It's the Opperman Report.
Join digital forensic investigator and PI Ed Opperman for an in depth discussion of conspiracy theories, strategy of New World Order resistance, hi profile court cases in the news, and interviews with expert guests and authors on these topics and more. It's the Opperman Report, and now here is investigator Ed Opperman.
Okay, welcome to the Opperman Report. I am your host, private investigator Ed Opperman, President of Opperman Investigations and Digital Friends and Consulting.
You can find my work.
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I'm really excited today. I'm kind of shout out of a can. We got the great aj Benza aj Benzi from New York City, the New York Daily News, what was it?
Mysteries and Scandals, Mysteries and Scandals on the E Channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, I'm.
A huge fan AJ Benz. Tell tell audience, AJ are you there?
Hey, thanks Ed, thanks for having me. Well, yeah, those were big up the Daily News back in the nineties. Those are fond, fond memories for me. They still remain the most fun, the greatest days I've had in my life. There was nothing better than writing a column for New York City every day, you know, during the tabloid war, the post against the news, and obviously the nineties were right for every scandal that's now being played on TV
screens and movie screens. But to cover the og Simpson trial, the Michael Jackson trials, Tanya Hardy, Nancy Terrigan, Menendez Brothers, Jeohnny Risatchi assassination, I mean, they're all big again. But back in the nineties, I was there for all of them.
Yeah, right now, it's history, right, yeah.
Okay, you can catch AJ Benza. He's got a podcast right now. Fame is a Bitch.
You can find it on iTunes, But if you just google Fame is a Bitch, you can find it all over the place.
And I just started listening yesterday and oh, I got to give a warning.
It's addictive, you know, That's what I've heard.
I get that from a lot of people. You know, I'm new to the podcast game. I'm actually it will be about a year. But the show that you hear now is very quite different than the show that I first put out back last April. I wanted to do a show where I would bring up a scandal every week. And because I did one hundred and seventy two episodes of mysteries and scandals for E I figured there's so
many more to choose from. And every week I do anything from the Black Dahlia to Fatty Arbuckle to tag End Thwistle jumping off to Hollywood sign There's one hundreds of them. But then something happened in August and September, and that was the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and then the Me Too movements and the Times of movements and the pedophilia allegations, and Hollywood is just spinning out of control. And since I know all these people, I've been out in LA for twenty one years now, I know all
these people. I know the President of the United States Donald Trump. I know, I knew Harvey Wearnington. I still talk to Harvey Weinstein. So suddenly my show is now just me sounding off on whatever's whatever's in the news that pertains to politics, Hollywood, pretty much topical stuff. And I'm really honest. I don't pull any punches, and I intertwined my personal stories around the news I've lived. That's kind of what I'm most happy about the way I've
lived my life. I have a lot of personal stories with people. Have a big name dropper, so if you hate name dropping, don't listen. And I'm I don't run out of stuff to say. I'm doing okay so far, so the show is getting big. I'm not having a good time.
Well me, that's get this now.
You started off with the catchphrase fame as a bitch, because I guess you're.
Covering famous people. But now that you're famous, how do you feel about that?
Uh? You know, that's a funny word, fame. I actually the initial phrase was same, ain't a a bitch? That's what we said on E That's where the title of my first book was. But then, yeah, I'm not famous, I'm I'm infamous. I've got notoriety. I'm celebrity, like I'm a you know, a celebrity of Jason. You know, people
know me. But now I'm on the I'm on the other side of that because there are people will never knew I mean in the nineties who are now old enough and interested enough in celebrity and scandals and what have you. So there's a whole new generation of people that have started to really get into that side of Hollywood. So I'm new to them, and thanks to the Internet, they've been able to go back and read about me. But I don't know about famous. I mean, to me,
famous is big house on the hill. You know, a couple of TV shows, You got money, you got to get Jaguar, and I don't have that. I live a pretty simple life with my wife and two kids. But it was the time in my life when I was on my way to getting those things. When I first got to LA I had two shows, you know, a book deal, a movie, dating celebrity. So I was definitely on that trajectory. And then different things happen. Not everybody gets through the hurdles and gets over the hurdles, and
you get knocked down quite a bit. In this town. But you got to keep getting up and moving forward. And I've done that. So am I a celebrity? Am I famous? I think I'm more infamous, But I'm still going. I'm still coming.
Yeah here you now, one thing I noticed with the podcast, right, you do attack this subject of pedophilia and celebrity pedophilia, and.
Now I'm not. Yeah.
It's kind of a kiss of death though, man like, because you know, when I do auditions and I'm talking to different people, you know, by doing different stuff opera and report on TV, a documentary series and stuff, and when I start telling them that I covered those topics, they don't want to touch it.
I know what you mean, But I know what you mean. And listen. A podcast, Budy Inswer is different. I you know, I've had, I've had. I had a talk show for a very short time at E and you're looking at people directly, and you can engauge what works and what doesn't work. The only way you can gauge a top podcast is the downloads and are they going up? But
are they going down? And now with social media, I've got listeners who reach out to me and tell me they really like it, and I think this pedophilia problem has really touched a nerve with a lot of people, and there's nothing. Look, people are discussed that that if a lot of this stuff that we say is happening in Hollywood to Corey Feldyn, Corey Hayn stories, if that's really true and some of the bigger stars are maybe closeted and doing it like a campus spacey, then there's
just endless amounts of material. And I think more people want to hear about it than don't. And no, I'm not afraid to go after them. I'm not afraid at all. I've got more and I'll tell you what's been harder for me to tackle is the me too times up stories. Because I was a guy that ran around before I was married on both coasts, and I had a ball when I was single, and the things I did and said would be absolute certain certain career enders for me right now, But there was no cameras back then and
nobody listened in nowadays. Some of the guys I'm covering, like Russell Simmons or Jeremy Piven, Brett Ratner, Harvey, I know all these people. I ran around with them, and I know some of them to be fine, gentlemen. But yet people women can come out of the woodwork and say things happen to them. And I'm concerned about the net that we're casting to gather these men up. A lot of innocent people are being pulled in the net.
It's gonna take time before we get it right. But you know, I trust that most women are honest, but I know not all women are honest. And you know, that's a hot topic to discuss. I argue with it with my wife, I mean, and she's like, please be careful because you have these you make these statements, and look, I think that most of them really don't know what women go through and we're just now starting to learn. And it's scary. It's scary. So yeah, those are tough subjects.
But I like I like that edge, I like running on that line.
I know what you're saying. We're the same age.
I'm sixty, I'm fifty born in sixty two as well, fifty five years old. Okay, I'm from the Bronx and Staten Island, you know.
So it was a different world back in those days. It was a different world.
But even now, when I look back at my younger days, in my twenties and thirties and stuff like that.
I said, you know what, I did some stuff.
That was wrong, you know, yo, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I know, I know we did. Listen. I mean, I don't look I did things I've said on my podcast and if you start to listen from last September to the current listen to the current day. I'm really honest about the stuff I did. I've done with women and said, and there's no question I want. I spoke to Harvey when he was in his rehab clinic in Arizona the first few weeks, and he said, he told me everything
that they're saying I did is a lie. Everything was every every relationship was consentraal et central And I argued with him on that, but he said to me, Aj, if you were who you were back in New York in the nineties late nineties, they would come after you just as hard as they came after me. And I said, hold it all, I've never had a woman tell me I raped her. He said no, but I'm telling you that I didn't rape them either. So I don't believe
Harvey's one hundred percent innocent. I think most of those girls are telling the truth. However, I know that they're for every girl that says that he raped her or did things that were not consential. I'll bet you there are five that went into those hotel rooms and knew what was coming and sat in the whirlpool and put the shower on for him because they wanted that part. Don't tell me they didn't. I know this business very well.
May This has been happening since Darryl Zannak and Shirley Temple and Louis being mayor, and Howard Hughes, I mean, Howard Hughes had women every couple of hours come to his office. It's been this way and it's not right, but it's been this way forever, and it's not going to change overnight.
It's not so Describe to the audience, what is your history with the Weinstein Well.
Harvey and I. Because I was a gossip columnist in New York, it was very It was very common for me to get some big, big heavyweight guys on the phone, including Donald Trump, Harvey Warrington. These are guys that were obviously very influential in their fields. They knew a lot of information I needed, and there are reasons for me to help them because one hand washes the other. In the gossip industry, you hide an it him that's detrimental to Harvey's movie opening. He gives you a tip on
something else you can run next week. Donald Trump wants to buy a building, but he's not allowed to do this. That it's quid pro call. The whole day long, so I was always in the phone with these guys. Harvey eventually gave me my first book deal, which was the book Same Ain't and a Bitch. I was at the Oscars. I was covering the Oscar and I found out when I got back to New York Pete Hamill was gonna
let me resign because she didn't like gossip reporting. And I told Harvey that and he said, well, I'm going to give you a book deal. You write a book for me, we'll keep you on your feet. He told me how much money you give me on the spot. So that's the kind of guy he was to me, and he kept me alive for a while, and I've been He's done that for me in a few different ways. I wrote for his magazines. He's been good, so I stayed in touch over the years. He've always been tight
and about fifteen years ago. I bought a soap screening painting for him because he was going through hell with the Disney merger and the press was beating him up. And I hated that I wasn't part of the press because I was to protected. So I went to go buy the painting and the girl behind the counter goes, who's this for? I said, well, by the way, it was a painting. It was the word Harvey Wood instead of Hollywood. And she said, who's this for? I said,
this with my friend, Harvey Warrington. She says, oh, he's dating a friend of mine and who lives in England. Now I knew Harvey was married with children in New York, so I quickly called him and I said, hey, tell me why some nobody in an art gallery knows that you're dating a woman in England. He said, it's maloney. Don't believe a word of it. Then he calls back two minutes later, he goes, Okay, it's true. What do we do? So we met. He said I can't have
this information get out. I love this woman my life when I am going to split, but I need this. I can't have this out. I said, okay, I'm going to give your company, Mirromax, all the best gossip that's out there. I'm going to supply your publicists with every great story that I can get my hands on, and whenever somebody calls your people to find out about this is fair. If then it becomes public, the way to beat that is you feed them other big stories and
they'll let the affair story go. Now. I don't know, I said, his people with a lot of great stories, and Harvey paid me by the month. Everybody was happy and the affair story never sold the light of day. But I don't know how many people went after the affair story. I just know I gave them good stuff to battle it. So people kind of tied me up with the New York Times story coming out. Before that came out a year and a half ago, Harvey called me and said, get to the finding until I got
to talk to you. I ran down. We drove down to the pends, but he said, look, there's a big hit piece coming out on me for the New York Times New York Magazine, and I need your help. I got to find that I was doing this. I got to stop this now. He didn't say that piece alleged he was a rapist. It just was a typical hit piece on Harvey's a bully. Harvey gets angry. I've seen those before, so I said, okay, well what shall we have? Can I go about it? And we were coming up
with ideas. He said, look, i'll pull you in a week and I'll tell you what I needed from it. I said great. He never called, and he was offering me a lot of money, so I was interested in doing this. I said, well, what do you want me to next month? He goes, no, I'll let you know. Thank god, he never well I shouldn't say that. If he told me this was about me allegedly raping women, I never would have helped him. I just thought it would another Harvey's a Bully story, So I never did anything.
He never called back. He said, don't worry about it. And then he starts to hire some companies that you just don't see people higher, these companies like black Box and Massage. I mean, you know, he went, he went full warfare. He still couldn't stop the story that that Ronan pharaoh was was writing. But as you know now, the New York Times stopped it for a while. The the the n y p D silenced victim for a while.
NBC News didn't run it for a while. So Harvey had a lot of power, and I wasn't the only journalist who would who would who had helped him in the past, as is obvious now. But eventually it became too big a story. And I just talked to Rodan Pharaoh two weeks ago at lunch about it, and it's congratulated in him because that's it. He's getting that, he's hatting big stories. Now, this kid, Ronan's quite a star
in the journalism world. We both were groomed by the same guy, Richie Esposito was my boss at the New York Dly News and he groomed Ronan the MSNBC. So it's interesting. It's there's there's there's gonna be a lot of that. There's gonna be a lot more stories. And now that people who go after people like in positions of power, like Harvey and others, there's gonna be a lot more of these stories coming. But that that was my relationship with Harvey. I haven't talked to him in
several weeks. As bad as the stories are, I do feel bad for him because I know how powerful he was, and how how many great things he got done. But naturally, if I put my daughter in the place of so many women who tell their stories, it's nauseating. But I didn't know that stuff was going on.
Never How was he doing today? Is he still in rehab?
I imagine so. But the last time I spoke to him, probably a month and a half ago, he was I don't know where he is now. I don't know how well those things take. I personally don't believe those things are are changeable. I think a sex addiction is very difficult to overcome it. It's more of a power addiction than sex. If he asked me, I don't know if you can change that. I think that's why I pe just so intriguing, because what Harvey was doing and the way certain men are acting. I don't know if you
can change out overnight. It takes a long time to become more aware of what you're saying, how you're acting, what you're doing, and it affects so many men now. Pedophilia is something that I don't care what you do, that's never going to get to get out of that person's head. That person has to be separated from society and he's got to be watched because you can't you can't shock that out of the system or incarcerate them
until they're clear. I don't believe that. That's a whole different problem.
Well, then let me ask you this about the mechanisms of reporting gossip, because when Kevin Spacey came out, right, it was a huge story, twenty four hours story, right, and he's just done this, he's done that. I actually had his brother on the show a couple of years ago. Oh well, wow, Now, but when Kevin Spacey comes, how come they don't talk about him being on Jeffrey Epstein's plane with Chris Tucker and what and Bill Clinton?
I know, I know, well I do. I get interviewed, I get interview the uh the island and Jeffrey's playing the Lite Express. I get into all that he's no angel. Jeffrey Epstein is a bad dude. He's a bad dude. But but when billionaires hang out with billionaires, and there's a reason why Clinton and Epstein and Donald Trump and there's so many big time people, you know, there's a there's one hundred pictures of Oprah Winfrey kissing and hunting
coffee one right, they're all in the same pluck. That's not to say they all agree and know what the other person is really doing. But trust me, when you're at that top level, you do know a lot of what people like us down here don't know. And if you're a journalist like myself, well all of us know that Kevin Spacey was chasing man and chasing boys around Hollywood and all over the world. We all knew that,
But we're not in the business of outing people. So there'd be a lot of blind items out Chavidge Spacey, but not nothing. That was a nail on a hammer on the nail. Now that's changing now you can now. But now like I just released the story on Twitter that on me on my podcast today that I know the next excuser that's coming out that's gonna go up against James Franco and it's an actress name is Zoey Deutsch who did the movie Why Him and James was very inappropriate and he was her producer on top of
her coastar. That makes him her boss. He can't do that. That dynamic is no longer acceptable. She would cry with Dan has said he would say inappropriate things in their ear. He'd put his hands on the wrong places that weren't called for. This happened every day. Brian Cranston, a co star, saw this and said to her, when you want to come forward, I'll support you. So at least that happened five three, two years ago. I don't think a man would have said to the girl, how are you doing?
Are you okay? You know? If you need me, I'm here. But you know, I know that the men I grew up with would have taken James Franco's hands and broke him at the roo. There are different people in this town and his business than there are around the country and around the world. Hollywood is a different group of people. They do let things go. It's all kind of winklink, nudge, nudge. You know, she's screwing him, he's screwing her, and this
one's paying this much money. How is this girl that hasn't worked for the last twenty five years still wearing the best clothes, still driving a Ferrari? Who's she's screwing? Like? What's going on? And it's all a big joke that the public doesn't know about. There's women out here we call yachtas. What's you're women? That find themselves on yacht's a very very rich rich man and they get paid, you know, one hundred grand for a few nights of fun.
There's women I know going back twenty years that are now on the Real Housewives Show. They used to get one hundred thousand dollars water to their account from some prince in Saudi Arabia because he wanted her and her friends to have fun with him for a weekend. And it wasn't just fun, it was sexual fun. So there's a lot of clothes lit, shut your eyes, blinders on
the public does not know what goes on. I know, and I'm happy to just just get this stuff off my chest because if we're gonna play this way now, then it's the wild wild West.
Oh man, I love this. You can come on anytime you want, anytime. Cat you man, I gotta get you that get you back.
But listen, we got a commercial break. I forgot to tell you off the air. Get we have a commercial break every twenty minutes. It's three minutes long and it's just dead silence. You can't we can't talk off the air. But we got a commercial break coming up where with aj Benza. Fame is a bitch. Buy the guy's books. Man, Let's keep this guy in business. Let's keep him eating and healthy. Seventy four and Sonny is one and also fame, Ain't it a Bitch? Confessions of Reform. Gossip columnists can
get them on Amazon. I'm gonna have a link up on my website. We'll be right back with more of the.
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This excellent documentary film is available at Serpents Rising at Vimeo Videos on demand. Watch it for one dollar and ninety nine cents. Okay, welcome back to the Opperman Report. I'm your host, Private investigator, Ed Opperman. We're here with the great aj Benza Fame.
Ain't it a bitch from Howard Stern?
Fame?
New York Daily News fame? Uh E, Hollywood story scandals, h A J. I was gonna ask you before. You were always this kind of guy, a guy about town that knew all the inside stuff, even before you had the column.
You know, I got the column. I was a sports writer. I started on a newsday covering high school college sports, and I was married my first five I've had a house on Long Island. I loved going out to college games. I got some pro some professional stories of the Mets and the Yankees, and that was where I wanted to go with my life certainly. And then got divorce, and suddenly I went out a few nights in the city, New York City, and I started to see some things
that were like whoa, you know, really great. It was the early nineties and a lot of things were happening in New York and I was drawn in and I was single, and I met Mickey Rourke and we went to a party one night, I saw some crazy stuff that I thought it'd be great in print, and I called Linda Stacey, who now likes for the Post, but she was a New York Newsday gossip columnist, gave us some tips. She said, Hey, how about you go out for me every couple of nights. I'll give you fifty
bucks and you give me some tips. I said, great. Next thing, you know, the Daily News wants to hire Linda, and Linda said, I'm going to take the job, but I want to bring this kid, aj Benzon with me because he has the greatest legs that he runs all night but not to sleep, and he gets great stuff. So I went with her, and suddenly More Zuckerman's my boss, and I'm at the Daily News, and I got a nice salary, and my job was to go out every night and find stuff. So my life really began at
thirty one. That's when I started my gossip column. And then Linda, two years in, left Gossip and I inherited the page, and then they gave my own page. So I always was somebody that was curious. Even before I did Gossip. I found myself going to John Gotti's trial, and I made I was introduced to John Gotti. I got friendly with him. I sat with him at lunch. I started to really get to know people. And I've always had that curiosity could get to know people, to
go dark places. I was friends with Tupac Shakor. The list goes on. I like to go where people are afraid to go, and I think that's where my curiosity factor began. My dad was an undercovered cop in the fifties and sixties, undercovered that cops top mom's father. The family was mafia. That's a very contradictory way to be brought up cops and robbers. But I heard great stories, and I think that's where I got my storytelling talents from my dad. So it was always always been in
my blood. So you combine writing with being nosy and being curious, and you're either going to be detective or a journalist. That's why I look at it. So I went the writer's way because I love to write, but I would have loved to have been a cop. I love to try to find the right stuff and then to stop banking from happening. And the only person that can do that other than a cop, to me is a journalist.
A good journalist, and what is your next book going to be about?
Well? Next looked really well. The second book, seventy four and senty is a very bit's a memoir, but it goes back to a summer of nineteen seventy four where my father's brother, a couple of tough Sicilian guys. My father's brother feared that his second son was going to be gay like his first son, and he said, can I please send my son to your Houseroland for the summer? Take him in. You know, we were essentially going to
butcher him up. I was twelve, he was ten. We were going to show them what it was like to be a man. That's the way the thinking was back then. And of course we couldn't do that, and we got very sensitive to this kid's needs and he actually changed us, and he's thrown on to become a very happy, married gay man in his fifties in New York City now. But so that's the second book. But the third book
is really my stories. I've got a bunch of them, and it's gonna work in concert with the podcast because a lot of the stories I tell on the podcast, whether I'm talking about John Gotti or Sylvester Stallone or George Clooney. I've had run ins with a lot of people, and I have a lot of great stories and anecdotes about those days and nights with these people. Some of my third book, which I'm finishing writing now, will be
about my personal stories. Frank Sinatra, I rubbed shoulders with a lot a lot of interesting, interesting people, really really famous people, not famous with me. Famous man.
Now, now you know you can't deny this because you were friends with Donald Trump and now he's the President of the United States.
So how far back does that go? Tell us about that story.
Not only was that friend to them, but at one point, Howard Turnshaw I threatened to kill him. So you know it's a very weird, right. The relationship began lind the early nineties when I got my column and Linda Stacy was always talking to Donald Trump on the phone. And because again Donald loved to give tips, and if you helped him out, he helped you out. He loved his name in print, he loved ratings, He loves everything you see him doing now. He did this to us years ago.
So Donald was a column staple, and when Linda left the business, he continued to talk with me, and I would meet him out. He did Lamar a Lago with him. I had a lot of fun with Donald Trump. Now they came a time and I despised him because him and I battled over a girlfriend that I was in love with when I moved to LA. He eventually dated her. I came back to New York and took her back from him, and then I went back to LA and
she went back to him. It got really surreal, especially when he decided to run for president, and that's when I had written him a letter apologized. Way before he wanted to run, I've written him a letter apologizing. I said, you know, I look at your kids. You raise good kids. You know now that i'm a father, I just become a young dad. I said, I understand what a Fikeu'd be a well rounded man. You're successful, You've done this and that. He accepted my apology, and then right when
the girlfriend thing happened, we got past that. And then when he was running, I was going to do an access Hollywood and asked us. Hollywood said, we'll promote your book, and you've got to tell us about you, Donald Trump and your girlfriend Carla Young. I said, oh God, I hate doing this. So because she's married now with kids and we've all moved on to different mates and have new children. I called Donald Trump just right before he
ran before the primaries. I said, they want me on ansinse Hollywood, but they want me to talk about me you and call. He said, a Jay, you do what you got to do. Go sell your book. You're a winner. You know how he talks. I said, oh, okay, Well, look, I just want to let you know. I said, I'm gonna tell the truth. I admire you, there are things I don't like about you. I'm gonna be honest, be honest. So I went on the air. I told the story, and I said to Donald, let me ask you a question.
Are you serious about running to president? I mean, what do you really? I said, because how many great summers do you think you have left in your life? Why would you want to spend four or eight in the White House. You could be anywhere in the world. You've got how many great summers do you have? Back? And I thought he was going to tell me fifteen twelve. He said, I've got at least thirty great summers left. So the guy thinks he's going to go on forever,
and he said, I'm gonna give it. I'm going I want to be I want to help America because America helped me become who I am. I believe this turntry's escaping, the escaping the good people who live in it, and we're losing grip on things. And I happen to believe many things he feels. I don't agree with the way he goes about a lot of things. I don't do a lot of things he stands for. But there are about four or five points that I'm really in agreement with him on. But again, I don't like the methods
he attacks him on. But I do love brutal honesty. I like the kind of guy that walks into a room and kicks over the table and changes things. I like this stuff because I think Washington needed to be shook it up, and he is doing that. And if it rattles people, I don't care, because I want my country more than the next president who's going to be the status quo. I'll pay what people don't get they
ought to the stand. Donald Trump is a guy. Yes, he grew up in privilege, but he also made a fortune dealing with guys who are iron workers, truck drivers, construction men, cement guys, lafia, teamsters, union leaders. He didn't grew up around people could know how to speak perfectly and say things to the PC crowd. So the things he says to me, the things he says on TV, they don't bother me at all. Having affairs don't bother
me at all. I don't care. Bill Clinton did it while he president, and I still voted for the guy. We're finding out that a lot of men are men, and a lot of men that we think are going to be our leaders aren't speaking to the correct way.
But I don't care about that. I think that once Donald Trump finishes what he's got to do, and I'm not quite sure he's going to be able to finish with all these women coming back around and tossing these allegations out him, I think he's going to be the last big firecracker on the fourth of July with these allegations. But if he can dodge that, I think he'll do a lot of good. You know, I still send them letters. I correspond. You know, they're not long because he's very busy.
But again, I like a guy who doesn't forget where he came from and remembers the people he knew back, you know, twenty five thirty years ago. I like people like that.
Well, I gotta say this. People got to go to fame as a bitch and look up the stories and they're by title. And if he talks about Trump and A J. Benz, that does the best Donald Trump impersonation.
Out of forget Ali. Well, it's exact, it is exact, right.
I don't know, I don't know. I don't think I'll tell you something. You know, i'll tell you something, you know. I just I know his manner is manner is better. But you know, you're a winner. He loves everybody's a winner. And you know absolutely you're a winner. It's just you got to see my face when I do the hand motions are better. But I've always made fun of him. I mean, this is that's why I'm when I despised.
There was a point where I hated him so much that I couldn't even see the word the word trumpet or anything that had those letters in the word. I see it in my blood pressure would spike. And now I get such a kick out of he's our president and and the people who are exhausted and exactly and crazy about what he says. Now, I'm like, I went through this years ago and he's not changed one bit.
I get a kick out of it. I know it's not not right to say we have an entertaining president, but by god, we'll never see this kind of man run a country again. This is this is, this is a show every day.
Yeah, I would miss it. I would miss it if he was gone. But no, wait a second. I heard that Howard sterned fight and when you said you were going to kill him, you had a plan. You had a plan in your mind, right Listen.
I'm I'm a Brooklyn guy. I had when my friends saw how upset I was over the whole breakup with my girlfriend thing, and they saw what that did to me. I love this girl, I mean she was. And then the caveat of the story is she's still my best friend. We talk all the time. She's married to a very wealthy man. We've stayed with them in their house up state. Are my son and her son have you know, taken dance together as kids? You know, we're very tight. She's
godmother to my son. So obviously we've all gone on and everything's fine. But when I said that, I've had friends who wanted the baseball bat you would knight, and I've said, don't do it. I meant that. Now I'm not saying these guys are of the right mind, but you have those friends in life. We don't want to see their friend upset and they die. Have friends that said, well, whatever you need, what you need, poke, let me know. Now, they're not going to kill him. I think they had
more life. Maybe Tanya harding him or something like that. You know, maybe a back to the knee was something that we were we were talking about, but thank god that didn't happen, because that would have been ridiculous, all
because of a girl. And here we are, all these years later, we're all friends, we all got married to different women, and but my god, what you know, it's funny when you think when you just when you think you're doing okay in life and you're pretty successful, you look at that, you look at what Donald Trump's done, it's pretty remarkable because if he's if I accept the fact that my reporting on him, not just me, but a lot of journalists in the eighties and nineties got
him to be a super big reality start, and if if he didn't have that reality show, he would not have become president. So in my small, in some small way, I'm complicit in his running the entry. There's no listen da other, and I have to sit down in my bed with my son and my daughter, and my daughter's
playing guitar or talking about her new play. I got MSNBC on, and Laurence O'donald starts talking to a public authors who were mentioning me my name, Trump, Mueller, and my daughter's looking at me with her like she still can't sell me. I said, honey, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how I end up on MSNBC in the same sentence as Trump and Mueller.
It doesn't make any sense to me. But if they if they think my name in the same sentence of those two men mean think gaining on a good story, they're mistaken because I got nothing. There are people who think I have tapes on Trump, that I've got secret tapes about him. This is so ridiculous. People on Twitter say that I've got I've got a tape of him being rough with Lannie in the elevator. I don't have those things. But it's funny. Some reporters think that's the story,
and A. J. Benson knows it. It's ed. It's very surreal, but you know it was something I thought I had. And I'll tell you this real quick. At the end of the Howard's third episode, I just jumped on and I said, Hey, why are you listening to this guy?
This guy goes to Russia and banks processing. And I'll tell you why I said that, Because in nineteen ninety four, I was talking to Trump like I did every morning, every other morning, and one day I was talking about I got to get to Cuba one day because I love Cuban women, and Trump happened to say to me, forget that, go to Russia. You got to go to Russia. The girls have no morals there. So now he didn't say I go there and bank processes. But I remember
that sentence. I never forgot it, so I settled on stern. That was two thousand and one. Last year, a Wall Street Journal reporter called me. A New York Times reporterluk, they want to get to the meat of that sentence. What did you mean? Do you have any do you have a tape of that? Did he did he go to Russia. Then it became a headline all over the internet. AJ but Stas and Columbus knows that Trump bangs trust.
It got so crazy, I said, guys, we were too so guys talking on the phone about girls we liked. I like humans, He liked Russians. Obviously he married one and I married a Portuguese woman, so we were onto something there. But they to think that I knew the whole Russia thing. That's where it went. That's how crazy some journalists are for this story. They were on it two years ago. I got calls about Stormy Daniels and
about Karen McDougall. You know, I knew those stories. I didn't know if I didn't know Stormy, I knew Taran. I knew that story, but I wasn't gonna write it because I don't know. I didn't think it's a good idea to write about your your president's ex affair. And frankly, I think a lot of men in power do those things. And I know Kara McDougall could be a very opportunistic woman who happens to always be in the armor of a millionaire or a billionaire. So I don't like women
who do the who live a lifestyle. Then when I come back and sue the man that was good to them during their affair, I hate that part of the whole equation. I hate it, and I you know, I think most women in America don't care that he had an affair. I don't think Milania cares. I think Malaney and him have a relationship like Bill Hillary did. This is a powerful partnership. Don't make it too embarrassing and continue on with your life. I think that's what they've had.
But what about if Trump is actually threatening these women to keep soying.
Look, you know, if you're that powerful a man, there are many men who want I don't think he's threatening. I think that the practice of catch and kill has always been in play for people not nearly as big as the president. There are people who are a pizza place, who you know, that are powerful, that can silence a girl, not with violence or threats with money. If you're rich
and powerful, you have NDAs. There are parties I go to in Hollywood where you've got to sign an NBA before you go into the party because they don't want you to tell people what happened at the party. It's everywhere in this town, and it's everywhere in the upper levels of very important people. They don't don't want their lives being broadcast. So for this girl to have an affair and sign an NDA, she signed them before she
ran around with Bruce Willis. She dated Leonardo DiCaprio. I know these women, so that's not that's not something that I'm not uncommon. So then to go turn around and when it becomes president they want over their mouths. I think any man would say, now hold this second. You got your money, you got paid, What are we what are we doing here? Why? Why would you now want to go beat Canary? I don't like that. Look, I don't mind people having affairs. I think we're human. I
think it's very Adam and Eve of us all. But then to want to turn around and go talk about the man that was good to you while you having fun, I don't understand that part of the equation. And I understand how it could take take down a president if you're using campaign funds to do that. But again, I think Trump was very slick and how he went about not signing the NBA. You know the money came from
from his Lawyer's account. It's very clever. Now I'm not saying he's clever to the pointe we got to applaud them, but that's very cunning and then very clever to do those things. But like I've said months and months ago, I don't like this notion that I think what's gonna happen is the the me too movement would not have begun if we didn't have for Trump in the office. If Hillary won, you would not have seen me Too because there was nobody close to Harvey. Wanna see the
Hillary Clinton. Nobody gave, nobody raived more money for Hillary than Harvey. Oh yeah, but what with with Trump winning, me too suddenly had to become a thing, and it should become a thing. But what's gonna happen is I think once it swept through Hollywood and Washington and every other business of the world, it's going to make its way back to the presidency where it began with the high Access Hollywood tape, uh, with Billy Bush. That's where
it started. It's going to go back there and the head of the state is going to eat the tail. And I'm fortunately the tale is going to be the first big story which was Donald Trump. And I think, you know, Stormy begets Karen, Karen begets summer virgos, somemer virgos. There's more coming. Trump was busy for a long time with women Trump has dated. People hate to hear the story.
The most beautiful woman in the world, the women he's been with that that had lost fairs for Donald Trump are It's a skyline of the most beautiful women Al mctearson. It goes on for Adam Nicole Smith. This guy was busy.
And what about Mike Tyson's wife.
I wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it because I know Trump. There's a false notion out there that he's a racist. And meanwhile, the woman that he loved, that I loved is half black and her family's black. I mean, you can't be a racist and be good to her and her family like he was. And I don't doubt that Robin Gibbon's story, although I don't know that to be true or not, I don't doubt Robin gibbings like to have a lot of fun. You know, she dated Brad pigg on the side with Tyson. She was a
you know, crazy people attract crazy people. Drama attracts drama. Adam Nicole Smith and Trump hung out before she got crazy and large and drug addicted. But you know he financed the movie of hers and really got it was kind of understood. You know, it's just sex is I'm not bothered by the sets being paid for favor. I'm just not bothered by that because women know they have it, women know they can use that as a power and
as a man at we're supposed to all. It doesn't exist and we and it's something we're not chasing since we're five years old.
Children from somewhere. I'll come from starts.
I know. I hate this attitude that how dare he chase a woman when he was were you kidding me? It's this country, this world is rife with that.
Okay, we got to take the commercial breakware.
We got to take a break with aj Benza fame as a bitch, aj shot out of a can and get them back here. Well questions Anthony's vestags with more of aj Benza fame as a bitch.
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Us produce the show and book guests. You can find William rams was an excellent author at William Ramsey Investigates on YouTube. Okay, welcome back to the Opperman Report. I'm your host, private investgater, Ed Opperman. We're here with aj Benza Fame as a Bitch, author of these excellent books here seventy four and Sonny and Not Fame as a Bitch.
Now, Aj, you mentioned the Access Hollywood tape. Who do you think leaked that Access Hollywood tape?
You know, I don't know if that became public, I forget. I obviously it was somebody. I think that became public if I'm not mistaken. I don't know why. I think. I can't remember the person's name, but I think it was a situation where people had trouble with Billy Bush. The person who leaked at really was trying to hurt
Billy Bush, if you can believe this or not. They knew they had a big piece on their hands with the President saying things he said, but initially they wanted Billy Bush to really be hit by the fallout because they didn't like the way he kind of storm on the scene with I forget was the other Today's show, whatever show, whatever morning show he was on. Somebody there didn't like his personality and they felt he needed to
be knocked down a peg and humbled. So what they got out of that tape was not just that, but they got Donald Trump committing the ultimate ultimate sin as a as a man running for president. So it was a double explosion. But I don't know, I don't know the person's name, and mean, look, there are other tapes out there that people allege that happened at the Apprentice. There are people who want, for one, Mark Burnett, who
was a friend of the president. I don't think he'll never release those tapes that Donald Trump is alleged to have said the N word and other things that sound and look untoward and gross about a woman's body. You know, in the way he would describe a woman's figure and talk to men general, very sexual kind of undertones. Uh. There's always been a rumored those tapes are going to come out, and if they did, I don't think he
can ever. I hate to say something can knock him down, but I think if a tape comes out and he's saying the N word, I have a hard time believing he can beat that. Uh, you know, I just don't. I think that'd be a big blow. But I do think they exist. I do think that's a word that might have fell out of his mouth on occasion. Yeah, Because if we're all being honest, I've said the word. I think anybody who says they've never uttered it is full of maloney. You just sound like a hypocrite if
you want to be really honest. It's a word that I grew up with. That was that was heard in my house. It was heard of the schoolyard. You know, let's let's it's it's a horrible, horrible word. But to say we never said it, that that's just a complete lie. Son be detrimental.
In the eighties and the eighties nineties, back in New York, amongst that crowd, Giuliani, Trump, all those guys.
That was something word that was kicked around.
Now what I especially law enforcement, especially in law enforcement, absolutely, Now what.
Do you make of uh, the money wandering accusations.
Well, that's no good, that's uh, that's the kind of that's the kind of nail that they can hang their coat on and finish them off. I don't buy any I'm not the rush of collusion stuff. I'm just it's just ridiculous. You cannot chase somebody for a year and change. When do you start to begin to look and and
and disset the man doing the chasing. When do you get to turn the microscope on Mueller and see his shortcomings with nine to eleven and the anthrax maloney, and and and and a host of other things that he dropped the ball on. If you keep searching for someone, you have to be in a relationship where the woman is waiting for you to say something wrong because you can break up with you. Eventually you're going to say something wrong. So to be into the microscope for this long,
I think it's ridiculous. I think we've seen over and over again there was more collusion on Hillary side or an equal amount of people in politics, knowing what they know about China and Russia that have tried to mess up our election process. It's been going on for a while, even this new thing with Cambridge Analytica, with Trump and Facebook and this and that Obama did the same thing to get his young voters. So everybody's guilty of this stuff, But to make it only about Trump is wrong. However,
the money laundering, you can't scape that. That's the kind of thing they're going to hang their coat on and lock it and finish them off with. If they get really deep into that and they got something solid, then he's finished. And god knows they've had They've been on these stories for a long time, and if there's one slip up, they're going to get him. But so far, the ones I've seen that they think they got him
on are just meritless. I don't buy the stuff that CNN has been shouting in MSCs and shoutings Nbcason shouting. I think the coverage of him is so unfair. Uh, there's never a breaking news story about how great the economy is doing, about how the unemployment rates for the lowest for Black Americans. There's so many great things to say, but they never say him. They just can stay on Russia. They stay on Russia, they stay on stormy Russia. Come on, every one of those people on the air have such
great tensions and retirement funds. Nobody's telling you that funds went on fort the cent in the last year. They're bursting at the seams, they're buying the new yachts. They won't tell you those stories. It's unfair. It's unfair.
Real quick.
Back when you were fighting with Trump on the air, you mentioned something about that he had this walk around guy with him. They used to walk around with him, a guy named Kalamari.
Yeah, it was a head of his head of his security.
Right.
So later on he switched to NYPD guys, but back then he had guys that were kind of like a more street guys.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much he has. He has. He had his band of regulars that that that were around he's and he's rewarded those guys. I think, if I'm not mistaken, Kyla Mari is one of I think he's got a big position on a casino or something like that. He's doing something with a Trump property.
I think bught my condo Staten Island. I left at two thousand. Really, I think.
He was a big guy for the last thirty five years with Trump. Okay, he's a knock around guy. He was involved with a security Yeah, but uh, you know he's really really he's he's really faithful to Trump. He's put his hands on people for Trump. That's true. Trump was gonna sick on me, he told me, And uh I happened. And I knew things about Trump, about that Trump, about Matt Calamari back then, that that h Trump. Look, I knew Roger Stone twenty five years ago was a
bad dude, a dangerous dude. You know. You can't get to the top in any of the fields like real estate or show business, especially politics, and not have bad guys around you, and not have those bad guys do favorously. That is very ordinary in the world of rising up the ladder. It's just I mean, the best cops are are familiar with the best criminals. We see it in
politics all the time. We sit down with world leaders from other countries and praise them while they're starving their people committing Jenna sade on and it's just the oldest story in the book outside of Adam and Eve. So you know, I don't know if if Calamari has done a lot of illegal things. I don't know that stuff, but I knew that back then he was a very It was a tough guy that that was always a Donalds side and every one of those Look, you have to have one of those guys. Every big guy has
one of those guys. That's common.
But but at one point Trump made a change and he went to Keith Schiller or these NYPD guys.
Has a tounch of guys.
Yeah, Trump loves he loves law enforcement, and a lot of law enforcement loves Trump. That's why, you know, That's why when he was running, I'd go home to Long Island and hang out with my family and the guys I grew up with that I really never talked politics with I'm out here twenty one years at all I hear is liberal, liberal, liberal liberal. I'm not a liberal, although I have some stances that are liberal, and I
get it. But I go back home and I started to see how obvious it was that Trump was gonna win. I mean, it was completely obvious to me. We start talking to relatives that are seventy five guys that fought in Vietnam. I said something on the radio once on KBC. I was doing the election live at a restaurant in Birdbank that's very liberal, you know. George Clooney pretty much runs it the Smokehouse, and we're on radio live and
then we're going to talk about the election results. And as I was doing at commercial Life said, let me tell you something, Kayler's going to be in the lead, and Trump's going to sneak up on her. So don't go to bed early and be all happy and you're gonna wake up sad tomorrow. Trump's going to win this, I said, because there are more Archie bunkers in the world than they're all life Michael Stivicks Meathead, his brother or his son in law. And that was obviously there
is still those guys like ACTI Bunker. They're still in America. I know that the Meathead, the Michael Stibbitts of the world are not here in La everywhere. They're in Los Angeles everywhere. But across the world the country, you got more Archie bunkers. And that's why Trump want I felt.
Let me ask Edith agent. We only got like a minute left, man, did you want to like give me another half hour or something like.
That, or you just want to I can't today. I apologize were I can't, but I will another time.
No talk, fine, then tell us where can people find you? What do you want to tell? How do you want to leave us?
I'm pretty easy to find. I'm real. Aj Ben's on Twitter, I'm real aj Ben's on Instagram. You could, you could. The best way to hear what I have to say, obviously is to go go to iTunes subscribe to Fame as a Bitch. It's free and you'll believe me. I'd say it's worth your money. But you're not paying anything, so you got a real blogging when I start talking aj really, man.
I could definitely recommend this. This podcast Fame is a bit. It's excellent.
You listen to one, you're gonna listen to all of them because he tells his stories and he's not like me, like what a lot of the chatter. He tells his stories like like a SoundBite, and then he tells another story right after he plugs him all together.
It's great stuff, man.
Thanks buddy, I appreciate it. Anytime you want give me a call.
Thank you, brother. Keep in touch. All right, thank aj Benza, boy. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that. We disagree that a lot, but I really enjoyed that. And I'm glad he confirmed the colinbar he bought my con door. I knew that was him. I knew that was the guy. Anyway, It's what a small freaking world. Anyway.
If you like the show, check out Oppermanreport dot com. Our members section. We have all kinds of great new content coming there. Hoping to get another hour with Aje. Put in a member section that makes some money off this stuff, but a lot of great content. And that's what sports the show is Oppermanreport dot Com. That's how we can do this with such limited commercial interruptions. Uh, don't forget our buddies over it. Get the t dot com.
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Look at me, lit all the energy I got if the token aj Benzon, he's falling apart the same age, okay
The same age I got all this energy and he's falling asleep on the phone there and thank
