Tomorrow - Episode 86: Andy Martino is Sweatin' to the Mystery

Episode Date: March 15, 2017

Long ago, in a kingdom far away, a magical king named Richard Simmons lived with two Dalmatian statues, an eccentric masseuse, and a (possible) witch. Then all of a sudden, the king went mysteriously missing. The eccentric masseuse says the witch is to blame. Can this possibly be true? To get the bottom of it, Outline staff writer, Emmy winner, and former New York Daily News reporter Andy Martino wrote a 2016 story about the case. Now the podcast Missing Richard Simmons has the public interested in the mystery once again. So, for episode 86, Josh Topolsky sits down with Martino to get some clarification on Richard, his disappearance, and, weirdly enough, fairytale witchcraft. Can the king's magical friends break the evil witches spell? Probably not, because magic isn't real and she's likely just a housekeeper. But Richard, if you're reading this, please let us know you're okay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host, Josh with Topolsky. Today on the podcast, we discuss privacy, massages, and witchcraft. But first, a word from our sponsors. Entrepreneurs take your website from dream to reality with HostGator. HostGator has all the tools you need to build a great looking website fast, which is great because doing things slowly is a horrible idea. Their drag and drop features and mobile friendly templates make it easy to design a site that's perfectly customized

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Find your purpose with USAAA. Visit USAAAjobs.com and join the team. My guest today is a new addition to the outline team. He's a brilliant writer, very smart guy, and also a sports fan, which is a whole new world that I'm experiencing. I'm, of course, talking about Andy Martino. Andy, thank you for being here. Sports fan, Josh, I want to clarify a little one cannot be in that disgusting world as a journalist and a merge of fans, but I am interested in the topic, say fair to say more than you,

which is where your adjustment is probably coming in. So wait, so what you're saying is that you don't really consider yourself a fan of sports? You know, fan is such a complicated question when you cover something or like, it is a down and dirty world, but I would simplify it best this way. I think that sports is on enough people's radar in this country where I'm a fan of looking at it and examining at it, writing about it, criticizing it, but it's a pretty evil thing that does bad things to people. Takes your money and reinforces terrible values.

And if we're talking about football, actually, it dents your brain. So no, I wouldn't say fan. That would be a little positive. Well, I mean, it's interesting. We have the same thing. We should actually, I should clarify why we're even talking about sports. So Andy was at the daily news before he joined the outline. And he's, he goes on TV, you go on, what is your, what is the show called? Yeah. I'm on a show called baseball night in New York, which is on at 6 p.m. in the winter.

And then we go on live after the Met's post game shows at night during the summer. And we talk about baseball. And then I'm on another show called Daily News Live, which is funny because I don't work at the Daily News anymore. But they like me well enough for they keep putting me on. And that's where we talk about football, basketball issues, whatever's going on in sports. So yeah, three, three times a week or so. Right. And not a sports fan. Interesting. But yeah, anyhow, I should just say, I met Andy and we started talking and he's written some really, really smart, beautiful stuff.

In fact, we're gonna talk about this Richard Simmons piece that he wrote way back in the middle of last year that predates all of the Richard Simmons stuff that everybody's talking about now. But one of the things that I was like, I remember after our first conversation, I'm like, I like him, he says, smart, he's talking about now. But one of the things that I was like, I remember after our first conversation, I'm like, I like him, he's so smart, he's got good ideas.

He's got the sports thing, I don't know if we're gonna be able to, if it's gonna be able to align. But, it almost cost me the job, my history is a sports journal, I'm still here to say. No, it was, but it was like, okay, wow, this is my first legitimate sports writer that I'm going to be working with, which is funny because, because you know, I was at Vox,

you know, like I co-founded Vox, which is, has SB Nation, and it's like, lots of sports guys over there, so guys and girls, and anyhow, the point is that Andy is a man, he's a Renaissance man, and he writes, he talks, he goes on television. But he wrote one of the things I want to talk about is that this Richard Simmons story. So everybody right now is talking about this podcast. It's called Missing Richard Simmons.

We wrote a little piece on Andy Dill, actually the first thing he wrote was a little piece on that show and kind of what's going on with Richard Simmons. If you don't know, I'm just gonna say this, because there are people listening to this podcast who probably have no idea who Richard Simmons is, because he kind of has disappeared. He literally has actually disappeared. But Richard Simmons is this like workout guru who has been on television for like 40 years straight,

talking about exercise and being healthy. He's like the original wellness guy. He's the original health guy. And it really wild, totally out of his mind, totally hilarious. When I watched Letterman, when Letterman was on a 1230 doing late night, he was one of those recurring guests that you'd see on all the time.

And it was always just a bizarre, uncomfortable, bizarre, but hilarious conversation. But anyhow, so Andy, when was this? Like last year, early last year? Yeah. Last March's the story ran. Yeah. And so you started looking into the fact that this guy, who I grew up with, I mean, I knew

him just always on television, had essentially disappeared from the public eye. Can you give us a little bit of a background on him, anything that's pertinent, the story, because I really want to get into this, because now everybody's talking about it. But you started exploring it way before there was any kind of public outcry or any notice of it. So give me a little background on that. Well, it started. We had just launched a few months earlier a long-form journalism team at the Daily News.

Our editor-in-chief is a guy named Jim Rich who had this idea that if you did like, attempted like whatever, New York Magazine or GQ type, ambitions ambitions type long form online at a tabloid would people click on it? And we tried a couple different things and he had sent me, I want to say in December, a year ago this past December, he sent me a little little item from TMZ saying, Richard Simmons has been singing in two years, friends are concerned, maybe like two graphs. And it was like, let's look into this. And so I did as much reporting as I could from New York. And I ended up on the phone with a guy named Moro Oliveira, who is prominently featured

also in the podcast, Missing Richard Simmons, who was a former masseuse of Simmons and close friend, who was claiming to meuse of Simmons and close friend who was claiming to me as I was talking to him on the phone that Simmons was in some trouble and some distress as a result of being controlled by his managers, maybe most interestingly by his housekeeper and his brother who wasn't helping him, his brother who lives in New Orleans or Simmons is from.

So at that point, my editors were like, yeah, go to LA, go to his house, figure this out. That sounds interesting. And I ended up driving all around Hollywood with with moral, this guy who was trying to find Simmons himself who had been cut off from him and accused Simmons housekeeper Teresa, this woman Teresa who's been with him for 30 years of using witchcraft to control him. And I think that once we had the word witchcraft in the story, that was attracting a few clicks. And so we reported that out. I spent about a week in LA and did more on the phone when I got home.

And the key there was getting more out to speak on the record with these claims because I don't know that we were going to run them without his name attached. So convincing him to go on the record and then that was the story. We then I wrote it, it's 6,000 word piece. It took some time to edit and it ran, it posted on a Saturday morning and we'd run a couple other stories at that point that it may be done. I want to say 50 to 100,000 page views each. And by that Saturday afternoon, when it had been up for a few hours,

Richard Simmons is trending on Twitter, trending on Facebook. We'd already surpassed like 2 million, 1,5 million page views. I'm getting calls from the today's show from... I'm skyping with access Hollywood and Billy Bush pre-Trump scandal and. So this is before Billy Bush, this is a but Billy Bush, he was just merely annoying,

not actually an evil person. Well, secretly, but we didn't know the extent of the incident. Well, we didn't know. He was evil, always evil. Okay, so the story blew up. And then, and you know, that's actually one of the reasons that I wanted to work with you

is that story in a handful of some of these other stories that you did these longer pieces, which I think are really, really smart. And that story is like so good because it's really, you could say, well, who cares, right? Ah, it's just a fitness guy, you know, but when you read the story,

it's like there's so many layers that are one on the one hand, you're like, wow, I really worried about this guy. Because, and you hear this now, if you listen to Missing Richard Simmons, which, and I want to talk about that in a second, but the thing about Richard Simmons that I kind of wasn't as aware of, I knew that he was this, you know, very famous guy who talked about exercise at the time, but really he's really like such a sweet, kind, giving person, you hear these stories that people tell on this podcast. And it's like, wow, this guy, you know, you write about it too.

And it came from a pretty tough childhood. And he really is like almost like a saint, like just a guy who seems to have spent a lot of his time and life trying to help other people. So you start to feel like this other emotional sort of connection to him. And so anyhow, so you write this story, it blows up, everybody's talking about it. And then like, I don't know what it was, like two months ago or three months ago, I don't know when this happened, a new podcast launch is called Missing Richard Simmons. And who is the host?

His name is Dan Tibersky. Dan Tibersky. Former Daily Show producer who knew Simmons a bit took some classes with him and then actually ended up doing some double dates or socializing with him in the period time before Simmons fell off the radar. Right. And so, and he starts basically, he's kind of picking up in some way where you left off. I mean, you guys cover some really similar ground.

I mean, his story is largely drawn. I mean, there is a, there is seems to be a story. And it's, you know, this witchcraft stuff is a part of it. So tell me, so tell me like a little bit about this guy, Morrow, he was his Richard Simmons masseuse, or right, he was like his masseuse, but he was also his assistant or something. Yeah, they were very close.

Did he live with him? He did not. They traveled together. They Richard one year for Moral's birthday actually paid to replace a well, like a water well. This was in the podcast and also in my story in the orphanage that Moral had grown up in. So they were real tight, had an intense interpersonal relationship and then Moral

was one of the last, the reason he's a good source for me and for Dan Tabersky is that he was really one of the final people who was cut out of Simmons life. So he has a more recent view of the interior of that home and the weirdness of that world than really almost anyone else beyond the housekeeper, the brother, the people who aren't talking anybody. Right. And so basically like, if you guys, if you have a Millicence podcast, it's a really good podcast. It's really interesting. But essentially the storyline that you paint and also this podcast as painting

is Richard has this housekeeper named Teresa. And she, they have some kind of relationship that is apparently goes way beyond a normal housekeeper and employer relationship. And Marrow like housekeeper and employer relationship. And Marrow says, like you mentioned it, that she is using witchcraft, like actual witchcraft, to keep Richard from leaving the house and from reaching out to friends and family. So can you take me a little bit through,

like his justification for that and what he saw or what he knows that would suggest that Richard Simmons is being, is somehow, I mean, I don't believe in witches or ghosts. So to me, it's like completely impossible that there could be witchcraft at play. But can you explain to me how, like, what is that all about? Well, I had the same reaction as you probably would have, Josh, when I heard it. Well, it was like, I mean, there are two reactions I had.

Number one, like, I could, when you hear a word like that, like the part of you that wants to write a compelling story that people read is having, ding, ding, ding, there it is. There's the lead, you know? But you're also, your skeptical side of your brain is thinking, what are you talking about? And if I'm gonna print this,

we gotta talk more about this. The first time the word rich craft came up was in this e-book that Moral wrote called King Rich in the Evil Witch, which is written like a kid's fairy tale. I mean, this stuff is just amazing. And it's written like a kid's fairy tale about a guy named King Rich and the evil witch,

who's named the witch Borreza, who was clearly based on Teresa and uses witchcraft to control the king Rich who rules as kingdom and this wonderful guy, who's obviously based on Simmons. So that was the first witch thing. And then when I started asking more about his ebook, he, we talked about the term witch in the title. He told me when more, I started asking you more about his ebook. He, we

talked about the term witch in the title. He told me, no, I really believe that in real life, she is a witch and that she's using witchcraft to control Richard and keep him in his house. And I think I said something like, what? I mean, literal witchcraft. And he said, yeah, you don't understand, you know, she's from Mexico, I'm from Brazil. That's part of our culture, these kinds of rituals and you may not understand this. So I mean, I'm gonna be guilty of some kind of Western snobbery either where I say, so okay, I took it at face value.

And the way to handle that is a writer's pretty straightforward. You attach his name to the claim, you lay it out and you say, this is what he thinks, and this is how I reacted to it, which isn't all in the story. I'm not saying I believe it, but I thought that moral making the allegation was certainly worthy of including in this whole wild story.

Right. And but did he go into the delivery? Like, how would witchcraft be performed? Like, how is, how would witchcraft be performed? Like, as they're, yes. Does he talk about spells? Are there incantations? Are there, you know, I mean, I know there's like some mention of sacrifices, like, explain to me what you know of the witchcraft he describes. Great question. The answer's not much, which is why we only, it only, this is only able to be taken so far. I said, have you ever seen this? He said, no, but I get the vibe. So I made sure to

print that too, obviously, to not exaggerate his claim. He, he suspects it. He thinks to reason of which he was comfortable having that word attached to her. They have a very confrontational dynamic in terms of access to Simmons, so one could certainly take a look at that and wonder about it, but he wasn't able to get into too much detail about what the rituals were in relation to that. So that's kind of where that stopped. And it wasn't a huge piece of the story in terms of length, and what I wrote or what Dan Tabersky has put out there, but it is obviously the thing that grabs people's attention, the grabs people's attention and generates headlines

and gets his Simmons representatives to issue denials and all that stuff because it's obviously a sensational claim. Right. I mean, Richard Simmons obviously has a huge amount of people around him that are, you know, support his career, essentially, right? You've got his manager and his publicist and agents, I assume. And I know you talked to some of these people. They don't, do they not seem troubled to you about this situation?

The circle's pretty small at this point. Teresa would never return phone calls or emails. She hasn't spoken at all. There's two guys that are like manager types. Michael Catalano and Tom Estee are their names. And they've both been with Simmons for decades. And they both issue, continue, and repeated. Everything's fine.

Nothing to see here, type statements. Michael Catalano was good when I was reporting and that he would get on the phone with me and refute or respond to the claims that Olivera, Moral Avera and others are putting out there. It's not that these guys are not accessible, but they say everything's fine. Everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine. And they're the only people who've been around Simmons who will claim that.

The other person who still seems involved in his life is Lenny Simmons, Richard's brother, who I called. He lives in New Orleans. I called a woman who I presume to be Lenny's wife, Kathy picked up the phone. I identified myself as a reporter. She said, we have no comment. And I said, I haven't asked you anything yet

She said no comment clicks slammed on the phone So that we I printed that it's adding to the weirdness. It's like well if there's nothing going on Just like tell me that calmly so that happened and then there's Catalano and S.D. the two manager type guys and there really isn't a whole team other than that. There's a woman who apparently does a social media who hasn't talked to me or to Dan, I don't think, and that's really that's kind of it because Richard is really ghosted a lot of the people that were around him in his gym, the people who came to his house, the people we hung out with socially, there's so many people who consider themselves inner circle who Richard just cut off.

And that's really the issue here at the heart of this. Right. That's so interesting. I mean, it's fascinating that you think that, well, obviously, you think it's one of some, one of them would maybe go off the record or at least to talk about this stuff. And I'm not saying that maybe somebody did and you can't talk about it. But it seems crazy to me that this situation could, but this is, and you touch on this in your article,

this is like Michael Jackson, right? I mean, you have these people around a celebrity who really protect them from, it's, you know, it prints, I mean, I don't know what kind of management and what people print have, but you know, it's like these, these celebrities are protected in a way and and given permission in a way to kind of do stuff that is so harmful or to be to live in a such a harmful position.

And and it's like, you would think at this point, we would stop enabling this behavior. And I'm sort of perplexed. It's like, what is your read on? I mean, to me, this feels like a very destructive path for a guy like Richard Simmons, who's lived a life in public, helping other people. You know, I'm sort of torn, sorry, I'll let you answer that. But I'm sort of torn because when I think about it, I'm like, well, on the one hand, maybe he is just like, I'm done, I'm good.

But then in the flip, it's like when you hear the podcast, when you hear Mr. Richard Simmons, you hear these people who know him well or at least seem to know him well, saying, you know, I've been exercising at Richard's studio for 30 years and we used to see each other every weekend or whatever. And now he's just gone. Like he just literally cut people off. I just stopped cold turkey from human interaction, which doesn't sound that normal to me.

No, Josh, it is literally the only time I've ever been the nosy reporter where no one really told me to go away and everyone told me to please keep digging. And that really tells you something about the concern that people would care about and have for his well-being. And yeah, there's the Michael Jackson illusion that was made.

One thing that I thought of a lot was Brian Wilson, you know, the love and mercy film about the Beach Boys guy, Brian Wilson, where he was being controlled by a psychiatrist, his doctor, psychologically kind of fragile guy who had a tight inner circle around him that was very controlling and had to be ultimately forcibly broken free of this guy. And the allegation that moral aloe vera and if made on the record and a few others made off the record around background was that, hey, follow the money. He's an older guy in his late 60s.

He doesn't seem to be emotionally well. And there are people around him who might stand to gain by running out the clock. and there are a lot of these friends who have been cut off that worry that the next thing that they hear about Simmons is that he died. And that's what they're really afraid of that this doesn't get solved before the word comes through that he passed away. I mean, it's not to say that we know anything about him being and failing. Right. No, I mean, is his health bad?

I mean, is it, I mean, we haven't heard anything about his health. I mean, there's nobody's said anything about his health as far as, No, the only, yeah, there's no, nothing concrete that he's in bad health. It seems there's a lot of agreement that there's concerned about his emotional state.

He's been a really fragile guy his whole life. He was an obese child that ultimately led him to the workout thing because he said he had eating disorders. He got beat up, he took diet pills. He was this terrible history of feeling bad about himself. He did all kinds of crazy stuff. Isn't it sad?

Did you know that he was an extra in felinis, deteriorating? He was obese. I just, so I didn't know this until I listened to the podcast. It's like, yeah, that's crazy to me. Is he big? No, is he big in that? Like, is he not like the skinny little guy that you know, does he look different?

I haven't seen it. I mean, I watch the scene. He's like a young guy. He was a successful commercial actor in Italy in his 20s and he played like the fat guy in commercials and was an extra for Follini because Like a job that he got through this. And then he ended up in LA a couple years later Going through one eating disorder after another and finally finding his calling which was to open the gym Slimens and help people try to be healthy, but he's battled this like deep sense of

Misery like his dad was really mean to him and ignored him in favor of his brother and his mom was a traveling performer Vodville type person who was always on the road So it's like really deep psychological stuff there his whole life that he's been battling and Friends are worried that it's caught up with him. Yeah, and then he's just not doing well So it's not there's been no word of any kind of terminal illness, but people worry about it It's mental state, right? And if you've got somebody who's manipulating you like, you know So it's not, there's been no word of any kind of terminal illness, but people worry about it. It's mental state. Right.

And if you've got somebody who's manipulating you, like, you know, it sounds like potentially is happening. You know, who knows? It seems like a really crazy situation, but it's so interesting to see how all of these celebrities seem to somehow, well, not all of them, but so many celebrities seem to, no matter how well off they are, how, you never seem normal, but he seemed like a guy who is, would not fall into this situation.

Like a guy who helps people and is very aware of like people needing help. And here he is in a situation where like, he needs help. And I mean, it's crazy, but like, basically you're saying like, nobody can go into his house. Is this right?

Like nobody can just go there and check on him. Yeah, right? Yeah, right. You can't go, you used to be, according to Dan Tabersky, a couple of years ago when Dan had dinner there, there wasn't really a gate. You would just, I mean, he lives in like,

it's like a southern style white mansion up in the Hollywood Hills above sunset. And there's like, he's a real big into Dalmatian. So there's like these like Dalmatian statues on this ornate front porch. It's a very gong with the wind type home. Right. Just in LA.

And used to be able to walk up to the front porch and knock on the door or ring the bell. But by the time I was there 13 months ago, there's a gate with no bell, no intercom. And I believe I want to say another gate behind it, but don't absolutely quote me on that, but you can't even get anything close to knocking on the door.

So if you want to go and just shoe whether it, like I did, you know, just try to, I figured when I went out there, like, well, I mean, if I go to his house every day, I'm bound to talk to him at some point, but you can't even get anything close to knocking on the door. So people who have managed to get somehow to bang on the gate or get Teresa's attention or get to the door before they put the gate up. Teresa, like friends of Simmons, Teresa apparently opens the door, says Richard's here,

but he doesn't wanna talk to anybody and shuts the door in people's faces. So that's given the impression that she's like the gatekeeper, which is given people a weird way. Right. So you always should do, we should take a quick break. I have some questions, some follow-up questions on this. I'll take a quick break and we'll be right back

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Simmons, the story, the groundbreaking reporting he did that really cracked the case wide open. And the new podcast, Missing Richard Simmons, this is all fascinating to me because I love mysteries. I'm very interested in mysteries. And even if this guy's not a celebrity, even if it's just a random person, and I heard this story, I'd be like, holy shit,

this is fascinating. What is actually going on? One thing that I've been thinking while you were talking is that behavior that's quite obviously not well, like crying in his workout classes and his eccentric behavior for years, and then this, I feel like everyone excuses it because he's famous, they're like, well, he's done.

But like human people don't just get done and then hide in their house. Like that's mental illness, whether you're Kim Basinger or not. You know what I mean? This is like Andy, you wrote a short piece for us and you talk to Dan and you talk about this today's show, a call in that he does, which basically is like,

Richard Simmons calls the today's show to prove that he's okay. And he's like, I just, yeah, I'm just taking a, I just done with, you know, being public or I'm gonna take a break or I'm gonna take a rest. And all the people in today's show are just, yeah, I'm just taking a, I just done with, you know, being public or I'm going to take a break or I'm going to take a rest. And all the people in today's show are like, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. You just started taking a rest. You're taking a rest.

That was like, I was sitting, you know, that was the two days after my story ran. And that's what smoked him out to make that phone call, of course. And like, I'm sitting there watching the today show and Simmons says, I'm okay. And then they come back in-house and Matt Lauer says something very solemn tones and something like, and I think we should just believe him. And Savannah got these like, indeed. It's like, what? I mean, he pretends to be a journalist, but doesn't actually do anything that a journalist

does. And we actually, I mean, we go hard on Matt Lauer, actually. Don't we Ryan? Yeah, I was gonna say, I felt bad at first making fun of Matt Lauer, because I wrote that piece about the Hollywood medium, making fun of him for just letting the Hollywood mediums insane claims go.

And then I was like, wait a minute. And then I thought about it. Matt Lauer let Donald Trump's insane claims go at a town hall event. Like, he's not the guy to be putting in charge of anything like this. Yeah, no. No, that's true.

Although he did haushylery Clinton quite effectively, it's the same thing. So apparently, if you're not a woman, Matt Lauer's gonna let you get off easy. But yeah, no. So that was a good example, though, Josh, I think, of how celebrities and this weird stuff can be enabled in a way that a Matt Lauer or Savannah got through there may be thinking that they're on the celebrity's side, but they're not doing anything to help Richard Simmons

by brushing this off, because people who care about him are saying we'd like to get to the bottom of this and By accepting the publicist line that's that's just perpetuating what might be a real human problem for this guy Any I think we can all agree that Matt Lauer is a real is a real is a real piece of crap, but So then so yeah, so I mean yeah, Ryan to your point you want Somebody to react a little bit more strongly when they just are like,

I'm gonna live inside my house now forever. I'm done going out. Well, it's like Michael Jackson's face or Britney Spears attacking a car or like, all like this happens over and over again. And we keep saying it's fine because they're rich. It's not mental illness. Well, it's also entertainment.

I mean, this is also part of the entertainment. Like this is what, you know, this is why tabloids exist, right? So, and also, I mean, there is this fine line between what a celebrity wants in as far as attention goes and what they get that they don't want, right? The unwanted attention.

And, I mean, this is, it's funny because you, it's like what is the appropriate public response to something like this? And actually, that leads me to some questions because the New York Times, and I wanna, I have some other, I wanna talk about some of the follow up here, but the New York Times wrote a piece about this, about the podcast, but the piece,

the piece kind of suggests that there's something like, there's something a little suspect in the kind of framing and even the kind of existence of the podcast from like Tabersky side, right? Like that, that it's sort of, there's some moral grayness there. It's weird because that piece essentially says that like TMZ shouldn't exist.

I mean, in its argument that the documentaries about celebrities without their permission should exist, like we shouldn't analyze any of these things. And what's weird to me is it's like, if a public figure does something crazy and their friends wanna talk about it and you wanna make a documentary That all seems above board to me the idea. We should like ignore

Richard Simons, but this is interesting, but this is interesting I think I think this is really interesting I'm gonna read a quote from the article is this what friends do turn their loved ones personal crisis into a fun mystery investigation And recorded for a hit podcast. It is top the iTunes charts for four straight weeks. Despite his claims, Mr. Tabersky is not principally a friend to Mr. Simmons. In the podcast, he presents himself as a regular at Slim and Studio, who became friendly with the instructor, but really he was always a documentarian

circling a sensational subject. Talk of a film documentary dissolve when Mr. Simmons cut off contact with Mr. Tabersky. So there is something because at the beginning of the podcast, there is, he's like, I wanted to do a documentary and Richard Simmons said no, but we became friends. And there is something kind of, I will say, the tone of the podcast, there's like a weird sense of, this is something that has rubbed me weirdly. Well, Richard didn't say no.

He wanted to do a documentary and then Richard disappeared. My understanding of it, and Dan, and I talked about this when I went in for the interview, which was at Pineapple Studios in Brooklyn in January, Dan said that he, very early on in knowing Simmons, had pitched the idea of doing a documentary, and his impression was that Richard was not saying, he was saying no, but he was sort of saying

it in a playful way that at least led to Bersky to believe that, and maybe the door was open to crack. You know, that instinct you get when you want to do a story and you didn't know it first. But to Bersky, but this is something that I was just about to say. It's like, and that's a perfect example where he made an assumption. He's got like, well, he said no, but maybe he was going to, there's this weird sense of entitlement that I pick up from listening to him. Like, I do think that there's a really reasonable case we made. But like, and it is a mystery at this point as to what's going on.

And like, obviously, he very much wants Richard Simmons to come out of this cocoon and say, hey, I'm okay or say something. But there is a weird sense of entitlement and there does seem to be this weird. It's like, you know, this is a business for Dan Tepersky now is chasing Richard Simmons around trying to find out whether he's, you know, being held under some spell. And there is a weird sense of entitlement where it's like, he's being held but under some spell. And there is a weird sense of entitlement where it's like he's not a journalist, right?

I mean, Dan Sibersky's not a journalist. He worked at the Daily Show. He worked at Daily Show, which is another avenue which mixes comedy, entertainment, actual journalism, real interviews. Like those lines I think have been muddy for a while, especially for a while. And it's okay for them to be muddy.

I'm just saying that there is a tone about the podcast, which is, you do wonder, like, there have been times when I'm listening to it, and I think, well, is this the best way? Like, is this the best way? Like to me, it's like, find them first and talk to them, and then run the podcast. Not like, I assume he wants to like smoke him out,

like kind of like what Andy would happen with your story. But you weren't like, oh, if I write this story, Richard Simmons will appear, right? I mean, you were like, somebody should tell this story. Right. No, my goal was not, that is the difference, right? Like I wrote a self-contained piece. It wasn't a series, obviously.

It was a one long form piece, whereas Tabersky's trying to do this in... He's doing it in episodes when he's trying to do his smoke Simmons out to appear, and I guess the final episode. I'm skeptical. I've told Dan this that he's going to be able to get him because of Simmons' deep reluctance to emerge here. So yeah, I hear what you're saying.

I think all these are good questions and it could potentially lead to a very deep conversation about how every piece of art, and journalism and creative work and everything else is sort of self-promotional by nature. So at what point is that become a little bit icky as it's situational? Yeah.

I mean, I'm looking through this, I'm looking through this Amanda Hespiece that you messaged to me here where we were talking. And I think it goes kind of far with, that isn't good enough for Mr. Tabersky, it says. So he rifles through some in social network, interviewing people across his path. I mean, he's at the core of this is,

on the one hand, I think there's a genuinely altruistic and concerned attempt to make sure that this guy's okay because the people who care about him are worried that he's not okay. On the other hand, there's something self-promotional about it because he's doing it publicly. It was there's something self-promotional about it because he's doing it publicly. It was there's something self-promotional

about my long-form story, of course. I wanted to write a good long-form story that people read, and here we are talking about it, and my new job, a year later. So that's self-promotional toward me too, but what he's put, we're not,

this isn't a private business here, and Richard Simmons is not a private person either. So I, we're all being self-promotioned, right? Yeah, but I was gonna say the difference is he used to be friends with him. So it feels like this is some kind of betrayal. But how is that different than Kathy Griffin telling stories about parties she went to that celebrities were at

that they don't want her to tell, that are embarrassing? It's the same thing, right? It's not even saying this is dark. And not fun. I'm not even saying that's dark. I'm not even saying that this article is 100% right. I think it does raise interesting questions about just about the nature of this relationship and of celebrity generally and also like where you cross into like there, you know, this is, and getting back to your point, Andy, that you were talking about, or I think Ryan, maybe you were,

we were all talking about it, this idea that, you know, we let things go because people are celebrities. I think like the important part here is, and it's funny, Andy wrote this piece about this thing, this little thing about Richard Simmons, and I added it with him. And there was one part where I was like, before I'd listen to the podcast and I was like, all right, you know, he referred to him in some way.

I can't remember what it was like. And I was like, well, let's not be true dramatic. He's just a fitness guy. He's not like, it's not like the Pope has gone missing or something. But when you get deep, when you zoom in on this, it's still you're like, this is a guy, it's a really, really kind guy who's obviously suffering something really serious. And at what point do you either let it be because you think that's respectful, which is this article almost argues, the New York Times one, let it be because it's more respectful

to him or try to get help. But this is this weird middle ground where it's like, I'm trying to help him by making a product that it's meant to help him. You know, and it's like, that's a little, I think there is some grainess to that that's a little strange, it's a little unusual. Is this the best way to help him, yeah, yeah.

If his friends are really concerned about him, I understand it's like, okay, I'll make a podcast, but why not get these people? Get 30, 20 people, 30 people, 50 people. There must be so many people that Richard Simmons has been in close contact with and take a bus out to his house and go out there and say, we're not leaving until you come out

and tell us what the hell is going on. Because a week before you disappeared two weeks before we were having dinner and we were exercising and you were helping people and you were on the phone with people. And now, like, there's like suspicious posts on your Facebook page that are from two years ago, and you don't talk to anybody, and your housekeeper won't let anybody see you, and you've got a guy saying she's doing witchcraft, and we just want to know where your friends and people who are close to you. Why isn't there some more personal coordinated effort?

That's what I'm sort of not understanding about this. Yeah, I think that's a fair question. The bus to his house is a good idea. And without speaking, obviously, for Tabursky, I would say that when you get, and I'm sure you can relate to this, Josh, this is a journalist, this is someone who makes things.

When you get that creative impulse, that creative urge, it's like, oh, this is a story, this is a thing. It's tough. Then you try to balance that with your humanity, frankly. I mean, look, I've written about my marriage, I've written about parenting, I've written about friends, I've written about things that didn't come into your life

as like on the record, which you think, ah, dammit, this would make a great story. And then you're dealing with that. And that's, you know, that's the, but if a great friend of yours, I'm just saying, I can, I think I can say this pretty clearly.

If a good friend, I'm trying to think of a situation here, you know, where I knew somebody who was famous and they went missing and I was worried about their well-being. How old would I do? If I knew someone who went missing, just like my friend, Ellen, was walking by the river and she went missing and I think she was kidnapped or killed

or so she just disappeared. Is it weird for me to then like deal with that publicly like to write a story or sort of blog? Like to me, this is more similar to like someone putting up missing person signs, but I guess their signature is on it. Do you know what I mean? Well, I think, yeah, I think there's something there, but I will say like, listen, that you're right, Andy, that journalistic instinct, you're like, this is a story, right? Now, as a journalist, not knowing Richard Simmons, not having any connection to him, not having been in his house for dinner,

I'm like, somebody should write this story, you know? If I hear a story like that, my spidey sense goes off and you're like, that's really interesting. Let's find out what's going on with that. Because there's, you're several steps removed from the subject, right? If I know Richard and I have his phone number

and I've been to his house for dinner, would I think, is it, should I write a story or should I actually get him some help somehow, right? Like, to me, it's just like, it is an interesting place to be. I can't actually imagine a situation where I consider it. I mean, I don't think they were that close. And that's my impression is that he got to know him,

he can't do his house for dinner a couple of times. I don't know if they were like best of friends, right? Yeah, no, they socialize the handful of times. So maybe that helps, maybe that makes it easier. I'm not judging by the way. I do think there's a little bit of a weirdness in that. He's turned Richard's depression or whatever he's experiencing or his abusive relationship or whatever it is. He's turned it into a pretty popular money-making endeavor. I do think that creates some weirdness

because I'm sure I have no doubt he's coming from a really good place. It's just like, you know, my balancing that must be, I don't know, I get why somebody would say that. I think it's a good discussion to have, and I wouldn't guess that he would, that he would, that Tabersky would object to having that discussion about where's the line between art and privacy

and friendship and all those kinds of things. I think it opens up a really good discussion to that. My sympathies, I don't know where my sympathies, my sympathies send a lie on the side of creating something as long as it's done with humanity and empathy, which I think this podcast is, but yeah, it definitely opens up that discussion on tone. And as I said, privacy and all that stuff. But I guess it just falls under the line of take podcast out of it and think about memoir.

Anyone who's ever known a famous person and writes about it or writes about their private life in a memoir, it's... Yeah, well, but if you went to town... You mind what you have, right? If you went to dinner four times in somebody's house, would you in a memoir. It's, it's, well, but if you went to Tune, you mind what you have, right? But you would have to get in there like four times in somebody's house, would you write a memoir about them? But that's my Kathy Griffey argument, is that she'll go to a dinner party

at someone who she kind of knows, and there's a ton of celebrities there, and then she goes on stage and does an hour of TV about it. And I mean, she says now, she says, I'm upfront about this and blah, blah, blah, blah, but she wasn't always. She just told stories when she was on Hollywood Square is how Anonacole Smith was mentally ill.

Like, is that okay because it's funny? I'm sure Anonacole Smith didn't want her to do that. Boy, there's so many, there's so many different ethical considerations here. Journalistically, no, that's not okay. Kathy Griffiths, I think is not a journalist. Yeah, no, right. So, but I mean, like, if I'm in that situation, I mean, Josh, I'm sure you have, just as I

have been in plenty of off the record, dinners, lunches, drinks, parties with people who you would love to go tell the world what they said or did, and people would be interested, and we get a lot of clicks on it, and you didn't, because you weren't there in that context. You were there as a social context or something. So, you know what? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, usually, you're, I mean, I'll be honest with you. Yeah, it's, it's like, it's like, if somebody says, oh, I fucking hate that guy who works at this other company,

it's like, yeah, it's not, probably not a story. It's not worth a story. But, you know, if you, you know, if it was something that was in the, was in the public interest, actually, I'll give you an example, a real world example from something recently. I just having dinner with somebody, they made mention of something that was in my mind, a story, a pretty, a pretty amazing story. them right then and there I said, can I use that or can I follow up on that or would you be willing to say something on on background about that without your name attached to it? And we had a conversation about it.

And I think in you, I'm sure you've done the same thing, but the point is like you have the context there to, I mean, you're in the moment, right? You have an opportunity, right? Yeah. I personally, I'm not the kind of person who would write something I just overhear or just something that somebody said without saying to them. But you do the right thing. Right.

Like you said, that's how my, I wrote something for the outline, as you know, of course, a couple of weeks ago about Republicans feeling that, saying that George W. Bush was super uncomfortable with Trump, and this is a good example that came from i was at a party and i was talking about guy that used to work in the bush white house who said these things and and i'm taught i was talking to him in the moment okay but then like very very shortly after i texted him and said hey that's something i'd like to actually go more formal on background with and flashed out so yeah like you said you got it. That's probably what should be done.

Right, I mean, there's, yeah, you can't, I can't just surprise him and write a blind date. But you can't ask George Bush, it's the thing. Like, I feel like Richard's him, and he's talking to Richard's him and his friends and getting their testimony as a person with a microphone in front of them. And I think, yeah, and I think that he is doing

essentially journalistic work. And I think that that's okay. I'm just saying, and I enjoy the podcast. I think it's really, really entertaining and fascinating. And I feel worried now about Richard Simmons more than I did after I read Andy's story, more than after I heard this podcast was happening. But it does, I'm just saying, it's not like I'm passing judgment. There is, tonally, I will say, just separate from whether or not this is good or bad to do. Tonally, I think Dan has this kind of weird, it's like a little joke here

that I would kind of expect it to be in parts where you sort of like, you know, this isn't funny, really, right? Like there's not a lot to laugh about. Yeah, it's a sad story. Like Kim going out to the tour buses and like performing for them a little bit, that was played for jokes.

And it was like, well, if someone's waiting all day long to see fans outside their house and dressing in weird costumes and blah blah blah. I mean, that could be, I guess, classified as eccentric, but it's also a very sad story. And you're not saying it with any heft to the fact that he was spending days in a chicken zoo waiting to take pictures.

And then they were like, and then someone ran over his foot and he continued to take pictures, that's a mentally ill person. Like if someone had ever brought, go to the hospital. That part was, that part, I thought was weird. It's like he's like, and even though he got, his foot was run over, he continued to take pictures.

It's like, I would stop and go right in a second. That's not okay. I mean, the point was to say, and by the way, everybody should listen to this podcast, because it's really fascinating. But the point was to say, wow, he was so gregarious and so outgoing. He would stop at nothing to take pictures of his fans, but it's like, yeah, he would stop at nothing like his foot was run over by a car and he was bleeding. And he was like, no, let's take some more pictures.

That might be a sign, not of how dedicated he is to the craft of being a celebrity, but how sick he is, you know? Yeah, how like mentally ill. And just because he's rich and famous, doesn't mean that like every choice that he makes is okay. Right. If you saw a homeless person who just got their foot run over

and then they continued to do their thing, you'd be like, wow, because we all assume homeless people are mentally ill and we all assume celebrities are fine. And they're not like both of those people that you just pee on. And that behavior is not okay. I can see you're very passionate,

you feel very passionate about this. I don't know that I would say that we think that all celebrities are mentally stable. I mean, I think we think that they're eccentric. I think we think all their choices have some validity to them. Yeah, maybe. I just think most celebrities are dumb. I feel like, you know, the thing about celebrity that's interesting, and I think we think all their choices have some validity to them. Yeah, maybe. I just think most celebrities are dumb.

I feel like, you know, the thing about celebrity that's interesting, and I don't think Richard Simmons is, but, you know, you see people, and they're like, when they become famous, you think, well, they must have done, they must be really special to have gotten here. And like, being a good actor doesn't mean you're smart, you know, it doesn't mean that you make the right decisions.

It just means you're good at acting. And so, I mean, I, I mean, we make a lot of assumptions just based on their status that may not be applicable. Anyhow, I wanna get back to the story, I mean, get back to the actual story quickly. Because I have a couple of questions. So, this guy, Morrow, who is one of your main sources, tomorrow, who is one of your main sources. He wrote a book called, you mentioned it before, it's called King Rich and the Evil House. How many pages is the book?

Oh, it's not long. It's, gee, I would have to go back and look again, but I mean, maybe 30 to 50 pages. And he wrote this book prior to you ever talking to him, prior to anybody talking about Richard Simmons publicly, correct? And the book is like a children's tale where all of the characters in Richard Simmons' universe are have like slightly different name. Yeah, like Catalano, the manager is Morano. So he didn't like him.

That's it. He writes. Lenny, Richard's brother Lenny is Prince Benny The manager is Morano. So he didn't like him. It's a theater. Lenny, Richard's brother, Lenny is Prince Benny and so on and so forth. And does that strike you as completely insane? It struck me as a detail that made the story more interesting. But I mean, just like while we're sitting here, like he's an adult.

How old is he? How old is Moro? Moro's got to be in his 40s. He's 40s something adult who's written a 50 page or 30 page or whatever. Children's book about Richard Simmons. I mean, that seems really strange to me. I mean, like, it's not, I guess it's not surprising

that Richard Simmons would have surrounded himself with characters that are with eccentric. With eccentric, right? But like, is, is, you know, he's the only, seems to be the only person saying that there's anything nefarious going on with this housekeeper. Like, is he trustworthy? I mean, we don't really know, do we? That was my main job in, and deciding how to, right, how to frame

the story, obviously, was determining how trustworthy he was. And he, so I had a lot of off the record. He was one of the only people that wanted to put his name to it. And that took some coaxing. I had a lot of off the record conversations with a lot of Simmons other friends, or some of them were quoted anonymously in the story. Some of them just wanted to be totally off the record.

No one else made the specific allegation about witchcraft, which is why I was so careful to attribute that tomorrow. But a lot of people felt that Teresa was controlling and that they were uncomfortable the way that she'd turned them away. It was sort of the security guard for Simmons life. So there was a lot of that being echoed. And there were people also I talked to that had read

Moro's book, eBook, and said, yeah, I don't know if I agree with the witchcraft thing or have seen that, but I believe that the general spirit of Moral's take was okay. So that made me feel better about using him as a source. And also, factual details that Moral gave me, like the donation to the Brazilian Orphanage, the Well, that checked out, I went through all the process that you go through where I called the Orphanage and all that stuff. And like, anytime he told me something, it checked out.

Moral showed me photos of some things that he told me about. He didn't give me permission to use the photos. But he showed me photos of a trip to Italy that I wrote about that confirmed what he described Richard is wearing, things like that. So I put him through the ringer in terms of reliability and he could back up stuff. And so, and so, and their relationship is not, it's not, it was a romantic relationship. I mean, it seems like it maybe was, but there's no clear evidence of that, right?

No, there isn't. He told me, Moral told me that it wasn't. Oh, he said, he said it wasn't. He said it wasn't. Yeah. Now, Dan Tabersky was more vague about it. And Dan socialized with all these guys and said, I'm just not going to talk about Richard's sexuality. Was that Dan left it. Well, he also talks about, they were talking about that Simmons has talked about it publicly

and has been very vague about his relationships and his sexuality. And, you know, which is like, I don't care one way or the other, I'm just trying to understand the relationship between, because this guy, this guy's like a masseuse. Well, they're very close emotionally. Yeah, but he's like a masseuse and an artist.

And even in the story that he tells about when he was told to leave the house for good or never to come back, he's like, come on Richard, like let me give you a massage and it's like, okay. Yeah, here's the thing, as a game, man. I would not comfortable outing anybody, but if you're taking your masseuse on vacations with you and not talking to your friends and you're very cagey and public and when someone asks, like, who do you live with? My housekeeper,

I don't think it's like a skit hopscumidant jump to say that masseuse isn't like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm okay making notes about John Travolta. I think this Richard Simmons stuff. Well, it's like further a journalist to say on the record, it's really not great. For us to say, I think me and Josh can say, seems like he was banging the masseuse like. Wait a second, wait a second. Why am I being pulled into this?

You could say it. You just should be, that's a job. Oh no, I thought you were perhaps, I wasn't. I'm saying, I'm saying that there's something more to that relationship that we're not hearing about. Okay, thanks. I'll say.

He was banging this masseuse and they were both keeping it a secret. But what's so interesting about it is because when he talks about this, by the way, I can't fucking believe we're having an entire show about Richard Simmons. That's the other thing. Like, if you to ask me a couple of years ago, if you're like Josh, do you think any of your episodes of the podcast will be completely dedicated to Richard Simmons?

I probably would not have, well, actually, actually, I'm gonna think of it, it sounds about right. What if they said Josh, as you have ever hired a former star? No, I mean, that would have been less believable. Less believable. I would have been like, no fucking way. The Richard Simmons thing, 50-50, but that.

So look, anyhow, but getting back to this situation, I'm just trying to kind of understand because there's this tension between, that you kind of read and hear about in the story and now on the podcast, where there's this huge tension between the housekeeper, Teresa and Maro, the masseuse, which is like, by the way, just, you could not write.

If you wrote this shit in a book, if you were like, I've written not, not King Ritz. This is the worst episode of Dotsport Housewives. Yeah, it's like, if you wrote this, if you wrote this down, and this was your plot, that the masseuse and the maid are fighting over the reclusive fitness guru, people would be like, yeah, it's a little unrealistic

But I think just a chance if If Teresa had been a male employee who was living with him for 30 years or whatever the story is Wouldn't it be way more obvious that they're the Svengali who's controlling the six celebrity? But because she's a woman. We're like well, we don't want to infer Well, I know but he's but, but he's talked about her. They clearly have a very, I mean, they clearly had a very affectionate relationship or has still have a very affectionate relationship,

but she's also, he refers to her as his housekeeper, right? Like, that's how he technically refers to her. Yeah, that's like her, which I guess what she's employed as, but like what Dan Tabersky describes is like going over to the house and Richard and Moral cooking for Teresa. So it's definitely a complicated. This is wild. This is wild.

This is wild. And I think you know that housekeeper for 30 years and she lives with you except on weekends, that's going to get to be weird. Whoever you are, that's a weird employee, employee relationship, right? Yeah, and did he not have, I mean, Richard Simmons did not have like a personal assistant or something. I guess Maro was assistant, right? Or no?

Uh, Maro was assistant, right. And then he has a few people who, as far as I know, are still kind of on his team, like a social media person. And he had someone that was helping him run slimmins, but that closed down. So, uh down so yeah he goes in and out. Basically Michael Catalano, Teresa the housekeeper and Tom Esti, those are the three people that professional, other than his brother that had been with him for decades and he's kept with them. Yeah, I mean I think it's such a strange little circle.

I mean, and it's impossible to be to penetrate it without hearing. I mean, you really need to talk to Richard Simmons, which brings me to my maybe close to final question about this, which is like, you've never spoken to Richard Simmons, correct? Dan has not, again, has not, yeah, like how did you try?

Like, what were your methods? What was, what, what, what, what, what, in what way besides calling his people? Well, obviously, so the first things calling his people told very quickly that he's not gonna talk, you're not gonna give up there. So my plan them is to knock on his door, of course, and then as I describe before, you can't get past the gate.

There's no buzzer, there's no buzzer. No buzzer, no, not anything. So what I did every day that I was in LA, at least once, almost always, at least twice, because I really wanted to get a, like, look, morally, I wanted to make every effort, and selfishly, I wanted to open the story with a scene where he's, like, coming down his door, yelling out his window or something, and be the one that got him to talk. And so I would go, I would drive to his house, I would park outside the gate,

and I would stand there for a while, hoping to get noticed, and it never, it was all just stillness, in the yard, in the house, nothing moved to the windows, nothing. So that was all I could really do to try to talk to him and he never emerged in the time that I was out there. I mean, it's so, I mean, I would just love to,

to make it get him on the phone. Are you still, what are you doing? Are you still working on this? You've got something cooking? Try now, try now about us to hot story coming. I don't, to be honest, I think that there think that there isn't until he talks and who he chooses to talk to. I mean, Dan Tabersky's telling of it's well told, and I don't think he would object to me

saying that it's a similar story than the one I told. So until he is seen, and then as a result of my story, Simmons talked on the today's show on the telephone, of course. So I think until he emerges that's or something bad happens to him, I don't know how this story's moved forward. I would I can say publicly, Josh, because I've told you that like I've tried to work certain angles to be someone who gets the news if he does talk, but I don't personally believe that he will. I think people have made so many efforts already that I don't think that it may be I'm wrong,

but I don't think that an interview is coming. Somebody who has known Simmons a little bit has made an interesting suggestion to me that I haven't said yet. And this is just speculation, but he said, you know what I think would be the one thing to get Simmons out would be if David Letterman came out of retirement to interview him, because that would make Richard feel special enough, like I'm the one that got Letterman to come out and the relationship that they've had over the years,

that that could be the one thing that would do it. So someone just speculated that to me, but that's... That's interesting. He's, we know where Simmons is, so I don't know what the story is at this point until something else moves. There's no indication this is like a ploy. There's no indication this is like a key is going to like reemerge and it's going to be

a big deal and they'll do a special on CBS and the next thing you know, it's like Richard Simmons's back and it's got a new show. I have got no indication of that. I've been working the angles that I could and look if his managers who are no commenting everybody are plotting that they've kept it incredibly under wraps so now i'm not getting that vibe all right well listen i think uh... i think there's not very little but that we could say about uh... richard simmins that has not been said on this podcast at

this point that i agree with and uh... you know look i'm sure know, look, I'm sure you're gonna get a little, you're gonna get some threads here and there on this, maybe we'll write something on. I mean, honestly, I wasn't really interested in Richard Simmons. Like, that's the crazy part. It's like, if I had never heard about him again, I wouldn't have thought about it, right?

And now it's just like, you hear this story, and you're like, oh, suddenly, I'm very concerned and very interested in the whereabouts of this guy. So, you know, I hope there's some conclusion this story, and I hope it's not a negative sad conclusion because I feel like with so many of these situations, with Michael Jackson, you knew that Michael Jackson was in a very bad way,

and that the people around him were not helping him get better. And so when he died, it was like, oh, yeah, of course. Like, they let him die. And even helped him in some way. And so I hope that the Richard Simmons thing ends in on a more positive note, because he actually does seem like a really sweet guy who's really troubled and more than anything now that I've like know about his story.

I would just like him to get some help for whatever it is that is happening, you know? Yeah, I agree. I was left with a real feeling for him after doing all this reporting, reading his memoir, talking to people around him. Everything that I did to construct the story, I thought, it's a really gentle soul who's helped a lot of people. And I felt like I was not doing, you know, God support, but that I was trying to do some good by putting this out there and that's the spirit. I think in the podcast too, despite the discussions that are valid

that we had earlier about it. And I agree with you, Josh, that I hope that he's okay. I really do. I mean, I more than just being a voyeur or a reporter, I hope he's all right. Yeah, I mean, it's like definitely something that I'm sort of waiting on to see some outcome. I just hope it's like we don't end up with some tragedy.

Anyhow on this very upbeat note, Andy. And I know. And I know. Eddie, thanks a lot, Ben. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best. Though I understand your family is being held against their will by powerful witchcraft, which is a very bad situation for you.

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