This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Z mccomedy from the home office in Austin, Texas. LZ, what do we got today?
Well, I think we should talk a little bit about Halloween. We just came off of it, and you greenlit and supported what I'm I would call my dream. I mean, I guess our upcoming wedding is my dream, but it was also my dream to turn our pantry into a
Hogwarts esque Harry Potter House sorting room. And it sounds weird, but I brought We had a party at our house, like a neighborhood party with a bunch of our friends, about fifty people, and I was in the closet all night, and I brought each guest into the closet with me and sorted them into their Harry Potter House and then had them take a shot of tequila. And I maintained a British accent and full character the entire time as
Professor Harriet Potter. Anyway, it was my dream, and I do want to ask you, do you find me less attractive after that?
Well, the idea of the Halloween party was a good one. It was yours because and this whole thing, I'm curious if anybody else out there does this. You went to Home Goods and you had a moment.
Babe, FYI, most people listening to your podcast have been to Home Goods and had a moment.
Saying has anyone been to home Goods? But you you created a party out of a trip to home Goods. You came home from Home Goods with a plethora of Halloween stuff. It's true you said, I have so much great Halloween stuff where you're throwing a party. So I'm curious anyone out there not if you went to Home Goods or bought the cute soap dispenser or whatever for Halloween or Thanksgiving, but have you ever created an event a party because you had so much cute stuff from
a shopping spree you went on. That isn't something that's new to me.
You know what it is.
It's the home version of when you buy an outfit and like you want someone somewhere to wear it, and.
You just said, you know what, screw it, I'm going to create my own event so I can wear this.
I mean, I would imagine I'm not the only one. I will say yeah, it did. I take it a bit to the extreme.
Yes.
I think what happened was I wandered into home goods, like right when the Halloween stuff had first been put out, so there was so much freshly stocked. I was listening to Harry Potter because I re listened to all the books every fall and feel festive for like all the holidays, because the books have Halloween and Christmas in them, every single book anyway. And so yeah, I did. I bought all this stuff. And then I said, we have to
have a party. And I also want to thank you because you green let us having a party not.
Too far out from our wedding, which was.
That it was a lot. That was a big leap for us because there's a lot on the plate always coming up, and we're not using a coordinator, as we've talked about, and so we've been planning everything, including this Halloween party. But when I green let the Halloween party, which I was all in because it was our friends and it was awesome and and I didn't foresee you being in the closet all night. I knew you were going to do the sorting closet and we had the
sorting hat and it was awesome, by the way. I was so impressed with what you pulled off. That was insane on a great level. And I didn't know you would be fully in character, which was also awesome. I found that very attractive. Really, yeah, that was kind of sexy.
But like you don't love when I do, like my Voldemort.
Voice totally different. No one is sexy doing Voldemort.
I think some people out there would beg to differ, maybe like a bad boy. I don't know.
You had a cute British accent and people would go into our pantry. Lauren would come out and say, you have been chosen, sorted to be sorted right, Oh chosen?
Yes, I'm not sure that I intended to be in the pantry, Alice.
It took it took off.
It took me over once, you know, I feed off of the performance. Once people started saying, oh, are you not going to break character? I thought to myself, you know what, I'm not going to break care you did and it was fun, you know. I mean, I like festivities, I love people. I do think sometimes we overbook ourselves a little bit. It's something we're trying to work on.
But I would always rather be around people than be alone, and like you know, the holidays are a time to have parties and lean in and I think everybody really enjoyed it. But again, I was just very It really made me love you. You're always giving me new ways to love you. But one of the headlines we're going to get into today, like ties into this a little bit. So I wanted to bring up how you just said yes to the party, yes to my Harry Potter pantry, yes to all the things that I love, which was.
Wonderful and it was a blast. And look, I think you're going to hit on another topic that we'll get into sometime about overbooking ourselves. It is so easy to do during the holidays. You kind of get lost in it all and next thing you know, it's January fourth.
Well, what it's like a rule we should set for ourselves, should it be we need like between festivities, we need a certain of days.
I feel like we need a guidelines.
We at least need hours.
No, you're being funny, I mean serious, we need a guideline.
I don't know what that guideline would be, but I think it's good to have a down week to prepare for the next thing. I don't know if that's possible during the holidays though we have stuff.
I think we should maybe say it's hard because other people's schedule things, But I think you got to try to do one event per weekend. Part of it was we also went to see a country concert, Parker McCollum, our fave. We went to see him on Friday, and then we had the Halloween party on Saturday.
And killed it was awesome.
We were wiped from the concert.
Yeah, we were pretty wipe from the concert. We were there with Parker's family, his friends, and we had a blast and he absolutely crushed it. Sold out Moody Center. He was wrapping up his tour to you know, his final two things. I can't imagine how emotional it was for him because he purposefully wrapped it up in Austin, where his family is, and then he went down to the Woodlands in Houston where he's from. He's from Conroe, so a whirlwind two and then we went right into the party the next night.
So I think one thing we need to realize is that I feel like I'm starting to notice we're very social people. We love to be around friends and family and put things on and host things. But one, you and I end up hosting things a lot. We've noticed this. I don't know if it is the I mean it's not. Being a TV host is very different than.
Hosting a party, but we do like to both host.
I think we're good at like entertaining people, and we kind of produce events in our house, so we end up posting a lot, and that can be much more tiring than obviously just attending an event. But two, I think it's important for us to realize that when we are at a party together or when we are in a group together, it isn't as good connecting time as like a date night.
Of course, So how do I say no to you? No, I'm serious, Okay, this is for everybody out there in a relationship. How do I say no to you without hurting your feelings? Where I can say where you're like, hey, hey babe, you know what, let's let's host another event tuesday, Let's just have some friends over it. If I how do I tactfully say enough, like where we're we need to take it.
Exactly what you're not doing right now? You, I mean what you're you don't do what you just did, You don't say enough. I think you say. I'm worried about you and about us.
We're not connecting.
I want to make sure.
We have enough time for each other and for and I want you to have time for yourself.
I want us to have time. I don't want us to not be a priority.
I think that's important in the holidays, you got to have that communication with each other because inevitably one person is kind of pushing to do more or less than the other person, or booking things. So it's I think it's good to have those conversations.
Should I have said no to you the day after the party leaving getting on a plane flying to Arizona to see the Texas Rangers World Series game?
Was that too much? That would have been a detriment to our relationship.
I would never That's the problem. We don't want to say no to each other.
Two days later, like it was Monday and the party was sadday you left on It's like a week later I did no Monday. We are taping this tonight. Texas Rangers Arizona Diamondbacks were up three to one in the World Series. We have a chance to clinch, so I know I won't dive into sports too much. But I have been a fan of the Rangers since I was a child, and here is something that I will talk to you about sports that I love. So my brother and I went out to Game four of the World Series.
We flew out to Arizona and we went together and it was a boys trip, just the two of us. We grew up going to the Ranger games in Arlington when we were kids. They sucked my entire life. I mean, they were horrible, but it didn't matter because that's not why we went. We didn't go because they were great or not great. We had our favorite players anyway, but it was time with my dad. It was time with our friends, and we'd take our gloves and sit in the outfield and hope to catch a foul ball and
if nothing else, a bad sunburn. And those moments with my family, my dad, that's what I harkened back to when I go. And I was thinking about that when I went to the World Series game and we sat by a couple of people, a couple of father sons that were at the game and the World Series. And no matter where you are, whether it's in Texas, Arizona, Diamondback fans, I got in an Uber from the airport and I was talking to the Uber driver and he says, you guys here for the game. We had our Texas
Ranger gear on. He says, oh, yeah, I used to go to the Diamondback games with my dad. And it just it made me think immediately, it doesn't matter what city you're in, you went to Cubs games with your dad. The game of baseball is that one thing it's a little bit different than other sports that really is nostalgic. It takes us back and it means more than the boring four hours of sitting there for a baseball game.
I don't know if it were in future. I mean from what I've heard, it's on the decline.
On the decline, but the spirit of that I think lives strongly and I loved that.
I think it's because you can hang easily and comfortably to baseball game. Everybody has a seat, you can get a hot dog. You're not like you're not for an entire inning and not miss anything. No, and you're not on bleachers. You have like an actual seat. Anyway.
Okay, I don't want to get too much into the sports.
But it was especially it just made me think about why I love sports on that level and what baseball meant to me. And it made me think of my dad and going there with my brother and it was a very special trip. And the Rangers one, we have a chance to win the World Series for the first time. They came to Dallas the year after I was born, nineteen seventy two. We have not one. We're one of like six franchises that's never won the stink and Cubs have won again.
Babe. I mean, I don't know, is this going to be a line that divides us.
I just hope they my childhood Cubs, inner Cubs fan that hasn't lasted.
And you're a Rangers fan.
Okay, all are love to the Rangers. Now let's get into.
Oh, by the way, and might love to the folks at Arizona amazing. I ran into so many fans, so many friends there, and as we were walking to the game, some were booing, but we stopped and talked to a bunch of people, had a beer with everybody. Friendly, friendly folks.
Well, let's get.
Into some not so friendly stuff. Yes, a couple of dramatic headlines. Okay, a new headline allegedly justin Timberlake has left the country per this headline, per this context, per this framing, because of the Britney backlash. Now I don't know if that's true. You could also argue that the guy's just on vacation with his family. He just went to Cabo, but I will say he's turned off his Instagram comments.
Ye.
Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears obviously one of the most famous teen pop couples of all time, and now Britney Spears has released her tell all memoir The Woman in Me, where she makes several reveals if you've been living under a rock and I haven't heard about it, about her relationship with Justin Timberlake, including she says that Justin forced her to get an abortion that she didn't want to have when they were together and they were just teenagers,
including talking about you know, how in love with him she was, how devastated she was and when they broke.
Up, so she took up with her via a text.
She says that he cheated on her.
So this is not playing out well for Justin on social media and in the headlines. I I don't want to say I have mixed feelings, I but I'm not so like anti justin you and I were talking about this, I think what's hard today, Well, you made a good point, say it.
Yeah, what I took from all of this because who knows what where the truth lies somewhere in between, I'm sure, and.
I'm sure there's a lot of By the way I think everything Britney's saying it could be true to it.
Like I don't think she made up that he had her have an abortion. It's just my.
Thought was, relationships just don't go away anymore. When we were younger, you know, we harkened back to the old days. You broke up with somebody for better or for worse, you could just disappear. If I was in LA and I moved to New York, You're never gonna hear or
see from me again. Relationships don't go away anymore because of social media, because of text messages, emails, voicemails, video, Whatever we have done, we've left a fingerprint that no longer disappears after we break up, and so it's harder to have a clean breakup. And that's the only maybe irony or interesting thing that I found that in this memoir she chose to kind of rip that scab off. Considering what's happened to her.
I fully think she needed to tell her side of her story of what happened in her conservatorship years.
I think that she was manipulated.
I think that she was, as you just said, taken advantage of with this conservatorship. Now, you know a lot of people, there's a lot of talk about well is she any better off now? I mean, everybody has an opinion. I'll say this at the end of the day. One thing I think from covering the case, from what I knew about it, from being there in court, I don't understand why her father was ever made her conservatory. He had a tumultuous relationship with her and her family. He
had a history of alcohol issues. If anybody was going to be a conservator, I don't know why it was that person. And also I questioned the entire conservatorship, but that I think she needed.
To be able to tell her story, to speak out to the public.
She spent over a decade like in silence, not being able to communicate, not being so anyway that she was.
A prisoner in her own life. It was bi.
Horrible, couldn't pay for her own groceries if she wanted to. But that aside, I just think it's hard in any case, and like take the social media out of it, because if social media didn't exist, someone could still have a celebrity, could still have done a tell all memoir years later
and revealed things. I think it's hard to like make reveals about your really youthful relationships, and that people now as adults, after decades of growth and change as people, would be taken to task for the things they did at eighteen. Like that is why I have some sympathy for Justin here. I mean, they were literally like eighteen years old.
They were Disney dancers together. Weren't they Musketeers?
Yes, and they were both in the Fame cycle and you know so.
They Yeah, they were children at the time.
I don't think he deserves the level of hate he's probably getting from people.
I would not want to see.
He's a grown man now in a marriage with children of his own right, And this also fell at a very bad time. The memoir came out right as he and Jessica Biel celebrating their anniversary. So not a great time to celebrate your anniversary, I'm sure Jessica knew most of this stuff, but to have it now aired publicly and to be dealing with it, the paparazzi, no doubt
are hounding them and chasing them down. So it's just a lot of things that you're answering for for something that your husband went through thirty years ago.
Probably, now that being said, I wish, you know, maybe Justin should have reached out to Britney sooner, Maybe should have tried to connect with her or tried to make amends for some things. They certainly had an absolutely massive headline making relationship for years, even though it was their youth relationship. I think the way that I fall on
it is I love Brittany. I defend Brittany. Britney deserved to tell her stories, but also Justin Timberlake doesn't deserve hate vitriol on the level he seems to be getting it on.
So I guess, when you bring this into the real world, at what point is it okay or not okay? At what point do we say you can't go back and revisit this and bring this back up when you got to let your relationship go no matter what transgressions, well not no matter what, but say there was infidelity when you were eighteen sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old? Not the most shocking thing in the world that in high school somebody cheated on you.
Right, which is what we're talking about with Brittany and Justin. Yeah, I mean they were a high school age. I do think people call other people out too much publicly anymore, Like why not share your story and not reveal an aim? You know? I mean, I guess with Brittany, obviously everyone would have known it was Justin. It makes no sense, it wouldn't have. But yeah, I don't know, do you.
I guess what you're asking is, do you have the right to like publicly air right decades old stories about people?
Right? If I've moved on, Let's say me, I was I was single for quite some time after post my divorce. Not every relationship I went into well actually all of them didn't end well except for this one with you. So how you know, could you go back and say, oh, well, you know, you know what to like bringing up say Matthew Perry, for example, who tragically passed away last week
at fifty four years old. What a horrible story, and you know, people kind of start talking about him and his ex fiance, and people start telling him, like, at what point do you just say no, Like, keep this stuff private, keep it yourself. But we have this thing about the power of knowledge and the power of information that we we use that as our currency now, and it's such a it's not always gross, but it just feels wrong in a lot of instances.
I agree, Well, let's turn to something we uh someone who doesn't share the information.
Meg Ryan.
Meg Ryan, talking about her eight year Hollywood hiatus in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, nod to my peeps, and she says that she doesn't think she is a very good famous person. She says, quote, I just don't think I'm a good celebrity. I just always felt a little bit like life was over, like outside this little bubble, outside some sort of membrane. She says that it's just not good for an artist or a creative person to have quote limited life in a way to draw from now.
She makes a really interesting point there, and she also does say she says, I have a very charmed life. People generally smile and they like she's not being ungrateful, but a I think she makes an interesting point about like like actors and artists before, not that long ago, we're typically well and not most of them are really like very poor, you know, and and and people who are struggling, and people who like Spotlight life struggles with their creativity and need to be in tune with the
everyman to really perform. So she's talking about when you get in that level of fame, it's hard to connect. And I totally get that or respect her awareness of that, but her being bad at being famous that was very interesting to me.
You know, it's funny. I just saw an interview with Ben Fffleck. He virtually said the exact same thing. He goes, I'm not good at the famous part. I'm not good at being famous.
And what do you think it means to be quote good at being famous? What does that mean?
You like the fame? You like the spot I.
Think liking it? And he said, Look, have I benefited from it? Sure, I've gotten some good reservations, I've gotten some tickets to things, he goes, But overall, if I could have done this without the fame, I would have enjoyed that more. And I do agree with that. I understand that part. But you know, when you're talking about the mind of an artist, and I think we are. Both of us are kind of in the arts. But I don't know. When you're dealing with actors comedians, it's different.
And when you're on the Meg Ryan Fleck level, it is so different. They are mega famous.
You can't go anywhere anytime.
Well, And speaking of Matthew Perry, as he's tragically passed, lots of his notable quotes are being resurfaced. And he said, I think in his memoir that fame like he wanted to be famous. I never knew this about him.
He said he.
Wanted to be famous so badly, and that then he realized that fame was like a hole he was never going to fill. Like it was that once he got that fame, he realized it wasn't going to fulfill him and make him happy. And I will say, I don't think fame just like extreme levels of success, it's not going to get guarantee happiness. I mean, it might help you be happy, but it's not going to guarantee happiness.
It's one of those things that looks and sounds a lot better than it is. Did you think about that when you were going through journalism school and you were thinking about the career path. Were you thinking at all about that would be cool or I would like that?
No, I really I actually wanted in school to be a magazine journalist. That was my major, magazine journalism. And I wanted to be a writer.
So definitely was not going to be famous.
Literally behind the page.
Okay, everybody out there, name all your favorite magazine.
I know. I just wanted to be a storyteller. I wanted to tell good stories. I was not even thinking about being on camera until I graduated when the recession hit and there were no jobs, and my school had a program where there were three spots and you could get your master's degree for free in a year, and my mom said smartly, she said, look, there's no jobs, why don't you try to get that? And I got one,
and so then I'd already been magazine journalism. So I did broadcasts like that's just what happened.
And let's give Miszoo a shout out. One of the finer journalism schools in the country, in the.
World's the finest is Zou.
And so I was just interested to know because I didn't no, not at all. I stumbled upon this career in such a weird way that I thought I was going to go into advertising, r PR or something like that. I was just playing soccer in college, and then the career of broadcasting kind of found me and I started doing play by play for the basketball team. So I was doing things that didn't I didn't think about notoriety at all, and I got into local sports casting because
I love sports. So I got into I found something that I was passionate about, and then later I kind of realized, oh, this is another layer of something I have to deal with. I was not and luckily I've talked about this with Bachelor people. I went on a very slow ascent to the top, and think of a roller coaster that you where you go on the click click, click all the way to the top. Whereas a lot of Bachelor people and people on the show, they're shot
out of a cannon. They go from zero to a thousand in a day, and I would think that would be remarkably difficult compared to I was able to toughen up my skin, make mistakes fall on my face, pick myself up, figure out what works, what doesn't work, and kind of hone my craft before I ever got to the Bachelor.
I do think what's a little scary about fame is like once that switches on, you can't turn it off, and no one really prepares you for that. Like like think about Meg Ryan. Yeah, she's had a quote hiatus from acting for eight years, but guarantee she can't go grab a cup of coffee or walk around the streets of New York without someone recognizing.
To say, do the Harry met Sally Pie scene? Yeah, I saw her. I was watching Top Gun Maverick on the plane out to the World Series the other day and they do the flashback scene with her and Goose and they're playing the piano, and I'm like, man, she was just so adorable in all of those movies, and she was so iconic. She was America's sweetheart, and you could name a thousand movies and she was great in all of them. I'm a huge fan of hers, and I get that that she said she's moved out of
la living a simpler life. There's a lot of celebrities that are now kind of repelling away from I couldn't recommend it more.
What do you mean, I mean not that you know I have that level of fame obviously, I don't.
But like Mark Wahlberg and Jim Carrey and yeah, a lot of these people have gotten away.
I just don't love la as a city. I mean, it's not the best place in the world to live.
But yeah, you know, I mean it's interesting because if you're an actor and you become successful, like if you keep working your way up, kind of a guaranteed side effect is fame.
So wow, something to think about. We got deep. I don't know if I have a resolution on that.
Be careful what you wish for, I think is the lesson the takeaway on all these Look, there's benefits in pros and cons to every career and business and all that. Because I dealt with that too. If people said you knew what you signed up for, and I'll be honest, I didn't. I did not think maybe I should have. I didn't think that far through the whole thing. I was just grinding as you were, and as we all do in this business. Because you don't start off rich
and famous, you start off or poor. No, but no, I mean in life sometimes there's trust, fun babies, but neither one of us were that. But what I typically mean is you were talking about the typical actor. The typical actor starts off starve, poored, poor and whatever, and there's there's a million was it. Matt LeBlanc talked about.
Oh, he had like nothing in his bank account when he got Friends.
Yeah, I mean he was down to his last dime. And that story is so much more commonplace. And actually what's more common is you don't get the friends, you don't get Seinfeld, you don't get that. You just kind of whittle away and that career never comes to fruition. So when it does hit for some select very point one percent, it is a phenomenon, and you're not really thinking, Oh, I'm about to be on Friends for twenty years and I will be one of the most recognizable faces in all the world.
One last story to get too. We mentioned it earlier, alluded to it green lighting the things that your partner loves, or maybe forbidding them from doing something. Jonathan Scott, famous interior designer, talking about his upcoming wedding to Zoe da Chanel.
Congrats to them.
He went into his first wedding and he said in his first wedding, his ex wife quote forbade him from having something he loves, bagpipes. Jonathan scott is Scottish. Him and his brother Jerba very proud of their Scottish heritage. He said it should have been a red flag for him at the time, and he loves that Zoe is like, I guess she's into him having the backpipe.
It was beautiful, serene. They said. His first wedding was out outdoors on a lake, so it would have fit too. And the fact that she denied that and forbade it from taking place definitely a red flag.
Although I don't think I would have known it at the time.
Yeah, if you like, if I had said, hey, it's really I really want to saxophone or something, or as I don't know something at at our wedding and you said no, I don't love that. I don't know if I would have.
You know, maybe it's how you put it. If you go I forbid that, I'm like, WHOA exactly? I think that's the red flag. I think if you told me something was important to you at the wedding, something meant by the way he's talking his heritage like it's important, I would say, let's figure out a way to make it work, or let's try to figure out to make a way to make it work. Let's compromise on something.
Maybe we bring him in at the reception or write something the idea.
I can't think of anything I would forbid you to do that was something that you you know what I mean, like, it's just I think you've kneeled it.
That is what is the red flag about it.
I had two things, a congo line and the chicken dance. Those I would oh, the dad jokes are bad. No, I'm not joking. Those were in my first wedding, both of those things, and I just desperately didn't want them to ever take place as we head into our wedding.
Oh but at your first wedding, Well.
I wasn't, but it happened. Actually, I probably was cool with them at the time. Yeah, I was late in the nineties.
I forgot about the chicken dancer. Yeah it was may the line still pops up sometimes. That was such a thing at weddings in the nineties.
But no, I think it is. It is always a red flag the way things are put. If you ever, I mean, I can't think of anything where you go I forbid you to do this, You would ask a question of well, why do you want this? Why why would you want to go on this trip? Or why would you want to do this? And say it kind of hurts my feelings or I don't love it. But yeah, if someone just goes, I forbid.
It, well, because that's not partnership. Being a partner is you're an equal. You're talking it out, You're not hearing.
A hard pipes.
I listen, they're divorced.
So although you did, we go because we love going to the Spanish Bay Inn up there in Carmel and Monterey. It's one of our favorite places in the world to stay. And every night at sunset, one of the great things by the fire pit is this. The bagpipe comes out and bag pipist artist. I don't know what they are, but they anyway they play, and Lauren did say to me, however beautiful they are. This is the weirdest instrument in
the world because it's like a sheep's bladder. Is the original thing where they blue air into a sheep's blatter and it made this horrible sound.
Yeah, it's not like soothing, an enjoyable. It's sort of majestic and powerful, but it.
Does sound like an animal dying if you think about it.
I also can't imagine.
Can you imagine forbidding someone at their wedding that's supposed to be a day about the two of you, representing you, representing your love together, the union.
The coming together, the circle.
Enough two individuals. So yeah, I think red flag.
But look, I also I give him the empathy and everyone of I think it's hard to tell in the moment, because here's what happens at weddings. You're figuring a lot out, you're stressing out, You've got a lot going on.
You have to make a lot of decisions.
I could see how like the forbidding of something, or you know, you think, oh, it's the bride's day, I've got to make the bride happy. I could see how red flags. I think actually, even looking back at my own first marriage, I think the wedding planning process is maybe the easiest place to accidentally look past red flags in a relationship, because you think, oh, it's supposed to be stressful, it's supposed to be hard.
You forgive a lot because you're like, oh, it's we're just in the.
Moment, right, We're just on this roller coaster as.
We creep closer and closer to our wedding how's it been for you.
We're still great, babe, I think so too. Not nothing to forbid.
Yeah, I think I found it interesting because you posted about, you know, not having a wedding planner and all that, and I think some people still feel we are crazy for doing this. But it's worked out, and it's we have seen a side of each other and we've again at the end of the day, communication is so huge, and we've communicated throughout all this.
We've communicated here today, we have. Let's wrap it up.
And we'll continue to do that each and every time. And we appreciate talking to you. We love it, and we will talk to you again next time because we have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most Dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.