The Rest Is Entertainment - The BrewDog Famechaser

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

James Watt: BrewDog 'Co-founder' and now self-described 'Co-Captain', investor and... TV personality? He wants you to know that he has a new show that sounds a lot like Dragons Den but isn't Dragons Den... House of Unicorns. Is it any different? Why does James feel the need to be a TV star? Will he be successful? It's the story that keeps having new chapters. Marina brings us the latest developments in Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni. And The Traitors wrapped up with the show's biggest ever audience. What did Richard and Marina make of the final and can it keep on growing without the contestants becoming too savvy about how it works. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? Yeah, I Yeah I'm alright we've got some interesting things to talk about this week. Our first item I'm really really looking forward to. How has your week been? It's been super. I don't know if you watch one of the worst TV spectacles by the way that I've ever seen on TV just so low rent and crap presidential inauguration. I didn't see it. But I tell you there was one star in it my girl Lauren Sanchez. Did you see my girl?

She was the best thing in it. Everybody, everybody saw Lauren. And if you didn't know who she was before last week, you do now. So yes, I mean, we picked her as a star early, but we did. And you know, talking of which friend of the podcast, there's going to be a new star in the firmament and we're going to be talking about him. We're going to talk about how a celebrity is born and someone who's attempting to thrust his way into the world of celebrity is the person we are talking about first.

We will get to that. We are going to talk about, as our last item, we're going to talk about traitors. So if you have seen it, great, you watch it. If you've not seen it, just avoid the last little bit of the podcast until you have. Turn off your set at that point. Exactly. Look away now. Look away with your ears now. And we are also talking about... We're talking about, we're updating, we talked to you a bit about this before Christmas,

the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni lawsuit, which is mushrooming. It is certainly quite out of control now. All sorts of other players are coming in and it's going to remain a sort of developing story. So we're going to update you where we are at with that particular obsession of mine and many others. Now we begin every now and again, astronomers are lucky enough with high powered telescopes to see the birth of a star. It tells them a great deal about the world that they live in. And we're going to talk about the birth of a star. Who are we going to talk about and why? If you've been feeling a disturbance in the fabric of the news continuum, the star that

is trying to be born is, I don't know if you're familiar with a guy called James Watt. Now he is BrewDog's co-founder. Not the steam engine guy. Not the steam engine guy, no. And you might be wondering at the moment, as I am, why is this guy being beamed into my consciousness like three times a week? Okay. It is impossible to have a January dry of this guy.

Okay. I've seen interviews, controversial Instagram posts, LinkedIn posts. He's a real LinkedIn legend, this guy. Let me tell you. I don't understand LinkedIn. Can we do at some point do a massive D drive? Yeah. Yeah.

Three past on LinkedIn. If you heard of a media blitz, this is more of a media blitz kreig. Okay. James Watt and I assume his publicist wish to have full spectrum dominance of the news by mid February. And yeah, I'm buying into that. Every time I look anywhere, he is there in a sort of shacket talking about business or something. Anyway, but most recently announcing that he was launching a new TV show with the biggest

prize in British TV history, two million pounds. It's called House of Unicorns. I'm actually thinking, why hasn't he called it James Watson's House of Unicorns? Because yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, Richard, but in a House of title, yes, should you not have your own name in it? By unicorns, I'm guessing he is talking about entrepreneurs building billion pound businesses rather than actual unicorns. Yes, it's a startup, unicorn is a startup company that is valued at over a billion. And as I say, this is a TV show in which he is attempting supposedly to find, I have to say it's a TV show supposedly,

but we'll come to that in a minute, in which he's attempting to find the next unicorn. And we will dig into the realities and unrealities of that at the moment. But who is James Watt? Now, if you don't follow all the sort of punk marketing or sexual harassment news, and we can't all keep our fingers on all of it, can we? Because there's too much of it. There's too much of it. It's like football.

Then you may not know who he is. So can I give a little primer on him? Oh my God, I'd love it. I tell you who's loving this, James Watt. Okay, well, let's see if he does by the end. He was born to a millionaire. Was he? Yeah, yeah. This is a real richest to richest story. Someone like Philip Green, who, well, again, they cultivate the air of like, you know, this...

Self-made. Yeah, yeah. But in fact, it's a richest to richest story. Anyway, the father was a fisherman, but he was a millionaire. And by the way, a huge amount of James Watts' identity, and we'll come to this later, is it's almost like it's actually a form of identity politics. He talks about fishermen and being a fisherman so much. Every time he wants to hire someone for BrewDog, he says, I just think, what would you be like standing next to me on a some, I mean, I'm paraphrasing his quote here, in a North Atlantic storm. and it's like, is

this just someone you're going to pay like minimum wage to work in a Las Vegas bar because I don't really know if it's really going to come up but anyway, or less than minimum wage. Yeah and it turns out his dad is Captain Birdseye. Yeah, his dad's Captain Birdseye anyway. But he starts BrewDog with a friend of his, it does very very well, they do a huge amount of how it does. And BrewDog they make all Elvis juice, punk IPA, all those sort of very colorful branded beers.

I think it's the seventh biggest brewery in the UK, which by the way, we're going to be talking a lot about this guy. That is an achievement in itself. There's plenty of people born to millionaires who set up companies who have not done what they've done him and this guy Martin Dickie, who was a, he met when he was doing a brewing degree. So it's an extraordinary empire. They are built in one way. Yeah. And they did it. They did. They sent beer to the Kremlin. They did, you know, they

talk, there's a lot of it as a philosophy, you know, and it's a sort of punk philosophy. Yeah. I think, you know, there's all these expressions that he says things like generic beer is made by pimps and thieves. Okay, I mean, you know, have you ever seen, you know, Adasta Green who does amazing videos on the internet, he does he does an amazing kind of punk beer series of commercials, which are very, very, very funny. Oh, I need to see that. I, and anyway, doesn't follow Adasta Green on on any of the social media channels must do immediately. He's very funny. But anyway, he's absolutely nailed James Watt. Well, James Watt also, you know, he, in that era of the real sort of the pomp of TED Talks,

he does a lot of TED Talks, you know, nobody's more important than your work, nothing in your business is more important to you than in your workforce, all that sort of stuff, right? And yet, Richard, he is dogged by accusations that he runs a toxic workplace. Poor James. Yeah. So 300 staff, that's quite a lot, signed a letter saying that it was a toxic culture at the company of BrewDog and that it was all his fault. Then last year, 15 staff spoke

to a BBC disclosures programme saying that he sexually harassed them and that they had to try and get away quickly at the end of their shift, all sorts of things. He says all of this is untrue. Listen, he stepped back from being BrewDog's CEO, although he is now listed as its captain on LinkedIn, as they say, identity, businessman and fisherman. He's one of those people who's constantly sort of posting things like, you know, better never sleeps or anything he ever says almost could be the sort of thing that The Rock would say after a workout. Not so long ago, a few weeks ago, he said, he hit the headlines. He said that, you know, Britain's a real work shy culture.

It's one of the most work shy workforces in the world. And he said, I also said, I think the whole concept of work life balance is invented by people who hate the work that they do. If you love what you do, you don't need work life balance, you need work life integration. I think this should be a basic rule, because a lot of multi multi millionaire business people also have this view that people should work much harder. And I think this if you earn more than 100 times your average employee's wage, they should be allowed to do 10 times less work than you. They're still doing 10 times more work for the money.

They're only enough hours in the day. That means if you're doing 18 hours work a day, then they can do one and a half hours work a day. It's such rubbish and it's such a fundamentalist understanding of how economies work that in order for there to be people like him, there don't need to be millions of people toiling away, including under, in BrewDog, for less than the living wage, which he once committed to and then rode back for. Why should people in the gig economy,

doing often very mean and very difficult, and you know, jobs on very long hours contracts, why should they love their work? This is such a load of complete bullshit, okay? We all know this, but they need to exist in order to surface unicorns like James Watt. Okay. So now thus far, this sounds like an episode of The Rest Is Money.

The reason it's interesting to us is you were talking about his, his, his, uh, what, what he describes himself as. And he describes himself as businessman, investor, television personality. Okay. That's self-described businessman, investor, television personality. Okay, that's self-described businessman, investor, television personality. Now House of Unicorn is interesting. We'll go on to talk about it, but you can, anyone who knows anything about this world would have worked out that sounds a little bit like Dragon's Den.

He's got a huge chip about Dragon's Den. Of course he did, and for two reasons. And this tells you everything you need to know about this guy, I think. Firstly, him and Martin Dickey, when BrewDog was quite young, tried to go on Dragon's Den to, you know, essentially as a... As contestants. ...publicity, you know, opportunity. And they were turned down. Okay?

So James Watt sort of keeps that with him. You know, come on, guys. We had a pretty good business here. It's interesting. They didn't want to know because it's beer James and it's the BBC. Listen, I don't want to be the guy to tell you that. He then, when he's made his millions, says, well, you turned me down, did you? See how you like turning me down when I say I want to be an investor on Dragon's Den and

they turn him down again. So he's been turned down twice by Dragon's Den. Brewdog has its own television channel. If you go on the Brewdog website, it makes loads and loads of TV. So him and Martin... In this case, I will call it content. Don't edify it by calling it television. It makes some content. Him and Martin Dickey did a series for Esquire in the US called The Brew Dog Show, where they just go to different cities and they brew a beer. Esquire cancelled the show, which

is weird because you'd think it must have been a huge hit because James Watt is compelling. Anyway, they decide to make this show themselves and I, you do not have to do this but listen it's worth it. I watched the first five minutes of the first one, they're in Columbus, Ohio, him and Martin Dickie and they literally begin by saying, so the network cancelled our show what do you do in that situation to what we did start out our own network so they started their own because because their show is actually their website this show could not more want to be top gear if they literally were wearing Jeremy Clarkson

masks it's unbelievable amazed they didn't call it Top Beer. Him and Martin Dickey. It was right there. It was right there, guys. Well that tells its own story. Top of the hops. They're walking across this bridge. Come up with three better titles.

And they're going, yeah, so we're in Columbus, oh hi, we're gonna make some beer. Yeah, no, no, no, it's too scared to make our show, so it's just the two of us. And he goes, wait a minute, doesn't John Edwards live in Columbus? Ring him. Hi, is that John Edwards?

Hi John, yeah, it's James Watt here. We're gonna make some beer in Columbus. Yeah, should we do that? Oh, that's interesting, it's the Buckeye State, that's nuts, is it? We may be able to make a beer with some nuts. Okay, puts down the phone, Martin Deheeney takes his phone, throws it into the river.

And he goes, Martin, you throw my phone into the river. I mean, just the interesting thing of watching Top Gear and not noticing that the key to Top Gear is it's brilliantly produced. Yeah. And every single shot is like meticulously filmed and like beautifully put together, just thinking that you and your friend can,

he can just throw your phone in the river. Anyway, it's one of the most excruciating five minutes of television I've ever watched. So please feel free. And that means something by the way. That counts. I have watched and have made an awful lot of excruciating television. So listen, they made the show, it was cancelled.

They decided to make their own show. That tells you what we need to know. But he has further ambitions in this area. No, but it's not his only entertainment property because last week he announced that he said there was a, he had a, there's a he had a there's a screenplay being a Hollywood screenplay being developed underdogs the rise of Brewdog now as a cinematic project this has all the likelihood of coming to screen as I remember something I remember do you remember when Lester won the title and everyone's like Hollywood is

making a movie about Jamie Vardy is it is that what Hollywood's doing is it has anyone seen this? Has anyone? Have we got even a first-time shooting? Oh, do you know what? Perhaps they filmed it, but it's all on Rebecca Vardy's agent's phone. It's down in the North Sea. Another phone that went into the water. He also gave an interview last week in which he talked about this TV show, which has been quite uncritically received as a thing that is definitely happening. And James Scott said, I've always been so

disillusioned and frankly fed up with the tired format of reality TV business shows relying on worn out tropes and stale stereotypes of entrepreneurs for comedy value, well past their sell-by date. Okay. He says that he doesn't like that sort of television. He doesn't like the way that it's played for, that the apprentice at Dragon's Den are paid for entertainment. You're mate just threw your phone into the river. Yeah, he said that the cost is at times they make the entrepreneur, the founder, seem a bit deluded and a bit crazy, whereas I think it's these founders we need to be champion in nearly. They're creating jobs.

That's what the viewers are saying as well. Please show more respect to the founders. Please show more respect to the founders. We don't want an entertaining show. Here's a business he doesn't understand, even though his entire identity apart from fisherman is businessman. You don't understand the entertainment business. Sorry, I'm going to break it to you. Anyway, he wants to do the show and he says he's doing the show called House of Unicorns.

Now I've looked into this a little bit more. It is as yet not with a UK broadcaster or streaming platform, Rachel. And he says he's going to, contestants are going to fight for 2 million pounds. He's going to give 1 million and then the viewers will give the other million by investing in small increments. Where do I sign up? Well, you laugh, but actually our producer Neil has, is one of the original, I believe equity for punks investors, investors in BrewDog. Really?

Cause that's how they got, they did that at the start. of the original, I believe, Equity for Punks investors in BrewDog. Really? They did that at the start and then when Private Equity came in and sort of bossed out the whole company, all these people, ordinary people who had got involved in Equity for Punks were a bit like, alright, that leaves a little bit of a bad taste. Yeah, it's like this Equity for Punks became Equity for two guys who went to Eaton. Whisper TV are going to make this. I know Whisper. Well, they're going to do various things.

I think they've got a Wheel of fortune with Graham Norton. So it, you know, it could happen. They do lots of sports as well. Yeah, they do lots of sports because they're a proper company. Yeah. What he's got is he's got, um, a promotional thing at the moment. So it's interesting how people say, you know, I've got a TV show, but it's like, you haven't actually got, it's not got green. It's not even got commissioned by anybody yet. I was going to say, if you are whisper TV or any TV company, you've got 30 shows that you're punting out there at any given time of which two will get made. So is it you know, obviously if James what comes to says we'll make this you think, yeah, I'm sure we can

put together a sizzle reel. So it's it's not whisperer not a commissioner. You have to be quite bad though, not if you're going to give away two million pounds for people to say, yeah, you know what, still, you're all right, we won't make this. So he has got a lot of promotional photos. Now, I have seen him in a shacket on a unicorn in a number of places. So I had a look and I thought, oh, there he is on Westminster Bridge. Is this AI? No, here he is on the Millennium Bridge. It's okay. And then suddenly I found another picture of him on a Scottish road. And I thought, I'm sorry, if you hire a unicorn for a day, sorry, hiring a unicorn for a day in any agency that has unicorns? Yeah.

Is that something? Yeah, of course. Hold on a minute. Yes. Are you sure? I will invest. If you hire a unicorn for a day, you can go to a couple of London bridges, foul a few South Bank pavements, but you cannot get all the way up to Scotland. So I thought, hang on, where's this other picture of him in the unicorn come from? Now I have discovered that he, and then there's one of him outside a brewery.

It's not an actual unicorn. It's a white horse with a thing stapled to it. It's not stapled. I don't want to say that. Sorry. It's not been stapled. Of all the legal issues that we've had. I tell you what, this unicorn, he's done more photos than almost than James Wan. I had a look, there's a YouTube trailer. And I think, hang on a second, this YouTube trailer is uploaded in March 2023. And aboard the unicorn once more is James Watt saying, this is my $5 million search

for the next billion dollar company. This thing has like 11 likes and two comments. It's really hard to do. So people obviously did apply to this thing, but he did it all like off air and it hasn't, it's obviously made absolutely no impact on what I'm afraid we're obliged to call the discourse. It's made no impact on it at all. And so he's trying to do the same thing again. But I guess that was an American thing because he's talking about darling things. That was called the next unicorn.

Okay. So he's now onto House of Unicorn. The next unicorn is a better title. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, you're already giving him consultancy work for free here. I think that's how he likes his consultancy work. We should say that he's also engaged to Georgia Toffolo from Made in Chelsea. Yeah. I mean, she's as a sort of source of charm. She's rather passed me by because I didn't watch that I'm a celebrity. She must have been quite charming if she'd won that. Yeah, she was very likable in that. They're a celebrity

couple now. They're celebrity business people. Mogul is the permanent identity. So they're constantly like working really hard and you know, doing their businesses, which seems to just involve like making lots and lots of social media posts. The question I suppose we're asking is, can he force himself, can this stuff force himself to be born? Can he become a sort of national cultural figure? He's certainly from what I can see, quite a significant hate figure. I mean, I know people don't like it when we use purely sort of technical arcane showbiz

terms on this podcast, always, but he does come across as a complete prick to me. I have to say, I'm sorry, I had to deploy one. I wonder if he can turn around his terrible public image. Well, certainly he's got the money too. And in a world where social media channels are increasingly important and you can self-fund content, it's a way of becoming a star. He certainly has some sort of PR working for him as you're saying so he can get a lot of... listen we're talking about him but I think we understand the people who listen to this understand the context in which we're talking about him and it's almost like a young foal has been born and we're all wondering

if it's going to ever win the Grand National and we should all watch together. I think he's going to very much going to become a feature of this podcast, James Watt, as we watch his attempts to become famous. But the fascinating thing, yeah, that idea when you say I've got this TV show is being made, you haven't and it isn't. I bet you ITV have turned it down. I need to check on that. I mean, if he's funding this 2 million, then, you know, anyone's going to take a meeting. Last year he was funding five million and no one wanted to have it, so five million dollars. I mean, you know, he does say actually, it's no longer just about innovation, technology

or even scale. It's about fame. It's about building a brand that captivates the hearts and minds of an audience. And there is something about that in our age. You see it in someone like Trump, you see it in all sorts of people. If people are talking in any way about you, you can monetize that. You can monetize it. And yes. It's also genuinely just a fascinating example of when someone has made an awful lot of money, they want to become famous. There's a real nexus between very, very rich people and very,

very famous people who sort of, because they both have something that the other wants. And James Watts got all the money he could ever need, but what he wants is to be recognized and loved and appreciated. And you can tell from the thing I was watching, he wants people to find him funny. And virtually the whole history of the Western world in the 21st century is a series of people who are not very funny, who are desperately trying to find a way to be funny and they all they want to some of these people if people are just laughed at

some of their jokes like years and years ago have you seen the Elon Musk video him and his friends just discussing like you know his Saturday night live appearance oh you know it's what for him yeah now he's some he's someone who's done quite well isn't't he, Richard? He's done alright. He can make a house of unicorns. Yeah. He could, probably with a real unicorn.

I think James Watt would be better off spending the million on an unbelievably hot publicist who can actually explain to him quite how they're going to have to take apart and rebuild him as a public figure. That would be a better use probably of the million for someone who clearly so clearly wants to become famous. Two million? Two million. Well, I think the viewers are expected to provide the other million in little itty bits.

As I understand it, as I say, it doesn't as exist as a television program, contrary to stories you have read and it hasn't yet to be commissioned, but it may well be, who knows? Well, the BrewDog TV show, which should have been called Top Beer, is generally him and his friend have paid an awful lot of money to make their own television program. And so, you know, maybe at some point he'll just go, I'll just pay for the whole thing myself. And James, if you pay for the whole thing yourself, ITV will stick that on at 11 at night. They'd be very, very happy to. He's clearly good at getting publicity. He's clearly good at branding. Whatever else he might be in the world, he's good at those things.

I'm dying for it. One of the columns I used to write, we used to unveil our spring collection of characters, of people who were just going to be featured in the column. I would like to say that as part of the first Ress's Entertainment Spring Collection, the first line we've unveiled for your delight and delectation is James Watt.

James Watt. We'll be keeping up with him. Shall we go to a break and I hope beyond hope there are no adverts for Brewdog? Certainly won't be after this one. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Now it might be a new year Richard but online fraudsters continue with their same old tricks. I feel you're about to help me avoid some online disasters. I'm always here to help. I live to serve. And with that in mind, I want to tell you about NordVPN's threat protection.

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link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money money back guarantee and it only costs the price of a cup of coffee a month. The link is inipper is back. If you're not killing these people, then who is? That's what I wanna know. Starring Kaylee Cuoco and Chris Messina. The only investigating I'm doing these days is who shit their pants.

Killer messaged you yesterday? This is so dangerous, I gotta get out of this. Based on a true story. New season premieres tonight at nine Eastern and Pacific. Only on W, stream on StacTV. Welcome back everybody. So from the birth of a new star to the ongoing battle between two stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

We've talked about it before, but there are new developments. There are. By way of a recap, Justin Baldoni was the director and male lead in It Ends With Us, the adaptation of the Colleen Hoover book, which did very, very well last summer. And Blake Lively was the female lead. But in December, Blake Lively, I wouldn't say she launched a lawsuit. It was more of a legal filing. She submitted it to the California Civil Rights Department.

So this can proceed a lawsuit, but it doesn't have to, in which she said that Justin Baldoni had sort of harassed her and made her life impossible on the set of It Ends With Us. At the same time, a New York Times, very well sourced New York Times story, clearly sourced by her, dropped called We Can Bury Anyone. And essentially concerned, the smear campaign run allegedly by publicists for Justin Baldeni against Blayte Lively. And there was a big backlash against Blayte Lively during the promotional tour for It Ends With Us, which is a movie about domestic abuse. And there was all sorts of what appeared to be organic kind of backlash from bubbling up from the bottom of the internet but according to the New York

Times story was far more coordinated from the top as I think to sort of get back at her clearly the film had been they'd managed to finish it and complete it because they probably both thought it would be a hit but it was a very difficult working environment. So that's where we were where are we now? Well she then did escalate it to a proper lawsuit by the way and was Justin Baldoni the weekend that story came out in the New York Times, Blayte Lively and her bigger star husband Ryan Reynolds are clients of WME, one of the very, very big agencies in Hollywood and Justin Baldoni was also a client and WME dropped him that weekend.

would and Justin Baldoni was also a client and WME dropped him that weekend. He then is left in a position where he arguably has nothing to lose. He is suing the New York Times for journalistic malpractice for $250 million, which good luck with that. That's not going to work. I'll sue them for $250 million because they always leave the word lolly out of the New York Times spelling bee. Come on guys. Come on. He's also launched a counter suit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds specifically for 400 million dollars and saying that they've conspired to ruin his reputation and clearly

his reputation has taken a massive hit. His lawyer is a guy called Brian Freedom who even amongst a town full of monstrous entertainment lawyers, is one of the last great monsters. Brian Freedom? Friedman. Oh, that sort of freedom would be a better name. Yeah, it would be. Journalistic malpractice, would that be a specific thing?

Well, where do you start? Journalistic malpractice is a, yes, I think his argument is that they spoke only to certain people that the nature of one of the reporters who reported on it, Megan Toohey is one of the people who did the Weinstein story. And so there's a whole sort of sense that any story written by her is freighted with kind of baggage of me too. It's very difficult to prove libel and defamation anyway in US law, completely different to the in the UK where it's very easy. I think he's going to really struggle with that. But he's essentially saying that Blately is in cahoots with a journalist and they

is a client journalist has written something to order. Blately and Ryan Reynolds are already trying to get a gagging order against Brian Friedman, because as you know, people can say anything they like on the airwaves they can say in America they don't have the same rules as we do so but they will be obliged to turn over all their private messages all their emails related it ditto all of WME's correspondence I mean that's just never good it is never good when that happens and so it's not so I'm suppose the question is at the moment, the first question is what more have we learnt since we last covered it? We already know that

there was a complete breakdown of a professional relationship on this film. You know, Justin Baldoni says that the premiere he was basically put down in a basement with some little chairs, sort of plastic chairs with his family and she was up having the big party. Okay, as we said at the start, bye bye Justin because they're so much more powerful that Ryan Reynolds is the particularly is a big, big deal and he, you know, you'd think he would win out, but as always with these things, which involve disclosure of private correspondence, it can get very messy. I believe it's got bigger than Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds wanted because they put, I think it's significant where they put the original legal

filing in, like it's, you know, it can proceed law suit. I thought that was a sort of line in the sand to say, look what's happened to me. Another person involved in it now is the publicist Leslie Sloan, who's Blake and Ryan Reynolds' publicist, in a town of monstrous publicists. She's one of the great monsters. So all sorts of people are now involved. It's like Kong versus Godzilla. Yeah, it really is. There are a lot more people in this fight than there were before. It's not just Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and their lawyers and publicists and various journalists, but there are lawyers now for the journalists.

There are lawyers for the publicists who are talking on the record. Royal rumble. Publicist for the reporters. Taylor Swift supposedly pressured Justin Baldoni to include Blayette Lively's scenery rights. Blayette Lively said, Taylor Swift is my dragon. Her scenery rights? It's scene rewrites. Yeah. So she rewrote scenes and then said to Justin Baldoni, these must be included, or rather Taylor Swift said it on her behalf, supposedly. We basically have a sort of category five entertainment shit store. Wow has James Watt said anything? He hasn't yeah but if

he's any way he can shack it elbow his way in here then he will do yeah I can assure you. I can tell you one thing there won't be a trial I mean this is America we're never going to get to a trial. Yeah if Prince Harry's not going to trial. Oh no I mean this is not going to trial. Beldoni and Lively are not. But one interesting thing is there's a footage of a scene which she said, oh, he tried to kiss me, this wasn't in the script. And he said she was totally going along with it and was enjoying it. And it's really weird. So they've and she said, well, no one was recording anything,

so you wouldn't know, but his side have leaked the scene. And it's become such, if you look on the internet, where I'm afraid this case is basically being fought, it's become such a sort of Rorschach blot. People have seen what they want to see. And she does seem to be laughing along, a lot of women will know that way when you kind of laugh along in an awful situation because you don't want to sort of rot away. Someone's come out and told the Hollywood reported someone called Mia Schachter has said, well, he is trying to kiss her and they clearly haven't discussed that ahead of time and she keeps pulling away and clearly doesn't want to do that and said that if there had been an intimacy coordinator present then they would have stopped it and she said that this is

pretty damning both as an actor and a director. Among the largely female, I have to say, community of people whoayte Lively almost professionally on the internet, they say, oh, this just shows that it's all complete rubbish and that Blayte Lively was into this whole thing and this is all made up and she's an attention seeker. So again, every single thing, you see what you want to see. I mean, certainly it would be a very, very unusual situation these days in Hollywood or in British television to have a scene where there was kissing and there was not an intimacy coordinator on hand. Yeah, and there isn't here and there's different reasons given as to why she did and she didn't

want to do it. I mean, one thing I do think is very interesting in the whole, why did she do it at all? Why did she even make that first filing? I think I know the smear campaign, obviously she felt that the smear campaign was existing. People already don't love her necessarily, but clearly enough people love her and would love to turn out to see a Blake Lively film and all sorts of things like that. But what she's thinking is there is a backlash and this will hurt me. This will hurt me in terms of casting. And what she also did,

which people kind of gave her a bit of hell for, she launched a new hairline, a beauty business during that publicity tour, which is something your agent and your manager and all the many people who deal with Blake Lively, Inc. would have organized so that you're out there, your hair's looking great at all these premieres and you launch the thing.

Now she launched it via Target, so this is a mass market product and it started with extremely strong sales but then her sales dropped 87% between August 11th and September 15th which sort of tracks totally with this smear campaign. Now online people started saying they were returning their products. That is a huge decline and it's stuck and it's now bumping along a complete fraction of original sales. Really? Blake Brown Beauty, okay. Now that I think was the killer because retail gives you almost real-time data, ratings.

Indication of your popularity in a way that not even box office does is absolutely minute by minute how popular am I? Do people like me? Because the brand is the brand is the brand. I mean, whatever the product does, but it's the name on the box. That is the thing. And it's yeah, absolutely. You're getting your unit sales each week like you do with your books. Well, you'll get them every day. You will get them every day. You're not waiting to see whether when a Versace campaign comes along and say, Oh, Anne Hathaway got that and I didn't. I wonder what, you know, the little things that if you're not waiting to see whether whenever Sarchi campaign comes along and say, oh, Anne Hathaway got that and I didn't. I wonder what, you know, the little things that if you're a big, big successful actress like that, you're thinking, why didn't I get that?

Why didn't I? This is a real time thing that you can track and it is a line going down very, very steeply. How many units did you shift in target this week? Now, these people are corporations, as we said, and I think that the figures there said, this isn't just some internet hot air, because, you know, and lots of situations, your agent would say, Blake, this is a massive box office smash, everyone's coming out to see a film, people really like it. It's a real hit on a small budget. You've done brilliantly. But if you can see some figures that say this is completely, that's why I think

she did it because these people are corporations. Yeah. And that's where the real money comes from is brands and products and things like that. You know, it's, that's just the way you make your, your money. Now I tell you who else is a corporation is Ryan Reynolds because he could say something in public. He could come out and say, my wife and I are really similar. We've both got all these other projects we do. We both, whatever, but I can do no wrong. And she is constantly dragged. Now you tell me

why that is. I think it's sexist. Why doesn't Ryan Reynolds do that on one of his many talk show appearances? And I'll tell you why, because Ryan Reynolds is a corporation and he doesn't want to offend a lot of the guys or a lot of the women who turn out for his stuff. And maybe he will, maybe there will be a time where he says that. But to me, it's really like they are a power couple who do lots of similar things. They have all these sidelines, which in some ways make more money than the actual original core business, as it were, the acting. And she is constantly, constantly, and it's women, by the way, who don't like her. And I suppose what she's saying is this is synthetic and people would have loved me when I was on gossip girl. Why do they hate me now? It's because

of things like this. It's because of a campaign like this. There's a concerted campaign. Yeah. It's a huge dog fight. Everybody is losing. Unless Justin Baldoni somehow does get the 650 million, which I doubt that very much. The only place he's getting 650 million from is from BrewDog. But it's a mess. And I have a view on how it started and why it started and who I support. I suspect it's the same person that you support. But from the second that it went public, and as you say, America's legal system is so different to ours, it's so dirty. You know, it's so everything that's being dragged up, nobody wants to be in this position. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds don't want to be in, as you rightly said, Justin Burden, Donnie doesn't really want to be, but he has no other choice now because

he's dug his own grave. He's got to try and climb out of it. So it's That apparatus of the lawyers and the publicist is very, very unpleasant. And you can be sure that publicists for all sorts of different people have done bad things in their time and that there may be many, many different angles to all of this. Um, I also agree. I believe that she said something that happened to her. And I think it's ridiculous when you look at the difference between Ryan Reynolds

and her and how they're treated in the public imagination when they're two peas in a pod in a lot of ways talking of celebrity betrayal and Backstabbing shall we talk about the traitors now? It's finally done if you have not seen the final episodes Don't listen to this because we're gonna talk about all of it If you have seen it then then then stick around if you haven't seen it by the way And if you've seen the rest of it, it's well worth seeing, I would think, as the Traitors always is. It was a total triumph, a total triumph of the series. And I think that the public service

channels provide those things that we still, you might say everyone's watching Baby Reindeer or Squid Game, but the idea that everyone's watching these appointment to view shows is very much a thing that you don't get on any of the streamers. And this was, you know, the BBC and Studio Lambert who make it. It's an extraordinary thing that, and it's cross-generational. I mean, 10 million viewers on, you know, All In, which is extraordinary. And also, by the way, if that was on a streamer would be mind blowing to everybody and the

shareholders would be thrilled beyond words. And it's, you know, they now get to do two series of this a year because we got the celebrity one. And the interesting thing I thought was it has not yet outstayed his welcome. And you know, you know, my view on the format of this, which is a lot of it is smoke and mirrors, but you get through that smoke and mirrors because the ending is always so brilliant. It's always so compelling.

It's one of the few shows you could ever think of where there is jeopardy for the contestants right to the very, very last second. It's like watching the world dance. You know, until that final double has been nailed, anyone can win. And you get it here, the story is always different, but you always have that ending where you are sitting forward

like a penalty shooter in a World Cup, and you cannot believe the emotions that these people are going through. and to create that from an entertainment format is such a joy and a show that talks about tells you about humanity tells you about human nature tells you about people's perceptions of themselves and and and others and just it's hard to think of another television show which delivers all of those things in the way that the Traters does.

I find it so classy. I would like your thoughts on the Seer power. I have strong views. So do I. I have strong views. Yes. As I say, I love this show more than anything. It's brilliant.

I do have strong views on that. My view on that, and we don't have to explain what it is because if you've seen it, you know what it is and if you've not seen it then it's, you know, why are you listening? No, I get it and if you haven't seen it, it'll be complicated. I thought that you have to keep doing things with this format is the truth because of the things we've spoken about, about how, you know, it's sort of meaningless, you vote out until the end. So you have to throw in little hand grenades. Now the seer is something they originally did, I think on the Norwegian series. So it had a track record, they'd used it before. And I think when it came out, people were going, but this doesn't make any sense

to us. If someone knows who a traitor is, then they'll just say, and of course, the idea is, it doesn't matter if you just say because actually, it's your word against theirs. I think that it didn't work at all in the context of the series we've just seen. I thought I totally agree with you. I think it could have worked if Frankie hadn't called Charlotte in if they've been too faithful or something like that. But you know what were the chances? It's like well they were 25% so I would not like those odds if I was a producer. It's just yeah if I was a producer I would assume she's going to take Alexander in because Alexander had literally given her all of that money

In order to say just call me in and Frankie never quite had the game players Brain, she just was kind. She looked at what was in front of her at any given time She's causing Charlotte from the moment. She's in two people are doomed and that's Frankie and Charlotte The second you've got a faithful and a traitor in that situation, then there is no tactic, nothing for the rest of the people to do other than vote out both of them. Everything leads to nuclear war. This is basically a Cold War exercise and there's one outcome. Given you have to trust everyone, given also you're going to be sharing the money with however many faithful left. If one person is saying they're faithful, one person saying

that the traitor, then there is only one thing to do that anyone in the entirety of the world would do, which is you have to vote out both of them, especially now we don't find out that, you know, when Charlotte leaves, we don't find out she's a traitor. So if you're any sort of faithful, so the second that Frankie won that task and the second she called in Charlotte, they were both doomed. And that's a shame. I agree. From a different angle I would say that it turned the show a little bit nasty at the end. I could live without people swearing as a mother, I'm a mother, I'm a mother, I can live without that and but the major thing I can live without is people crying and being unpleasant to each other,

which by the way I can see on basically every crying and being unpleasant to each other, which by the way, I can see on basically every other reality show. Okay, what I love about Traters is it is so classy and that the round table, which you have in every episode is even when people are going for each other, they do it in a very formalized, I mean, it's very civilized, isn't it? We are sort of in a drawing room. Especially in this series, funnily enough, people were actually quite respectful with each other. Yeah, but I think in general they are, and we are sort of in a drawing room at the end

of an Agatha Christie every night. It's sort of formalized and you don't have screaming arguments. There were a couple of people in the show, including one of the winners, who I, Leanne, I mean Leanne benefited by the way from what I've called before the moron premium, okay? If you get everything wrong, and you get everything so obviously wrong, and you're very over emotional, you may well there was someone I think in the first age was a name Hannah, similar sort of Yeah, you know, people who constantly tell you what's type of person they are. I'm a very this type of person, by the way, anyone who does that in life is probably something slightly different to what they think they are.

Let people show you who they are, rather than tell you who they are. That's it. That's usually easier. Leanne, I think exactly that. There's this trope that's come in, which is I'm trying to think who's keeping me in. So I think that the the traitor must be one of my friends because someone's keeping me in. You think, no, you've been kept in because you're wrong about everything. Leanne, I, you know what, another lovely way they do the storytelling is by the end I was very fond of Leanne and the things she'd done, but she was the only person in the roundtable She would say she would say um Marina I think you're a traitor and you'd say well, I think you're a traitor Leanne and she go what how do you know? What how dare you get personal?

Like that with someone called Livy now both of those I have to say felt like that was someone called Livy. Now, both of those, I have to say, felt like contestants I can see on other reality formats. And the thing about the Traces is, it's like, this is the only time you're going to get like a sort of a priest or a really nerdy game player or someone who says, my father led a double life and I feel like I can spot people who lie now because we didn't spot that. And, you know, these extraordinary stories, people who like strategy games, that's how they recruit quite a lot of them a Peace negotiator or whatever these are you don't see these people are someone like Leanne Livy I feel I see those on other types of shows and I don't necessarily want to see them again

So my not to use a seer power, but my seer power is we won't see the seer power next year Because they always need to kind of as you say, can we talk about the biggest mistakes of the game? Okay. I feel that Mina recruiting Charlotte instead of Jake was probably the biggest mistake of the game. For Mina? For Mina, yeah. For Mina, yeah.

It's again, it's another one of the lovely flaws of this format where you need to recruit people that you can get rid of. You need to recruit people who are not quite as smart as you because, you know. It's so draining being a traitor. It is so draining to play that way from the start. I think it's just the level of effort expended is enormous. It must be 10 times as much. I don't know how they do it. Yeah, I would still love to do it. I have to say, yes, so Mina getting Charlotte. Yes, I think that was, I think that was I think that

was probably an error on her part. Two very, very bad traitors from the beginning Armani and Linda neither of whom had any capability, you know, both Armani just that brilliant thing she kept saying, No, you got to do more. You got to be more visible. Armani listen, there's like 20 people there like no what just have a few weeks where you just sail under the radar. Honestly, it'd be fine. You don't need to be stirring up. Yes, Mina choosing Charlotte was a mistake. Charlotte being too clever with the things she did with Freddie, where he had a whole day to realize that she'd knifed him, but whilst he was still present. Yes, that was the second she did it, which in one way, it looked enormously clever,

which is Freddie had not heard that conversation she had. So there's no way that she would have chosen the answer. It seemed clever. But yes, she underestimated the fact that immediately Freddie would know exactly what she'd done. And there were 10 hours in the day. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of sitting around on sofas with people.

I do think though that Charlotte would have won if it hadn't been for the CEO, which is another shame because I think if you play that well, and I think she played brilliantly, I think you should be rewarded one way or another. Listen, it's great and it's why we love the traitors because it's always different and you do never know. But there's just that bit where you think, oh, but she should have, in the same way that, you know, Ireland should have qualified for the World Cup, but Gerry only handballed it. There's a bit of you just go, ah, but history should have been rewritten. But you know, Traitors is sport. It's not a game show. You know, it's a sport.

The missions were incredible. And sometimes it's a blood sport. Yeah. Oh, they had, we've talked about that so often that they need to find a way to ally the missions much more to become either divisive or to in some way become dynamic in a way that influences the A-plot game. I found them hilariously camp. I mean, Claudia, the whole thing is just, they were brilliant. All of the crazy clowns and the, and the ritual, pouring oil over them. All of them were very, very funny. I think the shield to me from season two onwards has absolutely solved that issue with the games. And the brilliant first game, I just watched the first episode of The American One, and they do the same game where they have to be in the ring of fire to be safe. And you leave two

people on the raft with the fuel and with the money. And that is a great game because it immediately, incredibly annoys the people who sacrifice themselves. It's that awful combination of that. That was probably the best one of all of them. I have sacrificed myself, but also you now think I'm a traitor because I sacrifice myself. It feels so unfair. We'll talk a bit about the American one in a while, but yeah, I think the ending I watched, I'm cloaked and nobody seemed particularly happy. I think the ending, I watched Uncloaked and nobody seemed particularly happy. I think Leanne and Jake were both felt bad that they'd voted out Alexander and Frankie.

So they sort of felt like they deserved the money. You can always share the money. Well, I mean, that's exactly what I was shouting at the screen. But equally, of course you vote both of them out. I mean, you have to vote out Frankie because she said that Charlotte was a traitor. Charlotte said she was so there's no, there's nothing to be gained by leaving her in. You have to vote out Alexander, god bless Alexander, who sort of, he just had that doomed look on his face all the way through. He's like, look, I get it. I'm enjoying myself. I'm sort of going to be voted out

in the bottom three, aren't I? Like when we get down to it because they can't, they don't really trust me. No, they don't trust him because he's clever. Yeah, and also, you know, he was brought in. I was again, the thing of them looking at the producer's hand in this show. If I was on that show and when Armani and Mina, the sisters, were in there, they'd chosen one of those as the traitor. When you've got two new people coming in, you're not choosing one of those as the traitor because you've already done that trick. You've done the trick of the two people who come as a group. You're not doing that trick again. So both

of those people are faithful. So unless you'd been recruited, it wouldn't have occurred to me for a second that Alexandra had been a traitor. But you know, you've got to vote him out because you want to share that, you know, it's £94,000 and you'd rather have £47,000 than £31,000. I'm so desperate for you to do celebrity 47,000 pound than 31,000 pounds. I'm so desperate for you to do Celebrity Traitors. I can't even tell you. I'm so desperate. I'm really not. I'm not even lying. I know some of the names who are and it's going to be brilliant. It's going to... the casting is brilliant. Can I talk a tiny bit about casting on these shows and how... because we've spoken before on Strictly Apprentice, all of these shows, how the casting directors

are sometimes the kind of great talents of British television, the goggle box, things like that, it's all down to the casting. And this is one show where I feel so desperately sorry for the casting directors because they are doing, because you want great characters, but also who have a journey to go on and have hidden you know, have hidden depths, but also are going to be fun for people to watch and also going to make people talk. And you're throwing them into an environment where you know you lose your biggest characters very, very early on, or your cleverest characters, or just people that you know are going to go on a journey. And you tend to keep some of your more mediocre characters, by

the way, not mediocre human beings, just in terms of a TV presence and what you want from a story. You tend to keep those in later. So if I was a casting director, it must be impossible to do. We spoke before, I think, about the lovely Jack, I think, is it Jack? Yeah. Oh, he looked lovely. He looked like he'd have been great fun. My hope, if I was a Traitors producer, and I'm not, is in the line up for next year's Traitors, we see Jack. Yes, please. Don't you think? Yeah.

And if that's not something they've thought of, and I'm absolutely certain they have thought of it, but if you haven't, I think we would all love to see that because he seemed like he was going to be fun and he didn't have the opportunity because he sacrificed himself. So let's have Jack in the lineup for next year's show and then you've done one of your bookings already. He's already been checked. He's gone through all of that, you know. Yes, you're right. He was absolutely super. I think he'd have been really good. So yeah, an amazing series, but amazing because even with the ending that you felt, I don't know about this, it's still the traitors and there's still that thing of nobody knows. And you can see Leanne right

up to the last second. God bless Jake. He absolutely played. I loved Jake, by the way. He plays such a blinder in that final two ways. He wouldn't look at her. He could, because he knew she was about to be incredibly happy. And he just, he said on uncloked, funnily enough, he said a bit of me wanted to just keep that going even longer. He was great, but people behave now in the way that reality formats have taught them to behave. They insert the pauses themselves into their own speech before they used to edit those in. And now their behavior is dictated by the format. Yes, exactly that. But I think the seer didn't work. The thing of not revealing that if you're

a traitor or faithful in the last five, I thought did work. I thought that's really smart. But I think what's instructive is that it's just, it's the traitors. And in the same way that sometimes Wimbledon doesn't quite work or the wrong person gets knocked out. With that you go, oh yeah, the seer didn't work, did it? Come on, come on guys, can't wait for the next series. Don't have that. But involved in that sentence is I can't wait for the next series because you want to see that you want to see human beings. I just, I love, I just love seeing it. The American one has dropped for anybody who, uh, That's on iPlayer now.

Yeah. But anyone who's got withdrawal symptoms have a watch of that. It is an entirely different vibe. It is an entirely different vibe because everyone on it has been on Survivor or Real Housewives and they form these little cliques as well which I love. They're all game players. They all come at it right from the start. Yeah, they have, as you say, sectarian blocks. Yes, they really, really do. Where they like housewives together. Yeah. And right, right from the start, this one hits the ground running. If you do not enjoy the first episode, this series will not be for you.

And there's a brashness and an American-ness to it, which I get. Alan Cumming, I think is unbelievable. He is so brilliant in that role. Yeah, I think he's great. And particularly in this episode, he is, I absolutely love him. But yes, the first episode, it is quite something. They play

pretty much all the same tasks as we've had in the UK one as well, which is quite interesting because it feels like we've done the task and now we watch other people do it. But all hail the BBC, all hail Studio Lambert. It's a public service broadcasting triumph that would simply just wouldn't be possible in the same way on any of the streamers and it crosses all generations and it's proper water cooler. I don't know if people have water coolers anymore, but it's that. No one goes to work anymore. Yeah.

I don't want to get all James Watt here. So why is no one going into the office? I was talking to one of the execs on traitors and I said to him, you know, the bits where they all have to carry those Easter Island statues and you've got the heads and you've got the bodies and the bodies look exactly like penises. Yeah. Like, you know, I said, was that an in-joke? He goes, we literally only noticed on the day. He said they'd all been made, it'll been built and we're thinking of a million other things. You've been thinking about the day. He said they'd all been made, they'd all been built, they'd be thinking of a million other things, he'd be thinking about the contestants. And then the second that two of them just raised one of these huge stone things above their heads.

Everyone in the gallery goes, oh my god, they look exactly like Cox. Oh my god, I said we had absolutely no idea. So I thought, oh, that's, you never know with telly. I love that. Yeah. So American Traders will count as our recommendation for this week. All right then. Other than that, please send your questions to us to therestisentertainment at gmail.com and we will see you on Thursday. We'll see you on Thursday everyone.