Clare Stephens Was Always ‘The Twin’ or ‘The Editor.’ What Happened When She Walked Away?

You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

I'm comparing myself to a person who objectively, You're the hardest working person I've ever known. You're one of the smartest people I've ever known. You're so creative, Like, Oh my god, did that have to be my twin?

Oh my goodness. I cannot wait for today's guest.

It is someone who has spent most of her adult life right here in the Mamma Mia office. It's Claire Stevens, who once was known as Claire from Mamma Mia, where she rose to become editor in chief, shaping some of the most viral stories and conversations in the Australian media landscape.

And she's also a twin. You might have heard of her sister.

It's an identity that has defined her since birth, but in recent years Claire has been on a journey to discover who she is when those labels are stripped away. Her career has taken her from the newsroom to screenwriting on the hit series Strife, to creating a podcast about public pylons, and now to publishing.

Her first novel.

It's really good, the worst thing I've ever done, A sharp, compassionate look at cancel culture and the way the Internet can turn on anyone at any time.

Claire has also.

Lived through her own defining moments, from a traumatic birth to navigating the brutality of online scrutiny, and she has thought deeply about the invisible cost of how we treat women online. This is truly a conversation about identity and what happens when the Internet forgets is a human being on the other side of the screen.

Stevens, Welcome to No Filter.

Thank you for having me now.

I don't know if you know about this organization.

Haven't heard much.

Mumma maya.

Yeah interesting, although, as Siri pronounces it on my phone, mammaemia.

Oh no, that's so upsetting.

And it's a platform for women and girls, Okay.

Is it related to the ab song or.

Oh well, I don't know what the genesis of it.

Was, ok Because often when I used to tell people I worked from Mayo.

Go oh my god, I love the musical.

The Aba Musical, And I'm like, honestly, some days I'd love to work for the Aba Musical.

Not if it's the part where Piterce Brosnan is singing, oh no, no, no, that was very bad.

Every every Meryl Street moment, all.

Of those exactly, we take any merrill. Now listen, this is your exit interview.

Oh my god, no, oh no. So when did you leave, Mamma Mia.

I left beginning of this year.

It was sort of recently.

Yes, so I sort of wrapped up end of last year, right, and then wasn't coming back in the new year. So it's mean I'm trying to remind myself sometimes a panic, I'm like.

Oh my gosh, I've been gone for that long and have I done all the things that I wanted to do? And then I think, hold on, it hasn't actually been that long.

No, that's not long. And also because you were here for ten years years. Yeah, you came as after a phone call you got from Maya. Yeah that you thought was a prank.

Yes, I got an email, an email from Maa, and I thought, this is so mean that somebody would pretend to be me a freedman. Because Jesse and I were my sister and I were writing a blog together that we loved and writing for a couple of very fringe publications, and then this email came from someone claiming to be Maya Friedman saying that they loved our writing.

And wanted to that stage.

You were doing the recaps of The Biggest Loser, which is that puts it in a time.

It really does, it really does.

And I was doing at the time, I was doing a Masters of research in eating disorders and obesity, and I wanted to get these kind of semi academic ideas about the way we talk about body shape and health and all of that. I wanted to put them in the mainstream and communicate them. So Jess and I had always watched The Biggest Loser for reasons we can't explain.

We all did.

Yeah, by the way, well I think we could explain it. I think we probably could. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was fascinating.

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

And so we were recapping that, and yeah, Maya reached out, and from there I was so excited that somebody liked our writing.

And also because then you were I mean you were born a unit. Yeah, the pair of you, you and Jesse, and then you came to Mauma Maya as a unit. Now that's what was Jesse's studying when you was doing your psyche.

Jesse had finished her masters of research the year before she was She has a master's in history, history and gender studies, so she had finished.

She really wanted to be unemployed.

I know, I'm like, I want to study psychology, but I don't want to be a psychologist.

Yeah, that's right. What do I want to do?

A really great idea for employment.

And so both of us in that year had sort of realized that we wanted to write, and we were looking at the media landscape thinking, you know, even looking at people who were social commentators almost and thinking how do you get to do that?

And so was that at that time? What were you looking at? What was around?

Remember, we were obsessed with Mamaya, Rosie Water.

And the Bachelors and weirdly, who do you?

A few months before Mia reached out, my cousin gifted us tickets to go and see Rosie's book launch. In conversation with Mia and so Jess and I sat in this audience and it was one of those moments where you go, oh God, I'd love to be part of this organization.

I'd love to be Rosie Wonder, I'd love to do all these things.

And then you go, but look around, probably all of these women would love that, and so it's not going to happen. And then so when Mia reached out, we were so surprised. But interestingly, on that first meeting, she said she was almost She said, oh, I thought that maybe you wouldn't maybe you're kind of too edgy for Mamya, Like you wouldn't think Mamya was cool.

And we're like, ah, We're like, no, we love it. Well.

I think you know that's been a hallmark of your work is very.

Accessible, yep, yep, yeah, but also incorporating like some of these ideas for lutin ideas at university yea hopefully, which is a very difficult thing to do, to make the esoteric relatable and clear and to refine it so that people go, oh, oh, I hadn't thought about it that way.

Yeah. Yeah, I hope.

I hope that that's what both Jess and I are able to do, because when you're at UNI, you realize that you work on.

Something for so long and.

It in some cases will only be read by so few people, and you think there's a lot of research I did for my novel, like a lot of academic research, and I thought it's so interesting because this academic research is so clever and complex, and I wish everyone could read it, but it's behind a paywall. It is the type of language that not everybody can understand.

It involves reading, exactly.

It involves reading and understanding, you know, the all the layers of research, and it involves a whole lot of stuff that not everybody can access. So I think that there is something really important about getting those ideas and putting them in a palatable way that people can.

Unders And also, what you and Jesse did together was use humor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is.

Such a gateway and it's it's actually I'm often amused by comedian friends who then go down a kind of more strident or political pathway because I think so few people have the gift of humor.

Yep, ye, yeah.

There's so many people that can tub thump and whatever, and that's important, but so few people have the gift of being able to parlay a thought through humor. And you two both had that.

Oh thank you.

And so at what point did you realize when you came in to Mum and Mia And to me, it kind of feels that you've always been here, Yeah, what point did you?

Oh, way this is working?

I think it was a couple of years in like we both of us when we started had a moment of thinking, oh wow, I feel like this was where I was always meant to be.

Like we both, I'll speak myself.

I love ideas and building concepts and challenging each other and all of that, and the being around women who just were so clever and so creative I found really exciting. The other thing And I don't know if you feel this, but growing up I thought it was actually quite radical

There is so much power in somebody laughing at you.

Where did the funny come from? So in your family dynamic.

Dad's got a pretty weird sense of humor, very very dry. Mum is also is also very funny. But I think my sister and I and then we've got twin brothers. Have always have always had a very specific sense of humor.

But growing up, I remember watching TV.

My mum watched every episode of the Panel, and I remember looking at you and being obsessed and thinking, she is so funny, and that is rare.

That is really rare.

And it was rare when I was growing up to see a really funny woman on television.

It's funny because when I was looking, I started reading your book last night. This is the Bookations, by the way, because a baby in a book and a new life.

And it's a lot.

It's a lot. It's a lot, and you always like a lot.

Fuck you girls are I'm going to say you're overachieved.

I don't feel like that, but thank you. No.

I think I think you probably never do, because you seem to be aware of what you haven't done.

This is about what you have done. Okay, just take a little moment to that.

But it's funny that you mentioned that because this is about a girl who gets canceled. And I was thinking and MEA and I have discussed this before because she's had her own uncomfortable ride at that Rodano, and I don't think I've been canceled, But the closest I came was doing the panel.

What happened when I.

Breastfeed I remember, I remember that moment.

My first son, and that was before socials or whatever.

But the insane level of feedback on that of a woman who'd gone back to work and just dropped in. I say, go back to work, but it was I dropped in at my friends. We'd done a show. I think Lewis was like three or four weeks old, and I had said to my husband, if Lewis makes a sound, just bring him down to me.

An old feeder. That's all I knew how to do.

I knew how to do with a baby anything. If he pulled a face or whatever, it was just titt in the mouth, that was. If he had hiccups or whatever, it was just feeding.

Anyway.

So that happened, and it was towards the end of the show look in an ad break, Peter brought Lewis down.

I popped him on.

I'd been with the guys the day earlier, I'd been feeding him at a meeting.

They enjoyed it.

Yeah, I don't care if people enjoy watching me breastet.

You can, That's not what I'm doing it for I'm doing it for him anyway.

But the cancelation thing is an extraordinary concept. So I know you did the show canceled, Yep, yep.

What is your interest in that?

I think from being at my MAA for a decade, I was in the unique experience of seeing those things that blow up in the media, whether it's someone said the wrong thing, they've published an article that had the wrong language, whether they've just done something that makes no sense to other people. I was in the unique position of, through the network of media, actually finding myself face to face with those people and realizing that they are not monsters.

I've been on both all right, all right, so you've been leading the witch hunts, yeah, and like, not to a.

Huge extent, but I realized that something would happen to me and I'd think, oh gosh, I used to be the person who would call people.

Out for that, and I enjoy them getting called out yes.

And I like yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and feeling really morally superior because I am above that and I would never make such a mistake. And there was one particular person.

When I first started writing on the internet, I really wanted to do kind of social commentary, and I think what women do. Women are so emotionally intelligent that I think what we want to do is we want to explore morality through the prism of people. And so there was one particular woman in Australian public life that I looked at and I wrote a lot about her and seeing her as almost a symbol of greed, money, exploitation, of all these things.

And I wrote so much about her.

Who was that, don't do you don't want to name them?

Well, who i'd like to know. I'd like to know from you, if you think I can say it. It's Roxy Jasenko.

Oh okay, all right.

I don't know if she would mind. I don't know if she would mind.

Because I think she wouldn't surprise her.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I had written about Roxy Jasenko and then through work stuff, I met her and I found myself face to face with her and she was lovely.

She was lovely, and I went, you know.

What I don't and thank god she's such a busy woman. But she had no idea that I had written she had and this was years later, But I just thought, I don't actually know you. I don't I don't know you, and what I've done is dehumanize you. I have not offered you the dignity of slow, considered judgment. I've jumped on the tiny, surface level things I know about you, and I have had fun with that in quite a icky way that I don't feel comfortable.

It's interesting because I mean, she was big on conspicuous consumption, yep, yep. But some people are allowed to the Kardashians carte blanche for you know, for any whatever, bucci, lambeau, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And yet in when certain other people manifest those traits or show off what they have, it elicits anger from us, competition, comparison, a sense, like you said, of this morality, Yeah.

Like practicing your morality to someone.

That is, as someone who has a psych degree.

That is I think what happens.

We really do want to prosecute moral questions, and I think that is so important that we do that, and I think there is something to be said about analyzing conspicuous consumption. However, I do not think the way to do that is through tearing apart an individual, because when you do that, you are placing that individual in contempt, you are not considering their complex humanity, and.

It also takes away from the entire point.

Like I do think the media, the way that our media has evolved, has made this really hard because.

There are issues.

You will find that most of the big issues in the zeitgeist we explore through individuals. So there will be a global conflict, there will be a you know, a question about feminism, and instead of having a philosophical conversation about it, we point to a person. We go, you are a symbol of this size, You are a symbol of this side, and we play that off. That is because no one's going to pay attention to the philosophical

That's the only way we're going to pay attention.

And also, I think once upon a time, like we've lost the institutions where we would probably analyze that no one goes to church. Once upon a time everyone went to church and then you were told this is good and this is bad.

We don't have that. So now is social media the new church?

Yep?

Yeah, and it's not a broad church.

No.

If you deviate from what is considered acceptable, and those parameters shift all the time, yes, exactly. Do not go anywhere there's more insight, more honesty, and yes, more laughter with Clay Stevens after this short break.

Did you ever get canceled?

I have had a few experiences. I wouldn't call it the scale of being canceled. I've had tiny, tiny moments where I have been, say, called out online, and those moments are so sickening and all consuming that when it happened, I thought there's a book in this, and I really wanted to give myself the challenge of showing, rather than telling, how that feels. And so a couple of times, I remember when I was editor in chief, it was the most bizarre story.

We ran an.

Interview with somebody who called out somebody else, and then that somebody else got in touch with me and said, no, she's the one who's actually done this, and before I knew it, it was ten am, and I was on phone call to these two women who are like, I'm taking her to the police because she's trolling me, and the other one's like, I have a private detective, and I was like, I have a team of twenty people and I'm meant to be editing their work. I'm sorry,

With something going on in the internet.

Going on on the internet, So there have been moments where I'm being called out for something running, like running a story that used the wrong language.

I remember there was a moment.

I don't know if you remember this, and we've sort of gone past it now, but there was a lot of conversation about if you were going to do a story about women's health, whether you could say women or if you had to say people with vaginas or people.

With volvers or uteruses or whatever.

And we ran a story that I think actually erred on the side of inclusivity and said people with vaginas or something like that, and people were furious and saying, no, this is invalidating women's experiences and all this, and I was sort of trying to navigate that, and at the same time, someone really close to me was in hospital,

This is ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous.

And yet you are also a quog in the machine exactly exactly, and like AI.

The machine is turning on you.

Yep, yeah, as it will all of us. Yes, yes, and so and so.

I really wanted to with the book basically hold those two things at once. The absurdity of what we're arguing on the internet, and it's a zero sum game. And I don't think we're actually doing anything. I don't think we're kind of reaching consensus in the way that we think we are. I don't think we're changing people's minds in the way that I wish we were. I think the discourse online is increasingly really really toxic and unhelpful.

And then contrasting that with what real life is.

And the other thing about real life that I would think in these moments is you forgive people. In real life, when a friend is shitty, you forgive them, and you have a blueprint for how to move forward.

We do not have that online.

If somebody stuffs up online, the glee in always holding that person to the worst thing they ever did.

There is no.

Way forward where we go, Okay, you know what, We've made our point. I think we've been heard. That person has apologized, So let's move on.

That doesn't it's not a thing.

No, that's not a thing.

Although the grace of it is, if there's anything, is that things move on so cool exactly.

That if you can just keep your head down, it'll totally blow over.

Like people yeah, constantly, like remember things that you're like, oh, yeah, what seems so significant at the time is now like, yeah, did that happen. There's always something in the room that goes, oh, that's right, I've got about that. At the time, it seemed monumintalk.

Yeah, And to the individual at the center of it, it feels like everyone's talking about it, everyone's watching, and it's pretty much never the case, like if you go out.

Into the real world, no one knows what the hell you're talking now, But for you, it feels like that.

And the scary thing is for people who've had these experiences, and I've for the book, I interviewed many, many media figures who have had these experiences, and they will say the scary thing is that months, years after they've been canceled, piled on, whatever you want to call it, they will still be on their way to an event and get a call saying I'm sorry, we've had a complaint from oh,

Come back of us, and that is the pac mentality of it, exactly that the people in the herd as well, are like, oh, I better join the rest in you know, tearing down the wilderbeast.

Yes, because otherwise they're coming for me.

And this is part of our Yeah, this is kind of how we prosecute morality.

And if you say, hey, I don't know if all the.

Name calling and the shaming and the doxing and the really dehumanizing this person and not allowing them any dignity, I don't know. If this is how we go about this, then you're complicit, you know, and then you're then you're part of the problem. But I think we really need to look at what we're doing. Your very good friend who I admire from a fart. Walid Ali writes about

So dysfunctional that we are not going to see the progress that we used to.

But you know what Walid does as well, he's not on socials because he's the most evolved person.

Well, well, there you go. But then are you evolved if you're not evolving with the world?

I know, I know, yeah, yeah, what are you if you're the last bastion of someone who doesn't know that Katie Perry went to.

The y, which is so important.

It's so important to know that.

Yes, you know, you very casually tossed in when I became editor in chief. Oh yes, yes, yeah mum and maya Yeah. So what was the trajectory? So you and Jesse came here, you're doing your bits of content? At what point did you become editor in chief or was there a career tragedy?

Yes, So we were interns who wouldn't leave. Literally, we just wouldn't leave. We just kept turning up and then they had an editorial assistant job, and I think maybe I did that.

Yeah, I did that. Jesse got a she was editing video.

She has a very funny story about having to film something with me or and completely stuffing it up. Just no one's ever been as bad it video as Jeffy Stevens. But we kind of eventually got into junior editorial role. So I was editorial assistant for a few years. Then I was a content producer, which is like a writer. Then I was a weekend editor for a couple of years, and then the editor in chief position came up, and

I'm quite brave when it comes to decision making, like quite I stand by my convinion.

Yeah yeah, And people kind of said, hold on that's actually that's something that is needed in that role.

So I loved those few years.

Ab I was editor in chief for maybe three years, and it was during COVID when so for a chunk of it everybody was working remotely, which was interesting managing people totally remotely. But I loved that and the single thing or no, So I've always not always, I've never.

Actually it's true, you weren't born single.

You weren't.

And then I met my partner at seventeen, so you were born when you were seventeen, so we've been together forever.

So we were together then Wow, and then Jesse. So you're working side by side and I love it. I think the first time that I ever met you too. And it's obviously standard bit of stick that you two have, which is that she's looks like you, but she's bigger than you. She took all the nutrients in the wood. And then when you left Mamma Mia, a part.

Of me thought, did she take all the nutrientts at Mamma May as well? Would you like clear leaving because.

She starts she starts going out with the bosses, So yeah, how was that you in that moment when you realize that there was like a flutation that was going on to the next level.

I have been very open about the fact that I was against it from the start, Jesse.

For hr reasons or personal reasons.

So Jesse for yes, and Jesse was making tip for a long time. She had made terrible romantic decisions and that I didn't understand. And in hindsight, that's a bit unfair because I was very lucky to have met my partner, so I didn't go through all the early twenties dating, getting rejected, feeling like you've got bullet holes all over you, and having to go into a date.

So we're working at Maya.

I actually trained Luca, which was really funny because training the boss's son is terrifying.

Because I was like, what if I actually don't know what I'm doing?

And I remember, what if he's no good? Yeah, yeah, he's going to deliver that shit sound exactly.

Yeah, I remember just being so skeptic to date. He's like, you were very good at training me, thank you.

But so I trained him and then he and Jessie were working just happened to be working in the same team together and they became very very good friends and she sort of would tell me that there were rumors that Luke had a crush on her, and I was like, oh, nice, but like that's irrelevant, because yeah, exactly, I'm like lovely. And there was an age gap and I just was like, don't go there, and I very much said age gap.

Ah, he's a really good person. This is so annoying, and he is. He's a bloody good person, and he's body smart and creative and him and Jesse are just their brains are just alive together. So eventually I was like, well, she kind of went ahead and did it anywhere, and then I said, okay, fine, And then.

You had babies similarly.

Yeah.

I think she had Luna first. Then ye had Matilda.

About six months later.

Yeah, right, yeah, which has been incredible to do all of that together. Mostly, like I keep thinking about it, financially, I just got everything down to me, like every like she had a snoop, I got.

A snoop, she had all the all the I'm like, I just had a baby for free.

Did she give you her obstitution?

No, when we're a different obstetrition, because I was like, you know what, we should probably diverge somewhere. But having those experiences together has been such a gift, such a gift.

I don't know what I do.

Well, because you've also, as we just said, you've you came into the world together. Yeah.

Yeah, you've always had each other.

The twin thing is like to you obviously it's not not a mystery, Yeah, but it is an extraordinary thing to witness from the outside because you always have each other.

Yes, yes, And it occurs to me every now and then that probably one of the scariest things about life is that you enter.

The world alone, and you enter every situation alone.

And Jess and I got to walk into primary school together and walk into high school together, and yeah, that bond. It's something I feel incredibly lucky to have and gives I think gives a lot of meaning to life to have a witness and to have someone you're constantly in conversation with.

Yeah, yeah, And I think a lot of people feel like that about there.

Do you have to explain yourself to each other ever? Or is there an innate no understanding?

There's just like an emotional slash language shortcut where we are always tapped in emotionally to where the other person is. And I think also because through virtue of working at the same place and having similar interests, we're kind of very much on the same path in what we're interested in and what kind of.

Little The reason you worked at the same place is because you had that yeah yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's exact.

Separate the strand no, and yet you decided to separate the strand yes.

Yeah.

Part of it was I wanted to take myself out of the context of the comparison to Jesse being so easy, Like I was aware that I found that hard and I found that.

What do you mean? I don't understand the comparison.

So our whole lives, we've been compared, like at school and all of that little you know, little comments about who's smarter and who's more attractive, and who's more creative and who's better at this and that and all that, And I was becoming.

Well, how does that lead you? Look? By the way, how do how does the lead you look?

It changes, it changes.

We were joking the other day about how when we're at UNI, a tutor said to us. He ran into us and he was like, ah, I've marked your essays. One of you can write and one of you can't. Anyway, and then he walked away and write. But then we got the marks back and I was the one who could write, which we like that out because we're like, Jesse can write.

She's got two best selling books. I think she can write.

But there was always kind of that comparison, and I think, I don't know if I'm more sensitive. Jesse's always been a bit more resilient to it. She got the nutrients, Yeah, she got the nutrients, and so I've got all the bloody you know. I my psychologists say, apparently, when you're because I was very very little when I was born, you do have vulnerabilities to certain mental health.

Right, Oh okay, oh good to know she doesn't have she doesn't.

Have that like certain things. But I'm like, I feel like maybe you're more resilient to that because you got more nutrients. But anyway, that's my theory.

But yeah, what was the moment at which you went like, was there a moment away gradual?

I think it was a gradual.

I think I would sometimes look at what Jesse was doing and think, oh, I want to be doing that, and I didn't want to be in that position, like it felt a bit icky.

And then for her, conversely, you can sometimes get it. And this is not even a twin thing. This is just like a close friend you might be in the same industry or whatever. You don't want her to be in the position where she's having to be almost apologetic for her success because it's somehow.

Exactly or when something amazing happens for her, the fact that it's a bittersweet because she's aware that you know that I might be seeing that from my own perspective, like I didn't. I was like, yuck, this just has to be that. You know, you do your own thing and you are brilliant, and I've got to kind of

And also you're both amazing. So it's true.

I mean, it's fine if the person's you know, five body links behind you, yeah, yeah, yeah, but neither of you are either going to be five body links behind. Yeah.

Like the fact is like I'm comparing myself to a person who I'm like, objectively, you're the hardest working person I've ever known. You're one of the smartest people I've ever known. You're so creative, Like, oh my god.

Did that have to be my Twitter? That's so true.

So I think getting out of that comparison dynamic was important. And also I think I wanted some creative ownership or I just got to the point. I don't know if it's maturity wise or just LifeWise, where you think I want to make mistakes. I'm happy to make mistakes, but

It's like moving out of home, which is really the equivalent to leave Mauma Maya the only job you had, and to leave Jesse is really I'm going to get a foot on and put it on the floor and it's going to be mine.

And I might have trouble making rent exactly, but this is what's.

Mine, and I'm going to decorate it how I want to decorate it. And you might think it's hideous, but it doesn't matter.

And how did you want to decorate it? By the way, I.

Kind of got to a point, and it was Weirdly, people say that when you write a book, you are a different person by the time you get to the end, because if you're taking a character on an emotional journey, you take.

Yourself through that journey you have to.

And so the through osmosis, I had kind of thought, hmm, there's something happening in media and digital media and attention wise and with AI and with social.

Media where I need to have a life where I slow down and pay attention.

And so in terms of how I wanted to decorate my metaphorical place, I wanted it to be slow and intentional, and to build things in a way like when you post something on social media, even when you write you something for the Internet, it can feel like I was addicted to the dopemine high of seeing how it performed or whatever, and then you feel like it gets washed away so quickly. And I thought, that's the exciting thing about writing a book. You're like, at least this stands

And who do you have that conversation with when you've had the realization, So obviously you're having this conversation with Rory. Yeah, yeah, I do think in this scenario, God, do Rory and Luca ever get together to have to debrief about.

They probably need Yeah, they probably need to.

I mean often it's the four of us and the girls, but they yeah, they they deal with a lot of emotional processing.

But Rory.

Has been so important for the book for decision making all of that because he's known me for so long and seeing all these iterations and all these you know, maybe emotional challenges that I've had. I feel like he knows me so well that he can actually weigh in in ways they are aligned, yes, what I actually want.

But also had all those conversations with Jesse, and that's all.

Jesse first after Rory, where you were like, I'm thinking.

The same time, And then I'd go to Rory and say, Jesse has Jesse has this point and go to Jesse.

And saying, oh, but Rory said this, like and Jesse would not have wanted you to leave?

No, no, she well she didn't she didn't. She was very much like you know, saying canceled is the highlight of my week.

And I loved it. And I was like, me too, me too, I love it. And it is hard to walk away from things that you've built.

But I sort of was trying to say to her, this is probably the one tiny part of me that you can't understand, because this is an area of your life where she just doesn't. She's so good at knowing what she wants and not questioning it. It's so and she's bolder than I am. So even I in the book is dedicated to Jesse, and I say for showing me I could, because I think in a lot of ways, it's kind of like having that person who is willing to dive in before you are so that you can see whether it's safe.

And so she's bolder and she's braver than.

I am, and so I can't say for you to leave was bold and braw.

Yeah, And I sort of saying to her, that's why I need to make.

This decision, because it's I need to be brave.

I need to just I need to do it, and I need to teach myself to be brave being out on my own, so I think she's really she understood it and has been. It's actually been amazing for our relationship, having that little degree of separation where we're really curious about each other's days, and she'll see something that I do and think, oh, that's really cool, and I'll see something she does and think that's cool.

And also you're still familiar with the processes she's talking about in the people exactly although, are you coming back to this office for the first time, Yeah, I've.

Seen how did that feel?

Amazed? Like it's really really cool.

It's sick and even you know downstairs in the lobby there's like all those there's place Yea.

I was like, damn, this would be so hack. Yeah, like, oh, it's so good. But at the same time, I'm very much I very much feel like I Weirdly, as.

I was making this decision, I interviewed Depak Chopra, but I were happy, and he talks about the concept of dharma.

You're aware of darma, like kind of like what your path.

Is not right karma?

Yeah, no, it does, it does, but like living a dharmic life that's in alignment with your values and all of that. And I interviewed him and I read his book.

Was he happy?

Ah?

Yes, although he has really he's very optimistic about AI. And I wanted to challenge him about that because I was like, how are you happy about it? But I read all about that and weirdly, that was the time I was making the decision to leave, and I thought, in my Darma, Yeah, I was like, this is my.

I'm not weir weird, but this is my Darmak path.

And then when you left, what was the immediate change, Like how did your life look? How was that for Matilda?

Your time with Matilda, which is always an attendant thing as a parent.

Yeah, finishing the book when I kind of did a big, like the big kind of finishing it a few months. As you would know from writing books, sometimes you're working on it for a really long time and then it's crunch time. You've got to put this together and it's got to get done. And I did that when Matilda was five or six months, like very young. And at that point I was going to the library seven days

Maybe like ing all the women, for instance, who give themselves to it in perpetuity.

Yes, yes, it's extraordinary.

Yeah, I thought there is no right way to do this, and I have to sit in the comfortable reality that I don't know that I know that I need to do this for me and that I'm going to be a really good mum to her knowing I've done the thing I've always wanted to do. And so I was working crazy hours when she was that young. Then left Mum Maya, and I knew that my personality is I need structure and routine.

Otherwise I will la la la la la years.

That's yeah, a huge thing.

Yeah yeah, And so how.

Did you impose that structure on yourself?

I told myself, you need to be at the library in front of a computer at nine am every day, otherwise the day's going to be lost. So I was doing four days a week where I would go to the library. The local libraries know me so well. It's hilarious. And then now it's five days where I go and I'm very very lucky to do a hybrid of my mum helping out, my mother in law helping out, and I also go to a place called Bubbadesk, which is a coworking site with a.

And so that and that was crucial. I would do that a few days.

When Matilda was little and I was finishing my book and being able to write with her there, and you know, I'd be stuck and I'd think, I think I just need a sniff, and I'd run up, give her a sniff, you know, feed her whatever, and then come back down. Was great, But yeah, I very much imposed this structure of myself. And I also told myself have you read

Like it's like thing's going to get done.

Yeah.

It's like if your goal was just turn up to the gym, you I have to exit.

Ye, you just got to turn up.

You're probably not gonna stand.

And every time I go to do weeks, yes.

Yes, every time I go to yoga, I'm like, I might just line on the man, yeah, and you end up doing the class.

And of course that's kind of how I've done. The habit thing is just turn up. Get about that, by the way, So it's the atomic The atomic bit is about the tininess of a of a habit that feels so so so small, but it's actually what changes your life. So it's actually the idea of yeah, walk in, get yourself in front of the computer. That's the only thing to focus on. Next minute, you've written a book, like that's the idea of it. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, insane?

And what was the what?

So there were great things about leaving?

Yeah?

Yeah, what were the hardest things about leaving? And what have you missed?

You know what I've missed is I was nervous about the social aspect that that being at my maya, I'm like, I have like one hundred friends and I can walk into that office and these people are my friends.

And other ways. Hell yes, if you don't know, someone always knows something.

And that bouncing of ideas, like I thought, I'll really miss that. That has been I've found that when you go out on your own you kind of create your own network anyway, so you're meeting people and working with people. It's just in a different way. So women, yeah, yeah, I find that it is a lot of women. But the thing I'm seriously worried about is when you're in a workplace, you observe fashion.

Trends, you see what people are there.

And I realized that I'm like, I have no barometer without wearing, because it's not something I notice when I'm out, Like I'm very bad at picking up on like what jeans are we wearing, shoes we wearing, Whereas being in the momea office, you can't avoid knowing what the fashion.

No, and GC often gets she knows she gets a cudgeling.

Exactly exactly because she's explicitly told. And also you absorb it. And so I've said to I have to look at Jessie and be like, hey, what jeans, what jeans are we wearing at the moment?

What what's the cool jumper? Like I've got no idea. So I do feel like a dag because I don't.

I don't think is that also liberating though, a little bit, Like.

I literally when I'm at the library, I'm in Traxit pants and jumper.

And I feel very.

Myself and I feel also fashioned way, and I feel very Steve Jobs in it. You know how he didn't make decisions about what.

It's like.

I'm so important that I don't make decisions about what I wear.

So I'm very that I'm I just wear my TRACKSI pants and my jumper, and you know it's not important to me. But yeah, no, when I do actually have to go out, I realize I don't know what the fashion is. I don't have a workplace.

No, that's right, and and that is the real world that you aspired to be a part of. It exactly where everyone looks like they've got post natal depression and like me, their youngest kid is fifteen, exactly exactly. Okay, after this short break, I surprise Claire with a message from someone she's known since before birth.

I've got something I want to share with you.

Oh what is it?

Well, it's from your sister.

Oh no, oh gosh.

Yeah.

And because this is your exit interview, Oh yes, yes, is there anything you want to say before we Oh?

What could be improved upon?

Nothing? I say, I say, mamia, bloody great, thank you?

So Hi Claire, it's me, Jesse. I probably called you four times since you've been in this record. Kind of rude for you not to pick up. Have you got your phone?

I want to see if she's called you.

Actually, I actually because she was in the room next door. Yeah, and she sent a message. Yes she has Yeah, yeah, yeah said how was Matilda?

And I've never told you exactly how it felt when you left Mama Mia, or rather broke up with me because you wanted to be single, which I've always thought is a bullshit line people used to get out of relationships. After working together for ten years, laughing harder than we've ever laughed, writing Married at First Sight recaps, and recording episodes of Canceled, I felt like a desperate, pathetic girlfriend

Oh God, I not a crier. I'm not a sentimental person. But bloody hell, she's a good writer, is it she She's very talented.

She's a good writer. And also like she knows, she's got an audience to impress.

Yeah, yeah, very hard to impress because you know everything about her.

Did you know that?

That's the I don't know the thing about about feeling feeling proud. I think that we don't really say that to each other. And I think she's right about the edges that she has definitely had moments in her career where yeah, that are hers hers, and I feel so

That you don't know where it came from.

I'm like, I don't know that is just you. That is a part of your soul that was unknown to me. I think the book has been a very a very important part of forming an identity that is separate. Has Jess read She has, so she was the first person outside of my publisher to read it. And they say that when you write a book, I don't know if you've found this, that you always you really have one reader.

But as soon as I gave it to Jesse, oent it's her.

That's her, Like she's she is the audience, She's the person I'm When I'm trying to write something funny, I'm trying to make Jesse laugh. When I'm trying to write something profound, I'm trying to make her feel something. And she has just said the absolute kindest things. And we also don't bullshit each other. We're not We never Jesse said the other day, we never tell each other we're pretty.

Like.

I never say you're pretty like, don't.

We don't do that.

And so when we do compliment each other, we really do mean it. So that's why something like that means means a lot, because we don't do that a lot. And with the book, she just said that the kindest, most moving things about it that made me feel like I had succeeded in writing for that reader.

Yeah.

That can be interesting in going through the world and thinking, I like every experience I have, every idea I hear, I really just want to.

Share it with her.

And sometimes I have to stop myself and think, hold on, is it enough that I've just had this experience. But I also think that's the nature of life, like you want to.

Share and people dream of having that person.

Yeah. Yeah, and relationships, I think of the life is nothing.

And you're very good at relationships. Both of you are very good at relationships.

Thank you.

Well, you are obviously are, aren't you.

I think I like having been a twin. I think it makes you really both of us say that.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not particularly good one on one because I'm used to having another person there. I'm used to having Jesse that. Yes, yes, but I do think it makes you it's probably a little bit toxic. But we often give each other like social feedback. So after a dinner or whatever where it's been the two of us and somebody, we'll give feedback.

To each other on your performance and what form does that haen?

So sometimes it might be like, hey, just be careful when you like, you know, say this kind of thing. It might make somebody feel like, oh oh yeah, no, no, no, good point point and we won't get offended by that, right, But it's sort of this constant feedback which is probably helpful because both of us probably feel like we'd quite like social feedback.

Yes, and also it's coming from someone you know loves.

You, yes, yes, and it's not saying it's always the thing about criticism.

Yes, exactly, exactly. Yeah, you are a delight Thank you.

You're very missed at Mamma Maya and across the platforms, and I think I can speak on behalf of the entire million Mumma maas when I say thank you for your service and your goodwill and your thoughts and your humor and your laughter, and you're sharing yourself, thank you and showing yourself you and what happens next.

You'll go in and see Jesse.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I'll go see Jesse and we'll just be like, hey, how you going. But Lifelise, this book is about to come out, and I hope people read it, and I hope it starts a conversation, and I hope that there's lots more of kind of that, those two speeds of the deep slow work.

Right and the faster kind of zeitgeisty work. But but yeah, it's a space I just I just love to be and I think women in media are my people.

And Clay Stevens, you're our people, thank you, which is nice. It's nice to have a I mean, I know you've got your twin, but it's also nice to have a tribe, even though they could turn on you and destroy you at.

Any moment, any moment. And that's what the book, that's what women are love.

It's our prerogative to change our minds exactly. Thanks beautiful one, thank you. Oh my goodness.

I love these girls, and I kind of feel bad because I know their twins and twins always get.

Lumped together, but.

The some of the whole is really not much greater than some of the parts because of some of the parts with Claire Stevens and Jesse Stevens is so remarkable.

Claire is a brilliant writer. She's so honest.

She's an editor, a podcaster, a screenwriter, a twin, a partner, a mother. But what makes her remarkable isn't just the role she's had, Like I said, it's the honesty with which she reflects on them, and the humor and the grace, And in the end, her story is less about what she does and more about who she is becoming, which is even more amazing. Thank you so much for listening to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter is