Welcome to Miami, where the weather is hot and the hot mic is on fire. Lisa Hawksteine's divorce from her husband Lenny has been very public, but this is where it all started with one of the most insane hot mic moments, and the Housewives franchise actor Brian Austin Green and professional ballroom dancer Sharna Burgess are breaking down the episode with me. This is real Housewives of Miami Season five, Episode four, Hot Mike in Miami. Let's get into it.
Hi, Hi, Bethany, Bethany, how are you?
I I'm great.
I'm stunned that part of my childhood pop culture life is coming to fruition and this is real. And I was last night. I was walking to my toaster, as I often do because I am a big toaster of things.
You were telling you, wait, wait, you were talking to your toaster. You were walking.
No, I was walking to my toaster.
I do because but I do because it's a smeg and when you press it and the bagel flies out, I catch it and I go, yes, you ever catch it? So I actually do talk to my toaster.
What kind do you have that actually pops the toast meg? The air meg?
It gets like probably like two inches and it's a catch.
You have to catch it. It's not you gotta time. So you hit me Jack, Can you catch Yeah, we'll send you one. Okay.
So yeah, So I was walking and I guess talking to my toaster, and I was like, like, let's not be jaded and respectfully sean, like I was a nine or two, and I mean so I was just like, let's not be jaded, Like what the fuck? Like part of my childhood I watched TV. I was dreaming of just big dreams and being somebody, and you guys were living this life and being in Hollywood, I mean Hollywood and Beverly Hills and famous and like on this fun show and sunshine and beauty. And I was like, oh
my god. And then I'm like, he's coming on tomorrow.
So thank you. I'm humbled and excited.
First of all, thank you wasn't nearly as sunny and nice in Van Eyes, where we actually shot the show as it appeared when you were watching the episodes, and yet we've I was shocked. I was thinking about it. You and I have never met. I've seen you everywhere, and so the fact that we've never run into each other and anything is surprising to me, but I'm I'm
a huge fan. I love I love what you do and the fun with it, and I love the fact that you talk about just real stuff and what is going on in your life.
Also do so much good work for people and try and help with causes, and we're so aligned with that. And so it's really me as a woman, really inspirational and amazing what you do, what you do with your platform.
I love that. I want to be you and I grow up Anthony.
Oh my god, thank you, And you've got congratulations on your podcast.
Thank you, thank you.
I'm excited. They're a great team. We're like, they're a great team to work with. Honestly, it's like, you feel great.
It's weird because if you're used to working in the more traditional Hollywood entertainment space like you have, it's weird to just kind of be able to talk about what you want to do what you want like it's it's bizarre.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's weird.
And we're also learning that, like we want to be vulnerable and open and transparent and share these things that we very much experience that I think a lot of people don't understand that we experience. We don't think we do because life looks shiny and bright and wonderful, but we all experience things like disappointment. This week, we're going to talk about addiction. There's so many things that people.
Can relate to. Talked about co parenting in our last in our last episode. So we're really trying to touch on the things that every day people are dealing with on a regular basis, and and we're trying to lead by example as far as just sort of what our life has been like and the things that we've dealt with. It's people don't realize how much we have in common with people. They assume that because our lives are they appear to be shiny and they appear to be much
bigger that that those problems don't exist. And it's it's all relative, it's all relative, it's all different.
You know, dynamics, Human dynamics are the same. You know, listen, money helps and changes things, but human dynamics are similar. When you've gone through something like illness or you know, financial peril like someone has stolen from you or something.
Or a bad divorce.
I was married for two years and it took me ten years to get divorced, and it was I came from a very abusive and toxic childhood and that that has nothing on what that tenure.
Divorce did to me.
It was it was torture.
So I've talked about that. But like people I thought I was, I was smart, I was older. I did not know what could happen, Like I did not know what could go down in a divorce. And it doesn't matter who's the moneyed person or not. If one person wants to torture you, it's impots and the legal system is so slow and methodical that it's like playing a very slow golf game that you just have to go one hole at a time, then move back a couple of holes and hope that you move forward and you
think you're there and then you're not. It's it's traumatizing and people don't get it. And it's not sexy and cute and romantic to talk about being smart when you enter into that.
But you have to.
Yeah, absolutely, I know, yeah, even through the ship.
So okay, So have you watched The Housewives ever?
We did. We watched the episode absolutely lost Bethany. Because housewives shows are not something that we tend to fall asleep with and then yeah, so you've.
Never It's okay because I don't watch I'm I've watched a part of a Miami episode before too.
I've never seen this show myself.
So then we're all up for the challenge of this.
Oh yeah, like I watched this episode and I know the genre in the medium obviously, it's like, but I'm saying you've watched scripted television shows about teens before you've been on it. But I'm saying it's still this is a different story. So this is the first Housewives episode you've ever seen?
Yes, actually no, it's not. So I watched I watched New York. I saw you when you were when you were starting everything and everything that was going on. But there's going onto the uh the Peacock app It's unbelievable how many iterations of Housewives there are. Now there's like twenty different shits that are doing And so I had to scroll down through the list a bit before I got to Miami, and I was like, oh man, there, okay, there it is.
It's like, yeah, okay, so let's get into it. I'll drive.
So you guys don't have to get into any sort of trouble. It'll be more, you know, I'll be the really harsher opinionated on before. But all right, so we start off and there's a woman in scrubs. Yes, what seems like a four hundred and fifty thousand dollars car.
It's yeah, it's a Rolls Rice. Yeah.
Yeah, but it's either the Dawn or there's another one there too. I don't know if it's like a ghost or Dawn. I don't know, but Rolls Royce is those cars are like four hundred.
And fifty thousand dollars.
Right.
The car game in LA is insane, and but it's really crazy in Miami if you go down to the car The.
Car game in Miami is way crazier than it is in Los Angeles.
It is, okay, because if you go to like Val Harbor, it's nuts. You go to any of those hotels. So you're saying it's way crazier than LA.
Yes, I mean, judging by what we saw. I know it's a small piece, so you know, I'm sure it's not all like that, but.
My goodness, I agree.
Okay, So Zoe Day, you know what I mean, Like it's about the full itself that I think could be Miami that he is in La.
Oh, it's a little more hot shot performative, like fascinating because LA is so like that, and we're going to get into that. We'll get into like the work because the work is evident. And I was thinking about LA and if I were on a show like that, meaning no matter where you are, you end up dressing a little bit like it. Your accent change is a little no matter what. If I was living in the UK for ten years, it would it would.
Change a little.
And I definitely don't think I can handle being on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or Miami, like I would feel like I looked like I was frumpy all the time.
Yeah. It is very fashioned, forward and gam and bigger than big and ridiculous.
Yeah, if you saw your doctor pulling out of the parking lot in a four hundred and fifty thousand dollars car, would would you feel like you were paying too much? She's an anesthesiologist, her husband is an attorney, all right, So that's a lot of anesthesia.
Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot of that.
Well to sleep.
Yeah, Yeah, that guy's gonna be a big lawyer. I don't know.
Okay, So were you surprised to see Martina never Tulova on the Forget?
I was right, yes, I didn't even realize. So we were watching the show and I said that, I was like that I think, and hearing her name, I was like, oh, that for sure is Martine and that was a little but I was like, I can't imagine she would be doing a show, a house live show in Miami, and but she seems very sort of distant and disconnected from it.
Like it's okay, so exactly okay, So it's funny you
say that. So I'm gonna give you some bts. So first of all, I was at the Soho House in Miami on a day that the producers were meeting with Martina and Nevertelova's wife, and I remember them saying, oh, she's one of the new housewives, Martina never Tulova, and I was like, what, Martina never Totelova is going to be on the show, and it was and also the model who she was there that day too, and she was saying to them I want to do what Bethany's done,
which is really flattering. But I remember this day before they had ever shot, and in watching this, I thought of, now, I'm not saying I'm sure they're still together.
I'm sure they're happy.
I don't know anything about their relationship, but in watching it, it felt a little bit like, sometimes this one spouse feels like they have to give the other spouse something because Martina and Avertilova, I guess it seems like has a big, full career and her wife seems like she's going through something and she doesn't have enough purpose in the kids. She's an empty nester, and kind of you want to give them something, whether it's a business or
you're moving somewhere. It's their turn. And it felt like she quote unquote allowed her to do this and said she'd participate for a reason, like a turning point in a life. I've seen it happen before divorce. I saw it happen with Kelsey Grammer. You're like, why the hell is Kelsey Grammar on Beverly Hills with Camille and then they get divorced, and it's kind of like Camille's thing. It was almost like, all right, I'll do this with you. This is your gift.
Yeah, it was.
It was giving a little bit of like hesitant and I had a guy that I was on with it first seasons and he did not want to be And it felt like that during a meal where yeah, Tina said, what did I get myself into?
And yeah, she.
Was talking about the relationship, but she wasn't she was talking about situation.
Yeah, I agree with you. It felt really.
Like there was a lot of tension between them and the communication.
Was really feel really sad to watch, honestly, like as being in a healthy relationship. It felt like, oh man, you there's you could feel the tension across the table and you could you could really like probably feel the lack of intimate love, like there's love for each other. I'm sure they've been together for so long and they know each other so well, but there wasn't that feeling of in love that that you look for with people.
And that isn't to say that they're not right, because we all know you can cut a few things together and TV and make it feel like a lot of things. And like you said, I'm sort of happy and together, but it does seem like a stressful situation.
And part of me like I almost get.
The Martine's wife, Julia, Julia like I understand her. You know, she hasn't got her career anymore, her babies have left, and she's looking for her purpose.
And I totally understand she brought a guilt to a dog birthday.
We're going to get into that ship.
She wanted to animals, you know, like she's feeling a little like there's an and she talked about how you're always.
Away for work and you're not here. So I get that.
I think is a very real conversation for a lot of couples in life, you know, the empty nesting and that adjusting and maybe one person is more still busy with their career. So I get that's right, But they have that on that on television.
I was just going to say, is no upside for Martina Navtlova, a legendary athlete to do that, Like.
There's there's no gain for her. It's not she's not like, you know, start starting some new career. In some way, she's good. She's had like a long life and long career. Yeah, that's what we all.
Yet we all feel that way, like we we can even see us in some situation doing it and taking a bit of shit on your face because you're doing something you're promoting something like Martina and Navertalova. There is no upside to doing this show and having this conversation and reality television will not help your relationship.
Yeah, oh no, well no, because I mean, you know, but they so much is created for the purpose of television, right, You're sort of given tasks and things during the day that maybe you don't want to do what you sort of have to do. I don't I've never done I mean like, I've never done what you have done before. So I so please, I'll explain that.
It's amazing because so when you're starting out and it doesn't matter because that those shows don't care if you're famous or not meeting. I used to be like, oh my god, we'll go to this event and I know Madonna who I don't know, and we'll shoot them like we don't care about that.
They don't care.
Oh I'm going to run into you know whoever the show cares about, like the real dynamics, you know what I mean. If if Rihon is behind us, that's just nice frosting. It doesn't like drive story. So my point is they don't think of Martina Navratilova any different than a person who has you know, two hundred thousand dollars in debt that comes on the show.
And when you're new on these shows.
Which they were, you got to go through the shit that the audience wants, like you're gonna have to talk about your relationship, like they wouldn't let them be on unless they talked about it, like my first season. As you're a veteran years later in the audience and you've been successful, like I wouldn't have had that conversation like you're in the beginning. You literally feel like you have to take your clothes off, stand in front of a
group naked, and it's awkward and it's uncomfortable. And I literally relate to that scene because I had that scene with a guy where I needed to say what about living together?
Like the I had to have.
This fake conversation that I forced conversation and he was like, we'll talk about it later, and he didn't really want it even it was he wanted to live together, but he just didn't want to talk about it in a camera, so he kept saying, let's talk about it later, and it looked like he was blowing me off, and I was feeling so embarrassed inside, like Martina, it was just
like all bad. So my my thing about real and fake is that the words coming out of their mouth were real, the conversation was real, but the context of it was produced, and just the same as having a dog party, Like who's really like having a fifty thousand dollars dog party on the you know what I mean? Like, it's like, you got to do things, so they take they elevated. That's what I'm trying to explain.
I get it.
Gosh, that's a lot that's really hot.
If I would be able to do that. Now, that's really it's a lot of stress.
It's a lot of good for women at a certain age who weren't aren't that marketable in their careers. Maybe they've gone a certain direction and gotten married and made their identity somebody else's, and now this is a market that wants that age group. Like, it's not that easy to get a job at that age and have a skill set at that age because you've been out of the market, and a lot of wives want to do that. And it makes I agree with you though, I like
forgetting them. I like the topic of empty nest because as we get older, you realize your identity becomes either the other person, it becomes your kids. It's so great to like have kids give you something to do, like go put a costume on, go to the pumpkin patch, like you never do that alone. It gives you like a project, it gives you an identity.
Yeah, absolutely, and I think you also mom's dads. You tend to then you stop doing the work or the things on yourself or the things for yourself, and then you're suddenly left with how.
Do I do that again?
Or I don't know for some people, or I don't want to look at that part of me again, or whatever. I loved focusing on my kids because it wasn't focusing on me, And then you're left with no option but to look at yourself with your own space and time.
And I think that can also be daunting for people. You know, when you.
Spend so much time caretaking for others, that also becomes your world and that is where you get validation and satisfaction and love and all these things that we look for as human beings. And now you've got to look for that on your own or with your partner, and that becomes completely different because, as you said, kids fill that space, and it's such a beautiful thing. And then all for some people in your career as well can fill that space and then change happens. But I think
the empty nest subject is such an amazing one. I can only imagine it. At this point, we have such a full household of kids. I cannot imagine what life will be like when I'm alife.
Definitely. Yeah, I am now fifty years old. I have a twenty one year old all the way down to a fifteen month old, so I'm going to have it. So I have fine, So.
You just keep having you keep having kids. You're like Nick Cannon, You're just going to keep having kids. So you're ninety and you still have like an identity based on pumpkin patches and Christmas trees.
So, Beth, I don't like your tongue. I have issue with the way you phrase that. You're your judgment underneath it all. Do you like it? I wish I could.
My body could still do it because I like the strategy. So wait, you have a twenty one year old, a fifteen month and how old is everybody in between?
So I have a twenty one year old and eleven year old, nine year old seven year old and a fifteen month old.
I didn't know you had five kids. Yeah, oh yeah, that's amazing though.
Thanks, Ye're all amazing kids.
Feel Yeah.
Wow, okay, so you've got a house of the twenty one year old lives with you.
Too, No, twenty one year old is with his boyfriend. He's been out and kind of doing his own thing for a while. We still have four young kids, and wow.
So this is what I'm talking about. Can you even relate to this empty nest?
You're not related, but I can.
Imagine be in a box.
You'll be closing a coffin and like doing your last putting a costume on, Count Dracula on.
That'll be your swan song. Yeah, so you.
Can absolutely with all of my babies standing around, yes, you know, stumbling around learning how to walk as they're like lower in my castle.
What do you think?
Because I think and you would be better. You're the best person to actually ask this because you are fifty. I'm fifty two, and I think I was thinking today that this empty nest thing is sort of like adjacent to midlife crisis, but maybe it's not, meaning do you ever suffer with midlife crisis?
Like what are we doing? What am I doing? What is this? What's like do you have that at all?
Or no?
Because you're too busy?
No, yeah, no, I'm I'm too busy. Plus I've done such like a sort of deep dive on life in the past five years that I really at the point when I turned fifty. As much as fifty sounded like big number and you're like, oh my god, I can't believe I made it all the way to fifty, that just that number seemed so far out of reach. I was excited, Like I'm excited about the place that I
am in my life. And I'm excited that I feel career wised, like I'm really on track of what it is I truthfully want to do, and I feel confident in who I am and who I am with other people around me and as a parent, and it's you know, it's just a confidence level that I didn't have when I was younger. So I'm excited. I'm excited about it. I'm not like, oh, I need to go like you know,
I need to go relive something. I feel like I lived a long life, like up until fifty, and so if I look at this concept of Okay, this is the second part of my life. The first part of my life was so long. I did so many things. Finally, from being an infant to now it's right a whole another one of those. But I get to start at a point where I'm confident in myself and I'm comfortable and I'm excited about life and I really have a much better sense of who I am and how to
live it. Then I then, God, I can't. I it's such a blessing that I guess. I go.
I agree, And I think that if you get to the point where you feel like nobody has getting up to like in your thirty twenties, thirties, forties, so many people have something that you want, whether it's a job, it's an opportunity, it's this, it's to not money. You know, when you get to a point where it's like nobody has anything I want, it's interesting. You're like doing what you want to do because you want to do it
because you love it. It just shifts everything the reasons and and you kind of just want to have purpose, but define yourself what that purpose is.
Yeah, absolutely, you know.
So speaking of purpose, so dog party, I feel like it's not a Beverly Hills type thing like or no, like, have you ever seen this in your life?
Have you heard of this? I feel like my dog fashion show.
I've never been to one. I've never been invited to one. Yeah, I've never seen one. Yeah, I've never heard of one.
So how you like produced like this is we need something to fill the show? Is that what you're getting?
It's I or something to fill time? You know, I don't know what it's like living in Miami having the person that you are with making all of the money and you've gotten nothing but time at that point, Yeah, a dog party makes absolute sense.
Interesting what made me sort of grow hum? You know, it just it something didn't sit well with me. It was just like really, And I think the point that you just made so beautifully is that that I feel like that's not a great representation of women, especially when how far we've come. And I'm sure all of those women in that scene are capable of way more than a dog party at a beach with champagne talking about butt lifts.
But that was the thing that we got given, you know.
Right, and that could be heavily produced. And also because I think Larsa Pippen Scottie Pippens ex she had a dog product or something she was plugging and listen, I invented the plug on this franchise, Like I literally started it. I am the one who capitalized it on it the most by far. So I'm going to say that, but your plugs have to land. And the weird awkward bringing out the box on the beach and the awkward plugs
did not land like that. So I am Ramona who's a woman on New York used to have these like weird not Secuitor, right yeah, or the skincare or the crosses.
And it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a product. You gotta have. Your plug has to land.
The vehicle for the promotion is a gift in an art, It's like being an awkward door to door salesperson because somebody's good at it and someone's not.
And this was a fail in the awkward plug department.
Do you bill that may be happening because she felt awkward bringing it out. Oh, like it was almost like what would be great is if we do this and then you bring your product out.
Yeah, it was a wireless fence to keep dogs on. I was just going to say that they're out at the beach having a dog birthday party. But then she's talking to them about this new product that is, you set up a boundary around where you are and you put a collar on your dog and it keeps them within a certain it keeps them close enough to apparently pee on all of your birth.
Okay, so here's what I would have DoD that's my product. First of all, I would have had insisted the parties not at the beach, It's at my home or a home, and I would have installed the device and shown in nature or get your partner to create a boundary at
the beach. They had cleared rights to film there, so I would have created a small boundary and I would I'm like, oh my god, look how crazy this was, because I would have been exhibiting the product not only to the people but the audience, but an awkward the the box on the beach was as awkward as the heels in the sand, and it was just like cringe.
So agreed, didn't land? And yeah? So okay? And yeah that and the decked out like.
What I saw, decorations that were the same that were here at my house for my fiftieth birthday. Party on the beach, and I was like, I was like, I had that. I'm a grown man. He turned fifty and this dog that's turning one had the exact same decorations.
But he's a king.
He is a king.
He's king, so I mean.
His name is king, right, yeah, decorations. He's doing pretty well. Yeah, and he doesn't love guards looks right. Yeah.
The goat thing, it's it's just we don't have to. It's a pretty goat though.
The blue eyes, I get it. I've actually had those. I love them. But it was the whole thing was just was it was just really awkward to I agree.
I agree.
What about the one girl in her interview saying that a butt gland effectively contains all of the sort of.
Oh yeah yeah, claiming the knowledge like it was something very amazing and exceptional to know. I was like that she knows this, like in the delaivery right.
And I was suddenly up the dogs ass and I didn't want to be like I was doing the dogs ass and I just like I was.
I just was in a place where I didn't want to go.
Yeah, cut to you're cut to You're on Safar and You're like anal glands. You're like looking up.
Facts and you get arrested, and that's the last thing on your Google start hashtag buck Lands. Now, the women, many of them are beautiful and and they seem lovely and they seem nice, and I've met some of them and I like them. So I really want to tread lightly here because women are allowed to do whatever they want. They could filter, they can do it. But I'm really I was really struck by several of the women's over the top everything, like it wasn't it wasn't just the work,
it wasn't just the makeup. It was the extensions, the lash and lashes, the makeup beat like the conturing and the outfit, the ass like I didn't know where to look and I didn't know what it was right.
I felt that too. It's like nothing about it seems real.
And it's not that we should make them relatable, that they should aim to be relatable, but real. At the end of the day, when you feel like someone's been in three hours of hair and makeup and had a whole kiateam with fashion items come through, you feel like okay. So it makes it feel just so much more produced and not believable, I think.
I mean, I would assume that that's what happens now on these shows. I don't know compared to when you started and you were when you were doing in New York Bethony, but I'm sure it's just grown into something that is just beyond I mean, when there are parties like that, I would assume that you start five hours earlier and you're with your whole team and you're getting ready for this big, big thing and they're hiding microphones and they're doing this and it's a whole big producer.
It's so funny you say that. Okay, So when I started back in my day, we had horse covered wagon. I mean, my studio apartment furnished by Ikea was where you would do those interviews. Now those are like they recreate your background and it's in a studio and agreed to all that kind of stuff. But the way that I look right now, like I did my own makeup.
My hair's a little frizzy, I put you know, this is how I would look for the interviews, wearing like a cable knit Ralph Laurrene sweater that was probably bought on eBay because I it was broke then and and when you went to seeing same thing, I looked just like this. If I went to a big party, I would go to the counter at Bloomingdale's and buy a Liplus and I'm a scare for fruit. So I could get makeup for free. And it didn't matter who did it.
I didn't.
I just, you know, not the hair part. You get a thirty dollars blow dry. It was a big like finale and you went into your closet and you picked the first thing you saw and you put it on your body and it shows. And so I left after three seasons, So that was really.
In the beginning.
And I left and I came back three seasons later, which is now a long time ago, and I couldn't believe that people were getting hair and makeup every day just to go get a manicure with someone. And it really bothered me. It's funny because it really bothered me because it wasn't real. I don't go get makeup done to go get my manicure today after being with you guys, like, I don't need to go to Starbucks.
So it annoyed me.
And I'm sure it says something about me, but it felt like it felt like it was raising this bar that didn't need to be raised, that then's gonna make
other women take it to the next level. And then Erica Jane came into Beverly Hills and she had all these crazy costumes and hairdews, and then Derey elevated with all these crazy hairdews, and then Kyle got into with the broad shoulder, and Lisa Renna, who used to have like a sh sheet dress and like short hair all the time she was wearing wigs, and it like it exploded the whole franchise Atlanta like every so now it's like you have to be at a ten because otherwise
you're Denise Richards who showed up on the Beverly Hills season and was wearing shorts and a T shirt to go into someone else's hotel room on a balcony, which is entirely normal, but they were in ball gown like they were in crazy outfits to shoot on a balcony. So like you either look like you're wearing your pajama you got to do it, or don't like you're in or you're just like not doing the show.
But now, but it's much more of a show now than it was before. I mean before it was it was documenting your lives and people that genuinely knew each other and were living these genuine lives that had careers and have things going on. Now it's like you, it appears like you have booked the job of being Oh you're on Housewives of Miami or Atlanta or so it's like it's like if I booked a show. Oh I'm on a sitcom now with Charlie Sheen. Like it's a very it is a production. You show up, if you're
going to get up. It's you're doing a scene of waking up in the morning. So it's like you've got to get ready for that. You've got to go there and make up, pick out what your wardrobe is for waking up in bed. It's a different It's just it appears like it's a much different process.
Fascinating, and you were on a show for years where you knew the game. And it's funny because you're an actor. And that's why this reality reckoning that I brought up is so interesting because it's about the fact that they're not part of a union, so they get to hide behind saying quote unquote it's reality when it's not, it's produced. It's a different being than years ago, even with like table flips and leg tosses and like even the drama
is just way bigger and different. So there's this gray area where they get to produce it for so cheap because they get to really exploit people in the content and they're not even pt hected by scripted words. They say their own thing, or there's a hot mic, you're in the back, you're saying, I just I just slept with my nanny. And if there's a hot mic and you didn't want to be recorded just because you signed a release to be in that general party, that's now
everybody's business. So there's a lot of risk and it's different. So it's funny that you just tapped into that and said that because you're an actor.
Yeah, I think it's an amazing point.
Yeah, Okay.
So it also seems like it's a breeding ground for jealousy and competition. You just feel jealousy here. It's just like, I know that's the way it goes with a lot of these shows, but in this particular one, it felt more like it's really it wasn't a dog party, it was Caddy and it felt very like, really kill.
Or be killed?
Yeah, I felt that too.
But I think the nature of all the things have just spoken about about the bigger and better and the hair and the baker from the clothes, they created the storylines that it being you've booked a gig. It's it breeds competitiveness between the cost and that is just predominantly women. And now it's like, how can I be prettier than you? Is my husband better than you do? I have more
money than you? Is my storyline stronger than you? And I don't think they necessarily are those people in life, but I think a show like this greads that because you want to be good at it, you want to be successful, you want to build a following, you want to do a great job, and that means you're trying to be the best, which means you're going to be competitive. And I think it just brings out not the best in people.
Wow, I can't believe you just said that, because you literally just defined what it is, which is a zero same game. It is the Hunger Games. And there are people that I have said things to on these shows that I would love if I met them at a cocktail party. And just like I would love them like I love you. If you and I were on the show together, I might come for whatever the thing I knew was to come for, and you'd hit me because we were playing we were on Game of Thrones together,
right exactly. So fascinating that you realize that, because yeah, at least with actors, you're playing another character, and I'm sure that the jealousy behind the scenes comes between, but you've got a barrier between.
Yes exactly. Yeah, very much like that with reality to what's really funny watching not funny, haha, but but amazing watching the show is how similar it was to like when we did nine O two one zero, but we would have photo shoots. We would have these cast days where it was like hair and makeup was done, wardrobe was done, who's standing where in the pictures? So it's a it's this is now a grander scale of that
because in that instance, we weren't playing characters. We were being ourselves in these photo shoots, and you know who's whose trading card was coming out here, and who was seeing as this and who was and so it was very much about perception.
And by the way, I'm dying you guys are giving me so much more than I even would have dreamed, like exactly because people put so much stock into like where we're standing. And I remember Lizenus Berkeley and Tiffany Thesson when I was working as a PA and say by the belt, it was like, why does she get to wear the sexy outfits? And I don't get to wear the sexy outfit? And then you're right in photoshoots,
it's like I want to be in the center. Or even like if Bravo sends one person to London to do a PR tour, then everybody else Why did I get sent? Who's more famous? Who's booking more of this? Who's getting free shit?
Right?
So right, you had the barrier, and then you'd see those crazy days that are like every day is a house that's really very brilliant and insightful. And you see that they were referring back to another party and saying that one person suggested a game that was who do you trust the least?
Who create tension? Is that? I mean that's like, that's like having a game where you're sitting with your kids and you're having a conversation of who is my favorite kid?
It's never going to end. Well, yeah, you're just setting yourself up for you know, crazy tension and explosiveness, yeah, and feelings being hurt and it's your you're just setting But it makes sense in a show like that where it's it's all about those moments and that's the stuff that people want to tune into because it is so much bigger Day is, but it's you know.
You're right, But I think it's like the weird plug, Like if they had had a game and they said who would you want with you in a fox hole? It sounds like it's positive and you'd still fuck somebody over at your dinner, But it's not so like a really.
Right yeah, you know what I mean.
I think obvious for me is like that, oh, you're trying to create drama at this point, whereas there's maybe okay reality TV they want drama, they want things. There's probably a really nice lane in the middle day where you can still get to what you want as a producer, but not being so obvious and on the nose about it,
Because that's where I think is a view. No matter how much you love the franchise, you kind of go all right, you know it's going to be a cat fight at the end of this one, but allow it to develop and come out. And also then these women don't like such oshols to each other, but you still get the end results.
It's about the production.
It's about not just going for the low hanging for you're right, because we would go on a journey that's actually interesting too. Wow. Okay, so we leave burkins and butt lifts and we go into the sort of Lenny Lisa story. Now, yeah, I've met them both. I was actually on a trip with them, a fifty person trip that someone invited us to go to the Galapagos, and they were, you know, they're very, very over the top. He does everyone's I think it's boobs. He's the boob guy.
And which which is why the women were showing up. And it was like, look, the girls are here, and he was like, you, yes, they are. That's That's why I say.
I didn't connect that. I thought, what the fuck? Like, can you imagine when.
Who says that to somebody else? Bube guy, Then that makes sense. He's like, not pay by boobs the same way.
I still I think it's weird to say, even right, because he was like he was he was awkward.
He was awkward with it. He was like, Okay, well, I.
Think scene and setting is everything for adoptor, you know what I mean, Especially in being professionally, you don't go out in a while and be like, oh, well look I did those tits.
You know what I mean.
You're in your doctor's surgery. You can look and touch and do the things you need to because it's clinical and it's a procedure outside of your surgery. I think then it becomes more of a sexual nature. And as a wife, I would still be like, no, like saying for your appointment. You know what I mean, You're at my body, my good vibes body. Stop talking about your breasts with my husband.
I agree, And I also think that there, You're right. You're in a weird gown in a cold room, bad lighting, and you're taking your top of You're showing the human body your breast, whether at a party, your tips are up, your grease stuff looped up, wearing macrimeae Like, it's a totally different deal. Totally agree, Okay, agree to agree, Okay, agree to agree. So so I thought that was an awkward moment too. Now I'm the girls girl and I've like,
I've met Lisa, and I like her. Every relationship, you know, people meet at the middle. I'm sure some people are seventy percent wrong, thirty percent wrong. It's not necessarily my business. And they ended up getting divorced, and he ended up getting engaged to someone else while they were still legally married,
and it's a nasty divorce. And he's with someone else who's like young and hot and the whole cliche Beverly Hills thing that was being set up in the storyline of all the women he likes to have around.
But that's someone else telling out side. So I don't know. I've met them. Both.
They had they were having fun, very flashy, very cashy, very over the top, very hot, very the whole thing. Both of them liked to party and be social and the.
Bling and all of it.
So let's just put that to the side. The thing that I really want to know your opinion on, did he sign up for because he's been part of a reality show. Did he sign up for the airing of his dirty laundry on a hot mic in another room when he doesn't know that he's being filmed.
I know, it's a really good question. So I was wondering that.
As I was listening, it started off very hush, hushed in the way that I was speaking you until they don't really want to be heard. But when he's asked how you miked up, and he's like, why do you think I'm whispering? He literally said it like I'm saying it to you now, why do you think I'm Yeah, he didn't even like even whisper that lone, Like he barely whispered any of the others, so.
It wasn't covering up his mic, and he was miked up, And I almost I almost felt when I was watching it like it was a way for him to move the ball the way he wanted to within the situation, but then claim that it was caught on a hot mic like it was more. It felt like almost more of a setup than like he actually was caught on a microphone talking about something he wouldn't have normally been
talking about. I almost feel like he knew the cameras were walking away, so he could contell talking about it and it was maybe something that uh they would that the producers would get into and make something out of, but it was a much easier way for him to.
Maybe but then do you think he will stepped into that role of I am a cheater? And yeah, idea visually about that, like the way that he said it was so casual on off the cuff.
No, like I'm saying, yes, I have remorse, but.
No, no, I feel other than I'm done and I'm with this other chick and you know, no, we don't sleep with each other, and I'm out, like very much.
I having been through it, we are kind of told that if the camera's not on you, they really are not shooting you. And that's that's ninety nine point nine percent of the time. If the cat on The Apprentice, it's different. The camera's not on you. They want to catch you talking about the game and and and the
task and things like that. On The Housewives, ninety nine point nine percent of the time, if the camera's not on you and you can forget, you have the mic out, like you know you have it on, but you think it doesn't feel real. If the camera's not on you, it just feels like what they're not letting. The guy's got the big box, he's turned me off, he's got a thousand different things like and they'll look at you.
The sound guy and they're like, we're not on you right now, and you kind of just I'm sure I said a thousand things. I'm sure I've said stuff and I'm peeing. I'm sure I've had business conversations like you just you have the mic on all day. It's not like they're taking it on and off. And he's not a main character. And so it happened with a girl
on New York Housewife. She wasn't even a housewife. She was a guest at a party of well, it's like over one hundred person party, and on a hot mic, she was in another room, not on camera, and said to a housewife what she really thought about the groom to be of Luanne. And they didn't speak for years because of it. And all she did was have her own private thoughts with someone else, which we've all done.
If I had everything I've ever said on a mic, like about people that I love, like if I don't need Paul hearing every conversation you guys each other, don't need to hear each other's conversations when you're with your friends, like you know, we're not perfect, and I'd be like, oh, he's so fucking boring and he's on the cot like he doesn't want to hear me saying that. He'd be like, Oh, she's such a fucking pain in the ass. I mean, wouldn't say it like that, But that's in his head.
So my thing is, if we're in New York together, we could be on a phone call and I can record what you're saying to me. I can record legal Does that mean that like I'm supposed to blast it out and I know that they're on a show, But like, I think Freud might have gotten in the way in a sense that like he kind of wanted to get caught so like sort of didn't care.
That's what I was saying, Yeah.
Right, but not like proactive like Gray, I will.
The same thing. Even that you're telling about the story of the woman that wasn't even a regular on the show that was caught in the other room talking about a fiance in that whole story, It's like, I how much of that was now? Because you know now having done it for so long, that there are their technical
aspects to it. Also, wireless microphones don't work with it, you know, within that much of a range, Like guys can be standing ten feet away from you and be like I need to get closer because I'm not getting the conversation clear enough. Yeah, so there's god, there has to be in a situation like that where you've got a party full of people that are micd how many people twenty.
No, not even not even Yeah, maybe maybe on a big night like that, that'd be massive amount of mics.
So so, like you said, then why if the cameras were off of him, was sound making sure that they were picking up the sound of what it is he was saying. If he was in a different room and the cameras were off of him, unless that was on some levels, some sort of assignment that was given like hey,
this is how we're going to work this situation. Cameras are going to move on, but the cameras are going to do weird things like hide behind fountains, and we're like I was noticing as I was watching, I was like, what are the cameras ducking and hiding for if they're in a different unless they are trying to.
Visually pretend create something you've directed.
We go with this concept of oh it's a hot mic and it's something that's off set. It's like, okay, well, how it was a weird like they were created, they were falsely created, hitting a sense of something. It's so awkward to watch. It did feel awkward to watch for sure. It's not like the cameras walked out of the room and then went back to the party to like, you know,
see what was going on. It was like, what are you hiding behind like a rock water you know, feature for and like and you know, bushes crying like it was a whole weird.
It's so true.
Yes, I wonder if there's a thing like there was one season on Dancing with the Styles where they had these just cameras set up through our studios. So normally it's just the ones that are in the room with us and the guys with the cameras, but they had one season and actually they caught Kim Johnson at the time and Robert Herschelback kissing for the first time on.
One of these like basically hidden cameras. They can do these.
Things on reality. Maybe there was they're knowing that something's going to come up. They maybe hearing way that he's going to talk about it or that something is going on.
And so they set up I don't want to say traps, but traps like opportunities to catch this audio and someone's listening for it, And I think there's so many ways it can go.
I don't want to accuse him of being like outwardly saying and I would love to think he wants to have some discretion about it.
Well, if that other guy is miked, then you're right, because that other guy is not a character that would ever be miked. So that's actually you're giving me a smoking If the other guy was MICD, that's not a guy that they would prioritize at the beginning of a shoot. We're going to make that guy too, unless they thought
something was coming down the pike, right. And the other topic that I think is interesting that I found out on an earlier season of Housewives is that, like I assume that everybody wants to know now in America, like let's say, you know, sixty percent of divorce, not everybody can afford to get divorced. Not everybody wants to know, Like, not everybody wants So even though it's great that we all outed Lenny as the scumbag cheater, there are a
lot of cheaters. There are cheaters that aren't even cheaters. That it's an open relationship, we just keep it quiet. There are many dynamics, and so it brought up the question of where is the line? And yes, these people signed up for this, although he's not paid as a character, so he's not paid. He's signed up as the wife's you know, Yeah, he's not paid. And so now he's in another room and the camera's not on him, and where's the line of like, is there any line of ethics?
There's I mean, there is no There are no ethics on reality television because there's nothing they wouldn't put forward.
So is there a line.
Of that even though I'm team Lisa and all that, I'm just talking about the concept. Yeah, and somebody might not want to know, Like it could have been he's doing this, but it might have taken six more months for whatever reason, and it might not have exploded in the way that it didn't.
I don't think, as you said, I don't think there is in line with reality television. But maybe something that could have possibly hypothetically pushed him to air is whatever he's been sleeping with.
What if this woman.
Was like, I know you're doing this show and with your wife, but what about me and putting the pressure on him to just say it, just say.
He did it in a way that was awkward, like it also didn't land like he would have preferred to just publicly say I'm in love with someone, but for some reason, it put Yeah. I do think freud gets involved. I think pushing something into the show. I think it's a mixture of all of it. But it's an interesting concept. Can you imagine not knowing that something was filmed and six months later it lands on television. You did not realize you were on a hot mic.
That's not Lisa watching it, you know what I mean?
Like, that's just, Oh, that's horrible seeing that play back, because that's that's humiliating at the end of the day to be there talking about him, talking about there in such a good place Lisa, Right, Lenny and Lisa.
Yes, But it's funny because you see the scenes from the next week when she's saying we're about to get divorced. Because it wasn't like six months later this came out next week on the show. Something came out, So you know, maybe he realized it. Maybe the producers told her, I don't know they want Yeah.
I was wondering, like do you get to the end of that moment as as Lenny and and you turn to the to everybody that's involved behind the scenes, and you go, was that good? Good? Good job? Everybody got what they like? You know, how how manufactured is it?
I can't see a world where he would want that to be public in that right.
I can't either necessarily. But who crazy?
It's around culture we don't know. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
I mean the dude, you know when they throw house parties. They were talking about that, like she throws it more with friends and people she knows, and he throws he's married, but he throws these big ragers with like tons of models and topless people and boots and yeah, as you said, was the setup you know what I mean for what comes.
Amazing? And then you I just want you know that.
Do you know that Larza is an relationship with Michael Jordan's son. Now is that in your has that hit your radar?
Okay?
So Larsa Pippen, you know she was with Scotty Pippen.
Did you know that?
Yeah, Okay, that's her ex. Now she's dating Michael Jordan's son, Yes, son.
So Scotty and Michael Jordan were on the Bulls together, right Scotty. Now Scotty was Jordan's like number one guy.
Like that was like Gronk and Brady.
Yeah it is. Yeah, it's like, yeah, loyalty day.
You know, I imagine that Michael Jordan has a real struggle with that for shure.
Yeah right, okay, you get it. Then.
So Scotty's X is now dating Jordan's son, not dating that's serious.
Yeah.
I think they have a podcast together here too. Yeah, just giving a little tea. Oh my god, you got that was so But at some point we'll have to like talk about you guys and like, can I just know how you guys met?
Well for another time.
Yeah, the show story is a mutual business manager had a moment of like, think you should meet this person with both of us, And it was a weird request from a business manager who was not a.
Cuban by any means, but fantastic with your finances.
And it was like, Okay, that's almost so random and so weird that I feel like I have to say yesterday, yeah and ago, So three years ago, now, three years ago, we ended up at Peddler's book in Calabasas and we had coffee and we ended up losing time, stay there for five hours, talking about everything.
The easiest conversation it was during It was during COVID, So it was so nice to just be able to have a real conversation with somebody we were both enjoying. We were both in a place where I had really gotten through and felt great about the divorce and the way everything had sort of worked out. And Toronto had been single for five years at this point, so we had both really been therapy and working on the people we wanted to be. So when we met, we were
on this very sort of common path together. It was there were completely different, you know, different ends of it, but we we just had so much to talk about in common. Yeah, and you're saying.
The relationship could breathe because neither of you had big agendas. It was COVID. It was just sit still.
There was no agendas.
And we'd also COVID or not, I think reached that point in our lives where it was like I don't need anyone.
I'm good. I'd love to share with someone. Yeah, it was like we were we were getting together and we were having coffee and and our business manager, I had just started. I was working on a show called Mass Dancer. I was working on the panel of that. Sharna comes from Dancing with the Stars, so so our business manager sell to Sharna was, Oh, he's working on a dancing show, so if anything, you have some dancing stuff.
To talk, right, And it was like, but we talked about no dancing whatsoever. We just got into talking as people and it was it was awesome, And we did that five times before we kissed for the first time and really went there.
We took our time basically to get to know each other. No one was in a crush.
Yeah, you know, it was really great about is you know, people talk about fire and spock and this and love of first site. There is that, but this was so easy and steady and calm and natural and safe.
Yes, but just I think easy is the word I can give it.
Well, it didn't feel like it was going to be a roller car study, but like it was going to be consistency.
And we had really fun conversations with each other. Early on. We would ask my right, much like who's your favorite child. We would have conversations about what's your worst quality? Yeah, And we would get into those things with each other so we never really had that honeymoon period going into this. We had aired all of that, and we were coming from a very uh a very like responsible, open, natural place with each other. We weren't. It wasn't it wasn't
a date. We didn't go there dressed, you know, in our best stuff and make up done and ready for show time. It was like we showed at at a coffee place and we had breakfast and.
An abandoned house. I've seen it.
Wouldn't it wouldn't have terrible boring you Yeah, yeah, but it's but it's a great it's I wish that we would have filmed it for ourselves because it would have been interesting to watch and and to error later on our.
That would be funny. You're like, hey, this is weird. I just want to just sign a release.
I just I was you're okay, he's over there.
Yeah, I got mine.
To see what you're wearing because I'm going to hide a microphone, so I just need yeah.
Exactly, Yeah, I call I call that show. You're crazy early. I love that, Like warts and all, are where are you from? And are you from Australia?
Yeah, Australia, Sydney Australia. Australia, the country town.
Yeah you go, do you guys go?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. I've never been to Australia before, and so we went. And then we had the opportunity to go to Laga and see that. We went to the Australia Zoo. The Irwin family took care of there. We were in Sydney most of the time. All the kids came with, so it was it was a real fun family trip. It was amazing.
We rented a house in Cromorn Point which has a view of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, the whole home.
I'm speaking at the opera I'm so glad you gave me a humble brunt. I'm speaking at the Opera House and in April.
That's amazing And I don't even know.
What it is, but I I other people have said it's amazing. So I just keep regurgitating and hoping.
People are like, no, what.
That neighbor, You've never been to the Opera House.
That's where we've been in the water by the harbor right, Yeah, I've seen it, Yeah exactly. I did a launch there years ago. But like I'm speaking to several a couple of thousand people, and in my third Australia trip, I feel like I love Australia and it's it's a real big trip, but like it's so worth it.
I love you.
Ever done the zoo? Are you an animal?
I did the zoo, I did the climbing thing. Yes, And I'm a big ada.
Did you You walked over the bridge and did that whole thing bridge stage. I don't want to do it. So I never wasn't that.
It was fine we did.
Everybody said it's like this big thing, and I was like, here we went. We went like great white shark diving off off the coast of Mexico at Guadaloupe Island. So I was like, if you can do that, you can walk over the bridge. There's steps and you're shot n two different things.
Like the Kimberly it's the Kimberly Islands.
I know these people that have that company passed Blay, you know at the Pearl company if you heard of it, papsolet passed by. They control they controlled like ninety percent of the pearls in the whole world. Like, and they invited me on this crazy boat trip, but it got canceled twice. Because of pandemic where they control those waters and they go pearl forming and like I've always wanted to go to Kimberly's is like where they do sports
illustrated things. It's like beautiful anyway, I don't know, I just connect to that place. So it's going to be my third time. And I always say yes when there's a trip there, and it's certainly not easy, but I'm excited. So I'm going to Melbourne and Sydney and I'm going in and I'm bringing my daughter.
So I'm thrilled. Love you guys are great. I'm so excited so much for.
Having us on again. I I've been a huge fan of yours for a long time. I think what you do is amazing. I know the work that you've done has been incredible, And hopefully you'll come on our podcast.
At some quick also, I would love it.
Then we'll get out of the we'll get out of the weeds of Real Housewives.
No, we can talk about relationships.
Yeah, so we we sort of. That's that's what we do. We kind of find topics every week and we really get into the deep on those and it's a two
episode a week kind of thing. We we have a new episode on Tuesdays and then Thursday is a follow up where people can actually call it live or they can submit questions and we really get into co parenting and disappointment and I did sin is the one we're doing this week, Like we're really trying to get do a deep dive into these things because it's so you know, it's so helpful for people like yourself to tell stories and people realize, oh god, I'm not alone in what it is.
Yeah, and the conversation can breathe here and you can say different things that you can't see elsewhere.
So awesome.
I'm so excited. Yeah, I'm one.
Thank you, Bethany. It was really really amazing hanging with you today.
Thank you have a great day.
By ye Bank.
That was wonderful. They were amazing. What a beautiful couple. What a great conversation. Uh, he's really funny. I just and they were so insightful, Like they were so insightful, Like it was good to play tennis with a better tennis player. I really enjoyed that. It was just good to have someone get it. They were fascinating, really love them. Wow, it's amazing. You just get to know people that you have just heard about in your periphery and couldn't say better things.
I'm excited it for.
Their podcast, so check that out because it seems like it's going to be very deep and amazing.
Yay