Hello, and welcome to Mom and Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Monday, the thirteenth of April. I'm Holly wayIn right, Oh.
I was poor. I was poor because you had something.
In the script I did, and I do. I'll bring that back. I was going to do it at the end, and then I was like, I'm Holly Wayne right, and I've got a rogue Monday question before we get started today from my friends here you are? You are?
Oh, I'm Clare Stevens and I'm in Burnham filling in for Amelia today.
I heard this heated debate in the office this morning. Well, you know how Monday morning everyone's chitty chatting in the kitchen. We're still going on with the weekend. Do you share a towel with the people you live with? Now, I know that you live alone, Emily, but you grew up in a house with other people, so you get to answer this question too. Do you share a towel? Like, not one towel, but like are there specific towls for specific people? Are just general towels for use?
So this is kind of one of the problems with my life. I share a towel my husband don't know that. My husband think, what do you mean you share a towel? As in, like, if my partner's just got out of the shower and his towels hanging up, I'll.
Just use it, Jail.
I'm like, here's my theory immune systems. I think I have I reckon. We should all be using each other's town I've been known to use someone else's toothbrush and people get really.
Mad, and I'm like, I don't know. This is the debate, right m Because the debate in the kitchen went something like somebody said what you just said, Claire, which is also my position. There are towels hanging up in the bathroom, as long as they're dry and not smelly, I'm using it. I don't. It's not like that spread's towel, this is my house.
Touch someone else's genital Yeah, that's exactly what.
So you present the other argument because Nicole, our friend Nicole, was like, that's disgusting. It's disgusting.
What do you want from their.
Fungal insection because you're gonna get one so.
In your house of origin, and if you've got other people in your house, now it's like, here's your towel, here's my tael your town.
No, after they all go on the washing machine, then like you can have a different town.
Maybe if you're looking for a different color.
Yeah, if you're getting bored, but no, if that's your towel, that's your tail for the week.
I did.
I did find out this week's towel, that's this week's I did.
Find out I've got I had this like weird gut bacteria called h plori I want to have. It can be like a risk factor for bow cancer stuff. So I'm glad I found out I had it and it got traded. But the way I found out was that Jesse had it. And they basically said, if you've lived in the kind of family that has few boundaries german wise, all I just called up my family being like, guys, we've all, we've all.
A few boundaries germanise. That is a great way of putting it, all right, I'm sorry to start Monday like that out louders, but if you want to her, if you want to ask yourself this question, are you like? Because I know some people who are like the child the green tails of mine, the yellow tells yours. I feel like I'm looking at you differently. It's what's actually made our agenda for this Monday morning.
It's Biberchella and the young millennials and older gen Z's cannot stop cry. Why did the singer do you wedding?
With?
These old YouTube videos feel strikingly profound.
Also, the world is incomplete chaos. Her husband is making everything worse. So why did Milania Trump choose this moment to step out in front of a camera and prompted to deliver a very strange address? She's so funny and.
Good girl dying and Lena Dunham and the addiction to fame, everything that's been happening since she stepped back into the spotlight.
But first, it's Christmas week and buy that. I mean it's Harry and Megan. Yes, indeed our favorite, not favorite ex royals. They are like sort of royals now because he is. We still don't know who they are in We don't really know, but anyway, they are arriving on our shores. They may be pulling up right now via ship. I really doubt it.
British people always that.
Would be fun, but I doubt it. I mean, possibly by either first class or PJ PJ with the fuel. Christlis, I who knows. I don't want to slander them. They may well be just on an ordinary plane, but it's going to be very interesting to see what happened. So Harry and Megs are in Australia for the first time in eight years. The last time they were here, a young Claire Stephens, yes young naive royal obsessed went down to the Opera House and were among the throngs who
queued up to see them. That was like a very traditional kind of royal walk about. What was it like? What was the vibe?
So the vibe was hugely, hugely positive. Everybody was obsessed with them. Everybody loved them and for example, like I remember seeing I think they were like snipers on the top of the opera house, Like the security was insane and not for a second did anyone question it, whereas now I think the narrative has changed.
Well now it's different because this isn't an official royal tour and they they're keeping a lot of it under wraps. But what we do know about this trip, because it's funny when you said so when they came to Australia, that was they hadn't been married long it was when we found out that Megan was pregnant with Archie. She announced that, well, they're in Australia. It was also, they told Oprah afterwards a big turning point because it went
so well. Harry said, everything changed after that. The world got to see the family, meaning the royal family got to see how incredible Megan is at the job, and he was insinuating that. Then they got a bit jealous and things began to turn.
I remember everyone was very excited, like it felt like the energy in the air was very It was actually my introduction to Mum and me because I was going for my job interview here and I was like, let me look at their instagram and the Instagram story was Claire in the Mummy offices and everyone touching her.
Head because she touched Prince Harry.
I was like, this sounds like a great job for me. Claire touched Prince Harry. This time is a private visit. So the way that they roll now is they're doing these sort of they're not royal tours because they're not official working royals anymore, but there will be public elements. So what we know is going to happen, and obviously will keep you abreast of developments. But they said on the record that this trip is and will include a
number of private business and philanthropic engagements. So we know that on Wednesday in Melbourne, Harry's going to do a November event about male mental health.
Is he growing a massage?
Oh? That would be great, not a great point. It's not November yet, no, so probably not for all.
It'd be nice.
Kylen Berg is going to be there, Sylemberg. Kyler Burg is on that panel too from the Imperfect. So lots of big, lots of big mental healthy people are going to be there. And maybe on Thursday, it hasn't been confirmed yet, but they're expecting some kind of games event maybe on Sydney Harbor. And then on Saturday night, we do know that Megs is doing her gala dinner for besties everybody, which is like a lot of women are going. They're spending the weekend and then there's going to be
a dinner and she's going to talk. Everybody is speculating though that there will be an announcement that as ever goods will be going to finally be shipped to Australia of June, which obviously means I will no longer have to rely on the good will and charity of us out loud is to send me my jam and I might finally get to get tipsy on too Rose, which.
Would be and the flower sprinkles, yes, and the dog biscuits.
I've still got some flower sprinkles. Turns out not so many uses for the little flower sprinkles in my life to have, though, it's going to be a very interesting week.
Are they gonna be gallivanting?
No, because the thing is, well, we don't know for sure. It sounds like the event on Sydney Harbor might be relatively public. But to your point before about security, that's why they can't do that. So when you're coming on a royal tour, you've got this baked in level of security. And this is his art. This has been Harry's big
sticking point with going back to the UK. This is a private visit so as in they're doing some philanthropic philanthropic things, but now when they travel they don't have that weight behind them, so it's unlikely they can like that. They can handle that security wise, crowds and stuff, but we'll see what happens because they're keeping it very quiet I assume for security reasons, but we all know about it.
We know a little bit like where are they staying? And I guess it's funny because I'm always like, oh, security, Like people are pretty normal, you have to worry about that. And then I think about myself and I think, if I knew where they were staying, I'd be doing some drive buse every day. Coachella twenty twenty six aka the Influencer Olympics aka Sabrina Would aka bab Cella has a lot of names AKA for most of us. Bedchella started on Friday, and it is like a lightning rod for culture.
There is so much going on. You've got a former World Leader there. You've got so many Kardashians.
Do you mean Katy Perry's boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, And he is looking.
Good, looking good, and I feel like he was just there for justin as like it's kind of like when your teacher comes to support you, but it's like the.
Former premis being like co justin.
Of course, you've got gossip unfolding, which we will get to. And you've got influencers like beck Yard and Tammy Hembrou and Sofa Dofa and all these other influencers crying outside because their passes didn't work.
Was anybody on that side of TikTok?
That would be upsetting if you went all the way there and then you couldn't get in, and you were like all ready to do your outfit reveal and everything, and then you're like, this is what I wore to get denied entry to Coachella exactly.
Apparently there were all these issues. Basically, if you bought it slightly late, you couldn't get in. So many would you do?
Content wise?
Then sorry, you film yourself crying and it goes pretty viral. It's actually probably goes more viral than if you were in there. Great content strategy. So I'm watching it all from my lounge with a hot water bottle obviously, but just a quick recap. First, Sabrina Wood, did you guys see Oh Sabrina Carpenters.
But my favorite moment was when she did tears, which obviously the famous line is about tears run down my thighs, and she sat on top of a fountain but very subtly.
Shot out tears from.
Underneath her mutton.
I loved her. Oh my god.
I love big concerts, like I just want to have fun. I don't want to think, I want to release my inhibitions, and I just want to watch Sabrina Carpenter on a car getting wet.
There was a lot of from what I saw, there were a lot of costume changes, there was a lot of scenery changes. There was a real life car, there was a real live fountain, there were dancing poodles. Like it was a big deal.
She was in a movie.
She was starring in a movie.
So I think Beyonce took it to the next level when she did her Bachella concert, and it feels like everyone who had to headline after that has to really be like, oh, this is the concert off for a certain young man we're about to talk about her basically was wearing.
A hoodie exactly.
So then there was Baba Tella, So Sabrina Carpenter headlined the first night and just Biber headlined the second night. And there has been a little bit of criticism that Sabrina Carpenter literally was doing the most. She had Susan Sarandon doing an interlude.
Monologue that was weird and.
Not funny and quite dark, and she had Will Ferrell kind of popping up on stage and pretending to be an electrician, like she really was doing the most. And then there was Justin Bieber in a hoody essentially on YouTube.
I see them.
He was sitting on the floor with his laptop like looking at the YouTube videos and then going, oh, this sound's fun and singing along with it. Is that an accurate representation?
But it was genius.
Yeah, it's so good.
It's kind of like you know when you pick.
Up your phone to check the time, and then sudden you're scrolling on TikTok and you're like, what was I doing on Justin?
You're before me. I want you to explain to me, Claire, because obviously I've seen bits of it. It looked great. He looked really well, which is good because I remember this time last year at Coachella he did not look well. He was stumbling around, he could barely stand up. Everyone was like fears for Justin. But what I don't really understand that I need a millennial to explain to me is why there are literally women in the office today almost crying about how glorious it was.
Oh, I found it so moving.
So for part of his set, as I said, he searched himself on YouTube playing some of his oldest hits like baby, never Say Never with You and those sorts of things, and he dueted with himself, and.
Because his voice used to be so high, it was so low, and there's such like he really wanted this so much and then all these years later it's nearly killed him exactly.
And that was I think a really stark contrast for people watching that you had this boy who was really and still is incredibly talented.
He see got mocked and very much.
I mean, his behavior went down some.
He went off.
Track for quite a while. He's had, if not kind of there's rumored drug issues, but it had there not been drug.
If you've seen the videos from last year, the drug roomors are not rumored.
H Yeah, there are suspicions now that he was kind of exploited, if not potentially abused as a young performer. And seeing this performance, he looked so joyous. And there's also he was really self deprecating. He was kind of making fun of viral meme videos where he walked into a glass wall and where he was just yelling at the paparazzi and he's kind of quoting himself, which I
don't think we've ever seen him in recent goods. We've never seen that, And some of the commentary was about he's literally showing up to heal everyone's in a child like There was something quite profound about seeing somebody almost speaking to themselves as a child. But there's another element to it that I was not aware of, which is apparently in two twenty twenty three he sold his entire back catalog of music because the rumors where he needed
the money. So instead of getting royalties for all his history of amazing albums, he got one up front fee of like two hundred million or something.
Britney Spears has just done exactly the same. Ye.
Yeah, And so that's a bit of a theory about why he was sitting there on YouTube, because he still has the rights to the YouTube videos and he was only playing small snippets clever. The theory is that he was kind of trying to get around that loophole. But he also did an amazing at the kid LaRoy and Enjoy was on stage and they what's that Boddy's on?
Stay?
They didn't stay and it was freaking amazing, and I think it really reminded us how talented that man.
His voice, he's so talented.
His voice really is outstanding.
No, he was. He was great, lots of good songs. Were you upset that he was allowed to do that in his pants? He got paid ten million dollars? He got paid ten million dollars. Apparently it's the most that a headliner at Coachella has ever been paid. And he was very His whole set was very low fire, which I like, Like, I don't think every show needs to be have fountain spurting out from under your legs. Yes, it's room.
For everything if you're headlining coach I if I bought tickets to Coachella, because a lot of people buy tickets just to see the headliners because they haven't been able to see them in concerts. Separately, I know a lot of people would have bought tickets to Coachella just to see Justin Bieber. And if I was one of those people, because I love Justin Bieber so much, I would have felt a bit robbed, really a bit robbed from a performance because it was like, it was a great performance
from videos I saw. But that is not the kind of concert I want to go to. I want to go to something where I literally can just stand up and dance and have a good time. If I want to go to something where like I want to connect with my inner child, I want to think about it. I want to look at, Wow, what a great artistic journey you've taken on this, Then maybe I would just sit at home and watch it online, which is what I do.
Don't you think it's probably likely that he's at the point in his career and he's got all these things to prove, as discussed in these legal complications, and God does what that he wants to prove to everyone that he can just perform, and he can like he doesn't need twenty thousand dancers and fountains and a set and a mark can do.
That, but like, then perform, like give me a performer.
I also think though, that people are looking at it say like it is funny to say, okay, he was in a hoody on YouTube in front of a huge Coachella stage that would have been so Matiq planned. Oh, and there is something genius about it, which is so many of us have found ourselves in justin.
Bb YouTube rabbit holes, and it is a joyous place to.
Be and it's really really it's kind of like looking behind the scenes to see him watching it, and I think there was something because I know what you mean. Em On the surface, especially, it can feel like it was quite indulgent, that it was kind of an artist having their own moment.
But it's actually the fact that he gave the fans.
Everybody just wants him to play baby his old frickin' songs, and he gave it to them, and he did in a beautiful karaoke.
Esque What about the other gossip? Because what I love watching Coachella through my phone and you know, I'm sure some of those performances are amazing, but it looks like it's hard to have a good time there as a famous person because I've just seen so many famous people kissing other famous people being drunken than they should be. Although things, That's why I saw justin last year backstage like that wouldn't be any fun. Why do they all
still go and have a good time? On what gossip did we learn this time?
I reckon some of them are having fun.
Laudie, I hear was having quite a lot of fun with Kylie Jenner. Yes, no Kendall, sorry, Kyle's Timothy.
That would be front page. I think Kylie was cheating on Timothy with Jacob.
Oh my god, Kendall and Jacob are allowed to kiss because that's height appropriate, which is very important.
Although I did think that Jacob was should with his girlfriend, but I guess not. But yes, the rumors are that Kendall and Jacob were hooking up. There is no footage, but there is somebody that they saw it, and so do we believe that? I don't really know.
I think the reason celebrities hook up with each other at Coachella because it's because they know everyone's doing it. They're like, if we do it now, then maybe everyone would just be looking at Kim Kardashian and Louis they won't be looking at us.
And I also know because I found the staggering fact that Justin Bieber's headlining set did not start till eleven thirty five pm.
Wow.
And I'm just like to imagine in my youth, I went to lots of music festivals, how out of it everybody is By eleven thirty five pm you would be passing a fence post. I'm thinking it was Jacoba Laudie, Yeah, what I would be.
That's also what's fun about it is that you see mad celebrities in the crowds, singing and dancing and losing it. There's a guy called m You're going to think, I'm there's a guy called Somber.
Yeah, yeah, my daughter likes it.
Yes, he that was hilarious him. I think it was Justin Bieber, him dancing and singing, Justin Bieber. And it's like when you forget your famous, you're really famous and you're having a lovely, lovely time. But the other kind of gossip, so less gossip. But the trend seems to be amongst influencers that it's very much about like we're not really trying, We're just pulling our outfits together last minute.
We're quickly doing our makeup like I'm here to have a good time, which is hilarious because if you look at the outfits, you're like, you can't have a good time that in that at all.
But Kendall.
Seeing a photo of Kendall Jenna beside Kylie Jenner at Coachella is the biggest reminder that there are two kinds of people at a festival, and one of them, Kendall is just shortsna T shirt and Kylie is like my ba dazzled bra Yeah, the oldest.
Youngest sister.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely vibes.
But I just cannot look away.
After the break Malania's speech, we have one word.
Why oh.
Look, the world is still in a mess, and we're not going to get into it too much because it is moving at breakneck speed and who knows what might be happening by five pm today when this show comes out. It's kind of impossible to summarize, but let's just say that as we are recording this right now, talks between the US and Iran through a lot of intermediates in Pakistan have broken down, and Vice President Vance is taking these toys on his plane and he's gone, that's it.
Donald Trump is threatening to blockade the already blocked straight of her mors and Israel continued to insist there was a loophole in the currency sfire that allowed them to bomb Lebanon. And so into the middle of all this mess wanders the first lady, Malania Trump.
I was going to say, I was wondering what was happening with her, because.
Haven't been distracted by how this is filtering out to an international crisis. I wanted to know what Milania what was on Millania's mind.
Well, Mlardia wanted to tell you. She wanders nowhere. Actually she more strides, She starts. She was a model, after all, she knows how to walk in a pair of very high heels. So she walks into the grand foyer of the White House on April the ninth, and she steps up to a mic and unannounced and apparently without learning her husband, to set the record straight on something that no one was talking about anymore.
Here she is would afternoon, the lies linking me with the disgrace for Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me.
To Donald Trump.
I met my husband by chance at the New York City party in nineteen ninety eight.
She went on to say that those are the only time she ever met Epstein was at various parties, and that people in New York and Palm Beach all go to the same parties. So of course she knows because they've been a photographed together. There are many photographs, She named checks and press outlets and journals who she thinks have been spreading nonsense. She urges Congress to act on Epstein's cohort. She says that she wants a public hearing for survivors, saying they all need a chance to tell
their story. This has confused a lot of people because a lot of prominent Democrats are asking for that too, right, and so they're like, that's funny, why is she suddenly asking for that? To use the polite pilance of reporters, it was unclear which specific accusation spurred the First Lady to respond publicly to this, but clearly what she was addressing,
although the timing remains mysterious. Are the rumors that have been around for a long time and Trump's talking about this before that Epstein introduced about to Coravana then, but that was another Trump wife from a different time introduced Milania to Trump. And there are rumors that maybe she was involved in, you know, Epstein's world, and that he introduced it to Trump, And those rumors have been everywhere for years, but they've never been stood up. There's never
been a clear proof of that at all. So it seems really weird that she is suddenly bringing it up.
So what why why exactly?
And Trump doesn't know either, He said like that recently, We're not very care. He also said that she said, because he talked to the New York Times, he said, she finds it particularly insulting and infuriating that these rumors that that's how they met won't go away. And he said, she finds it very insulting. So she said she wanted to make a statement, and I said, says Trump, if you want to do that, you can do that. If she wants to do it. I didn't recommend it, but
I said, I let it be her. I said, if you want to do it, do it. And apparently she did it.
In Milania's defense, just because Trump doesn't recommend well, like I wouldn't be taking Trump's advice on how to deal with anything. So good on her for ignoring that. I think this is the biggest evidence of how we are all living in our own algorithm bubbles. So Milania clearly on x or truth Social or Instagram or whatever social media platforms she's on, she's getting so to this content.
She's seen a lot of it.
We're getting Coachell and she's getting this and so she maybe she has I assume she has a Google a lot on her name. Oh my god, So she is getting all this stuff and so for her, she's like everyone, they won't stop talking about me and Epstein, and it's like, lady, there's a war, Like nobody was looking at that thinking about that. Also in terms of I guess the accusations slash moral failings of that family, this like this one
was bad, but it honestly wasn't the worst. It's so so so weird, and the fact that it didn't it wasn't even clear really what she was dressing, because she's like, I was not Epstein's victim, but also I wasn't like part of it.
And it's like which rumor, what room?
I don't know what the rumors are.
Well, her name came up in the Epstein files with email exchanges with Glene Maxwell right, which were redacted, and she addressed that in this speech and said and said they were just very polite email responses to being invited to things or whatever.
She did call her.
G She did call her gen Nick. It does sound a little bit friendly. But that's one thing that she was specifically rebutting. But the thing that's interesting in this that's just the general chaos of that house really and this era, is that a lot of people think that a lot of what Trump's doing is to distract from the Epstein files. So it's like, but Mlani didn't get that membo. She was like, let's look back over here. But then maybe that also just tells us how bad
the mess has got in the world. But now they're like, let's start talking about Epstein again. That seems like a better idea exactly.
My advice for Milania is my favorite quote from Jemima Kirk. I think you're think you might yourself a bit too much.
That's exactly it, speaking of what Milania is distracting from, they're in our fears the Middle East conflict could lead to higher food prices and even shortages. The Guardian run a story today about how shoppers are buying more and more canned goods like tomatoes and lentils and long life milk to fill out meals if there ends up being a really scary supply crisis.
Oh yeah, pantry Max.
I live off ten goods because I don't cook an out of my tuna.
Prices at like.
Four dollars ten.
It used to be three five.
It's like, this is for lazy girls, This isn't for international crises. Ballarat resident Robin Power says families in her community are starting to shop like they did during the pandemic lockdown.
Oh no, she said.
People are worried the trucks will run out of diesel and won't be able to get goods to the shop, so they're trying to drive less often to go to the supermarket themselves. So they're getting staples because they last longer they can fill out a meal. People are thinking, if anything does happen, at least I've got baked beans
and spaghetti. And this comes after news that the federal government is launching a multimillion dollar advertising campaign encouraging Australians to reduce high use, launches today as the global oil crisis persists, and it's called Every Little Bit Helps, and it asks the public to consider using their car less but also promotes all these tips to improve fuel efficiency.
Which I very helpful.
I had no idea about, such as driving smoothly not my strength, not my strength, and unloading excess weight.
So all that shit you've got in the back of the car that you were taking to the charity shop, that you've been driving around for months.
Yeah, you're really meant to get rid of the problem.
With this whole tin goods. Panic is so because because I grow my own food. Friends, you know that, right, except people message me and go tell me how to grow my own food. And I'm like, mate, if I was relying on the one capsicum and plants that I could turned out of my summer crop, I would be very very thin by the tinned goods. By the tinned goods.
Yeah, but it's just not in a panicky way.
No, no, no, no, no, I don't If.
You don't like tuna, don't buy please, don't worry.
I hate Thank god.
This is my campaign. It's not like the government said, don't buy fuel you don't need it. It's like, don't buy my tuna, my specific brand tuna.
Chili tuna.
Leave it for me chili.
After the Break, a millennial icon has walked back into the spotlight with a new memoir and I have never needed to read anything more. Lena Dunham sat down for an hour long interview with The New York Times and she spoke about some of the things that she discusses in the upcoming memo.
I think it's out tomorrow. Actually.
In Australia fourteen fourteen, fourteenth fame sick in the interview. The whole interview was a great advertisement for her book because now I need to read it even more than before.
She knows how to clickbait.
She knows how to clickbait. She talked about writing on Girls, the show she created when she was twenty four. She talked about breaking up with her co showrunner Jenny Connor. She talked about Adam Driver, which what we all wanted
to hear about. She also talks about who she was most nervous about reading the book, to which she said her parents, and then when she asked when she was asked what they thought of it, she said, my father said one of the most amazing things, which is, it's hard for me to understand why anyone would want to publish a book such as this. Go dad, and it sounds exactly.
Like my dad. Oh, I'm my dad for sure.
Lena Dunham to me, she is I think now forty. She's nearly forty, nearly forty. I'm nearly thirty, so she's ten years older than me. I probably watched Girls seven or eight years after it came out, so when I watched it, it was kind of like she was in this height of cancelation where I was watching it, and I was so obsessed with it, but I wasn't allowed
to tell people I was obsessed with it. So everyone I talked to about it, especially my older girlfriends, they would be like, oh, yeah, it was great at the time, but now, no, no, don't talk about it.
Don't talk about it. Yeah, it got very quickly, it got revisionist history very quickly.
Yes, And now I feel like it's had this second resurgence, especially with younger gen Z women. I have a sister who's twenty one who's just started watching it, and she's like, this is the best thing ever. So it was one of those shows that I felt like could have been like a friend or a sex in the City, but it just had like this distinct break where everyone just
didn't acknowledge it existed, and didn't acknowledge she existed. And now it's like she's just started to creep her way back into the spotlight, and it's like we're all obsessed with her again. Except what I'm confused about is why this happened in the first place.
Well, she so I listened to the New York Times, the Interview, the hour Long line, Oh she's on that, and there's a written version of it too, and it's absolutely brilliant. She's one of those people where she speaks and you're kind of nodding along, and then an hour later you're still.
Thinking about one of the things she says.
But what she's says in that is at the time that Girls aired, there were only and like think America bigger population. All of that, it was only being watched by about a million people an episode. Yet the commentary was so it was just saturating everything, and she makes the point that a lot of people who had a problem with her, who had a problem with the show, were not watching the show. It was more kind of the symbol of what she was and what she represented,
which was millennial narcissism. The scene, that iconic scene, I think it's in the first episode where she says, I think I might be the voice of my generation, or at least a voice of a generation. There seemed to be a lot of people who didn't get that, didn't get that it was a joke and it was self aware, and so there was all this backlash, and you're right, she did have to disappear, although the show was.
On for a very long time.
I think twenty four till she was like, it's twenty several.
Seasons, twenty twelve to twenty seventeen.
Yeah, yeah, and so she but after that she did kind of disappear because she just could not cope with the absolute beating her reputation has taken well.
And also, and if anyone is like a little bit like, yeah, Lena donnamight I know who she is? Broadly, there's an episode of out Loud. We'll dig it up. We'll put the link in the show notes where Amelia and Mia and Jesse I think went through kind of like all her supposed crimes, like the sort of background to her various cancelations. And it's very satisfying because she disappeared because of that, but also a whole lot of other things,
which is what this book is about. And it's kind of not unrelated in a way to what we're talking about with Biber, I mean different, different, But it's called Famesick because she said, you know, she during that period of time when the show is on, she went from being just a kind of arty, privileged artie kid from New York City to being one of the most famous
women in America. Even though, as you say, not everybody was watching the show, but she also was dealing with massive health issues and mental health issues and addiction issues. So like, in this very short period of time, everything rushed at her. And she says that her retreat was
a choice in many ways. She went to rehab, she got various treatments for her I think it's basically a form of vender meets triosis, but also a neurological yes, So she got treatments, and she moved to England and she's now married to an English guy, and I think like her life looks very different to how it looked then.
So she's reflecting on this very intense period. And the thing I thought when I was listening to that interview, which was brilliant, The title of that interview was the question that she must get asked all the time, which imagine, if this is the question that everybody asks you all the time, why why do you annoy everyone so much? I was basically I can't remember exactly what the title was, but it's basically a variation on the things she always get asked are why are you so annoying? And why
does everyone hate you? Basically the two questions that this incredibly accomplished artist gets asked over and over, and the thing that I can't get out of my mind is why you would ever step back into that arena? Why you would choose to write a memoir that I can't wait to read. I haven't read it, and I can't wait to read it. But the promotional cycle that goes with that, like it's a choice, right, Yeah?
Well she I think her answer to that question of basically, why do you annoy people so much? Was so good because she acknowledges that since she was in preschool, she's annoyed people, She's annoyed.
Other children, she's annoyed, she's just all.
And I found that really freeing today because I I was just very honest.
Yeah, And I was like, I.
Think I was that kid, and I don't know, like I wasn't aware of why I was annoying everyone. But it's quite nice to hear somebody be that forthcoming about that and a little bit self aware that I'm not critical.
But I also think it is revisionist history that she says that, because I'm sure that's true. To point. The thing that I thought lots when I was listening to this interview is that like, we do this to people all the time, where we hold them up and go this woman in particular, we do it to women, represents all these things. So the things that you just talked about, Claire, like millennial narcissism, woke culture, body positivity or whatever it is, that then we want to get irritated with and throw
rocks at her head. And what you actually get when you listen to what Lena Dunham is saying is she is a very particular person with a very particular story. She grew up in a very rarefied world. She's the daughter of artists in New York City who grew up in a loft and spent her time going to performance art and you know, foreign films, and she was right precociously creating art that then got a platform because of
who her family was from a very young age. She's not an every woman, and yet we want to project like every woman onto her when really she's just one very specific woman telling a very specific story that has some applications to other people.
And she sort of That was ultimately the big criticism of her. I feel like she her rise intersected with so many different movements. She got a lot of criticism as I think America was becoming a bit more aware of representations of race in popular culture. People were saying, you're making a show about New York City and everyone's white, And you could see her try to figure that out in real time, which is awkward to watch somebody clearly
realize that they're doing something wrong. But it's also you're thinking, well, we've all got blind spots. But I have been thinking about Lena Dunham for a couple of years now because when I was finishing my book and then when I was doing some interviews about it, I got asked basically, what was the story or what was the thing about people getting canceled? And I use that word. You know it's a loaded word, but you know, people getting their
reputation destroyed. What example was it that made you drawn to this subject? And I think the trajectory of Lena Dunham's career was so unconsciously. It unconsciously shaped a lot of how I felt throughout my twenties in that I almost think it gave a lot of people internalized shame because you watched Lena Dunham. I remember being early twenties watching girls and thinking I've never seen anything like this.
I've never seen a woman who is that frickin' funny and doesn't give a shit about how she's not conventionally beautiful, which.
Is hilarious to say out loud.
Now she says, she's like, I don't look like that anymore. But looking at that, and I just remember thinking I want to be her. I want to be her. I've just never worshiped anything like this, and to see that individual so brutally destroyed was really distressing, as like, I think there are probably a lot of women who see that and wanted to yell, this is still radical.
This is still radical having a.
Woman like that on screen and having a woman who's who this is a show about friendship, This is a show about imperfection, and we are saying it's not good enough.
It was the time right because her that rise coincided exactly with like peak counselor and a cultural shift that I think we're on the other side of now really where she was almost like the example held up for what could happen to you? But I have a radical question about this right her life now, as per her description of it, she's very happy. She gets to make loads of art that she loves making. She writes for other people, she writes for herself, she works on films.
She says herself, like that living away from that, the heat of that constant perception, constantly being looked at and perceived as great. So I think, why do we feel like, why do we feel like there's something sad about that? You know what I mean? Because maybe that's why I think her dad would have said, why would you write this book? Because I'm not saying why would you write this book? I think that she's written, I'm sure a
beautiful memoir about a really important cultural moment. There's no question that that period of of pop culture is fascinating. But you're also stepping back into an arena that at the time we all thought it was really important to be in the arena and say what you think and have the arguments and did Da da Da, and many of us have discovered through getting burnt doing that that actually like back away from the arena and do what you want to do and put out what you want
to put out. Like I don't know, I guess what I'm trying to say is why do we think it's a tragedy? To not be that kind of famous anymore.
I think right now it feels like she's elevated herself above all the work she's created recently.
I remember a lot of reading a lot of.
The backlash when I started watching Girls for the first time, and I think it came due to she was so young when she created that show. She was twenty four. Her main character, Hannah, is the person that she also played in the show, and there were so many direct comparisons to Hannah and her real life about wanting to
be an up and coming writer. And the issue with The every Woman is that she was in every Woman, but she was writing the every Woman, and that's the biggest issue I think people took with it, like everyone knew she was an EPO baby and she had like this amount of privilege, and yet she was writing about these four girls who literally came from nothing and thought they were the center of everyone's universe, which is how everybody feels, which is happen everyone feels in their twenties.
But I think it came from this group of people who were like, but you don't know that everyone feels like that in your twenties because you weren't experiencing that, and I think now with the shows she's creating, like the latest one Too Much with Megan Salter, I think that was the first show I saw of hers where everyone was like, this is a really good show and it happens to be created by Lena Dunno.
She also made a movie like She's She and they couldn't get any project green lit.
But it feels like her now she's able to do the memoir and like come back as like Lena Dunham the person, because that's not going to get reconnected to the work she's doing.
I do think though, like what you say about the criticism of Girls and even it happened with two Much, I do think it's a uniquely female experience that you make art and everybody analyzes how it does or doesn't reflect your real life and whether you have the right to tell that story. So with Girls, I remember thinking nobody,
no man, who's making a TV show. Nobody was looking at you know, Seinfeld and being like, well you didn't consider X y Z. And I know it's a different time and all of that, but I do think it's uniquely female that we analyze it to that extent, And with too much. It was very much people, and I did it drawing parallels between her relationship with Jack Antnoff and all of that.
But in terms of the why, the why.
For her doing this because it is what her father says, and you do think it while you're listening to her speaking, I think ultimately we all have a deep human instinct to be understood, and I think she probably still feels misunderstood, like from everything when you go back and look at all the stuff that she got quote unquote canceled for. So much of it is absurd and some of it is really legitimate, which she acknowledges that she needed to
apologize for things and that she did. But I do think that you can tell she kind of outwardly says, this isn't what she's doing, but I think she wants to be understood.
And I also thing she wants to sell a book, which is wrong with that, and she's doing it very well like her role out for it's been great. But here's the thing. I think it's interesting if fame makes you sick, which we know it does to a lot of people, and she says in that interview, never give someone under thirty Lots of money, nothing good will come of it, you know, like all of those things there are.
Culture and history is littered with examples of people who get really successful and really famous young and it doesn't go well. And it seems like she's in a good place. Last week, one of the best selling words at her times unmasked herself. If you've ever read The Housemaid, such a good book or seen the movie, it's written by a woman called Freedom McFadden. Now what you may or may not know is that that's not the real writer's name, and that she's also written twenty five books, and that
until last week nobody knew who she was. Those books, The Housemate and all the others have sold more than thirty six million copies. So we are talking about an unbelievably successful author. She at one point last year I think, had like thirteen books in the top one hundred or something crazy like. That's certainly three in the top ten in New York. She's a best selling author in Britain, all over the world. She is actually a doctor called
Sarah Cohen. She's forty five. She's a physician who specializes in brain disorders, and she started writing because she loves it. Obviously, because why wouldn't you, And she started self publishing under a pseudonym because she was a doctor, and she was like, I thought that maybe one day my goal would be to keep it secret until I was ready to step back from my doctor job, so it wouldn't be like everyone I worked with suddenly new and it compromised my
ability to do my job. Fair enough, But when you've sold that many books, you could have very happily sailed off into the sunset as freedom McFadden for a really long time, forever, like you don't need the spotlight. Because when I saw last week that she had told a journalist her real name, her real face, her real everything.
She often wears a wig if she's out in public, and stuff to disguise herself, I thought, oh, mate, because now everyone's going to do to her what you were just describing Claire, which is what we particularly do to women, where instead of just going, oh, she wrote this book. I love this book, we go who is this woman? Which bits of her life are in this book? Does
she deserve to tell this story? Oh she's married to so and so, or she's not married to so and so, or she has kids, or she doesn't have kids or whatever that now we're obsessed with finding out about the
people who create the things we like. And I it's such a dilemma to me that I would not to me personally, obviously, But if I was Freedom McFadden, why would I ever not just stay behind the scenes and count my money and write the book I want to write and live in a big, beautiful house and get to walk through the streets with no one knowing who I am.
I think there is also a human instinct to take credit and to put them to be known and to be known like and I think that it is like you always have this weird thing, Holly, where you want to be out of Elton, John and Bernie talk in you want to be Bernie Well, because.
Fame isn't good for anyone.
No, yeah, but I'm type three and achiever.
It is good for me. But it's not though you don't know what I mean. Like achieving is the money, the recognition, the respect of your peers, like all those things, But there are very few people in the world who'll tell you, Oh, it's amazing that I can walk down the street and everyone stares at me and I can't, you.
Know, what I mean, Okay, but imagine like you wrote under an alias, and then you're walking along and you meet someone and they're like, I just read the most amazing books. I think, if you don't want to be like me by this or the named Wally Hayne Wright, have you heard of it? It's so good, there's no way you're going to be like wow.
What I think is because obviously my real life, like we all use social media and all of these things to work, like to promote ourselves and promote our books, and i live publicly in lots of ways, and I've got the teeniest tiniest taste of what it feels like for people to recognize you and come up and say I love what you do, and it does feel really good. But also I've got the teeniest tiniest taste of what it feels like to know that people are looking at
you in a room. And I mean, and I don't want to sound like a dickhead, like I've got the teeniest tiniest little midgeon of that. If I imagine that multiplied and multiplied and multiplied, I can't see where it goes anywhere good. And just though I guess in my mind. I'm like, wouldn't it be amazing to be Freedom mcfannon and be or Lena Dunham and get to live my beautiful life. It's too late for her, She's already famous.
Live my beautiful life, create my beautiful art, have financial success and respect and not the fame bit.
But I think, as these are both writers that we're referring to, obviously Freedom mcfathm's fiction and Lena Dunham has written memoir, I think when you're a writer, your whole life is about making sense of yourself, and it's incredibly narcissistic, but like wrestling with who am I and what is my story and all of that. I completely Lena Dunham coming back and writing this memoir feels like the most inevitable thing.
Yeah, oh for sure, it really does.
And she'll write another one in twenty years about this period of her life.
Yeah yeah.
And I, as somebody who have followed her and adored girls and scene the trajectory of her career, I think that there is enormous value in her writing that memoir and her coming out now and speak thing about those experiences. And I think it would be a huge shame if women like her were publicly shamed to the extent that they retreated from public life and never came back.
Do you know what I mean?
Because then public life, the public arena, would only be occupied by a certain type of woman who is not Lena Dunham and a certain set of experience.
I agree with you entirely on that, because one of the things you hear all the time is why women often don't want to put themselves forward for leadership positions that are public facing, for political positions that are public facing, is because they know that the amount we've all seen, as you've just expressed, like the cautionary tale of what happens if the world or the internet decides that you're the wrong type of woman. We all know that right,
and it would be a shame. I entirely agree. I just I wrestle with that idea of how you who can handle it? Like who can handle that level of attention and criticism and push on. I'm very glad that she is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like shut up lady at all about her. I think she's fascinated, But I also think, wow, you must have balls, and.
For anyone, for anyone listening who deals with chronic illness or chronic pain. There's a very interesting theory that the interviewer puts forward in that New York Times interview that she's basically able to withstand such negative negative feedback, such like social torture, because of what she's been going through physically her whole life. And I think that's a really interesting theory for anybody who has lived with chronic illness.
That was good.
That was good, That was very meaty.
That was a big.
Interesting out louders. I'm not saying that was good to you, because you get to decide that. You're like, oh my god, that was Laura out loud as Happy Monday. Thank you for being here with us, for having us in your ears. As always, we adore you. We'll be back with you on Wednesday. Mire, we're back, which all right, we'll be back to you on Wednesday.
Bye.
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