Pushkin.
In two thousand and one, Tommy Mottola, then the head of Sony Music Entertainment, called murder inks IRV Gotti, who at the time was working with the likes of jay Z, y Ashanti and DMX. Tommy asked Gotti to do a remix of Jennifer Lopez's I'm Real, which became a huge radio hit and led to more remixes with j Lo. In the world of hip hop and crossover pop in the early yachts, IRV Gotti was at the top of his game, and then admittedly he messed up big time.
In the latest season of revision of History, Malcolm Gladwell is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes while we make them, the context in which we make them, and what happens after we make them. Here's the story of Gotti's mistake and what it tells us, not about the individual who makes a mistake, but the witnesses who watch it happen, enjoyed the episode, and find more of Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
This guy calls me like seven in the morning, like Tommy was South.
In two thousand and one, the head of Sony Music Tommy Mottola called the rap producer IRV Gotti at the time God. He worked with jay Z, Ja Rule, Ashanti DMX in the hip hop world of the early arts. He was at the top of his game.
He's like, yo, I need you to make a record, And I said what he said, make a record with j Lo and put jaw on it and make it a duet. And I say, yo, I need total creative at TIMMS, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Tommy was like, you could do whatever the fuck you want as long as it's a duet with Jo Roul and j Loo.
Mattola wanted Gotti to do a remix if I'm Real, a single off Jlo's second album. The first time around it had been a generic ballad. Matola thought it could be reinvigorated God. He went to work and started to make a demo with Ja Rule and Ashanti.
I said, yo, I got the records. I'm Real. Him and his wife Talia come to the crack house, my studio and solo and it's funny because the freight elevator used to always go out, so him and Talia walked up six flights of stairs. He gets upstairs he said, this fucking record better be fucking good. So I played I play real form. Him and his wife go crazy. They're like, oh my god, it was a one listen. They listened and it was like, it's the biggest record. So he puts me on a private jet. I fly
to La record the record with j Lo. Next thing you know, the record comes out. It's all over the radio. I'm talking about maybe a couple of days after we recorded it, it's all over the radio.
A few months later, God, he made another remix from Jalo's album Ain't It Funny? The same thing happened.
You don't even understand. Those records was colossal, not just in the States, on the planet Earth. I don't give a fuck. If you went to Germany, Australia, Africa, that shit was in heavy rotation. Look, those are the two biggest records, and for me to do, i'mral and instead fuck it and Ain't It Funny? It was like at that point in my life, I was like on top of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility. It was a feeling of I could do whatever the fuck I want to portray who I was at that moment.
That's that's who I was. I'm from the hood. I'm making all of this money. I'm producing records for everybody. All of them are working and going number one, and money's raining from the sky. I could do no wrong.
It was at this point that IRV God he made a mistake. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is the third episode in our mini series inspired by Michael Linton and Josh Steiner's book From Mistakes to Meaning Will. The authors sit down with a wide range of people and try to make sense of their biggest screw ups. One of their interviews was with her of Gotty just before God, he had a stroke and died at the
age of fifty four. I listened to the interview and I found his story so moving that I asked Steiner and Linton if I could include it in this series, because in his story, I think is a really important lesson not about the person who makes the mistake, but about the people around the person who makes the mistake. The witnesses.
Man I grew up, Oh man, I grew up. Let me describe how I'm the youngest of eight kids.
This is Gotty talking to Litten and Steiner about his childhood and growing up in Queen's We have no money.
We live in the home. I sleep in the attic. They ever slept in the attic of a house in the summertime.
There's no refuge. It's a hundred change. Yes, you wake up every every day, you wake up in a puddle of sweat like I had. That was my life. That's it was a lot of love. My family, the most loving family. But we had nothing. So when you talk about the ship, you told me, I'm not I don't give a fuck. Yo, I'm getting money. Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work my ass off and get it. I don't give a fuck what comes from it.
He was blunt, reckless, ambitious, and hugely talented. His rise in the music world was swim. It was no accident than Buttola called Gotti to work with Jennifer Lopez, then well on her way to becoming one of the biggest celebrities in America, and when the two of them met at Gotti's recording studio, Gotti from Queen's Jailah from the Bronx to click, just so you know what to expect. Were giving you the unfiltered gottie.
So I had like thirty hood niggas in the studio and in walks Jlo, and she was straight Jenny from the block. She had on some sweat pants and the tank top. And if I tell you, she got in that studio and she had every one of my guys
fall in love with her. She worked and talked to everybody, and I was just like, Yo, she's just so dope, you know what I'm saying, because she could have been on some I'm a big star boogie shit, but she was a total opposite, the biggest sex symbol, biggest superstar, got on some sweatpants, her as was looking fucking phenomenal. She worked, She literally worked the whole home. Like when she left, every guy was like, Yo, she's dope.
I think she liked me.
I'm like, yo, dog, she's she worked us, Yeo. She she worked for fuck the rule. But I thought it was so dope of us and me and her specifically, Yo, we hit it off. Benny Medina, her manager, Benny Medina, was like HERV, you're gonna be like the Quincy Jones to her Michael Jackson, she was like, We're not doing nothing musically unless you're involved.
A year later, Ellen Magazine decided to do a cover story on Jennifer Lopez. It was for their Sex and Body issue June two thousand and two, headline Big Letters. J Loo on fashion, that song and Puffy. Puffy referred to Puffy Combs, the infamous rap impresario who she'd just broken up with, and that song referred to Ain't it funny? Because Gotti's reinterpretation of the song turned it into the story of someone coming out of a very problematic relationship.
The writer asks her, is that song about Puffy? She says, no, it's not. Then the reporter calls gotty. Jlo says, ain't it funny? Isn't about Puffy? What do you say? And Gody says, Oh, it's absolutely about Puffy, and Jlo knows it. Here's the exact quote from the l magazine article, which, by the way, is nearly impossible to find now. My producer had to get someone at the New York Public Library to unearth the issue from an off site storage unit. I ain't gonna lie. We was thinking of effing with
Puffy because that's what the world wants to hear. And God, he tells the reporter a story about running into Puffy before. Ain't it funny came out and playing him the demo? He says, you know the four Seasons on Dohaney in La. I pull up and Puffs out there with his security and I say, Puff, come listen to the new record I did with your old bitch. So boom, he gets in the car. So I'm blasting the record and when it gets to the second verse, he jumps out of
the car, screaming, gotty, you bastard, this is the second verse. Listen, you never had.
This, well, you should have never played the game.
To play now and that you can lay.
He calls Jelo's ex boyfriend into his car and says, come listen to the new record I just did with your old bitch in a very public way. God, he was essentially saying Jennifer Lopez wasn't being honest. He called her credibility and question.
When I read it in that magazine, j Lo quote, those records are not about Puff, daddy end quote. It was. It's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life, because I say that to say, because j Lo Benny Medina, they was friends. They loved me, They love me like I was a writer for them and I would do things for them that probably no one else could do, and I would get done for them, and she was my friend. Like why the fuck would I say that? Why the fuck would I say that?
But God, he didn't stop there. He kept going right.
So I went on to say other damaging things, like how would she know? She didn't write the records. We made records and wrote the records. She just did what we said, so she don't know who the fuck we was talking about. And yeah, we was talking about Diddy. And then I said some more damage and shit, I was like, guys like me, we didn't listen to Jake, We don't listen to Jalo's music. I made guys like me listening to j Loo's music. I said, before then
we just hit the mute button and looked at her ass. Yeah. God.
He reflected on this with Michael Linton and Josh Steiner when they spoke Wow.
And you could pull all this up in the l magazine is there. Those are vivid quotes. Those are like supreme asshole quotes that wasn't warranted. And when I look back, I was like, what did you do to your friend? Yeah? So, needless to say, needless to say, ruined my relationship with j Lo. I apologized, I sent to Candy and flowers and apologized a million times, and I was high, that's no excuse, you know what I'm saying. I apologize by us and she accepted my apology, but it forever damaged
your relationship, right. You know, superstars like j Loo, they have a small circle of people who they could trust. And I think I was in there for a second and I totally ruined it. Right, So I'm an asshole. Well you were in that moment. I'm totally in the wrong and I'm a complete idiot. Make sure you say that that I said that I'm a complete idiot. She didn't warrant that, she didn't warrant nothing that I said. She was my friend, And why would I do that
with the biggest thought and most beautifulst person. Why how do I do that with Jala.
One of the themes we've tried to explore in this series is that mistakes have roots. They aren't random events. They come from somewhere, They arise out of a context, but the context often isn't obvious, not to those around the mistake maker, and often not even to the mistake maker themselves. In Gody's case, the context was a telephone call had been on just before the reporter called. It was with
a prominent music industry executive. God. He asked that the man's name not be used, so we're gonna bleep out every mention of his name. All you need to know is that the executive is white, and God he was black. The two of them had an argument. One of Gody's artists had played a part in a hit song and was in the music video, but had been left out of the radio version, and God he was unhappy about it.
So I was like, Yo, you're killing my artists. You got him on the video, but on radio he's not there. It's and then like mixed signals, Why are you hurting me?
Their argument got heated. The executive said it wasn't his fault, the decision was someone else's at his label, a black man.
He was like, I told that fat nigga not to not to put this out. But when he said the N word, Oh, that's when I went crazy.
Wow.
I said, what the fuck you say? I said, you just call Cory Roone and nigga. I said, when this, when this nigga see you, I'm gonna fuck you up. I said, how about that? And he was like, and we argue him, but he said he used the N word on some racist shit. He said, I told us fat nigga not to put the record out or put him on it. Yeah, but when he said nigga, I went, that's that's that's the anger. Yep. I'm not a volatile person. I'm not a pop off. I would describe myself as
a cool guy, level headed. But it's something about when a white person like uses the word nigga to me. Mm hm oh, I'm ready to kill because it's like you start thinking of all of the fucked up shit that black people have been through when you got the audacity to say nigga in front of me. Oh, I'm gonna show you a nigga, now you know what I'm saying. Like I used to always say, like when people would ask me how how would you be able? How did how would you think you would be able to operate
in those times of racism? And I always answer, I would die. You know what? I'm saying because I couldn't take the racism that would have been bestowed upon me. I would have killed me a couple of white people and they would have hung me and killed me, and my life would be over. I couldn't take them doing something to my mother or you know, hanging my father, and I'm living life. Nah, you're gonna have to kill
me too. So these are the thoughts that's in my mind. Yeah, have you experienced that before where you had white people say things with you. A lot of my white friends to say, Yo, that's my nigga. But I'm not mad at that.
Yeah, use it when they say that's my nigga, it's in IgG a.
He said, Yo, I told that fat nigga, that's n I G G e R. It's a big, big difference. Like I couldn't I couldn't believe that he just used the N word to me. That's what made me so volatile. And it was so weird. It was like as soon as I hung up with the phone rang with L it wasn't like a five minute it wasn't even like a five minute cool off period. No hung up, man, Yo, this is old magazine. Yeah, what the fuck? Y'all want. I didn't like saying hello a little different?
Can I ask, So, what do you think it was that made you You think you were just gonna lash out at anybody who showed up in that moment?
Uh yeah, within that five minutes, Yeah, it was going to get the exact thing vibe what the fuck you want? Yeah, it just what happened. It was the old magazine, not one of my boys. Yeah, so I said what the fuck you want? And he was like, oh, oh, I see. Like as soon as he heard that response, he immediately cut to the chase. He said, oh, oh, I'll just get right to it.
Uh.
You know, Jlo said that the records, I'm really made it funny and not about puff daddy ex boyfriend, and I was like, what that bitch is lying?
This was Serve Gotty's mistake. It changed his life. There was a version of the next twenty years where he could have been a creative partner with one of the biggest stars in the world. He had ideas from movies, collaborations. Jaelo was at once in a lifetime opportunity. That's why this was a mistake. It had consequences, but there was a point in Gotty's interview with Steiner and Linton that I couldn't get out of my mind.
Listen, how quickly did you realize that you'd made a mistake. I didn't realize quickly. I was so angry and mad when I got off the phone with that magazine. I thought nothing of it. It hit me when they sent me like the transcripts of what they was gonna plant. How long after that was that? A couple a week or so? I would say, A right, And when you did you realize it right away? Yeah? I was like, don't print that. They was like it's too but they
was like it's too late. Yeah. They loved it. They loved it, and they said it was too late, and I was trying to get them not to print it, but they wasn't. They like, hey, buddy, you said it.
Yeah, did you get me try to did you get me help to try to get them not to do it, or did you just.
Let it go? Let it go? I gave it my effort, but after my effort, I just let it.
Oh.
He realized he'd made a mistake that, in his anger at one person, he had said something he didn't mean to another, and when he tried to prevent his mistake from having consequences, from turning into a serious mistake. He was told, hey, buddy, you said it, it's too late. After Linton and Steiner's book came out, I interviewed them on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York, and I brought up their chapter on gaudy. So who's the villain of the story.
Not every story has to have a villain.
No, but tell me who the villain of the stories?
So don't Michael, don't fall for this like this is okay, this look at this is why he's so good.
But don't fall for his trap.
Like okay, you can say not everyone.
I got to keep the conversation going. I would argue it was the executive who used the N word, Josh, here's a villain of the story.
Here's what I think that guy acted terribly. There is no villain in the story.
And I think an important piece of what we tried to describe is that there isn't always a villain, There isn't always some outside danger, there isn't always some consequence that has been derived from a villain. That these things are deep rooted in ourselves and we're not villainous, and so that aspect of our personality doesn't make us bad.
This isn't a morality test. This is an opportunity to explore oneself and come to terms and acceptance of the fact that we're flawed, and the way to get hopefully healthier and better is to talk about it.
Who do you think the villain?
Is?
A man who has a very close relationship to the biggest rock star in the world, a relationship that has resulted in extraordinary commercial success. Is called by a reporter and has asked a question about that relationship, and in the course of answering that question, the man says, Oh, she's a liar. Who's the villain in the story? Do you think it's erv Now it's the reporter, But the reporter doesn't No, no, no no. This is a crucial, crucial point, Michael.
Think this is because it's about when mistakes are made and they are as deeply rooted as you suggest they are, they're not what's you're The whole argument of the book is a mistake can come out in the spur of the moment, but it's not something that's coming out of the spur of the moment. It's something that has roots. And what does that require of those who are observe and are part of the process in which the mistake is played out. It requires some degree of grace and
forgiveness and understanding. So the reporter, here's some IRV God, IRV God. He say something that is completely out of place. Right, it makes the reason the reason that story. So that story what you didn't what is important? Detail is here is it goes. It's all across the country. It's like it's huge. That's why it blows up so much. Everyone
seizes on this. Her longtime collaborator called j Lo a liar. Right, if you are the reporter in that instance, and someone says something they shouldn't say, your obligation is to say, why did you say that? And if they can't give you a satisfactory answer, your obligation is not to use it. I'm sorry, it's not to use it. You're not You shouldn't.
You can't make someone The reporter turned that from a nothing into a destruction of someone's career because they had not the slightest concern for his well being or his reputation, and they if they had an ounce of self understanding or of general understanding. They would have understood that he didn't mean to say that. They should at the very
least have said, did you mean to say that? Right, that's your responsibility, and the reporter fail in that fundamental Why do people hate the press Because because in an interview like this, where we could talk for three hours and you say one thing out of place because you have to be irritated about something else, and the reporter runs with that one thing that's about practice. Why is this person getting a pass that's terror? Sorry, I'm really
upset about this. I was upset about this because you can't do this if you're a journalist. The whole profession works on an implied contract. Somebody grants you the gift of their time and attention and thoughts. They make themselves vulnerable, and in return you pledged to respect that vulnerability. You're not a stenographer. You've entered, for the duration of the interview into an intimate relationship, and intimate relationships have rules.
But then I went home after that interview at the y, after I had called the reporter a villain and a disgrace to our profession, and I realized I don't even know who this person is, and then I thought to myself, Oops, now I've made a mistake. So I decided to track the reporter down. That's after the break. What do you remember about that interview?
It's funny you're asking this something that no one's ever asked me, because I remember that interview quite well.
For a few reasons.
This is Carter Harris, he wrote yel profile. He's now a screenwriter teaches at NYU, and one of the reasons this article he wrote twenty five years ago, sticks out is the reaction a God, particularly from Jlo and her manager Benny Medina.
I actually remember being in a car with Benny Medina in Los Angeles, and I can't remember why we were in a car, but he was telling me how disappointed Jlo was, and he was because it seemed like a negative interview.
I wasn't negative at all from my perspective.
At some point, his profile of Jlo completely disappeared from the internet, and he always wondered if Jlo and her manager had something to do with it. Was God upset during the call, Yes, he was. Harris remembers he seemed like he was in a state. He mentioned something about having just gotten off the phone with someone he thought Harris was a fashion writer, and God, he seemed relieved to learn that Harris had been an editor at The Source, the magazine that was the bible of rap at the time.
They talked about Puffy Combs and I'm real, I ate it funny. And then God, he said that bit about Jlo not telling the truth when you heard it when you were reviewing him and decided to use what you were using, did you did you think that you might be jeopardizing his relationship with Jaeloh?
No, And maybe that was naive of me, But what I thought was in the moment was Wow, that was honest.
She might be a little bit.
Irked vexed by one or two of the quotes, but I never imagined that it would.
Be such a big deal for her or for him. I mean, I thought she'd be vexed.
I mean, when you say, you know, I gave her more hood credibility, that's gonna be like, come on, dude. Or when you say it was really about Diddy and basically you're accusing her of not being honest, you know, yeah that I totally understand why she was vexed. And I even at the time, I was like, oh, she might be a little ticked off about this, but I figured they'd air it out, either publicly or privately, that she'd be like, come on, he overstepped on this one.
And then maybe he comes back and says, yeah, all right, I was on Molly what she was willing to say back then?
Is it weird to hear someone say twenty five years later the biggest mistake they made in their life was something they said to you in an interview.
Oh.
Absolutely made me feel very strange.
When I heard that. I was. I was, I was.
I was very surprised and very I was a little disturbed too, because that when I heard that then I did have feelings.
Then I was like, oh shit, what did I do wrong?
You know?
It was like, what was I responsible for this? Somehow?
Did he run the quotes by Gody and tell him that it was too late? You said it? No, that would have been the fact checker. That's the way things worked in the magazine world of those years.
If he had called me and said, I was in a state, can you take those quotes out? Yeah, I probably would have worked with him on that. But I never got that call. Nobody ever asked me about those quotes, so, you know, what can I what can I really do? But yeah, I certainly felt weird about it.
I mean, you know, I.
Don't take any any joy in being, you know, a part of anyone's biggest regret.
Carter was frank and thoughtful. I liked him. He was talking about a decision he made many years ago when he was much younger, and he said that he wouldn't necessarily do the same thing today. I understand that you have to make a certain number of mistakes to understand what a mistake is.
It's really interesting because if I had been in the gym and somebody had told me this story and I was not the reporter and I was not Gotti, I probably would have had the exact same response. I'm pretty sure I would have been, like what they said, what they messed with Gotti? Like and they screwed up a relationship with Jalo and Gotti. You know, this is bullshit. This is like the media. You know they do this, especially l and these corporate magazines and you know all that.
So I'm not surprised to hear that that was your response. That probably would have been my response. But to the larger point. I think we all do this in our own way, in lots of different contexts. We jump to conclusions, mistaken conclusions, and I certainly do in my life. And if I've learned anything it's that I have to check myself sometimes and say, wait a minute, I'm human like everybody else, I'm jumping to a conclusion. I should go
look and see if there's more to this story. Doesn't necessarily mean my conclusion that I wanted to jump to is wrong, could be right, could be worse than I thought it was. But I do think that that's the thing to take from this is like, hey, everybody, each of us can check ourselves. You know, we all have the ability to check ourselves and say, hey, maybe I should look into this a little bit more.
We can all check ourselves a little bit more. On that, I have to agree. Revisious History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adatt Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking by Angelie Mercado. Our executive producer Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music by Luis Quira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo Diela.
Vera.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell, coming up on the next episode in our Mistakes series.
This was madness and yeah and it was just jaw on the floor. I just never experienced anything like that and I didn't see it coming