So I just heard that Kelly Roland walked out of The Today Show when she was co hosting with Hodah because of the size of her dressing room. I was in the exact same position, co hosting the show with Hodah on The Today Show. And my hair and makeup touch up spot was a curtain just closing off a part of the lobby, and then my dressing room was the size of a closet. And you know what, I was so excited to be there. Who would have even thought.
In fact, I have video of the dressing room because it was like a clown car and we were all trying to fit in there. And that was the day that my assistant forgot my dress and I had to wear a Today's Show bathing suit. You are so lucky to be invited to co host. It is like you jump up and down. You're so excited. I would get dressed in my car. It doesn't matter. And it's not fancy there. Even their makeup room is not fancy there. I have tons of video in their makeup room. It's
like a news organization. You're not there for fluff and pomp and circumstance, and they buy their own clothes it's just not like Hollywood bullshit Diva.
That's not what it is. It's an honor to co host.
The Today Show. And if you have to sit in your car, you sit in your car. It's just not a Nicki Minaj moment. So when Travis Kelcey screamed Viva Las Vegas in that cave era holding a club loincloth, big fur vest pelt vibe, that gave like I just killed a buffalo with my bare hands and now I'm going to cook it on an open fire that I made with two stipped sticks that I rubbed together. When he did that, some people were shocked, and some people
think that that must have turned off Taylor's swift. But this is a man who wore a black sequin leisure suit walking into the super Bowl, Like, this is a guy who is loud and proud, unapologetic, a human disco ball, a warrior, Winter is coming, Game of Thrones, not polished football playing animal. So there's no mystery here. He's got a giant beer, He's gargantuan in size. His mom is carrying pizza in ziploc bags because she's grabbing the bag
with a ziplock. Deal with the ziplock wrap coming out of her purse, which I can literally tell you the name of the person who took that picture, because these are branded photographs and I've done them in the past where they'll be like, yeah, here, we just want you in this supermarket and you're just like holding the goat milk, but the goat milk container needs to be facing us and it needs to be like coming out of your bra.
And you're like, I don't think that seems real, and they're just like, don't worry, because, like places like Us Weekly and in Touch, they just want to get the picture of the celebrity. And the only way that the photographer can get the picture of the celebrity is by having keefer slash goat milk coming out of your bra.
So his mom is famous.
Now she's Taylor Swift's bff, and so she's got ziplock coming out of her purse.
And Ramona had chicken in her purse at the reunion.
Why can't Travis Kelce's mom have ziplocks coming out of her purse?
To be fair, there is no better storage. I mean, I'm a pouch.
Girl, so like Ziplock's a great storage pouch, Like you don't want to get the inside of your purse dirty, just put a ziplock in there and put your pen and your blush and your lip gloss. Like I'm not getting paid and I have ziplocks coming out of my purse. I never don't have zip blocks with me, So I used to store all my bathing suits and zip blocks like. I don't know what Travis Kelce's mom did, But I live in ziplock. My house is made of ziplock, so
I deserve it. But Travis Kelsey's mom as a man who is barely walking upright as a son, So him screaming out Viva las Vegas in a Game of Thrones caveman club whole holding tone is not a surprise and shouldn't.
Be getting anyone the ick.
You gotta dance with the one who brung you, and like it or not, he brought her to the super Bowl this year. Where is the line with discussing women's appearances. Please help me, because Megan Fox is out looking different at the super Bowl and people are commenting on that she's a beautiful girl. It's presumably because she's so stunning, And where's these skin tight outfits and looks perfect and now she looks different. So is that a result of public scrutiny, self deprecation, being insecure?
I guess it's just a conversation, but.
It needs to be had very lightly because we shouldn't be talking about women's appearances. And the same goes for Amy Schumer, who's just out doing talk shows and has said she's experiencing a medical issue. I had that happen to me from pots where I was holding onto water and looked really swollen. But maybe she is having a medical issue.
Does it matter.
She's not pretending she's a supermodel. She's done the opposite in movies. She's a woman who is just living her life and won't always look the same. Can we not make her feel worse? Can we not pile on? Amy Schumer does enough self deprecating. We do not need to pile on. That's what I think. You know, we've talked about Jennifer Anison looking different in her recent season of the Morning Show because she's also an older woman, you know,
like myself. She's older than when we watch reruns of her on Friends, and so maybe she's feeling a certain kind of way and maybe she wants to tweak. Nicole Kidman's gone through it, Meg Ryan's gone through it. You're a woman in Hollywood, You're heavily scrutinized. You're aging out in your mind. Although it's never been a better time to be a woman in your fifties, but you're aging out in your mind, and you kind of just want to keep up. And you're watching young women not only
get roles but be relevant and look perfect. You're watching filtering too. If you're a woman in my generation or Amy Schumer's generation, you're probably not heavily editing and filtering because you just it's not who you are. And now you're competing with people who do heavily filter, who are thirty years younger than you, not just for roles, but just for relevance, attention deals.
Skincare I don't know.
I'm just saying like, we have to be a little more delicate, and we just don't need to be criticizing women like Amy Schumer or Megan Fox or Jennifer Aniston about their appearance. We have to be very cognizant of how we discuss what we want to do and what we like and what we don't like and what we think is okay, and what we don't think is okay.
I've been guilty of it.
I've talked about Kim Kardashian removing a clavigal and a post and losing drastic amounts of weight for the Mech Gala as a mother of a teen. But I certainly do not think that Amy Schumer has done anything that deserves any kind of criticism. And frankly, I don't know if Megan Fox has either. She was in a relationship, she posts skimpy outfit, she looks hot, she's an actress,
and she seems to be minding her own business. Jennifer Aniston also, she's just probably just trying to survive in a very very severely critical industry and world because social media is everywhere.
So let's give him a break.
So Wendy Williams is going to be on the cover of People magazine and what a rise and what a fall? I definitely have an opinion because I've met Wendy several times.
I've been on the show.
And I also have been in the talk show space in the same group that produced her talk show, that syndicated her talk show. So I first met Wendy years ago. When I did her show, and then she was friends with Nini. They had some sort of a falling out, but one time she just like called me out of the blue with Nini on the phone and just like was like, I'm sorry, I've said so many things about you, but let's get together or come on the show or just something that was jarring.
And I know they don't speak anymore.
I don't know what the falling out was, but they were close, and Wendy got popular because of these hot topics, and she was very disruptive. She came off the radio and she was loved and she was successful. And what was told to me from behind the scenes when I used to visit the show was that her husband kind of ran the show and he controlled the program.
And I didn't know he was partners on it.
I didn't know he was making money off of it, but I knew that like he was running the program.
I knew that.
I was told that, and there was something definitely dark in the underbelly over there. I distinctly remember this. And you'd go on her show sometimes. Then it got to
the point where you would never do her show. I was advised never to do her show, even if it was the most like sort of charming ask and they want to bury the hatchet and what because you'd go on and it would be you know, kind of gotcha, which was fine, But the problem was when you weren't on, she'd be just talking badly about you when you weren't there, or you know, to the audience or putting on clips, and you just always felt kind of exposed.
It was really like tabloid talk show.
And I always wondered how she got people to even do it because it was super nasty.
Like, as a.
Host of this podcast, I really want to protect the guest. I mean I really want someone not only while they're on to feel good, but later on not to be churned and burned through the media. It's why I get such amazing guests, because people know that I'm polarizing and can be disruptive.
But there's a safe space. You know.
It doesn't matter if you're Matthew McConaughey, Hillary Clinton, or Rachel or Nini, who can all be controversial. It just means it's a safe space. Doesn't mean I agree with everything, It just means that you're not going to kind of like be churned through some pr machine in the name of me while to get clickbait but.
Throw people out.
So Wendy was really tricky, and I was really often advised, even when it would be tempting to just not do her show. When you're first coming up and you're not as successful and you can't make any choices and you just do whatever your take given. Then I used to do it, but once I became more successful, I just there was no upside to doing it. She really would have no problem just trashing anybody in the name of ratings, and it worked and.
She got guests.
But I will say this, a talk show is made to look easy and it's brutal. And the money once you get to her level, or Rachel Ray or Ellen or someone else, like it's so intoxicating because you've learned to live this lavish Rolls Royce lifestyle. Ellen's flipping multiple houses.
Wendy's got Rolls voices and supporting her her husband and all this stuff, and like it gets tempting for those people and they kind of can't get out and they're spending so much that they have to go back the next year because how you're not going to make between five and thirty million dollars and just take it. It's like, wasn't that much, But that's why people stay on the Housewives. And I left because there was no number for my sanity.
And I say that because there was a number for Wendy's sanity, because I think that talk show combined with her marriage and the pressure. You get in in the morning and you have a pit crew on you seven o'clock in the morning, and there's a pit crew on your body literally like tweaking and tucking and it, and all the different stations because she's not on one network. She's syndicated, which is where you make more money, but
where you have more opinions. So all the people on all the different stations that she's servicing around the country, they all have an opinion. Don't tell her not to wear a hemline that short, or tell her that lipstick was too bright, or don't say this, or don't do that. And you're like kind of stifled because you can't just make a move and everyone's deciding what guests to book based on what did well yesterday, so you can't kind of have your own original thought of what you want
to do. You move in there and you think I'm gonna do a show and it's to be about this, and I want to talk about that, but everybody else is in your ear telling you what the show has to be about. So her hot topics work, so she has to trash people. Now she's on a treadmill. And every day you go in and nobody wants to hear you're in a bad mood, because no one wants to hear famous, rich people talk about being in a bad mood or they had a bad day. So you have
to be cheery and happy every day. You're also directing traffic. When we come back up next, Chlorox is here. You're constantly on a loop and you're just being moved and shuffled and handed things. And from the minute you get in, someone is doing your hem, linking you off, asking you what you want to have for lunch. Five people with clipboards are coming in and out telling you who's coming on today. You're exhausted, you might not have slept, you got in so early, you may have to do two shows.
It is a fucking grind. I despised it. I hated it. I hated myself for hating it because I knew all these people were working there and they wanted the gig and wanted it to go on. It was so disingenuous. It is such a nightmare to make it look easy and to make you look happy. Behind the scenes, what's going on is torture. And I know she probably experienced some mental health issues. I don't know how those all converge. I obviously I'm an expert on this, and she was
terrible and said terrible things about me. But it's a job for a person that's not very happy, like but you come in happy and you leave a wreck like. Honestly speaking, Ellen came out and said every day to be kind to each other. That was the audience she was talking to, Like, she couldn't come out and be grouchy or be miserable or vent. So you're just stuffing it all down and have to look so cheery every
day because you're talking, you know, to America. You're giving giant checks that are you know, you're giving out all these gifts pretending it's you giving them out. You're not giving them out. Some sponsors giving them out. But you get to be Ellen and ath like you you know, I'm giving you the twelve Days of Christmas or Oprah and you get a car, and you get a car, they're not paying for that. It's just an acting gig that's like so intense and so brutal, and think about
my personality. And that's why I despised it, because it was like having a noose around your neck of who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to say and how you're supposed to feel and how you're supposed to portray and what you're supposed to wear and what sponsor you have to mention. And it's a grind. It's not free, it's not natural, it's not normal. And that's definitely something that contributed to Wendy's demise. I'm sure she loved it when she was on the radio being free
and who she could really be. In in the beginning, it's a great novelty, but after years of having everyone up your ass, grinding you and torturing you and pressuring you, you're fucking gonna blow.
It happens to everyone, that's the truth.
And I legitimately do not know anything specific about what's going on with Wendy, just what I've read, and she's acutely aware of how she's being portrayed and probably goes in and out of these different sort of states of mind. But I don't know that the pressure of what the entertainment industry can do to some people, not just because we're complaining, you know, Wendy's complaining about being famous or successful.
I'm just saying, when you've got everyone's opinion weighing on what you look like, what you say, and you've got fame, and you've got scrutiny, and you've got money, and you've got the pressure, and you've got a whole entire crew and all of this, it's just going to be a pressure cooker and the top is going to fly off.
And that's what seems like what happened with her. It could be totally wrong.
It could be that it's all just mental health and she was predisposed to this, but having seen her in action with her husband, who everyone said was like a tyrant controller all of this.
It sounds like a nightmare.
And I honestly have compassion for her and I feel for her, and I am you're listening to someone talk about her that she trashed, and that has to eat away at you too. You can't be very happy if
you're constantly trashing. You just can't You can't be living a very happy true life if every day you're going to just regurgitate and churn out headlines and turn them into a negative opinion and gossip about people like really just reducing their difficult divorces, infidelity, their lives, their careers, their mistakes into an anecdotal, snarky hot topic segment.
You just can't be happy.
So she had to be miserable for a long time to talk so badly about so many people.
It happens to the best of us.