Brooke Baldwin’s Bad Girl Era

Hey Brightside Besties, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, journalist, TV host and best selling author Brooke Baldwin shares how leaving CNN after thirteen years helped her find her voice and where her journey on self discovery has taken her. It's Wednesday, May twenty ninth. I'm Danielle Robe.

And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine. All Right, We've got some fantastic news for all of our Reese's book Club besties. So in addition to our monthly Reese's book Club picks, we're going to be sharing even more recommendations. Reese is teaming up with her adorable nieces Abby and Draper to share YA picks. If you don't know what YA stands for, that means young adult, one of my favorite genres.

Me too.

And with that news, the summer YA pick has officially been announced and it is Twelfth Night by Alexin Ferrell Falmouth.

Twelfth Night is a YA romantic and a coming of age story about taking up space in the world and learning what it means to let others in. This sounds like something I definitely need to read. I think it's worth mentioning too that the book has some not so subtle nods to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, so same character names, but with a modern plot.

We got to show love to the author of Twelfth Night, Alexi and Farrell Faalmuth is a first generation American, a romance enthusiast, and she has actually written a number of science fiction fantasy projects under the pen name Olivi Blake Ooh Mysterious right, including the international bestseller The Atlas Six.

This is intriguing. I'm excited for this. And you know, even though YA is labeled young adults, we love YA love They're really fun to read. I feel like this book spans generations. And I do want to note that if you have not seen Reese's video with her Nieces announcing this extension of the book Club, it's really really cute. But this got me thinking about some of my favorite movies that you might not know were actually shakespeare inspired. So do you want to play a little games, Simon?

Let's go gla.

So I'm gonna give you two movies. One of them is Shakespearean inspired. Okay, that's my Shakespeare voice is a good That was a lot. Okay. Ten Things I Hate about You or She's All That, which one was inspired by Taming of the Shrew.

Ten Things I Hate about You? I actually know this one.

Yes, yes, they have like a lot of Shakespeare references in that movie.

Yeah.

Should I do it in a Shakespeare voice?

Sure? Please?

Jungle Book or Lion King, which one was based on Hamelot.

I'm gonna go with Jungle Book.

M whish I could do more noises with my voice? Or Lion King. I could not believe that was inspired by Hamlet. I did not know.

I'm so entertained by all the sounds that are coming out of your mouth right now.

Okay, how about She's the Man with Amanda Binds. Oh, bring it on?

Oh? I mean bring it on is one of my all time faves. That feels Shakespearean to me. Bring it on?

Yeah, I know it actually does. But it's She's the Man. It was inspired by Twelfth Night.

Wow, I'm learning so much today.

Okay. Last one, I haven't seen this, but you liked this movie The Sydney Sweeney Anyone but You or No Strings Attached, which one was based on much Ado about nothing.

Wait, give me a little refresher on no strings attached? Who's in that one?

That's Natalie Portman got it and Ashton Kutcher got it and they're like hooking up and that was like the whole millennial hookup culture movie.

I feel like I remember hearing something about the Sydney Sweeney Glen Powell and anyone, but you some going to go with that?

Yeah, you did really well?

Nice. I got what like two out of four snaps for someone? You know what's interesting.

About three out of four? That's a C plus.

Wow.

That's I mean better five percent better than I did in a lot of my college classes. Does any of this inspire you to go back and read some Shakespeare?

No, because I just have flashbacks of high school where I would I had to read so much Shakespeare, and they're beautiful stories, but I much prefer an adaptation that I understand.

I feel you on that. You know, my dad recently has been reading a lot of period fiction, Like he's read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, and like he's going back and rereading all these classics work than Shakespeare.

You didn't ask me that question.

I just I want to revisit the classics.

I think, okay, I'm with you on that.

Yeah.

And we're really in for a treat because the author Alexine will be joining us next month, so be sure to read along with us and send your questions to Hello at the bright Side podcast dot com. And tomorrow we're talking with May's book Club Pick.

Yes, author Julien Kwang is here to talk about her book How to End a Love Story. It was so good, we both love it so much. And after the break, Brooke Baldwin is here to talk about her life after CNN and why she's leaning into her bad girl era. Y'all, welcome back, Bestie's all right on the show Today, we've got someone who has redefined reinvention again and again. Brooke Baldwin spent more than two decades in the news business, including many years as one of the most recognizable and

Hello Daniel Simon, it's so good to be here.

We're so happy to have you Brooke.

I want to start with a piece that you recently wrote for Vanity Fair. You titled it Leaving CNN was how I found my voice, and people speculated on why you left. They thought it may be the chaos of the pandemic or Trump coverage on the network. But you've called this process you're unraveling. I've never heard anybody use that term. I really like it. For those who haven't read your piece yet, will you explain what you mean by unraveling.

Essentially, what I mean by unraveling, which is what I wrote at the very end. You know, at first you think unraveling means like coming apart right or maybe finding the truth. And for me, what I realized in the end is it's both.

When did the unraveling start?

Ooh, let me think back to when that man came down the escalator in Trump Tower. That was twenty fifteen, when he declared his candidacy for president. I would say my unraveling happened somewhere between him winning and the first probably month being at the Women's March, seeing all the women showing up in ways I had never seen before in my twenty year career and realizing, oh shit, I think I'm one of them.

It was no longer aligned after that. Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like you knew something was going to change at that point. But at the same time, we also had no idea how much it was going.

To change, right, We had no idea. I mean we were all covering the twenty sixteen election. I mean, no one had ever seen someone like that man. Do we need to say his name? Do we all know? Okay, that man running for president? We all remember the October surprise where he liked to grab women. Everyone thought it would be impossible for that person to then be elected president alas the joke was on us, you know, I mean, listen, we were blindsided and we shouldn't have been.

You know.

I remember sitting with some of the Trump sons at another meeting before the election. They were pointing out in the Midwest, how all these Trump sides there were. There was momentum in a way that I think the quote unquote coastal media elites were just intentionally oblivious to. So I think some of the onus obviously falls on us. We just totally freaking missing it.

You've been really open and vulnerable about your own hubris when it comes to having to unravel your identity that was attached to achievement, that was attached to being a good soldier, being good girl, and that comes up a lot for women who are pioneering in male dominated spaces. I'd love for you to read this passage that we feel like really stood out to us from your essay.

Okay, it has taken me nearly three years to remove the blinders, feel the anger, welcome the fear, and recognize that in all my yeses, silence, and enabling the person who betrayed me the most was me. I wanted to obey, I wanted to please. I wanted to be the good girl. I was afraid they'd let me go jokes on me. It starts in childhood. We want approval from our parents, than our lovers, than our bosses. I wanted the people who had certain control over me to want me so

Thank you so much for reading that. In your piece, you mentioned instances where you didn't speak up at first, like when your producer would go dark on you on the air. I mean, that is a terrifying thing to think about. And then when you finally did ask your boss to remove that producer from your team, your request was denied, and that's what you called the beginning of the end for you. How do you think you would have used your voice differently if you had had this awakening earlier.

I can remember moments, you know, at CNN with my own show, with my own team, where I should have spoken up, and things that were done to me or around me just we're toxic, We're not right. And instead of going to the boss, I tried to handle it myself, because that's what we do. We don't want to complain cue the America Fererra Barbie monologue. You know, I didn't want to come off as too aggressive.

I didn't.

I was worried that if I complained too much that I may maybe would lose my show or lose an hour of my show, And so I just kept my mouth shut for way too long. And it was really in just until I wrote this book Huddle, where selfishly, you know, my soul was withering through covering this man and covering Lies twenty four seven through sixty five, I

You know.

That's when it all really started to unravel for me when I went back to work.

I think, to your credit, too, though you found success at a major network at a really young age, I can't imagine you had a lot of practicing no in local news. Like you're just that you have to say yes to everything coming up.

Well, you know, when you're twenties, you're grinding your clawing, you're saying yes because you know there are especially in a you know, in a business like we've all been in in journalism and TV news specifically, it is brutal.

You know that there are there's a line of women behind you who would like cut off their left arm to have your job. So, hell no, I'm not going to say no. You want me to leap how far you want to do flips? You know, like, I will do all the things in order to continue having these opportunities to continue to rise. And I think also when you do start out young someplace, you start out with this like, oh my gosh, I'm just so grateful to

Yes, I point out the.

Toxicity and the bullying and also my own complicity my own self silencing, which is what got me in trouble.

But you are also doing the only thing that you knew how to do in order to survive. And the thing is saying yes is actually a condition of that job being in the news industry. Like I can't tell you how many colleagues of mine were like, oh, this is my first year at NBC. I'm just gonna say yes to every single thing they asked me to do, because that's how you succeed and that's how you thrive.

That's a long.

Time to have two hours to yourself on this giant network. It was a huge, huge job. And I got to the point where we all like we work hard, and we think, okay, well what's next?

What's next?

And what would have been next would have been maybe like a primetime job. And at the time, all the primetime anchers were men, and right after my show, it was a bunch of men in Washington. You know, not to speak ill of those men. Most of those men

That was it.

I wanted to be treated equally, and it was so obvious that that wasn't happening.

I feel like the collective response to your piece signaled something. Because I saw it online, I can only imagine what you receive.

Personally, crazy, What are you? Damns?

Well?

What do you think the collective response says about women at work?

It is so clear that my piece really resonated not just with women but also with men, men of color.

Specifically.

They would reach out to me and say, you know, hey, I have been bullied and treated poorly because of how I show up at the workplace and the opportunities that I feel like I'm not being given. And then all these other women and having their own experiences, you know, there was this huge needed me too wave where it was like that obviously was disgusting what was happening, and it became a hashtag and so many men got in

That's what happened with me too. We didn't have a vocabulary for what was happening. So I really think you're onto something. You mentioned gratitude in your piece. You talk about how you were told to be grateful for what you had there. Yeah, what was the exact point that you said, fuck being grateful?

It wasn't necessarily fuck being grateful. It was fuck, this really isn't okay, And I've got to say something. And my first step was walking into my boss's office and trying to make my case in a very diplomatic way. I wasn't trying to get my executive producer in trouble. I wasn't trying to infer anything nefarious other than I literally said, we've run out of track. I am worried about the show, I am worried about being doing live TV with this person, and could we please just do

It sounds like you were experiencing like a spiritual disconnection between the life that you were living, yes, and the life that you felt in your soul like you really wanted to live. And I want to hear more about your healing journey that you went on after you decided to leave this job, because it sounds like it was so transformational, Like I.

Want it still on it?

We still at it? Yeah, we do. We want what did you read? Okay, where did you go? What our streets did you go on? Who did you surround yourself with? Anything you feel comfortable?

Sure?

Oh my gosh, you know, I don't think I had the words yet when I was having that sort of disconnect or incongruity or the out of alignment feeling when I was doing this job. I mean, you know, in order to do this job, I work so hard, like from a little girl dreaming of lurking in New York City. You know, then you work in these small markets, you don't have as many friends, you date the wrong guys, you put off having kids, all the things to maybe maybe maybe one.

Day make it, and I did.

And then at some point you're sitting on this fancy set with these fake eye lashes and these extensions and these beautiful having really important conversations. But at some point, you know, I'm sitting dazing out the window and during a commercial break and thinking like you would in any relationship where the guy is impressive and shiny and you've been with him for a really long time or girl, and then you start wondering though, like is this it?

Is? This?

It?

Yes, but hold on a second.

I've worked so hard and there are all these girls who again would eat their left arm for this job, so I must, you know, keep going. And finally, once I left, I sent myself on a three week trip, which felt like.

Who takes a three week vacation?

Not me in my twenty whatever years. And I went to the British Version Islands and I just needed to like skinny dip and drink a lot of rum and journal and that started my journey of healing and centering myself and coming home to myself. And I remember staring at the most beautiful blue water.

And thinking, I'm a named more than this.

This is like beautiful to look at, but I gotta go really deep. I need to really excavate some shit in my in my body and in my soul. And so that then started my spiritual journey. And so I reached out to a friend of mine who founded this thing called the Class, which is a workout and a practice, and I'd do it all the time, and you know, and so she recommended going on this spiritual retreat in Sedona.

I went from never having eaten alone.

By myself to like kind of prefer eating alone by myself, and you know, going off by myself and hiking by myself. So I remember doing all of that and realizing, like being in nature, I felt so close to what I referred to as just God. Or higher power, and from there my bible became Martha Beck's book With a Way of Integrity. It's the whole story of Dante's Inferno, but she explains it in a really palatable, digestible way of all the ways that we are all on our journeys

I got to know Meghan Rapino.

I got to know a bunch of these soccer players and basketball players and volleyball ley all through Subird's production company. They hired me together to do a bunch of stuff for them. So I was then around a bunch of like badass, a lot of queer women who spoke my language of just no and being empowered and embodied. And it was really great to just soak up their oxygen and do those.

Things interesting because like when you're not living up to the male gaze in any way, that changes.

That's why queer women can teach us a lot.

They literally are running the country.

By the way that was like if that would have been the alternate subtitle of my book, like Huddle, How Queer Women Are Running America.

We're taking a quick break, but we'll be right back with Brooke Baldwin.

And we're back with Brooke Baldwin.

So, at forty four, you changed your entire life everything. You moved from New York to LA You ask questions, You found your spiritual center.

Chot my hair, became a vegetarian, learned about sobriety because of someone near and dear to me. Have stopped talking to my father. Yeah, the list is long.

Through all your inner work and your excavation. How did your inner child factor in? Did you talk to her.

The day I left CNN. I don't know what possessed me to do this.

I remember going into work by myself, and before I did, I opened my journal and I journaled to my younger self, and I talked to her for the first time, basically trying to assure her don't be disappointed in us. I know we worked so hard. I know we dreamt of

Off, did you?

That's an Anchorman reference.

So so yeah, I just needed to talk to her and say, like, we're doing it. You know, hang tight, don't feel disappointed. I know I can understand why this feels disappointing, but I'm gonna make you proud.

Why do you think she needed to hear that?

Oh?

Because she was disappointed and as we all now know of writing this piece, like how it all went down, it was really fucking disappointing, the way in which I left, the way in which I completed this twenty year chapter, most of which was the dream job. And she was disappointed. She was like, but we did all the right things, and we worked really hard, and we were nice, and we were good at what we did. Why did this happen?

You know? Why did this happen?

She was disappointed, and I needed to assure her that it was going to be okay.

What did leaving CNN teach you about leaving things?

Oh my gosh, that nothing is permanent, and that also, you know, working for a giant machine. While it certainly comes with really fun fancy bells and whistles and cachet, it also comes with being a cog in the system. And what I really felt like for me was being a mouthpiece and not having a voice. And now that I have, like self emancipated, have a voice, and it's on me to use it and to show others how they can use it every freaking day.

Now that we're having some much needed closure for our inner good girl, I need to know what is the least good girl thing about you? Now?

Ooh, well, I got a tattoo that felt pretty bad. I got a tattoo a couple of months ago that felt pretty bad.

Oh my god, I sound like such a good cirl. Jesus, what are the other bad things? One of the other bad.

Things I felt the same?

Oh oh oh oh.

Okay, I have really I'm just going to say this, I have in the last year really experimented with psychedelics and I don't feel like that's even a bad girl thing. That's just like I want to open my mind. Yeah, and my heart thing and expand. That's another thing on your list of things that Brooke Baldwin has done this year. I have experimented in multiple psychedelic ways and have had absolutely extraordinary spiritual experiences, open hearted, loving experiences.

I've never like gone to a rave or been with a bunch of people.

I've only been with my close, close people, but that has been.

Mind altering.

It's so la and so bad girl. I love it.

Yeah, psychedelics and tattoos.

I've done some breath work that's very la. I've become a yogi in the last year, trying to think what other bad girl?

Now?

This is the thing that I'm gonna take away from this conversation.

So, my best friend from college, Yeah, we didn't really drink when we were in college.

We didn't really date.

God like we were in the library. We were such good girls. And she texted me the other day and she was like, I really feel like we screwed up. We should have been bad girls. Then we're doing it so late. Why are we bad girls?

Now? Wait?

Wait, I've got to turn the tables. Are what is your most bad girl thing? I'm a reformed bad girl.

So I did the bad girl things in college and I'm like married to kids suburbs.

Okay, you did it the right way. Okay, my bad girl, I mean got a tattoo. I don't know all the things.

Yeah, you guys have you guys have dainty little baby? We got a girl mine. Yeah, I want to leave next time you come back. Okay, Brook, I agree.

Ah, thank you guys.

You know, this interview, your story, this conversation. My hope is that someone listens to this who's in a soul crushing job, and through your story and just the sharing of experiences that they feel the courage to make the jump.

And yes, they feel seen and heard and they're not. You are not alone. Reach out to me Broke Baldwin Instagram, find me dm me. You know I always try to, like I love being in conversation with all these people, to just remind them and if they are in the thick of it, you know, I've got advice for you too. Hang in there, You're gonna be Okay.

Brook, thank you so much for blessing us with your light on the right side.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

That's it for today's show. Tomorrow we have the author of Reese's book Clubs, may pick Yuleen Kwang. She's here to tell us all about her debut novel, How to End a Love Story.

Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro b A.

Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.