The Writer Who Lets Her Husband Cheat

Hello, and welcome to Mama Mia.

Out loud, it is what women are actually talking about on Monday, the twenty third of March.

I'm Holly Wayne.

Wright, I'm Claire Stevens, and I'm Amelia Lester.

Do you like our new look ladies? I hate that I just said ladies. Let me just take that back, because I actually hate it when people say ladies to me and then I find myself.

You know, guys.

I know, So do you like our new look friends?

I see I find ladies ironic. I use it ironically, So come on.

Ladies, light ladies.

Yeah, but absolutely love it. I love that I'm on it. Feel very included. There's been a lot of Chattney out louders group about like the positioning, like, yeah, trend all of them.

On the end.

Yeah, noticed that his very front and center.

Yeah, she's got a main character and.

She does her main character energy.

Mia elboweda waite towards the front tim the main character ategy, which is earned quite roundly. And but if you don't know what we're talking about, out louders, look at your phone, look at where you're listening to this. We've changed our artwork, We've changed our colors. I'm a big fan of the

I thought Mia was on the end too.

I thought she's sort of second from last. Anyway, I can't, I can't conjure it.

No, neither look at it.

Because I reassure myself. I was like, if Mia is on the end, then me being on the end is okay.

If you two are on the end, Yes, we've bookended very well. I would suggest just all the rabble in the middle anyway, on our agenda for today. And we know that everywhere you look right now, everything's a bit panicky. We know there's a lot going on. We know we're all worried about our bottom lines. But today we're going to give you other things to think about and chew on,

Plus why the late season of the Bachelorette in the US was pulled just days before the premiere.

And I go deep on fuel prices.

No, we don't know, we need to fill out her and close.

We don't.

Look, I'm sure there are some out louders out there who are like, we would like Amelia to give us a load out.

We're like, no, no, no, We're not doing that today.

I instead have a really shocking, actually new detail about the Coldplay kiss cam story that emerged via an OPRAH interview.

First of all, though, in case you missed it, and I'm sure you didn't, my Saturday night, I'm sure was reflected around the country by many other people.

Saturday night, I was on.

The edge of my couch, like the absolute edge, balancing on my butt on the edge of the couch because the Matildas played Japan in the Asian Cup final and they lost, right, so they lost one nil.

And the thing about this that it was such an exciting game. Did you watch.

Sorry, I'm a terrible person.

No you're not.

You've been poorly and you've got a small child.

Don't worry about it. Anyway, it was a very exciting game. Japan scored in the first half, really amazing goal, and then in the second half, it was just full on Matilda's attacking and they did everything right.

They were playing so.

Hard and everybody was amazing, but they just couldn't get it in the net, which is the way.

That football goes sometimes.

But I really wanted to shout out the amazing Matilda's because the pressure on those women to carry not only like you know, obviously they're professional sports people and they want to win, but with females sports people in those roles have all this added pressure.

You're the inspiration for a nation, You're the inspiration for the next generation. All the school girls of the world look up to you and stuff.

And watching them all react in the next twenty four hours to the fact that they tried their absolute hardest but didn't make it was actually really inspiring. It was they all took it very hard, and they all sort of said, you know, we gave it everything, all those things, but you know, if you've got to be a role model, and we do put a lot of pressure on female sports people to be role models. Role modeling trying really really hard and being really really good at what you

Yeah, that's amazing.

Thank you Matilda's for being credible. I know they're all on their planes home to go back and play in England and Europe and all over the place, and I hope they're listening to out Loud on their way back and you can hear us just sending loads of love.

You're amazing.

You may have seen a story all over your news feeds over the weekend about how the latest season of The Bachelorette in the US has been pulled. Now, when I saw this, I didn't realize that it was actually meant to premiere on Sunday Night.

Has gone to air, No, none.

Of it's going to air, But I didn't realize it was being pulled that last minute.

How much would that be costing the network?

Between forty and fifty million dollars?

Wow?

And is so Obviously in Australia we've kind of kai bosted The Bachelor and the Bachelorette now, but in America is still a big deal.

Yes, And what they did was they clearly went a bit different and they wanted to have an anti hero Bachelorette kind of remember when we had Sophie Monk that was such a success, Like, we love having a bit of a kind of square peg roundhole bachelorette that everyone's gonna wank.

And also it's clever to have somebody who's already got a profile exact And is that what they did with this?

Isn't she an influencer?

Yes?

So the woman who was meant to helm this new season is Taylor Frankie Paul. She was originally known as a Mum influencer, then for her role on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which is a reality show that follows a group of Mormon women whose lives often clash with Mormon values.

That's what I know.

We don't want a sidebar on this, but I started watching that show once because I was like, oh, I want to know what this I've seen? What was that show I used to watch about Sister Wives That was amazing, big love, Oh my god love, and it was all about like secret garments and all this, like golf. And then I watched that one and those women they didn't seem to be holding anything back.

Yeah, it's pretty out there.

It's very Mormon, but not Mormon controversy. Yes. So Taylor in particular was involved in the soft swinging scandal that was a big thing in twenty twenty two, which again not very Mormon. That's not in the scriptures. So she's cast on the Bachelorette.

That's not scriptures, it's not I'm so glad to hear. I don't know what's in them, but I don't think swinging and Mormon.

And it wasn't in there from memory. So she's cast on the Bachelorette. And she again, she's a Utah Mum influencer who is known for having a very turbulent relationship with her ex partner, which had been reality TV fought up. So they're broken up, that they have two kids to do.

And were they broken up in secret lives of Mormon wives.

So their tumultuous relationship was very much a PLoP P got it?

Yes, And I know I might be pushing your knowledge of the scripture.

Here, class. Clearly Mormons are allowed to get divorced.

Clearly they are right, well I thought they were, but clearly if she's on the Bachelorette.

I'm sure they are. But they were never married. Oh, they were together, had two kids, split up. So ABC in the US has given her this fairy tale edit. She was literally on the Oscars Red Carpet last week. Oh yeah yeah, so they're like, you know, everyone deserves a happy ending, but her seasons due to air. And at the end of last week, TMZ a video it's shot on a smartphone of Frankie Paul fighting with her ex Dakota Mortensen in their home with their five year

That's it quite. It's confronting you.

Yes, it's it's very blurry, but it's more the sounds that you don't want to hear, because it shows Frankie Paul launching herself at her partner at the time, pulling his hair, and she's throwing chairs at him, and then it looks like at one point one of the chairs hits the five year old and she shots, and that sound of the sound of a child crying is just so viscerally disturbing.

Did this video come from nowhere?

Well, they think once she gave a statement, it's clear she believes it came from him, that it was leaked from him. So ABC announced that take Frankie Paul's season of The Bachelorette would not be airing, and as we've said, that cancelation.

Is costing them a statish a huge deal.

Shouldn't they have done their due diligence before this, Like did they know before the video gets leaked that she had this? I'm going to use the word problematic, even though it sounds much more serious than that about this problematic incident in her past.

This is what is the elephant in the room. Is that what this video shows, which is violence, isn't actually news to anyone. Shouldn't be news to anyone, shouldn't be news to ABC, shouldn't be news to anyone who's watched

So it was more than an open secret?

YEP YEP, so it showed her interactions with local police that that was all filmed. So it seems like it was fine when it was for reality TV, and then when we actually see the reality of it, it's suddenly absolutely not fine. Holly, do you think we've sanitized violence so much that it's not until we actually see footage that we realize how abhorrent it is.

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I think that. I mean, obviously I shouldn't say it goes without saying, but obviously any kind of violence is abhorrent. Domestic violence statistics are overwhelmingly that usually the perpetrator is a man, but obviously in this instance that isn't the case. It's amazing that it was excused or most trivialized and seen a bit of a fun scandal until you see it.

And that's the thing.

And this is what I always say to my son about, you know, or about violent video games and things, is like, when you've got that removed distance between you and an act of violence, it's easy to not have empathy.

It's easy to.

See it as some kind of sport, almost, But anyone who sees violence up close in real life, you suddenly see this very different human impact, and so it seems to me incredibly cynical. I mean, I don't know all the ins and outs, but on the face of it, it seems incredibly cynical that they were like, she'll be a great bachelorette because I don't know, maybe she's feisty, she's got a big following, she's really attractive. We know

It's like, well, what did you think.

She literally pled guilty to aggravated assault. She I believe that, as you mentioned, the domestic lines charges would dropped, but it's just a shame to me that this was actually adjudicated legally and she was found liable, and yet the TV network, as you say, just thought that was a fun, racy plot point.

And it makes me think about all the times there are men on our screens right now who have been found guilty of all kinds of crimes, and we do kind of think, like I honestly think that those terms have become so widely used and so familiar that you genuinely don't picture what it actually looks like. And I think if any of us saw footage of what a lot of high profile people are accused of, we just could not endorse them.

So what are the things going to happen?

Right?

I mean, because they've obviously spent a fortune making this show, elevating this woman to a certain position, and now they're just they have to can it? Are they talking about there being any repercussions? Like what might happen next?

I don't know, it's very much because I.

Think I saw some shots of her wearing some T shirt that was a bit provocative and like almost as if she's just playing it along with it.

Well, her statement was interesting in the wake of it. So she responded to the video's release through a representative to people, and the response said, releasing an old video, which conveniently omits context is a reprehensible attempt to distract from his own behavior. Right, So about her.

Ex So she might be insinuating that there was violence on his part, Yes, not that we you know, Yes.

But it's a fascinating statement because you just think there's absolutely no excuse. There's no there is no excuse for the violence that you that you saw in that video and it was not the response that the public needed.

My question is, did you watch the show Secret Lives of Moms. I wonder if part of it was that that also kind of sanitized it and just dismissed it, and so they thought they could get away with this.

Yes. Yes, And interestingly, both the production company that created Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and production company that are doing the Bachroolette the Bachelorette are both owned by Disney, and so it is very interesting one that it's Disney and that it's kind of this fairy tale idea, but also that it's the same you know, it's the same powers that be that clearly thought, Okay, this is the kind of scandal that gets us ratings, and this is

That, not like that.

After the break, the things that we did at primary school that we should also do at work.

Have you ever been at work and thought, why did I fight nap time so hard in pre school? That's me every day around midday? What I would do for a little cot and some quiet time, maybe a lovely person stroking my back telling me to relax. How did I take it? So? For granted that my mum packed my lunch, but then also sometimes forgot, so sometimes she did a lunch shorder and it smelt so good and the oil kind of went through the paper and you're

All I think we should mention that he was talking into a microphone fashion from a toilet rush.

Fact no nice an expert, yes, absolutely taking himself very serious.

Here are some things we did at primary score that we should also do at work. Leave at quarter past three, occasionally watch Shrek to on a Friday afternoon, play with this thing, mark each other's work. I'm looking at you, Linda, cry because you want to go home? Played up duck Goose in the conference room. Yearly trip to the zoo,

Oh so good, ever good.

It is simply all I've thought about. One of the comments was play heads down thumbs up because there's only a few minutes left of the day and it's not enough time to start anything. I'm like, yea more of that, Amelia, What would you like.

To unlocked a core memory for a week? Because it's raining in Sydney today? And it just reminded me that whenever it range, teachers would bang on at EHS or something or other and I love that.

Why should I.

Be working when I should be watching a weird nineteen eighties BBC series about children who are also coal miners. I feel like that was always what I.

Have to know.

This will you will wheel the TV?

You see the TV be wielded and you're like, yeah, it was so good.

Sick bay. We need a sick bay, not because you're actually sick, but because you just need a place to be just with a little plastic curtain that you can pull across, just a little bit of silence, and a kindly school nurse just coming by saying are you doing okay? Last, that's what I need.

You need in between space between being a work being at home.

Yes, healthy Harald visits, except this time the giraffe that comes to the school in the van is telling us all about how to be healthy as an adult, which, as we all know, is repeat after me, protein flossying, resistance training, this is, and then finally, I just want to say, pencil cases. I know it's not a thing to do, but nothing gives me more joy than a pencil case.

I need colors. Why don't I have colors? I don't true?

Why don't I need to bring all my coloring pens in?

I would like gold stars for good work and participation medals when I don't quite reach.

But I don't quite reach the mark.

Today, Holly, after out loud, you get a participation medal good trying.

I tried really hard.

Yeah, if it's not rewarded enough in adult.

No, it's really not. I'd like quiet time and a little lunch. In fact, I often have a little lunch I was thinking about that often before this record.

I'll have a little lunch with a little.

Bit of a Brooklyn Beckham hot sauce.

Yes, crunch and sip.

Absolutely, I would like to be able to point at one of my coworkers and just says it was when something goes wrong, and for that to be accepted. Have you finished the record yet, I'm not frowned upon. It would be like accountability.

I'm like, no, it was her.

I used to wear because it was a long time ago and it was in England, it was cold. I used to wear a matching woolen polar neck and wooly tights with a cordroy.

Sorry that sounds like CBK level side.

And I used to wear that to my primary school.

And when I think about that outfit now, I'm like, yeah, it was rocking.

Was it itchy?

Though? We'd all go like this.

I was always going like this, so like pulling up our collars, pulling it out and trying to like because it was really itchy, but it was cool.

It was some cloth kits.

Actually, considering my gross children, I would also like a return of the knit nurse. We used to have a woman who'd come in and go through your hair, and it was so embarrassing.

And she'd get you all in the hall and go through your hair and then be like.

You home, you home, you nurse, and you'd be like, oh no, the knit nurse came and I'd like a little sewing session like the first when you're having a bit of downtime. We used to make like caterpillar pencil cases.

We could make pencil case crafts.

Crafts, yes, more craft carpentry.

Yes. Remember Actually when we first moved into this office at Mama Mia, we were all encouraged to craft our water bottles.

Yes, yeah, I think I've got mine.

There we go.

Mine's got a little b on it.

And that was the most fun I've had it work in a really long time. And I was not very creative at all. If you're watching this on video on Apple, you can.

See my beat.

But more crafting please, crafting corner.

That's very primary school coded mineor genuinely, why don't we do news, slash show and tell anymore.

On Monday mornings.

You're on a podcast, I know, but it's.

Not like I don't have a big enough physical audience. I want to share in front of and tell them. One story from my weekend, and.

I want people to be h tell into your drive.

I know that's actually very true.

That is what people are doing in the kitchen on Monday mornings right there are people say how is your weekend? And depending on your energy levels, you're either like it was amazing, this happened, and this happened, just like fine. But if you had to bring something tore your weekend, and in this office full of young people, sometimes it might be an empty bottle of.

Rows, the story that goes along job of the movie ticket. I also would like to bring back swimming and athletics carnival.

I wouldn't Did you actually enjoy these?

I enjoyed participating. It's more that I'm curious about other people.

I want to swim.

Running in her corduroy skirt. I don't want to see anyone in this swimmer.

If we had a running race, would win?

Would?

I think?

Would us wildly flattered right now? But I definitely a lot of cannibals. I generally said that I have my period regardless of see that's another thing I use to do in high school. It's probably a bit of a delinquent, but I never wanted to do pe. I always have my period. I've tried saying on this podcast, like I can't do it because I have my period, and producer Ruth is unimpressed. Everyone like there are free tampons in the bathroom.

By high school and the matildas would not approve of this. I would always try and be picked last for all the sports because so I just keep going at the back, and as the numbers dwindled, I've got start at the back again. So we could just do that with the Podco's on the pod today and I just got hide behind him.

What about me? Actually that's a.

Representation on our new logo.

We're all trying to stand behind each other. I would also like I always liked assembly at school because I like watching people sing and dance. You know, when people did a performance that was lovely. I liked when Mum picked me up for an orthodontist appointment and we'd get a donut and or a chocolate milkshake on the way. It was really special.

I just thought about the singing and dancing is you know when there's a big album them out that the new Taylor Swift album comes out, Oh Harry Styles last week, myself and Tessa, who works on this show, we could, if you like, stand up and give you a full rendition all the time occasionally.

Would you like that?

Yes?

And I'm sure someone in this office can sing, and I would just like this song because my answering. I just want to watch.

After the break, one of the most iconic millennial feminists has opened up about the true state of a polyamorous marriage, and nobody can get enough.

My only currency in life was like, does a harm like me? How does a harm feel? What's a harmdoing? And if I didn't have that, I was like nothing. Polyamory is like the perfect antidote to codependency.

Some of the stereotypes it is that how could there be enough to go around? Enough time, enough attention, enough love.

I have the greatest love in my life right now than I've ever had before, and it has never felt this good. You know, we're told this is too good to be trial.

Okay, So I know that we've all been following the discourse that's been happening online over the past week about Lindy West, But I'm sure that lots of people listening to this don't know who Lindy West is.

So a Meily. How would you characterize her?

She's obviously she's a writer, a prominent feminist screenwriter, article writer. Where would you sort of put her in the culture.

She kind of was the feminist writer in for millennials. She peeked in that sort of the early twenty tens. She wrote for a website called Jezebel that was very famous for its feminist hop takes. She was very active on Twitter. She had this movement called hashtag shot your Abortion, because it was back when we thought that if you put a hashtag in front of a phrase, it makes it cooler. And then she wrote like really kind of edgy, very controversial at the time, takes that kind of pushed

Yeah, and I remember there was this iconic episode of This American Life which very much puts all this in context. This was in the twenty thirteens where she tracked down an internet troll of hers.

It's actually an amazing.

It's one of the best I would say audio experience one hundred and seven.

So big, big deal.

So that's sir Lindy west Is. You might have You might also be familiar with her work. She wrote a memoir called Shrill, which was a big success in New York Times Bestseller and then it got picked up and turned into a really well received TV show. You might have heard her when she was at the peak of all of that kind of internet culture writing. She came on No Filter and spoke to me about Shrill. I think back in twenty seventeen. So she's a big deal.

In twenty fifteen, Lindy got married.

She married her partner, musician and writer ahamafule Oluo, who she always refers to as Aham. Right, So she and Araham married.

I remember the.

Pictures so clearly, this beautiful, very like hipster wedding.

And shrill very much kind of ended with the happy ending of them together and married.

Yeah, and then in twenty twenty two, so seven years after their marriage, Lindy and Aham and another woman called Roya came out as it were, as a thropple, so that there are three of them in their relationship, and they talked about their polyamory. So it's not new that that's her domestic arrangement she lives. And this is why, in lots of ways, Lindy West has become in this moment get to twenty twenty six, a kind of almost like a conservative commentators fantasy.

Of what a really woke lefty is.

Like, you know, she lives in a cabin in the woods in the Pacific Northwest, and she's got a nose ring and she's living with her you know, two in her thropple, which I think they call a closed triad, Like it's it kind of ticks a lot of boxes of stereotypical lefty jokes for those people well.

And also we should mention that that twenty twenty two video that is online where they come out as a thruple, I think it's safe to say it made a lot of people uncomfortable, not just conservatives. I think a lot of people saw. What they thought they saw in that video was that Lindy West had kind of settled for a relationship where she would always be second best to Roya. This was how it was received online and part of.

That, Let's be really honest, and Lindy talked about this herself, and she thinks this is one of the reasons why people struggle with a lot is Roya is kind of conventionally sort of tiny and attractive in a way that Lindy has often written about not feeling so people reading a lot into that relationship, even though Lindy West herself has always been very open about it. Anyway, fast forward

So the kind of discourse, as Amelia said, it's sort of started with that video where the three of them came out with this is what our relationship structure looks like. And there was a lot of backlash about an analysis of body language and whether this was what Linda really wanted, which was a bit like kind of condescending, and so that was kind of the discourse. Then she's written this memoir and it's that intensified times a million.

So there are a million headlines on substack, for example, that are all about how she looks like she's in polyamory under juress.

Not just on substack. There's an article in the Atlantic which simply says, I don't believe her when she says she's happy in this relationship.

And there's another substack that calls it train wreck feminism and talks about women who convince themselves that they're happy in a particular arrangement and that they chose it when it's almost like watching someone self harm. So there's basically a lot of concern and whether you'd call that faux concern performative concern for Lindy West.

So she's addressed a bit of this in an Instagram live that she posted the other day. She said, just to frame this before you hear it. So she's driving in a car when she's talking, so that explains.

The audio a bit.

But she says, I know I shouldn't respond, She said, I know I shouldn't bite it back, but some of this is wild. She sort of explains that Ahammad said from the beginning that he wasn't going to be monogamous, so she sort of frames it as she was making him perform monogamy under duress. And she says the argument that the book is a sort of manual on polyamory is wrong. This is what she says in a part of that.

Her book is not a polyamory game. First of all, the book, most of the book is not even about polyamory. So and either way, all the stuff in the book that's not about polyamory, where I am going through these like hard fought mental health battles. Alhama's instrumental in supporting, in helping me through all of those. I don't know how to even quantify the ways that a harm held me up for those years. It's all for fifteen years now, you know, And like, show me any couple that doesn't

Yes, I want to be a pain supponent. I have not read this book, and I bet that most of.

The people who are critiquing it online have also not read this book.

But why do you think people are so upset?

One thing I find fascinating and that there has then been discourse about the discourse and all of that because Lindy has commented, So she's done that video, she's done a substack post kind of engage with the criticism, and it's not the criticism isn't criticism of her. It is actually more criticism of a harm. And basically a lot of people are saying there's a difference between a transparent, mutually agreed upon polyamorous relationship and one where there's cheating involved.

There's a lot of source material out there.

There's a slave profile. There actually is a lot that has come directly from her. By Lindy West's own account, she was not comfortable with being in a non monogamous relationship and it was presented to her by a harm as an ultimatum to her at a time where she was grieving her father and she didn't want a harm to leave her, so she tacitly agreed in the sense that she was. She says she was kicking it down the line, hoping that it would never actually come to fruition.

It's kind of what you want, but whatever exactly.

Then she hears through a fan of hers that Aham was hooking up with another woman in a bar in the neighborhood. So, Holly, imagine how you would feel if somebody if if an out louder said, hey, just saw Brent hooking up with somebody and the humiliation because obviously other people don't don't know and as far as she knows, that's not happen.

Yeah, but she the way that this story unfolds, the understand it issue, that's all in the past, right, So this all happened. He cheated on her, That's how they kind of worked out. Like she was like, oh, he meant it about that, which is why she was saying in that thing there was monogamy under duress and then that led them through the But why does nobody want to believe her about where they're at now?

I don't even know if it's well. I think one aspect of it that I find really interesting is that part of millennial Internet writing was vulnerability and was showing your skuf personal essay, yes, and was very much and Lindy West has written she wrote about in Shrill, and she has talked about it in these interviews where she has said, I have never had a functional relationship where somebody just puts me on a pedestal and loves me like that is not what was ever presented to me

But what about her point that, like, they've been together for nearly two decades and he's her number one supporter and they're madly in love. Why do you think do you think we're just we are like we don't want to And I'm not suggesting that here on this podcast we're going to prosecute whether or not that's true. I want to I'm prosecuting like that conversation that we will

Yes, I think Lindy would have answers to that. I think she would point to sizism because, as mentioned, Roya is a small woman and Lindy describes herself as fat. And I think Lindy would also point to racism because Aham is a person of color and she has spoken about how she feels that a lot of the discussion around monogamy is inherently white centric. That's what Lindy would say in answer to the question of why are people so unable to believe her?

When you write a memoir and when you then go and promote that memoir and you're interviewed and you share your story, people automatically the point of empathy is Lindy right.

People like when you hear we we know her right?

Yes? And you know her and so when she tells you something, you you I mean, contrary to a lot of this commentary, you do trust her as a voice, and you do empathize with her. The really tricky thing is that in this book and in those interviews, she is telling us that a Harm did horrible things. There is a part in the book where she writes, when Ahm was hooking up with the woman in their neighborhood, that Harm did things that were really bad that she's not going to put in the book, and that would

Yeah. She also says, though, that they both did a lot of shitty things. She said, we're in that video that I was just playing a bit obvious. She says, this is a story about emotionally immature people hurting each other.

Yes, so I guess what I'm asking is like, that's her story.

Yes, And I feel like if someone's going to tell you their memoir and they're going to say, you know, all these complicated things happen in my relationship, but at the moment, this is where my relationships at and I'm.

Quite happy in it.

I find it really interesting that most of the pushback is just like, we don't believe.

I think there's also she so she's told this story, and she has shown herself being hurt, and in the interviews she has talked about being hurt, and the interviews and from all accounts that I've seen, the book doesn't really focus on right now, like they're like the modern love interview that I have listened to, she says, I married a harm I wanted a traditional marriage. I thought

Yeah people change, though, you know what I mean? Yeah, people do change. I don't know.

I find myself a bit defensive of her because I personally I like seeing lots of different examples of how women can live their lives, lots of different kinds of relationships, lots of different dynamics rather than there was one and it's a white picket fence and a wedding isn't ending. You know, that's the narrative we like to tell, fairy tale narrative.

That she told herself and Shell yeah.

To a point.

But then that's a point in her life where you press pause because you've you know, that's where you're at and you're writing that story.

But then you.

Press play again right after you walk down the aisle, and a whole lot of different things happen. And I think that we love so the obsession we have, say with the Lily Allen album, and I share this obsession West End Girl is because it confirms all the biases we actually have about polyamory, which are generally women never want it. These are the things that we generally decide women never want it. It's generally an excuse for men

Like, one thing I've seen that I thought was quite clever was that perhaps we are looking at instead of Lindy West, the person with a whole lot of nuances, because you're exactly right, like you press pause on a memoir, you're married. But I mean, that's what's always so fascinating about any fairy tale narrative, is it's like and that after that, and then what happens is it's always messy.

Dicks and how and how to deal with dickey men.

Yes, and a little bit of a twist this is this is a bit gos fever. You know, the outlouders love a little bit of gossip. A journalist from Slate went to Lindy West's cabin.

She has led a few journalists into the cabin.

I would be I would not, I'd be like canceling the ferry service to my island at this point.

Yes, well, so, I think people are also a little bit annoyed in that they've held Lindy West up as a symbol and they feel like there's a bit of contradiction going on. So long story short. Slate the publication profiled Lindy West and interviewed both Royer and Aham. And when the profile came out, which was incredibly balanced and I didn't see anything snarky in it at all. It was very pro Lindy. The journalist had a line where she just said a harm and Royer weren't at the

So it's like her standing as a kick ass feminist is may be being undermined by her private life exactly. Ah If you, like us, are a little bit obsessed with this story and polyamory and all of the intricate bits and bobs, We're going to do a subs episode about it with Mia, because believe me, that woman has thoughts too, So keep an ear out for that.

This week, Chapel Rowan's in trouble again. Poor Chapel. Oh I love Chapel, but it may not be what it seems. Let me tell you the story. It all unfolded this weekend in South Paolo Brazil. Georgin Yao is a very famous soccer player. He was born in Brazil. He's played for Chelsea and Arsenal. Obviously I know everything about him. They didn't just look this.

He would have been watching The Matilda's on Saturday night.

Yeah.

He is world famous and hugely popular in the way that soccer stars are. He has four point nine million Instagram followers, and on Saturday he put them all on black. He shared about a very upsetting situation which happened to his new wife, Katherine Harding. She's an Irish singer and his stepdaughter, So brace yourself for this very upsetting situation. It seems that Catherine and eleven year old Ada were eating breakfast at a fancy restaurant in South Pallo and

That's that Chapel Row? Is it that Chapel Roll? Now, don't let's go have a look.

On their way to getting one of those like little mini pastries that I love getting at hotel breakfasts. And then they went back to their table, and then Chapel security came over and threatened and harassed them. Now, Georgino wrote in all caps on Instagram to his millions of followers. Without your fans, you would be nothing and to the fans, she does not deserve your affection in all caps, my.

Mate Chapel, and if anyone doesn't know, she is the amazing singer behind Pink Pony Club and Hot to Go and my favorite is seven Nomenon and good luck babe. She's amazing, but she has got a reputation for having very strong boundaries with paps and fans.

So that I will be real with you, Holly. When I saw this story on Saturday, I thought to myself that Chapel is such a diva. She's at it again. Two weeks ago she was shouting at the perps when she was having dinner. Boy George got in on this, like after this happened, he said, she just needs to own her fame. And that's how everyone felt about it. They just thought she's being so annoying and demanding because she wants her privacy now she's eating breakfast and these

I'm just gonna tell my haf of the story of what happened today with a mother and child who were involved with a security guard who is my personal security.

I didn't even see.

I didn't even see a woman and a child like I did not know. One came up to me, no one bothered me.

So obviously we'll never know the truth of what happened, but I think it does speak to where we're at that it's so easy and seductive for us to immediately assume the worst of the woman in any given situation.

She had to say in that video, I do not hate children.

How to hate children exactly.

And you're like, wow, and is it that outlandish that a security guard might just go up to somebody and have a go at them, because sometimes security guards do that without for.

The record, breakfast. I'm not good at breakfast. If fans approached me at breakfast, I tend to get my security guard to move them on. So, look, this reminded me of another woman who got shamed in the public eye, which was Kristin Cabot. Now that name will sound familiar to you because she was in the Coldplay kiss Cam and that got three hundred billion How is that now?

There are only eight billion people in the world. I think we watched that video multiple three hundred billion views.

You watched the Oprah special.

I did so.

I At first, when I saw that Oprah was interviewing Christian Cabot, I was like, surely I've heard all of this because she she did a New York Times piece. It was the first time she spoke after the event, and I was like, why are you talking? But then when I listened, it was really interesting things I didn't know, include her ex husband was also at the show at the same time. They were definitely separated. She had started

Told me an absolutely fascinating thing that she says in it. Let's have a listen.

New York Times wrote that she's been called the quote. She's been called a slut, a homewrecker, a gold digger, a side piece. The usual tags for shaming women, is what Lisa Miller wrote. And you told me that you believe that women are apt to quote each other alive, and that most of your criticism has actually come from other women, that other women are the only one who dare to come up to your face and say horrible things.

Right, Yeah, that was to me the most upsetting piece of all of this was I had no idea how unwell we as a gender still.

Claire, you wrote a whole book about internet pylons and cancel culture. Did you were you surprised by that revelation that most of the online hate came from women's.

No Ah, not at all, because I think that in some ways we're still prosecuting a lot of I mean, as you can say from this show, we're still prosecuting a lot of questions about feminism in real time.

What was this got to do with feminism?

And because I think that we are women are looking at each other thinking, are.

You my enemy? You are my enemy?

You are you are the reason that my husband left me, Like, women are doing that to each other, and it's internalized misogyny one hundred percent.

So and they don't want to hear that actually that isn't what she was doing.

On Yeah, yeah, because that nuance is quite boring and also doesn't fit with the fact that on the Internet, somebody like Kristin Cabot is a two dimensional figure who represents the homewrecker.

That's it.

There's nothing more complian, not to drawge too long a bowl on it. But I think that's also why we collectively would prefer to believe that Royer stole a harm from Lindy rather than perhaps a more complicated, nuanced idea.

And my chapel rone is awful.

I mean, I'm not saying she is well when people are believing that she is, maybe this is very depressing information. I want to leave you with a little bit of gossip that I did get from that interview, though, just so that we can throw it back on the guy, right, Yeah, but not that that's healthy, but I'm just here to do it, just to even it out.

They don't speak.

They haven't spoken since last fall, Kristin and Andy because she says, and I love the way Americans talk, he did not meet my standards of honesty and transparency Americans do. And then Oprah says, are you telling me that he hadn't really separated from his wife? And she sort of says, well, I'm not saying that because it's not my story to tell.

But that's totally what she's saying.

It's story.

He was a dirty, rotten cheetah. And he also didn't come out and defend her, which her ex husband did when he came out and said we were separated. It's cool Andy didn't say that, and so she is that he is the villain.

There's an even better tibit in my view, which is that you remember that Gwyneth Paltrow did the ad for the company after this all came out. That was very wink wink, nudge nudge, basically trying to explain to everyone what this company did that they both worked at. Apparently, Gwyneth reached out to Kristin, which I think is kind of nice, because Kristin expressed some real disappointment that she was another woman who's founded this company based on women's empowerment.

The very last thing that's very sad about this is that Christen says she can no longer listen to Coldplay, and they were her favorite band and Yellow was her favorite song, but because that was playing when this all happened, she can no longer listen.

It was Yellow that was playing. Sad, that's not a snogging song.

That is all we have time for.

Oh I need to I need to mention one of you. I need to mention one of you, Sarah. I'm sure we've only got one Sarah who listens to about loud all out louders. I'm sure there's only one who. On Friday I did ask. I said, hey, out louders, if you love us, wherever you're listening to this, why don't you jump on and give us a rating?

And as far as I know, only said that's not true. I'm sure many people did.

Sarah posted about it and she said, I did what Holly asked me to do. So be like Sarah, out louder, be Sarah, be a Sarah, and jump on wherever you're listening to this if you love the show and give us a railing.

Week was a.

Gold staro oh yeah, and then we can all have a little nap, yeah, and a little treat. Thank you to our amazing team for putting this Monday show together. Thank you to my wonderful co hosts, and we will see you tomorrow.

Momenta acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.