Richard. The oft-quoted line, we should be proud of ourselves for getting to the final eight. Discuss. They do. When they were sitting around, it's always a very, very moving episode that when they have the din, they do talk. But, yes, the idea to be proud of yourself, we all know who gets through to the final eight, and that is the remaining traitors, one random good player who somehow has gone under the radar, and the useless faith walls. Those are the people who remain always.

But this one so particularly, the fact that there was not one single vote at the last round table for either Stephen or Rachel, the only two remaining traitors, I'm so sorry. I mean, I used to call it the idiot premium. Now this is the most eloquent argument against Darwinism that's out there. It is survival of the thickest, okay? They are, the entire episode was full of questions

to which the answers were because you're stupid and you're no threat to them. Okay? So here we go. Why am I still here? Because you're stupid and you're no threat to them. They must be keeping me around for a reason. Yeah, you're stupid and you're no threat to them. I'm wondering if it's because I'm close to someone.

No, it's because you're stupid and you're no threat to them. Despite the Jesse murder, they still didn't trace anything back to Stephen or indeed Rachel. And by the way, because of the setup of where this is, it is not a general stupidity. These are people who can absolutely function in the world. But when we are put together as a group of people, there is a personality trait that allows you to be manipulated, and those are the people who remain.

You know, these are people who you go to the trenches within lots of other ways, and they'll be smart in lots of ways. But in this particular psychological experiment, they have a personality trait that allows them to be manipulated into certain types of behaviour. Well, all the strongest characters are gone. Well, should we discuss? Yes. Isn't that interesting?

Because we're almost now, the end game, the last few episodes, are like an old-fashioned version of the traitors, where it's just, oh, it's just some people. And I wonder who the traitors are. I wonder who are not. We've had such an incredible sort of casserole of drama. leading up to this. In a way, it's quite nice. The last episode last week, you're like, oh, nobody is going to throw a grenade into this. Let's just have a normal episode of the traitors. You remember a normal episode of The Traitors? I used to love that show, but it has been so dramatic. The Fiona and then Harriet thing, we have to discuss the, we've discussed the Fiona thing. We have to discuss the Harriet thing.

Let's discuss Harriet right now. Great novelist. Has a book coming out. Has a backlist as well. she absolutely did the playbook which we would call the Farage playbook. So Nigel Farage is on, I'm a celebrity, and he says when he's doing the task, the good thing about doing the task is they have to show you on television. Yeah. Okay. And that's a thing that is generally understood now. Harriet is in there.

I think Harriet wants to sell books. Yeah. She doesn't need any money. Yeah. I think she loves traitors. I think she loves the traitors and loves the format. I clearly enjoyed herself on there. but she wants to sell books.

And by the way, I don't believe that to be venal at all. If you're an author, you do anything you want to. I heard you like to sell them too. To sell books, I don't mind. But would you, would you behave like that at breakfast, Richard? I don't think anyone would behave like that at breakfast from a standing start. I think what you would definitively do is go, okay, I'm halfway through here. I haven't been able to discuss the fact that I'm a novelist at any point because I'm holding that back.

I'm holding back the thing that I'm a crime novelist. At some point I'm going to have to say it. I feel like maybe I'm a danger to the traitors, so maybe I won't be in here for much longer. I don't have much more time to say that I'm a crime novelist. You are then told you can ask a question of the traitors. And at first she's like, I can't really think of a question, so I don't know if I particularly want to do that.

Then she must have thought, they are going to have to show this bit. They are going to have to show this bit. So what if my question reveals the fact that I'm a crime novelist. And you can bet her question, by the way, had more details about the titles of her books and twists and turns and that sort of thing. Oh, no, short of holding it up like Boris Johnson did on election night on Channel 4, just constantly holding his book up. That's what she did. This was martyrdom for commercial

purposes. Yeah, 100% that. And by the way, I would have done exactly the same thing. You're thinking, I have got to shoot... You'd never have behaved like that at breakfast, that's different. That's different. That's part two. Part one, which is, you've got a question, you know it's going to be shown on television. Why not use that question? question to say, me, or I am a crime novelist. You like, Christy Turney, psychological thrillers, the sort of thing that you might like. That 100% you would do, very, very, very clever. So you're thinking, okay. And I think that's sort of where we found ourselves last week when we're discussing it, thinking, Harry is really, this is like an unbelievable bit

of PR. And then the next morning you think, okay, she has to throw, I'm going to throw everything at this now, because this is going to be the big moment of the series. This is going to be the bit where I'm the great detective. This is going to be the bit where everyone goes, oh, my, I, you know what? I would like to read her books. I would love that. But the way she went about it, I feel this was counterproductive. Is it too late to cancel the Amazon order?

So point A, absolutely textbook, exemplary, farage, if you're doing the task, they have to show you. Part B, the morning, discuss. You know, I tell you what, I want to say it was a fiasco, but she got her some. Sunday Times interview, didn't she? She's got, she's managed to get lots of other media appearances throughout the week, which will promote her forthcoming book, not quite forthcoming enough quickly, but we'll promote her forthcoming book. But yeah, I mean, no one's that stupid. The breakfast thing was just a bizarre, it really, but it was actually so mishandled and so misplayed that rather than presenting herself as a kind of fearsome detective, she just sounded like a really

unpleasant, angry person, and it will put people off buying the books. Certainly the numbers she has sold in the last couple of weeks haven't been where they might be if she was the hero of the hour. And I do think it shines a different light on. I'm slightly more sympathetic to the remaining players up to a point. You know, you do have to have some self-knowledge. But they have lived through now to World Wars. Yeah, you're right.

And so, you know, there's a shell shock to the remaining players. Well, they are just going, well, should we just vote somebody out? And I think it's quite hard to keep Rachel in your sights when she has. I think, you know, in the same way that sometimes I just don't want to see Trump on television again. A bit of them is thinking, I just don't want to discuss Rachel again. There's been so much. We had the whole Fiona War. Then we've had the Harriet War.

Okay, so the things they do discuss, again, traitor behavior, discuss. I mean, Jesus, this is the ultimate fallacy. This is like if you behave vaguely unsportingly, if you do something slightly sneaky, if you have a mad outburst like Harriet, it's deemed by people to be trace behaviour. This is from henceforth in all future series of the traitors. Please contestants understand that this is the opposite of traitor behaviour. So when James took the second shield and didn't ten anyone,

you think, yeah, I mean, which by the way to almost anyone who understands human behaviour would suggest you, it was very, very, very unlikely that he is a traitor. It'd be a weird thing to do. And Roxy immediately goes, no, but you've shown deception. That's a traitor behavior. No, deception's not a traitor behavior. Deception is the thing that they are forced to do in order to be a traitor.

But it has nothing to do with who they are as a human being, who they were before, who they will be afterwards. It has literally zero. They've been told they have to deceive you on one particular thing, which is, are you a traitor or not? The questions they should ask instead, okay. Oh, the questions that were remaining faithful. It was that traitor behaviour. Questions they should ask instead. Guys, why would Rachel still be alive if she was trained by the FBI?

Sorry, also, okay, Clarice. You know, really, I don't think you need to be Louise Starling to deal with this law. Okay, why, despite FBI training, does she get it wrong every single night except for the two times where she's got a traitor out? why would a proven traitor say she was a traitor? Why did Fiona say, Fiona, proven as a traitor, said Rachel was a traitor? Ding-dong, maybe there might be something in that, okay? And the most proven traitor hunter, Harriet, in their universe, said it, okay? To be fair, Harriet, by the end, when she was really unraveling,

I think there's like five traitors. Yeah. And I want to get all of them. I'm going to start with, it doesn't even, you just think. Yeah, and actually, on Unclote, she didn't seem nearly as she. Sure. So something that I have come to, surely now we can see that social

capital matters more than theories, than logic, than anything. And Jesse, who was the only person to have theories and to have, you may disagree with her logic, you may, whatever, but to try and present cogent theories had been pigeonholed

as sweet, the best loved member of the group, you know, it was like there been an actual murder when she was murdered. The best love member of the group all of those things. But she didn't work on vibes. She said the game had left her exhausted. And I can really see why,

because it was incredible, there is a hierarchy of players at which Rachel sits at the top, you know, the FBI train person who can't get anything right. Hard for her to break out of that box. Completely impossible. Yeah.

But she was harmless. She's nice. No, she was actually sort of deadly if you know, if you hear what they said in the turret. But she reminded me a little, bit of, but although she was much better light, of Maddie in season one, who had a great theory, which was right all along, but she had no social capital of the meaningful type

within this game. It's not enough to be nice. And I don't think they actually even loved Maddie in the way that they love Jessie. If you don't have that, you're nothing. Well, the interesting thing is she did have a bit of social capital. Who Jesse did? Jesse, yeah, because people did, she was really well-liked, and that's the reason. But it's not enough. She was liked as a sort of sweet member of the group. But I think because that's the reason Stephen had to murder her. And that was a big risk. And it's absolutely that 50-50 thing always of,

is this the obvious thing to do? Or is this so obvious that of course I wouldn't do it. Don't worry. Not even one person is going to nominate you after this. His look, we're just going, sorry. I thought that was it. That was it for me. I was out and not a single person voted for me.

These guys are so lucky. Yeah. And I also think, by the way, they're very good, Stephen and Rachel. I think they've been very, very good. They're the Gary player of traitors. The Gary player of traitors. I think they've been very, very good.

And one of the key things, reasons they've been good is they've been solid with each other. Yeah. Which is really, really important. And for Rachel to be backing up Stephen is a big deal. And for Stephen to be backing up Rachel, it's a big deal. They are multiplying each other, whether that continues into this week. Who knows? But I do think they're playing a great game.

I think there's almost nobody left who could stop them. Well, one second, because the only person of the remaining faithful, who I don't think is being traitors dim. I mean, like really stupid within the game, as I say, with all the caveats about it's easy to get psychologically caught up in it. The only person who could be playing a good faithful game by just being under the radar all the time, by staying out of it, doesn't have illogical and emotional ideas that they pursue

and then kind of fall away. Votes mostly with the pack is Faraz. Now, he... Love for us so do I. But he's really eloquent. Some of the vocabulary he uses, you're like, Oh, okay. You're just really sitting beneath it all. You're sweet. You're young. You're all of these. But you're much, much clever than you allow yourself. Which is the only way you can play it as a faithful. Are you Harry? If you think of Harry, who was a traitor. Oh, Harry. Yeah. He had a similar vibe to Farras.

Yes, yes, he did. He's charming. People like him. He's a bit of a cheeky chappy. Exactly. That's the only way you can play it though as a faithful is that you have to pretend to be not as clever as you are. And that's where people like Harrett, people, all those people, they always go wrong. The kind of like, I am the Grand Inquisitor, all of that. Who's the guy? And I still couldn't tell him his name. He looks a bit like James the Gardner, but he's got glasses. I know you're talking about. Jack, every time you see him, you're like,

oh wait, you're on the show. But maybe he's doing that. But now he's in a sectarian block. He's voting with James on everything. They voted together. Now they're becoming slightly dangerous because those two will vote together. Yeah. But maybe he's like a genius.

The thing that breaks my heart is Matt, or Matthew or Matty, they don't seem to have agreed on a thing to call him. But ever since you asked that question, where he goes, oh, by the way, when you're asking your question, Harriet went absolutely nuts. So we've concentrated slightly less. And he said, and so who would you vote out next, Jesse? Okay.

And I just, when you vote her out, then would you recruit me? And they go, yeah, we'll do that. And ever since he was like, oh, they haven't voted Jesse out yet. But I think that he's like a guy in a bar whose date hasn't turned up. And it's like 45 minutes late. And he's just thinking, well, I know that maybe the tubes are late. And so he's like really, really, really waiting. And the waiting staff are going, I think, I think your date might not turn up.

But he's still absolutely that thing. I'm still what you think. There's not many of you left. They're probably not going to recruit now. He's nice to go, right? Because people after the awful thing that Jade said, I think people are just going to have to give her a break. And I think she's so obviously. And also, come on, she's so emotional.

I think it's pretty unlikely that she's doing all that in the service of like, don't find me out on traitors, right? So I think he, and also because James and Jack are voting as a voting block and this dagger power, I mean, if I were Rachel, I'd just give it to myself. Why not?

And then say, why have I been given it? I would give it to Jade. Yeah. No, Roxy. Because you know whatever she'll do, she'll do it wrong. You can just absolutely guarantee that she'll be wrong.

But yes, but there is that thing of a stopped clock is right twice a day. And when somebody who's absolutely certain themselves, even though they're always wrong, and we know that personality type, if they accidentally get it right and they've got two votes, then that's a problem. You need somebody. With someone like Roxy, you actually can't persuade her of your point of view because she's working in a different realm. Whereas if you've got someone like Jade who has a smart sensibility, you can put a case. to Jade that it goes, huh, okay, yeah, I can sort of see that.

I would give it to somebody who I felt, A, deserves it, has had such a hard time around the table that nobody would mind her having it. No one would go, huh, why have the traitors given that to Jade? Either she is a traitor herself or I understand why they've given that to her. And then you keep her close. I don't think, I don't. Well, she'll go for Matt with it, so that's probably worth it. Yeah, exactly.

I'll go out next, I'm sure, anyway. Can I just do two little shoutouts for, I would like to say, Shanaid McKee, Claudia, Stilis is just so completely amazing. She defines everything. Everybody wants to get the clothes. They are all clothes that are like the clothes. And I also have to say the technical mastery of the cabin was amazing. Was beyond.

And I shout out to whoever designed Stephen's jumpsuit as well. Oh my God, I just want to stay under the radar. Sorry, hi, I just don't want people to look at me. I mean, I'm dressed like an F-1 mechanic from the 1970s, but... Huge fans, like Armageddon. You're coming off that space shit, is it? Yeah. Also, by the way, I am blushing throughout.

Yeah. I have at no point since I was made a traitor, stopped blushing. Maybe, thank goodness the only FBI expert here is we at the other traitor. Otherwise, they might spot that I'm blushing more than Alan Carr. It is great, though, and it's great. And it'd be fascinating to see where it goes now. And you had this, the secret trait it turned out, worked beautifully. It was completely meaningless, as we said right at the beginning, in terms of gameplay, utterly meaningless.

It meant nothing to anyone other than it was a fun guessing game for people. And it introduced this idea that Fiona went power, mad because of it. But if you think about what was it and what affected it have on the game, nothing. I mean, literally nothing. And it got rid of incredibly quickly. It was just a smart way of starting. in the game and you know the thing like double votes and stuff like that they're now able to

introduce these things at fun interesting times um but it was meaningless but it worked beautifully and now we've got this end game which again you go but i think it'd be going to be boring now that's never how it plays out something crazy always happens and yeah we've got three episodes left and it finishes on uh friday evening so excited so exciting and to all the players listen, you know you become public property and people talk about your motives and your ideas and you're thinking. And it's, we understand this again. We understand this weird pressure you're under. And thank you for letting us at least enjoy ourselves by speculating on everything that's going to happen. And I hope it brings you, you know, great joy and pleasure when you leave as well.

Any recommendations? I love the new Charlie XX single, Wall of Sam, which is the third one, I think she's done for Wuthering Heights. You know, she's done the whole soundtrack for Wuthering Heights, which comes out next month. Yeah, it's really interesting, actually. She's written about it. She's got a substack and it's kind of interesting. And this one's called Wall of Sand. Chains of Love and House, which is the one she did with John Cale from the Velvet Island, which is a sort of poem and it's really weird. But it's kind of got got got this, this thing, and tortured and intense. And she talked a lot about, I mean, she's had a summer. I feel like it's really going to be her winter. As we know she got this A-24

like mockumentary coming out and she said she's much more interested at the moment in film which is interesting she had bratt summer but that thing of like having to sit with an idea that you've had and then it took off massively bratt summer and she had to sort of just you know she had to go with brat and tour it and to take it around the talk shows and because when it becomes a phenomenon as an artist you sort of had those ideas already and then you've got to be out there promoting it she felt I think a bit wrung out by it and then to get this effectively just a commission Do you want to, Emerald Farnell wrote to her and thought, said, oh, it was a song or maybe, and then she's in fact done the whole soundtrack. So to have a commission at that kind of artistic moment where you're feeling a bit rung out by what came before and just have to go into a persona into a world and right according to that, I really like all the three things we've had so far.

And I'm excited about Wuthering Heights. I know we started by talking about the craziness of BTS and that relationship they have with fans. and there's something slightly uncomfortable about that. But we do also live in a time of extraordinary music and extraordinary artists doing really interesting, weird things in response to the world in which they live. You know, unusual times. That's why when I talk about AI and things and all of that, unusual times always lead to incredible art. They always do because artists respond in certain ways in really interesting ways to interesting positions they're put in. And which Charlie exists.

And she's a perfect example. Yeah. And I do just think that in amongst the sort of car crash of the world, culturally, I think such interesting, intriguing things are happening. And that's where the fight back begins in just doing and making extraordinary things and entertaining people and expressing yourself. And, you know, that's one thing you can never keep down. We will, of course, be back for a Q&A on Thursday. That was a long episode. That was a very long episode.

I really enjoyed it. There was so much to talk about. Yeah. See on Thursday for a month. See on Thursday. Hi there, it's Dominic Sambrook again from The Restis History. Now I mentioned during the break that we have a new series on recent Iranian history. So here is a short extract for you.

If you want to hear the whole series, then search for Revolution in Iran on The Restis History, wherever you get your podcasts, or search for us on YouTube. There are crowds in the streets every day. There are attacks on banks and restaurants every day. And already in some towns in Iran, power has been taken from the legitimate authorities and it's been taken over by revolutionary strike committees. Now, if you're with the revolution, this is very exciting. If you're not with the revolution, it is terrifying.

And in his memoirs, Ambassador William Sullivan describes standing at the US Embassy and looking out through an upstairs window. And he sees in the distance, troops holding back demonstrators. He sees cars burning in the middle of the road. You see smoke rising from burning buildings. And he thinks something has to change. We have to do something. So on the 9th of November, he sends a secret cable to Washington with the title,

Thinking the Unthinkable. And he says, the Shah is finished. It's over. And if we don't act now, Iran, which is so vital to us, will slip out of our hands forever. He says we should ditch the Shah right now. And it may well be time to do a deal with the Ayrt. Ruhola, Rouhola, Khomeini. If you enjoyed that clip,

then please search for the rest is history wherever you get your podcasts.