Clay Travis sits down with Rachel Bonnetta

to roll. You can watch her on lock it In every single weekday Monday to Friday, now that we're into season two, from at four thirty Eastern, three thirty Central to thirty Mountain one thirty Pacific. We are on for an hour at least five days a week. And uh, I don't know a lot about Rachel Bonetta's back or other than the fact that she's an awful Canadian who doesn't chat very often. So I'm actually curious to find out some of this information myself. So Rachel, first of all,

thanks for coming on. First off, I'm really sorry I did not realize that we were supposed to give you five first, I gave you one. I don't think I can join the excited to be here, excited to chat with you. Um, you're right. We worked together every single day, and I think that we know kind of like surface level information about each other. But I guess I'm excited

to spill all my dirty, juicy secrets on this podcast. Well, I mean, I would say more than surface level because your mom and I have been dating for a while. But that's how we're gonna start. We really don't talk that much about you. It's more about our relationship than it is yours with your Oh why did I ever agree to do this? That's a good question. Well, honestly, I thought you were going to give me the heisman on this because you were nervous. Why were you nervous

to come on the show? I think it was nervous because, you know, I feel like every other podcast that I've done, which is not many by any means, Um, it's been all this surface level again. It's it's all like, you know, what have you been doing the last two years, and how do you like your job? And what do you aspire to do in the future, And it's all been very like boring, uh stuff, And I feel like you're gonna ask me questions that are going to make me

uncomfortable answer them because I've agreed new that's already. So I'm I'm excited. Let's make you uncomfortable right up. So first of all, I hear what I Here's what I know about you. You grew up in Canada. You have three older brothers, which makes our show almost a little bit of a reflection of what your life was like. So take me into Canada. I don't know much about Canada. I bet a lot of our listeners don't. But if we do know something about Candida, it's like, okay, we

know something about Toronto. We know maybe Montreal, maybe Vancouver. Where did you grow up? What was it like when you were a kid. I grew up about two and a half hours outside of Toronto, UM in a really really small town called or Know, and I lived on forty six acres. We had a huge property. UM probably like middle class family. My dad drove transport trucks and my mom was a school secretary. Uh. And I used to ride four wheelers and dirt bikes and fight with

my brothers. There's a huge age gap between me and the youngest brother. It's eight years, so they were all so much older than me. Um, and it was like a dog eat dog world in my house. It's like you had to fend for yourself or else you were gonna get the crap kind of kicked out of you. Um. And I was the only girl too, so I feel like the guys really wanted to make me tough and wanted to make me one of them. So you know,

I was like covered in dirt from an early age. Um. But it was also a really beautiful place to grow up because there was absolutely nothing around, nothing to do, so I was all of us, the whole family are really creative because we literally had like two blades of grass to rub together to kind of entertain ourselves. So um, you know, I would we had like this huge woods in our back yard and or behind our house, and I was like always exploring and um, you know, really

trying to be a tag team for those guys. So yes, it absolutely applies to our show. I feel like I've been you know, um, speaking up for myself and fending for myself from a very young age. And uh, it really mimics my my life because all of you guys are quite a bit older than me too, because Todd's what ten years older than I am, and he's the youngest one on the show. So, um, it's very interesting that I've found myself in this exact same dynamic. Uh

seven years old? All right, so you're twenty seven. You grew up on forty six acres. I didn't know this at all in are No, Like, how do you spell the town that you're from in Canada? It's Toronto without the teas? Are No? So how many people live there? And and what did you do? So let's say you leave the forty acres? What do you do? Like? What did you guys do for fun? Is there a mall? Like? How close is the movie at? Or like mall? Like what did you do for fun? With the clothes? Movie?

Theater was probably forty five minutes away? Like we are around nothing. I we didn't have next door neighbors. I would have to like walk ten minutes up the street to get to the next person that lived close to us, my friend. Um, and we we really entertained ourselves. I mean we had like a giant pond on our property. So anytime in the summer we were like swimming in that and my brothers were my best friends. I was like always looking up to them, always trying to hang

out with them. Um. As I got older and U went into high school, that's when I started to be more interested in like getting out of the house and um, you know, leaving my family and hanging out with my friends. And then it was just like sure, we would take a forty five minute bus ride to the Oshawa Center and like walk around the mall. But um, once I grew up in and was in high school, I moved to a little bit of a bigger town that actually had like stores, so um, but that wasn't until like

the ninth grade. So I really like I grew up. It's insane that I live in Los Angeles now and I'm doing what I'm doing because I grew up in the middle of nowhere. My high school didn't even have a drama program, nothing that would lead one to think that I would be in front of a camera. Um, And it was just, uh, it was it was a very like, you know, my family were my best friends, and I was always wanted to wanting to be home.

But it's also because we had an amazing life, like we I could go home and ride my four wheeler around for hours until it was like dinner time. So it was a lot of time spent solo slash mixed with like hanging out with my family. So we're talking to Rachel Bannetta. You follow her on Twitter. This Clay Travis wins and lost his podcast. How cold was it? So you said you had you had like a pond to swimming in the summer, Like how cold was it in your part of Canada? And how it was? Yeah,

it was cold. We would, Um, we had like two really big hills in front of our house, so we would like, uh, my dad would take his tractor and he would build jumps for us because we all snowboarded and skied, so we would. It's a miracle. I didn't break a bone until a couple of weeks ago when I desiccated my shoulder, but trying. Yeah, exactly, I'm a lizard.

Um but uh so yeah, we would have like ski jumps and like rails and stuff set up in our front yard and then my dad would take a giant like uh fire hose and put fresh water over our already frozen over pond, so it would be a really smooth surface to play hockey. And we would hold hockey tournaments at our house from like for all of our family to come to. So we would have like days before Christmas at like all of our aunts and uncles and cousins would come. We'd have like huge hockey tournaments.

Is the most Canadian thing sounding thing. I didn't realize we would have crazy hockey tournaments on our pond because it was like a beautiful rink. It was like, those are some of the best childhood memories for me. So the Raptors obviously were a part of your childhood. Were you a big hockey fan and how much what did the Raptors mean to you growing up? Um? I never attached myself to hockey team because my dad hated the Leafs for whatever reason. I think that he loved to

watch them to hate them. So we were raised in like an anti trying to make the Leaf's household. But we were living in Ontario, so it's kind of hard to, you know, really find another team that I loved, so not some I played a lot of hockey, played hockey for like five years, um, but then basketball. I remember waking up on my ninth birthday and I had a canopy bed, and I woke up probably like three AM, and somehow my brother and his girlfriend had snuck into

my room and put like a friend. I can still remember looking at it, a fresh Crisp White fifteen Raptor's jersey, Vince Carter's jersey, and hung it up on my canopy with a letter saying like, happy birthday. I hope you enjoyed this. That dude and the Raptors were pretty new at that point, especially Vince Carter. He's like taking over the city and I just, oh, my gosh. I did not take that jersey off for probably a year. It was like you, I see photos of it and it's

just covered in grass stains. And I was bringing a basketball to school. I wanted to be in the w n B A, and I was obsessed with Vince Carter. I was so in love with him, like watching him any chance I could. UM, and uh, I don't know why. I don't know why I loved him so much, and I why I fell in love with basketball. But then I started playing basketball. I was like captain of my

seventh and eighth grade team. Um. And then as I got older, I kind of fell off a little bit, uh just because we started sucking a lot in Vince Carter left and um you know, ugly fashion. But um so it was so beautiful to come back these last few years when they started to heat up again, and

then this year with Kauai. I was like bawling my eyes out when they won because I was just thinking about that nine year old girl who was obsessed with sports, um and and loved Vince Carter so much, and I was just thinking about like what I've done with my career and my It was like a really like a looking inside, deep down moment for me, and I just couldn't stop crying on like this is so stupid a sports game, and I was. I was really emotion all. It just meant it meant a lot to uh younger

me and and and now me. You got to watch it in person, Yeah, I went to go. I went to was so lucky. Um one of my friends had an extra ticket and asked me to go, and I was just like, oh my god, when am I gonna We obviously didn't know that they were gonna win at that point, but I was like, holy, this is gonna be the last game Oracle too so I wanted to go see that, um, and I was there to witness it in person. There was like a small group of us because obviously it's in away game, but there were

still so many traveling fans. There's probably hundred of us, and we just like, uh, congregated in one area after they won, and like everyone was emotional. Everyone was wearing like old school jerseys and uh, you know Vince Carter, DeMar De rose in. Like everyone was kind of all over the place and you could just tell like, oh my gosh, we all love this so much that we've that we've traveled. It's like almost like the batch of

the most hardcore Raptors fans that you can find. Uh. And we were all there and and they celebrated right in front of us and lifted the trophy and um, it was just a really really cool moment. I'll remember that. I kind of was just like, how do I want to go? Like I have to work the next day and it's all the way up in San Francisco, Like do I really want to do that? I want to spend the money, And I was just like, screw it, what am I ever going to have this chance again?

I'm gonna remember. I'm gonna tell my kids about this moment um, So it was it was something to remember for sure. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. Your seven. You haven't even had your ten year high school reunion yet, which is pretty crazy to think about giving what you're doing now for

a living, That is insane. Yeah, So if you had been, if if you had been when you were sixteen or seventeen years old, asked what do you want to do for a living? And everybody at sixteen and seventeen has different answers. Had you hit on the idea of I want to be involved in media and entertainment in some former fashion yet and if not, when did you hit on that idea? Yeah? When I was sixteen, I was that's like the twelve right. I was volunteering at my

local news station. So I was like Mike in hand, ready to go. I always wanted to be an actress, but I was just like that pause here for a second, I want to go back and this so you your local news is where local news was probably at the time forty five minutes away from me like where I was going. But it was like local news oshwa, like that area, that's what it was. You would you would show up and do like you're like, what are you doing at the local news? And how did you end

up going there? So we had a program in our high school that you could take a semester off and kind of do like an internship if you were at a good place with your grades and stuff like that. Um and so I decided to uh oh they called it a co op. So I decided to go. You you'd have to go into school maybe like three times

a month, but I tell the semester off. Yeah, it was amazing and you get like real experience, like some people would go and work, um, like in the trades and stuff like that, but it was this was this one was available and so I applied for it, um and uh I got it miraculously. And so I would go in every single day. I would take my mom's car and I would drive into work as like a

real reporter. And I was wearing like flax and like blazers, and I was learning how to be a reporter everything from like you know, gathering information and doing the investigative part to the way that you make your voice sound like a reporter and first local Rachel Bonetta on the scene, Like it was ridiculous the things that they were teaching me to do, which just seems so oh so cringing now,

but um, I was. I just went home actually a couple of weeks ago, and I was looking through all of my old tapes because I've kept everything, and it was like, you can see it on my Instagram. I posted when it was like sixteen year old me reporting from like a fundraiser and like a school safety meeting, and it was all very like, you know, youth reporting

kind of things. They weren't making me go and do the hard hitting journalism, but that experience was like, Okay, I guess I'm gonna go to school for broadcast journalism now. Like that just kind of landed in my lap. Part of me probably wanted to not go to school and go off and try and be like a somewhat of a real adult, um, but it ended up kind of working my favor. So did these things air on the local news or you just did you were on you were on local news as a sixteen year old. I

was on local news. I remember I would go to work and I would film whatever I had to film. I probably had like four four to five hits a week of different stories. I would go to work, come back, go to my boyfriend's house, and the whole family would gather around and watch the local news until my my part came on. It was pretty insane. I was like sixteen years old, So what what? I watched a couple of these on your Instagram page and one of them

was like you covered will Blockbuster survive? Right? Or like Blockbuster was closing? How did you get these these ideas for stories? Did they assign them to you? Did you come up with it on your own? Yeah? Like I would go out there was like like said, it was pretty like loose the broad The Blockbuster thing was from college, but all of the other ones were like, Okay, there's um picnic benefiting the local animal shelter on Tuesday. Um, why don't we send Rachel and a cameraman to that?

And that's all they gave me. And I would actually go and interview all the people that I would have to interview and do my research and and you know, write everything down and then I would have to do all my stand up so it's like being in front of a camera holding a mic, being like doing like the open and the and the clothes for like a one minute peace. Um, and I learned. I learned so much. So even going into college, I was just like, screw you guys. I was on first local like getting line baby,

I'm number one. So wait, so you had an adult cameraman who would be assigned to you, and like you guys would drive around all over town to do local stories. Yes, yes, and I took the school. I was able to do like a full full credits like I didn't have to spend any extra time in high school, like this was something that are are are just our school promoted they Still that seems crazy to me that a sixteen year

old could be on local news. How many people would watch this local news broadcast, Like oh, I can't imagine very well. We would have people like email in about like oh I hated Jones tied tonight, you better pick up overalls and I'm not going to watch again. Like it was there was some. There was some I was like never recognized or anything like that, Like it was not that many people tuning in, but for it was like, um,

that's a huge deal for a sixteen year old. Oh. Absolutely, the cultination of a bunch of different small towns and small cities. Um, because the first local was kind of like overseeing a big area and it was the local news, so it was like Channel six a lot of people watch. So your mom had to be really impressed by that, right, Um. Yeah, I think that might say, I'm sure we'll get into this. My family was going through some stuff when that was happening.

My dad was really sick. So as much as they were like proud of what I was doing, I wasn't really the center of attention at the time. I think that looking back now, even even myself, I'm like, holy crap, why doing that at sixteens. As I'm telling this story again, I haven't talked about it really one time. It sounds insane. Um. But yeah, she she was. She was super super proud, for sure. So you mentioned what your family was going through around the time that you're doing that. So what

were you dealing with in your family at the time. Well, when I was about, um, I want to say, like eight or nine, my dad started to just be really weird. Um. And and I was so young at that point, I had no idea what was going on. Um, but he just started acting not himself. And he's like, you know, he's a really early like typical Canadian lumberjack as you would see it. Like he was a hunter, and he drove transport trucks and he took care of our family.

And all of a sudden, he was like not feeling well, and um, you know, have having trouble walking and all this stuff, and and I had no idea what was happening. And I remember being called into my school and in my principal's office and her saying, you know, we just want to let you know if you're ever feeling that you're going through a tough time, like you can always come and talk to us. And I was just so confused, just like okay, like whatever, I'm gonna go back to

class now, Like it's just weird. Um. And then my my dad's like physical appearance started to diminish more and more. And then it was that he ended up in the hospital. And and again like I was so young, so my mom was probably shielding me from a lot of stuff. But it ended up that he had this really rare blood disease called amiladosis. And it took them years to even identify what it was because it is so rare. It's like one and a billion people get this random disease.

And my mom was actually one of the ones that helped diagnose it because she is like such a mom through and through and she was like going through notes and notes and notes and looking at the symptoms and and all of this stuff, and she was the one that was just like, well, what about this? And then they tested him for it and it ended up being that. But um, still like, not a lot of information is out about this disease. And basically what happened over those

years is he started losing a ton of weight. Like when I was in the tenth grade, my dad weighed less than Iowa and I'm not, I'm like a pounds now. So it was really it was really hard and um, he was unable to walk. It affected his nervous system. Uh so his the nerves and his legs weren't, um, you know, acting right. So he had to use a walker in a wheelchair, and he was in and out of the hospital and they they it's not a treatable disease, is a terminal illness, so they were testing him like

a guinea pig. They gave him chemotherapy, he lost all

of his hair. They gave him stem cell transplants, which is like the huge as needles they put in your back, and it was all very painful, and it was all just for him to feel better for a couple of years, and then he would end up going back, and then he would try something new, and then he ended up going back, and so it was really really hard um to deal with us, and and it was so long, and it lasted for eight years, so it was a really it took up a really big part of my life,

and I had to grow up really really quickly. And my brothers weren't around because they are so much older. By the time I was in high school, they were in college, they were living in different provinces, they were all over the place. So it was really just like me and my mom and my dad, and I was like, I felt like I was like walking home to a very hellish state every single day, and I just wanted to I wanted to run away, and I didn't want

to be in that situation. And it was impossible to connect with my dad because I was scared even looking at him. What do you look like? And it was really hard. It was really hard for a really long time. So that's kind of what we were dealing with. And that was tough for my mom also too. Like I said, she's such a caregiver and her husband the love of her life. They had such an amazing I'm so thankful

that my parents had an incredible relationship. They were married for like thirty one years, um, and you know that was like her first priority. So you know, you also have this like blossoming young daughter who's trying to pursue all of these things, but you know, your first priority is going to be making sure that your husband can get up and walk down the stairs because he couldn't do that by himself. So it was a lot, it was. It was a tough few years, sir. So from Mike

eight to sixteen, this is when this is going on. Yeah, he passed away, she thought the way when I was seventeen, Um, I graduated high school in June or whatever, and he passed away that February, right before, right before you graduated. So I mean a part of this is you probably I don't know if you even like sit around and

try to psychoanalyze yourself a lot. But if you're sixteen and you're so driven to grow up that you're doing these reporting assignments, I mean, is that partly like you were just ready to be off on your own because in some way you had to kind of raise yourself, right because your mom has to focus so much on your dad. Yeah, no, absolutely, I talked about this in therapy every week, but um, yeah, it's it's exactly that. And it's, um there's like a fear as well, like

going home. I when it was just my dad and I, like sometimes I'd be sitting in the living room and I would here like a crash, and it was because like my full grown father has fallen to the ground and there's like a fifteen year old I have to now pick up his like deadweight body and bring him into the living room. Somebody can sit like that's not only embarrassing for him and hard for him to deal with, it's like, oh my god, I can't profess this, Like

what is this? And so I was constantly I never ran away, per se, but I was always running away. I was always trying to get out of that house. I moved away as much as I wanted to support my mom and stay home for even like a semester. I went away to college as fast as I can and and I was like always out of the house, always at my boyfriend's house, who was like a disaster um. And it was yeah, it was really it was a

really dark place. Home. Home's was a really dark place for me the first eight years, not right when everything before he got sick, and then it's like just all of a sudden, the chapter changes in your life is completely altered. Yeah, I mean the first eight years. I

think that that's why I am, you know. I feel like there's this big goofy side to me, and I feel like that comes from early on, like the first eight years when I had like free range on creativity and I had a great relationship with my parents, and my parents had a great relationship, and my brothers and I were always like goofing and laughing, and they introduced me to comedy and and then I feel like around like nine, that's when that joyful side just like culpit

and stopped. And I feel like a big part of my life now is like trying to get that back and and trying to really live in this like fun space because I love that that, like we always talk about in therapy, not to get too deep into this, like but that, um my my kids like kid Rachel, Um, you know, she needs to be taken care of because around like eight or nine, she stopped having people look

looking out for her. She was looking out for herself because everyone else was focused on my father and so, um, yeah, it's a lots. It's a lot to deal with for a really young kid. I didn't even know it, Like I said, my mom couldn't even explain to me what was happening at this point in my life because it's like, how do we even tell how old are your kids? Clay, Like, imagine telling them no. I mean that's what I'm thinking

about now. I've got eleven and eight and a four year old, and so they've had explained to them totally idyllic existence right now, and if if something like that happened, it would be like they would be, you know, almost full pedaling into a wall, right like everything is perfect and then it's like a line of demarcation and everything

changes in their life. And I think there's probably a lot of people out there listening right now who maybe not have had as serious of an incident as you have, but they can go to a point in their life and be like this changed everything, right and and whatever else comes afterwards, I can't get over what might have happened at this age. By the way, you're listening to Winds and Losses. I'm Clay Travis. We're talking with Rachel Bonetta and so you you you're doing this thing at

sixteen years old. You're doing local news and and it's interesting because you have a and I'm sure people here as this goes on, if they watched the show, certainly you know this. You have a really great sense of humor. But a part of that a lot of times comedians have great sense as a humor because it's a coping mechanism, right, I mean, otherwise you just kind of wallow in, uh in the things that are bad in your life, and

that's a way to escape the darkness, right, um. And and I think the humor that you have, whether it's on Instagram or on social media are certainly on our show comes through a lot, but it's almost like a self defense mechanism in some ways. Not to mean that you're not funny, but it's it's interesting where that comes

from Yeah, no, for sure. I mean my dad was a very quick like honestly, and I think that a lot of times he was always trying to lighten the mood because he was sick and all of us, like he probably felt from his daughter like, Oh, she's afraid of me now because she's afraid of losing me. So she's gonna push me as far as she can away

because she doesn't want to get hurt. And so his way of cracking the ice with me was being funny and like watching funny things in same with my brothers, like I was introduced to like sn L and SETV and mad TV and in Living color, all of those things when I was really young, because it was so depressing in our household that what we watched at night had to be something that made us laugh. And so I'm thankful that I grew up in a in a family that had a sense of humor and was able

to laugh about some stuff. Like my dad would make jokes when he was bald and like had peach fuzz and um, you know, he he was ridiculous and super goofy, and I will hold those memories super close to my heart. But um, that was definitely a way to all of it. It wasn't just me. All of us were trying to cope with this through our sense of humor because that was literally the only way that we could keep breathing. So sixteen year old Rachel is a local news star, Um,

you're dealing with your dad. You said, I don't even know if your your boyfriend might listen to this. He probably doesn't want to hear it because you probably that you never had a boyfriend before. But you said you had an awful high school boyfriend. Oh. Yeah, he was a jerk. He was a jerk. I didd him for like five years to five years of a long time in high school. So what initially attracted you to him? Oh, I don't know. You have like a shaved head. He

was a skateboarder. That's why I was really into skateboarders at the time. But I started dating him like the end of my Our junior high was right next to our high school, and still there was probably only a total of like five hundred people, um combined with all of those grades. So it was partly because there was nobody else. But I met him at like the end of the eighth grade and I broke up with him. As soon as I went to college, I was like, later, so what does he do now? I have no idea

and I do not want to know. So legitimately you have no idea, like he hasn't tracked, have no idea. No, no, I think that once. Once I got to college, I was like, oh my god, I gos a jerk. Like, for instance, I'll give you a little glimpse in our relationship, um my twelfth grade. Um, you know, it was really just like a waiting game when my dad he was not doing well. This was probably in November. The doctors told us that my dad had until Christmas to live.

Basically what a date, right, Oh yeah, celebrate Christmas as your dad? And I like the next day. Um, and so I found out in November my boyfriend broke up with me. And I was devastated because literally going through the worst time in my life. Now, I've lost the only person that I can really you know, he's like my number one shoulder to cry on. He broke up with me the next day. He's love with my best friend and all of this stuff is going on, and so I was just like, uh, you know, I stupidly.

Why am I telling you this stuff? For the first place, I got back together with him after my dad passed away, and then it literally as soon as I left for college, I was just like, get this guy into my life. I'm so much better off. So yeah, like high school, Rachel was all over the place. She was mess. You did not know how to function. The only thing that she was like worried about with school and her career, which is like kind of still the same. Um, But uh, yeah,

I was going through it. I think about that Rachel now, and I couldn't make me cry sometimes because I was really being put through the ringer And what you wish what do you wish you you could go back in time and tell yourself when you were in high school. I don't know, but everything's gonna be okay, I guess. But I always had the sense that it was going

to be all right. Like I do think I deal with trauma pretty fairly well, whether it's like you know, uh, somebody passing away or like me losing my passport in a foreign country. Like I'm very I'm a very good problem solver. Um. But I think that there's always been the fear of I will say this, Ever since my dad passed away, and even before that, there's I've I've had an irrational fear of people leaving me and death

and and losing people. Whether I can deal with it or not, just the fear of it happening absolutely terrifies me. So just like letting myself know when it comes to that, like I'm I'm okay, I'm gonna be okay, and I'm gonna get through this and at least I'm gonna live. We know that I don't even know that it's in a rational fear based on what you've been through, uh

I know. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific, talking to Rachel Bannetta wins and Lost his podcast I'm Clay Travis. You can follow Rachel at Rachel bannetto on Twitter. You can watch her every single day on uh FS one Walk it In alongside of me, cousin sal and Todd Ferman. All right, so you go off to college. You've probably given everything that you are going through in high school, are desperate to go away

to college? Where do you go? How do you pick it and what is your focus when you go away to college. So I moved into the city. I moved into the city. I've got Toronto meeting meeting, the city of Toronto, Yeah, the big city. I think two of my brothers were living there at the time, so at least I had some kind of you know, safety with having them somewhat close. But I decided that I wasn't going to audition, uh to go to school for theater because I was too scared. I think that, um, you know,

everything that had happened. I was just like, I just want to go to school for something I know that I can get into, for something that I know I'm already good at, and for something that I know that I'm slightly interested in. And at least, um, you know, part of the school processes that I can take improv classes, which was so exciting for me and I still take those to this day. Um. So I applied for broadcast journalism. I think I was a shoe in because, as you said,

I'm a sixteen year old television star at uh uh. Yeah. So I moved into the city. I moved out of my house. My mom sold our house and moved into like a really small house and like a small town far away, further away from me. Um and uh, I

failed and I feeled hard. I was doing this talk about mental health a couple of years ago for the Big East, and there were it was like all coaches that were in the room, and I was a volleyball player, was a varsity volleyball player, and I brought in my transcripts from my first semester of my first year, and it was all like f f F d F c f f F like failed, like literally everything I could

have failed, I failed pretty much. Um. And it was I was telling these people because I was just like I was depressed and anxious and going through the dealing with the loss of my father and and those times the coach, I'm seeing my coach more than I'm seeing my teachers. Um. And so I was kind of saying that like this is this was my story, and I was telling them and oh my god, I just bombed so bad because like my I was just going through

a world of pain and I forgot everything that I learned. Um, you know at first local and it was a it was tough, It was really tough. I thought about quitting. I was just like I'm not I need to take some time off, Like clearly my brain is not right. I'm not in a right space to be learning and to be caring about anything other than thinking about my dad dying. Like it was rough. So you went to class and you were making it like, I mean, how

how did you fail? Everything right? Because I mean I would go into class, I was listening to the lecture, I was being given the homework, and I was saying f you, and I was gooding, And I would go to volleyball practice and I'd go home, sleep, wake up the next day to do it all over again. I was not handing in any assignments. I was having trouble going to class sometimes because I couldn't get out of bed. This was like my first real bout with depression like

I had never really felt. Not only was I moving away um from home and like what I know and what I love, and I broke up with my boyfriend, which is like, you know, any teenager is going to have a problem with that, and it's gonna like face some kind of repercussion in their feelings and their emotions. But also I just had like a catastrophic event happened in my life. Um, and I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't deal with it. So I would not get

into bed, I would not do my assignments. And it showed so for a full year or a full semester, just a full semester. After I got those the grades back. UM, my volleyball coach threatened to kick me off the team. UM My mom was very disappointed in me, and I just snapped. I had this moment of being like you, I had this really beautiful moment with my dad right right before he passed away. I'm gonna try and get through this. Um. And uh, you know, we we knew

about a week before he passed away. They pulled me out of school and they brought my brothers home and we're like, spend as much time as with your dad as you can, because he's gonna be he's not gonna make it pass this week. He's stopped eating, and so all of us took turns going up into his bedroom.

He had like a hospital bed pulled into our house, and um, when he was awake and around and you know, with it, we would go up and we would have conversations with him, and I got to tell him right before he passed away, like a couple of days before that, I was like, I'm gonna go and kick ass and I'm inna I think also the first time that I swore in front of my dad, I remember being like, oh my god, I hope it's not gonna be mad at me, but I'm gonna go kick ass, and I'm

gonna go make you so out, and I'm gonna take care of mom. And I'm just gonna go and and just kill it at school and I'm going to be a star and and you don't have to worry about anything. I'm gonna take care of everybody. From one of the last things that you said to me ever, was seeing the movie's kids, Well it makes me want to vomit. Um, I know, right, sor right? But I had this moment after that first semester that I was like, I have not lived up to everything that I told my dad,

and he would be so disappointed in me. And I think even my maybe somebody had said that, like, you know, do this for your dad, and I was just like, all right, screw this, buckled down started like caring so much really put like literally great change from like f T A S because I was I'm a smart person and I'm creative, and that's exactly what all these things

we're calling for. It's like make a video, go and do a documentary, be an improv class, like you know, go and cover Blockbuster, shutting down whatever it is, excuse um. And uh I just snapped, and I was just like, I this is my chance to prove myself and I don't want to fail. And I'm not going back to Orn. No, good lord, I'm not going back to Orno. And uh I just snapped. And I have not since that moment, Since that semester, I have never looked back and have

just gone gung home with my career. And I think that's a huge part of the reason why I'm twenty seven and I'm hosting a show in Los Angeles, of all places, three thousand, five hundred miles away from where I grew up, and I'm still like, not backing down,

still going full till all right. I want to go back to that pivot point because there are a lot of people who face challenges, and obviously for your age, the challenges that you faced wor substantial, and is you said that like you suddenly had this realization in your mind, but you go home for Christmas. I'm assuming I don't know exactly how the Canadian school schedule is, but you have to show your mom the f's and the d's that you have made. Where exactly do you make that

decision that things change for you? It's a pivot point. Like you said, you could have ended up back in Orno uh and uh and people like you're surrounded probably by a lot of the people that you went to high school with, and you're living a life where it's it's kind of a quiet scream of anonymity, right Like you're you're feeling like you didn't do what you wanted to do. And look, I mean you're still young. I mean, even if you had made that decision for a few years,

you could have still had a pivot point. But for you, it happened at eighteen or nineteen years old. What do you attribute that too to the mental toughness and the ability to make that pivot, Because I feel like there's a lot of people listening right now the podcast is called Wins and Losses who get to that point and it may not have as many significant factors that that

bring it to bear as yours did. But that they're at a quarter life crisis or their midlife crisis or whatever it is, and maybe they're younger and they might not go in the direction that you did to pour positivity into the situation. What do you attribute to how you were able to do it? Um, I think it would be easy for somebody. Let let's say my dad didn't pass away, and I went to school and I failed. I think it'd be easy for me to be like, um, is screw this, Like I'm not I'm just not cut

out for it. But I think that when you have a parent pass away or something traumatic happening, you automatically become a tougher person because you've been knocked down and you've in the process, you've just like grown this like outer shield or whatever you want to call it, UM, And nothing can hurt you as bad as that first thing that happened to you that was traumatic. And I don't know what it is. I always just call it snapping.

I just snapped, and I went home, and I saw how disappointed my mom was, And UM, I know how much she gave to my dad and to this family. I know, like she took so much time off from work, she was oh my god, probably in the deepest of depressions. She actually just sent me a text with kissing emojis. Isn't that weird? She literally just sent me that. That's so strange. Um, But you know, she was just the toughest of off. And I went home and I saw how disappointed she was, and I think that she just

I was disappointed in the situation. No one did anything wrong. My parents didn't treat me like ship like it was just a shitty situation. And I think that part of her was like, I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. Like she was upset and disappointed, but I think also part of her was like, I'm just so sorry that this is the life. These are the cards that you've been dealt, and this is clearly affecting you. And maybe I was hoping that it wouldn't affect you

as much as it as it is. And I just remember seeing that face and how upset she was, and I was just like, I cannot do this. My mom has been through too much already. I need to be the tough person that I am that my dad has made me and my mom has made me, and I need to I need to snap. I need to take care of my mom like I promise. I need to take care of my family like I promised. And this is not taking care of This is adding more stress and more pain. And I've already felt the worst of it.

I can be better and be stronger. And then I just went back after Christmas or whatever it was Thanksgiving, and I just I woke up one day and was just like re energized, and I thought about my mom all the time, and I thought about how sad she was, and I was just like, I am not contributing to that. There's no chance that I am going to be part of the reason that my mom is worse off than losing her husband. Like, I'm not going to add to that. And so she was a really big part of me

going back and just going like full till crazy. And you are incredibly smart and incredibly talented. Uh, not that you deserve compliments from me, but in that uh And and I don't want you to get used to them, but in that in that scenario, it's also interesting to me because people sometimes have talents and they aren't willing to acknowledge them themselves that they have them, and so they can fall back on Oh, this is just not for me. I'll go back to something that's safe. So

you pour yourself into it. You already knew that you were driven in some sense at sixteen, when you're doing these local television reports. Uh, and what are you doing? And and how quickly does it? The pivot happens. You start getting as are you doing more television? Are you doing more? Like? What what exactly are you doing while you're in school? Um? I started looking for internships, and I started being like, I am really good in the field, so I need to start looking at like the local

news stations or um. You know. I was just expanding my mind. I was like, how can I get better at this? How can I do? I want to start branching out and do acting stuff like I was just instead of like feeling sorry for myself all the time and and thinking about other things that didn't matter or didn't pertain to school, it was the complete opposite. I was like, how do I be the best of the best at this? UM? And I just poured all of that, you know, sad energy that I did have into going

full throttle. So I did an internship with our local news station that was in Toronto, which was like a much bigger deal. I remember one of my first days was like Osama bin Laden being shot and and and assassinated or whatever happened. Um, and that was like the first taste of like live news, and I was like, oh my god, this is this isn't the Picnics that I was covering. And on first local I was like

Allly moly, buckle up. Uh. And then for a really long time I thought I wanted to do news, and so I was like constantly trying to get in with those spaces. Never once did I want to do sports. I remember even at school we would have to like sporting reports, and I was like, I hate this. I'm not interested at all. I played the sports. I played volleyball. I'm the athlete. I don't want to be talking about other athletes. I just wasn't interested in whatsoever. So it's

hilarious what I've ended up doing with my life. But um so yeah, I just like I just poured myself in and I went I would stay up late, I would be at school until you know they kicked me out, editing pieces and and really branching out and just carrying so much more. Really that wasn't were you good at volleyball? By the way, I was excellent a volleyball. I didn't have crazy hops, like I couldn't jump very so they would oftentimes put me in the backup as like a

designated pass er. Um. But I was pretty good. Our team wasn't great, But I played for thirteen years. Like that was one thing that I kind of like after I played hockey. U my mom was al players, so she's like, why don't you try this? And so I played rap like travel volleyball for thirteen years. It was insane. I didn't even know there was travel volleyball. Is that a Canadian thing? I think it might. Well, no, there's a big amen travel volleyball in America. I don't know.

I've never even heard of anybody doing that. I'm sure they do. Um, but there was like a lot of girls in my high school were really into volleyball, and I played when I was a junior. I played on the senior team. That's how good I was. UM, And uh, yeah, it was pretty competitive. It was fun. We were playing tournaments like every weekend, all right, So you at that point then have decided you've come through, Uh, the challenge of finding motivation and everything else, and you kind of

know what you want to do. Do you feel like school is unnecessary at that point because you're like, hey, I know what I want to do for my career, and you know, I think about this. For instance, at Fox, two of our bosses, I think, uh, Eric Shanks and Brad Zeiger, neither one of them finished college because they're like, I want to do you know, sports production? I want

to and now obviously very successful at Fox. Did you feel like you were just wasting your time at that point in college where a little I mean university in college is different in Canada. So if you're going to university, you're going for four years, which is college in the United States, right, But if you're going to college in Canada, it's usually two years and it's usually some kind of

trade or it's more hands on. So if I were to go to university for broadcast journalism in Canada, the first two years would be writing essays and theories about whatever, and then the final two years would be in studio, getting your hands dirty, going out into the field. And I was just like, I don't want to waste my time with the first two years, like I've already been out in the field. So I want to go to college. I want to be done in two years, and I want to be working in that third year. So um

so yeah. So by the second year, UM, I never finished. I was missing one still to this day, i'm missing one credit to graduate. I do not need it now. UM. But I was going to go back uh for a final semester. And then um or I was gonna go back. I was gonna go back to school for theater. I decided that I did not want to do broadcast. I didn't want to do broadcasting anymore. For whatever reason, I really enjoyed those improv classes, and I was just like, I've always wanted to be an actor, Like why am

I still reading the news? This isn't exactly what I want to do. I'm still thinking about acting all the time. Um. And so I had one credit left and I was just like, I'm not I'm not going to finish this because I'm gonna go back to school for something else. And then, in that interim period of deciding I wanted to leave broadcast journalism behind and applying for universities for theater programs, I got my first big job it's like by accident. So then that kind of just led me astray.

So what was the job? So it was Toronto c which is Major League soccer. It was the Dream Job contest, So it wasn't even a job application. It was a contest that I saw on Facebook and it was like, whoever wins this contest gets to be on the jumble tron at halftime and interview players and do all this like fun stuff. And I was like, oh, this could be like a perfect side thing while I'm going to school. I still get to be in front of a camera. I still get to, you know, like play in that space.

So like, why not, I'm probably not gonna win. I don't know much about soccer, so let me just like apply. So I applied and just from my so you applied by how like doing a video? Like what's what's the application? First application process was literally just an application. It was like who are you? Why do you want this job? Um? And I cracked top fifteen just by my application, and my application was a little inappropriated. I made some I

made some choice. I the first I don't know how I got hired off this, but the first line you have to kind of like write a like a mini essay on why you should be hired. The first line of my essay was besides my love for balls dot dot dot, this is why you should hire me. That got me to crack the top fifteen. Somehow I have not some of that must have line must have caught somebody's eye. Um so you're handwriting this or do you like you're typing this online submission? It was an online submission.

Did you spend on the online submission? Oh? I remember, like just like saying screw it, I'm not gonna win this. So I remember maybe like twenty minutes, just like a quick type up like who are you? How old? Do you send us a picture? And why you want this job? So? Um so I cracked top fifteen, and then top fifteen had to send in a video, and I was just like, oh man, now I got this in the bag. So I made uh like a two minute sketch comedy sketch

on why I should be hired. And I got this guy to put on a brown wig and do keep you up eas like keep ups with a football with a soccer ball, and wear a duke, and we shot it as if it looked like I was doing, so they're like, oh, this girl is funny. And then I cracked the cracked the top five. That video is still available to watch on YouTube. By the way, I cracked the top five, and I was just like, how do you mean you crack the top five? Like people vote,

like how are you? How do you know where you're ranking. I think it was a combination of people voting and also uh, their choice, like toront his choice. So I think that they thought that was funny and that I could do some different things, and they're like, all right, this girl's entertaining, like let's let's bring her in for an interview. Um. So then I was top five and I went in for an interview and they know nothing

about soccer, like Toronto captains. I had the captain's name, Porston Springs written in ink on my hand for the interview, so you could come out and like cheat if you need to, So I could look down and say if they asked me any questions, I could be like, at least I know who the captain is. I can I can work Towards and Springs into my bullshitting um and uh. And I just like I won them over in the meeting I was myself and uh. I remember I was

working at the time at a bar. There was a torontof Sea bar um and so as a bartender, as a as a server, and so the final process of this contest, that is, they were going to invite all of us to center field at half time and announced the winner. There was five of us left, but I had to work the shift before the game. So I was in the in the restaurant serving all of these

Toronto Sea fans. And then my bosses let me go to the game to see if I won the contest, and my mom was with me, and it was raining, and I remember before we even went in, I was like, Mom, I don't want to do this, like I'm not gonna win. I'm gonna be embarrassed in front of the twenty people that are sitting in the stands right now. And She's like just go, like it's fine. What if you do win then? Uh? And I remember a halftime it was raining.

They pulled us all out in the middle field and they called my name and I was just like, oh my god, I won and I sprinted. I shook some hands like oh my god, this is and I sprinted to my mom because I knew where she was sitting, and we just like held each other and cried because this was the first win. This was my first win. I didn't finish school. Dad passes away, which procious first semester. Holy crap, I just want to I just beat up five people for this job that I probably did not deserve.

So her and I were just sobbing in each other's arms, like, oh my God, Like I'm gonna be able to take care of myself, You're not gonna have to pay my rent, me more, all of these things. It was just like a really beautiful moment. Uh. And then I was like, Okay, I guess I'm gonna blow off school for a little bit longer and be this host because they hired me

for some reason. They hired me Monday to Friday five, but I was an arena host, like they wanted me to do so much more than the initial job entailed. So I was just like, Okay, they paid me forty dollars. I was like, that's an instant amount of money. Yeah, you're what twenty years old. I'm twenty years old at the time. Yeah. Uh, that's literally the jackpot. You think you're rich with compared to the other twenty year olds, and so what does that job entail? Held nothing and

entailed absolutely nothing. I had to go and show up on the weekends and be the arena hosts. But because I was sitting at a desk every single day and going berserk with boredom, YouTube was hot and fresh. I started making usy videos, and I started making sketches within the office and doing like weekly videos that I would put out that the fans could watch, and um, those like kind of blew up in in like small YouTube terms,

and uh, Major League Soccer. The head office in New York City started seeing these videos and being like, we really like what you're doing, or would you ever be interested in moving to New York City? And I had been to New York City one time in my life before that, and I had um, oh, I can't remember the name of it. I think a Carnegie Delhi. Does that sound right? I had a Deli napkin from New York City posted on my cubicle because I just loved New York City so much. Um and I even had

written a contract to myself. I still have it. When I was about ten years old, I Rachel Bannetta will live in New York City by the time I'm twenty three, uh, and like signed with a in and everything. Uh. And so I spent a couple of years in Toronto, got this email, maybe like a year and a half in and they were like, we would like, we would like to bring you out to New York City if you're willing to move here. And so that's how I got

to from Toronto to New York. What do you think would have happened if you hadn't seen that Facebook ad? I have no idea. I would probably be a waitress in Toronto trying to make it as an actress. And that sounds super depressing to me. There's so many points in my career, as I'm sure we'll keep on talking that I could have gone left, but I went right, and I have no idea what would have happened if

I went left? Like it's insane. So you go to you take the MLS job, and I'm curious, I want to go back again because you said you're just bored at the office nine to five, like you are on you know, doing the games for Toronto FC. But that's where you come up with the idea of Hey, I'm going to do these videos? Do you ask anybody for permission? How do you go about taking the initiative there? Well, I knew how to operate a camera, I knew how to set up a tripod, and I knew how to

plug plug in a mic. So I was just like, do you as mind a Like, I'm just like I got an idea. I'm just gonna go like shoot some stuff from I'm not doing anything anyways, and they're like, yeah, go go give it a shot. And I also knew how to edit, So I was going around and first I did these things called six and sixty, so six

things to know about the game in sixty seconds. So I would go around the stadium six different spots and I'd be like, game time is six pm, and then like joke, joke, joke and character character character, and then number two would be like, you guys are gonna want to take the t TC, which is our trans transportation um like buses and trains and stuff like that in Toronto, uh, and give them like traffic reports. And it was all

it was like sixty seconds of just like fun. Uh. And I shot them myself, I wrote them myself, I vowed them, I edited them, and I put them all out myself. I just showed them like one or two and they're like, yeah, they look cool. Let's just put them on the on my YouTube on our YouTube channel, which was like not of consequence at the time because it was brand new and you know, uh, and so they put it up. But then people started to like them.

So I started making more and more in depth and more creative and more weird, and like someone got really weird. But that's what MLS noticed and that's what they liked, so led me here. Oh yeah, for sure. Probably if you oh gosh, if you searched Rachel Bannetta six and sixty t t FC, I'm sure you'd find some real gems. So you get So this is pretty wild. It means a pretty fast trajectory, right. You you get hired by

Toronto FC. You you start to establish yourself. You're fortunate in that the MLS is still like kind of a new league, and obviously you're experimenting in a new arena with YouTube and kind of the social ability to advertise in that way. And you get to MLS and what do you do in New York? What's your job there? So? Uh, in New York. It's kind of like Free Range. They're like, we want you to be our digital host. So anything we need you for, we want you to do, we

want to develop shows for you. So I got the show called Off Topic with Rachel Benetta, which is where I would like travel and meet up with an athlete and we would go out something, go out and do something that had nothing to do with what they did on the field. We would like go bowling or go you know, seeker shopping or whatever. And I was just it was all personality driven. It was like literally just

me hanging out with these dudes. And again those became so popular that we had athletes coming to us and being like we would like to do this, which was insane because there was still I only spent a year with them less. It all happened so so quickly. Um so just like really fun, personality driven stuff. And I would also still do like comedy sketches that I would write and we would put out, um and uh yeah. It was like all Free Rangers are like, we willing to keep on doing what you like to do, and

what you like to do is being yourself. So it was pretty It was a pretty fun job be sure to catch live editions of Out Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. Alright, So part of social media and the YouTube universe and just people being able to reach out to you comes

with some negativity. Were you getting almost all positive stuff because soccer fans tend to be a happy, go lucky group, or were you getting because one of the challenges I think people have in general is putting themselves out there having this health confidence or the tough skin. And obviously just from the lifestyle that you have led, maybe your

skin was tougher than most. But I feel like that's a big challenge, especially for people who were in their young twenties, because you may not you know, you don't have bubble wrap. People are mean on the internet. Did you read any of that or you just didn't read the comments or you haven't didn't really have it as an issue? Um. I mean, I I feel like, knock on wood, I've been really, really lucky even up until this point in my career that people tend to be

pretty nice to me on social media. Um, but I think that when I was at MLS, it is such a niche sport. There is not a ton of It's growing for sure, but there's still a not a ton of people that watch. Uh I'm alive. So I was putting all these new videos who which were very new. They've never seen anything really like this female host digital host, she knows a bit about soccer. Okay, this is cool.

That has probably been the time in my career that I have been like wreck niced in airports, more in malls. People would come up to me at restaurants because it's so niche. People want to soak up like every single ounce of content that we have um and and soccer fans are hardcore, like they're really into their teams. Um So it was really cool, like that was the first time that I actually felt like, oh my gosh, this is like a nice feeling. People like what I'm doing.

People are watching what I'm doing. They're starting to follow me on social media. People are coming up to me in the stands at soccer games and being like, oh my god, I'm such a big fan off topic or I'm such a big fan to get me in there the other show I was doing. So it was a really exciting time. I remember the first time I hit like ten thousand followers on Twitter. Iuse was like, oh

my god, I'm famous. And then people whenever I would go home, people started calling me Hollywood and I wasn't even living in l A. But just the even those so miniscul members compared to you know, people on social media today. Um, but it was a really exciting time for me. I so it's like, oh my gosh, people like what I'm doing. This is really cool. So it was also huge boost and confidence as well. So what

happens then? So I was about six months into that job, and again, um, people started seeing what I was doing, and all of a sudden, I had ESPN and Fox Sports knocking on my door. And I have never told this story publicly. I told the story to you last week. And it took me a while to agree to tell this story, but I guess I guess I'll put it

out there now. Um. So, uh, ESPN gave me a really great offer and I was still up to my ears in debt, and um, I just started dating somebody new in New York City who's still my current boyfriend now. And uh, as much as the offer with Fox Sports sounded like awesome, like oh my god, I want to move to l A. Oh my god, I want to work for the same company as Jay and Dan, who are like kings Kings Kings Kings from where I come from.

Um uh, Like every every sign pointed to Fox Sports, but I was like, I don't want to move New York. I haven't even been living here a year yet, and more money, and so I chose ESPN. Plot twist. I said not to Fox Sports at first, and I went down the route of ESPN and um, everything was Seinfield delivered. They gave me my offer. I was like, a yes, police bank account is going to be looking good. They they got me my visa approved. Like everything was Seinfield delivered.

And I was about to go to Africa because I just started volunteering with a nonprofit. I was like weeks away from going Africa. Um, and I was going to go to Africa, like the beginning of December and then January. Oh one, I was supposed to start with ESPN. So what year, Um, this was about like three and four, three years ago. So twenty six, you tell your mom, Hey, I'm gonna go work at ESPNE. I said, oh my god, Mom, I am gonna make in bee bee beep at ESPN,

and she's just like, holy ship. It was. It was amazing, Like it was such an exciting time. Not that money is everything, but it was just like again, like, oh my god, You're gonna be able to be on your own now and I don't have to worry about you so much. You're gonna be able to pay off all your debt, You're gonna be living in New York City, you got a you got a nice boyfriend that I really like. Like from her point of view, she was just like, thank Jesus all Olivia. Um and so accepted

everything everything Seinfield delivered. I remember I kept my ten that my agent gave me to sign the contract. I think I still probably have it somewhere. That is how well it's like ESPN, you know, like that's it's like a crazy I came from or no, No No, and all of a sudden, now I have Fox Sports and ESPN knocking on my door, two of the biggest sports places in the entire world. Holy crap. How did I end

up here? Um? And uh and So I signed everything everything Seinfield delivered sent off about a couple of days before I leave for Africa. Um My, what would have been. My boss and I were chatting. We were like excited. We're talking about like where where my guest was gonna be. I was gonna still work out in Manhattan. I wasn't gonna have to go to Bristol um and Uh. I on an email from HR and they were like, hey, because we offered you the job and everything's like all

Sinfield delivered. You didn't apply like a normal person, So we don't have any information about you. We don't have your email, we don't have your phone number, we don't have your emergency contact, we don't have your resume, like nothing, and as HR, we need all of those things to put on file. And I was like, sure, no problems, send send your applications like whatever, I'll fill it all out. So um, I'm filling it out. It's like emergency contact,

cell phone number, email, did it out? Where did you go to school? What years did you go to I went Seneca College from two thousand seven to two thousand nine or two eleven whatever. It was not indicating that I did not graduate. I was probably making it seem like I had because at that point sein Field delivered, have this job. Who cares if I went to school? Or not period, whether I graduated or not as a whole other story. I've been working for like four years

at this point. Um. And so I sent that off, didn't even think about it, flew to Africa, having a great time helping the children, YadA, YadA ya. I got an email from HR being like, hey, so we called Seneca and I was like, oh, no, ps, they're saying that you didn't graduate, um, that you're missing one credit, cared to explain, and I was just like yeah, totally. My dad didn't think it was that big of a deal. Like,

like I said, signed contracts, everything signed, feel delivered. You already have like my direct deposit ready to go virganuary oh one, Like I already know where I'm sitting in the office. So bad mistake by me, lazy mistake by me, just like kind of thinking that this was not going to be a big deal because I didn't I already had the job. I really didn't think that they were going to look into my past at all, minus like maybe a what you call it a criminal record, which

I cleared I used. I'm a perfect person. Um but uh, and so I was just like, oh my gosh, this this is that like I didn't even know at that time. I was like, yeah, sorry, I didn't pass. I'm missing one credit. Here's my transcript something my transcript which was showing that I was only missing one and I was like,

totally my bad. Um. You know, I can talk to anybody who wants to to explain the situation, but I really don't think it's a big of you know, I'm going to go back to Africa and enjoy this time off that I have before I started crazy new job. And even what would have been my boss, Cam and I were talking. He's like, yeah, sorry, you have to deal like you know it's and I was like, I'm sorry that I had made this MS, but I'm gonna go back to what I was doing, still not really

worrying about it. And then I got a phone call, maybe like twenty four hours later, and he's just like, are you sitting down house. I was like, oh, in Africa. He called me in Africa and was like are you sitting down? And ilse just like I am now and he's just like hr at ESPN. I guess because they are by the book something's happened in their past or whatever, or because it's owned by such a big company, Disney. Um,

they are black and white. By the book, nothing can be off even after we've sent you the contract, everything sign feel delivered. Nothing can be false on your records. And because you put that you graduated, we have to revoke your offer. I'm in the middle of nowhere on the phone with somebody from New York City telling me that when I get back from Africa, I do not have a job. And so I was devastated. I was

absolutely devastated. I was just like, all this hard work that I have been kicking my own ask for is down the drain because I wrote something on a piece of paper that I didn't put enough thought into, and I was thinking. I was like, oh my god, they're gonna take away my visa. I'm gonna have to move back in with my mom. I'm gonna have no way to make money. I've already said goodbye to everybody. I've already told everyone I'm going to ESPN what the hell

am I going to do? And thankfully that that what would have been my boss. He was very understanding and apologetic. He was just like, I am so sorry that this is happening. This is insane. I've talked to everybody that there is to talk to, but this is the final stance. This is what we gotta do. And he was it's like, I will talk to people at box, I'll talk to people at MLS. Whatever you need to get those offers back on the table, Like I will really help you out.

So did you call from Africa? How did like? So you hang up with that guy? You? Uh? And by the way, I'm Clay Travis is for Rachel ban Ada. You're listening to Winds and Losses, you hang up the phone and you do what when you're in Africa and you get that info? Cried, cried, and I think drank a beer because I was in shock. I was like, oh my god, I didn't even know that this could happen. Um and uh, I don't know what. I called my

mom right away. I think I called my agent because I was just like, uh, and I had to explain to him when it happened, which explaining it was just embarrassing, Like I was like, this is such a stupid mistake on my part, Like it was just it was dumb.

And I was starting to really be self conscious because I was like, wait, a sect, these people are gonna start thinking that I'm a liar like that I was trying to fib about like, you know, what happened at school, and that I was trying to pretend that I've asked. And so I had explained all this to my agent and he was just like Jesus, what did I sign up for? So that he immediately put out calls to

Fox Sports and MLS. Thankfully, after some you know, massaging. Again, I had to tell everyone what happened, had to tell him LS what happened, had to tell Fox Sports what happened. Like, I was devastated. I was like, people are going to start questioning my character. This is by far the worst thing that's ever happened in my career. Still to this day gives me divers um. And uh, you know, I've I've never been one to get into trouble. I'm not that kind of I'm like a goody two shots minus

the one time I got suspended in high school. It's a different story every day. Um we're talking about there. It was I, uh, this was like the first time that I ever felt like I was in trouble. Was like, oh my god. And uh so they put out a bunch of calls to people that knew me, that had worked with me before, and they were like, you know, as Rachel Shady, like what should we think about this? And they're like, oh my god, no, she's hard working.

That like basically everything that I've told you about my career, people very much vouched for me, and they were like, this is a mistake. You need to hire this girl a sap And thankfully Fox Sports uh came back and they're like, we still really want you, and and even up to their offer in the first place, which was insane, like sinisoun heard of if anything, they would say any any other company would probably offer less because you could

would have gone there for ten bucks um. And so I was like, yes it yes, fun for the yests. I wanted to sign with you in the first place. Oh my god, yes, I says a Jest signed Field. Fluid was like, looked. I had to tell all this to my boyfriend too. I was just like, I'm not gonna be living here in a week because everything happened so fast. I had to get rid of my apartment. I had to go to l A. I had to

find an apartment. I had no money at the time, saved for a big cross country move like that, because I assumed that I was saying in New York, um, and I was just like, we gotta break up. I'm moving to l A. And this is devastating and but my career is number one and I gotta go. And so UM, I moved to l A and started working with Fox Sports and started working on their digital team,

and um, they've been absolutely mind boggling incredible. In fact, I've resigned a new contract just about every single year that I've been here because they keep on making they they kept on making my role bigger and bigger. At first I signed on to do a digital thing, and then I signed on to do digital TV, and then I signed on to do digital and even more TV, and now I'm a full TV contract. Like they've just believed in me and pushed me. And I mean that

that's insane. I've signed a new contract basically every single year that I've been here because my role just keeps on changing. Um. So, who went to bat for you at Fox? Um, Matt Schneider who ended up hiring me. And now it's one of my really good friends who is a good guy, and I hope he's listening here. So so he would that great higher, great Higher now at the NFL network. Yeah. And uh and Scott Riddell,

who's still a reducer at Fox Sports. He was the one that kind of called around to a couple of people. Him and I were friendly, and he's just like, I know you're not this person, but I am going to go call some people that you've worked with and just kind of get an over, you know, more people who have your back. And so he called a ton of people and we're like, yes, hire her, yes, hire her, yes higher. So he could bring that to Schneider and be like, there's so many people vouching for her, like

we need we need this girl. Um and and madel is also an awesome guy, by the way, and both of them, when we'll get to this in a minute. When walk it In happened, they immediately called me and they're like, you're gonna absolutely love working with Rachel. She's fantastic. Um And So, but did you think going back to that Africa when you get that call, did you think, like, my career is over? Oh? I remember sitting out. We would wake up early early because we were going into

these really small villages that were like hours away. I remember sitting out at three thirty in the morning. We were getting our car packed and I was like three or four and the early morning prayer was happening, and so I remember sitting Maybes later on the day, I was remember sitting on the stoop listening to this prayer being just like shouted into one of just like sirens all over, just being echoed all over, and just looking into like this guy and being like it's over. I'm done.

I'm gonna help to go home and face the music. And I've really messed up this time and I need to grow up. And I was just really angry at myself because at that point, I was just like, this was an incredible experience. Now with the what am I gonna do? What which path am I on? Now? Like I just had no idea what was in store, and I had no idea that Fox was gonna put the offer back on the table. Thank thank god. I was

just like, thank you so much. I would absolutely love to take this, but I'm going to go with option A because A, B, and C and I was actually Matt Niner the one that I turned down, and I think he understood. I was just like, I need to stay here. I've got a new boyfriend. I'm close to my family. My dad passed away a few years ago. I still need to be close to them. Um, YadA, YadA, YadA.

And he was super understanding in the first place. I'm so glad that him and I had such a great connection because it was easier for me to call back and be like, hey, so this is what happened. Please take me back. So what do you do with Fox? You have Fox? Yeah? Started your digital videos, right, Yeah. I started working at this thing called at the Buzzer. So it was like any video of a guy getting like a softball to the nads, we would be like,

oh my god, check out this viral video. Then maybe like thirty second things that we would Sometimes it would be like during commercials they would roll on Fox, So I was getting on TV in that way. But usually it was just like videos, like viral videos that we would put back out on Twitter. Um. But that ended about like a year after it got canceled a year after I started with Fox, and they're like, we still really want to use you, so we're gonna keep you around.

You're gonna still do more digital videos, but we're gonna keep you in the soccer space. So that's kind of when I veered off at Fox and started doing like only soccer um And so I was doing soccer digital like literally up until last year, like last summer when I got locked in. I had just gotten back from the World Cup in Russia. So we'll get to that in a second. But so you and I meet for the first time that I remember at the Fox super Bowl party because you had done what did you do?

Like a Lady Gaga video? Yeah, I wrote a sketch that they were actually gonna put in the pre show, uh, the night before the super Bowl, which was like still insane, it's crazy, uh, And so I wrote a sketch. So I was going for that, and then we were also just like going to go shoot some fun stuff for

that was a beautiful thing about digital. It's just like, let's just go hang out, let's make some videos, let's put them up on Facebook and they'll probably get insane amount of views because that was just like the Facebook algorithm at the time, and and on Twitter and stuff like that too. So I went there and then I was also I did some stuff for Garbage Time for Kan Nolan Show, which was super fun. Uh, and so

branching it. That was like the first time that my current boss, now Charlie, our crew boss, was just like, Hey, we want to start getting you more on TV. So you're gonna come to the super Bowl, You're gonna do garbage time, You're gonna do a couple of hits for them. And I was just like, okay, let's do it. Um. So yeah, constantly just like putting me in situations so we're terrifying. But that made me grow so much in

the process over the last two years. All right, so then you like do what like so you you had you set in for Cowherd a couple of times, like as as Fox starts to think, okay, maybe this girl can be on television. You said earlier you wanted to be an acting and actress and things like that. Were you doing any kind of any kind of things in that respect? And I think probably this is a long question, but people who have listened and are listening now can

tell you're quick. Right, Like you said, you do a lot of improv but you think and talk rapidly, which is which is obviously good for unscripted television. What were you doing, like, what was the transition point from video

to television. I is a part time student. Basically I was in class four times a week, whether it was like straight up acting class or improv classes that I was taking at ground Links, which is like ground Links is home to so many s and l alums like You've got Will Ferrell, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiggs just to

name a few, like Phewee Herman went there. So it was it's like the ultimate school for comedy in l A. So I was going to that taking uh, like straight up acting classes and just like really fully immersing myself into the creative process, which was all all helping with all of the comedy sketches that I was writing for

the Fox digital side as well. UM. And as I was starting to do more comedy sketches like this has just been a trend in my career, like doing more creative stuff and putting it out there, I started getting UM. I started getting meetings with people on the studio side, on the TV side, and they're like, who are you, what are you doing, where did you come from, and how do we get you to do more? So it was UM I've always said over the past few years, as like I've develop a deep Fox from the beginning.

I want to grow up here. I want to grow and become whoever I'm supposed to be at Fox, because they're so nurturing and so patient, and we'll we'll let you make a mistake, uh, and we'll let you grow in your space. And I feel like so many times people are like it not doing so good, let's grab her off, and they let me squirm and kind of figure it out myself, which I'm so thankful for. UM. But it was it was just a lot of meetings

and sometimes I would get a chance. I remember the first time I filled in for on Coward Show, Chris Carter and Nick Wright. We're doing like a test run for their show that was being developed, and so they were filling in, so it wasn't even the herd. It was a three man team. And maybe they were testing me for to host that show as well, although that was pretty surely on. I don't think they were doing that. UM and I bombed, Oh my gosh, I bombed so hard.

I could not figure it out because it was the first time I was on television and then in the US, and I remember somebody came out. I kept on screwing up because I was doing what would have been Christine like he's role at the times to just like the news updates, and there was like a um, you know, Colin would be like okay, and over to Christine with the news, and then there was like a doo doo doo dooo, like a musical thing, and I would never

stop for the musical thing. I'd be like, Okay, the net of the day is And I did that like four times in a row, over talking over the music. You can't even hear what I'm saying anyways, and I'm like, oh, I just kept on forgetting about it. And I was also so nervous, and I remember somebody coming out I'd done it twice, somebody and I had a third hit in the show. Somebody came out and was just like, he screwed this up twice, don't take it three for three. And I was like, oh my god, I'm fired. I'm

fired from a job. I don't even have um And it was just a bad day. I did you screw it up the third time or did you get it right on the third chap? I think I got it right for the third time, thankfully, but Chris and Nick were probably like, who is why were we up with her? Where's Christine? Uh? And so it was a while. It was it was a while where I was back on TV. Gave me a second to figure it out on the

digital side. Um. But then uh, I just started feeling in like randomly, randomly here and there, uh for Christine and I actually got to sit in with Colin one time, then another couple of times. It was like Doug Gottlieb who fills in for calling sometimes. And then uh, I think the kicker was going away to the World Cup, and I was doing a lot of TV at the World Cup because we had so um, we had so

many different programs happening. We had Tonight Show, we had a daily show, I had my digital show, which very much felt and looked like a television show. I was reading off prompter and we were doing it live and yeada, YadA, YadA. Oh my god, no, just once, I've been to Germany. Just that's it. So that's a big deal for people who don't realize you went over to Russia. The US misses the World Cup, which is like just devastating to be so bad. Where were you when the US got

beat by Trinidad into Artago. I think it was right where Um. I was at a bar. We were doing a live stream we were doing I was doing a lot of soccer covers even leading up to the World Cup. We had like a pre show in a post show anytime the US had a qualifier. So I was at a bar and we had to go live seconds after they had gotten knocked out when I was just stew Holden,

who used to be on the national team. He is an analyst for FS one now and calls crazy games like the World Cup final on Fox, and um him and I just had to like go through this fifteen twenty minute live show of being like, Okay, so the US is in the World Cup, but we're still going to the World Cup. We're gonna be in Russia in the summer. And it was just like a weird It was. It was a weird balance of like being excited and being sympathetic to all the American people watching that they

didn't just make it into the World Cup. So um so I covered it every second leading up to it and then was there for the actual thing, which was pretty incredib ball, so it was incredible for everybody who watched it you also ended up hospitalized. What happened there? Um, I woke up. We were working insane hours, like I was doing my show like I mentioned, and then I

was also doing this tonight show. So oftentimes I was working like twa like full days and uh and then also like going home and watching the games too, so it's not like I ever stopped. And um. So I woke up one day and I was really sick. I just did not feel good. I couldn't get out of bed. I showed up to work and they were like, go home. You look bad. If you get anyone else sick, we're in trouble. So you need to go home and rest. Um. And I didn't like vomit or anything like that. I

just felt really weird. I felt weak, I felt like nauseous, and I was like, I don't know what's going on with me. So went home, slept for like fifteen hours something crazy, and then woke up the next day and was like, Okay, I feel pretty good, showed up to work, worked another crazy day. The next morning. I woke up usually because of the time difference, we were shooting later on in in the night, so I would finished until like three am, and I go home and then I

would sleep until like noon or whatever. Um. I woke up at eight am the next day and I was just like, this is not good. I still need to be sleeping for a few hours if I'm going to be able to stand. Uh. And I felt really sick again, like super nauseous, and I just like I I just started huking like so bad. I texted our team doctor who was kind of like traveling around to all the different hotels that was in charge of Fox, and Uh. I was just like, I'm putting bad shape. You need to

come to my room, like, please tell me. And he when he found me, I was on the bathroom floor because it was cold the tile, and I was like burning up and I just couldn't move. I was just like, if you touch me, I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna throw up around your face, so we better not touch me. And uh. He took a shot of morphine and put it in a butt and that helped me to not vomit.

And they've transported me from the tile floor in my bathroom to the hospital and uh and not in an ambulance, No, we had like some security cars so they transport transported me to the hospital, and um, I went in there and had like a bunch of scans and they're like, your gall bladder is more than twice its normal size and we have no idea why, so we're gonna have to do some tests. Um. At that point, thankfully I did. The morphine had made me stop vomiting, vomiting and feeling

so nauseous. So I was like, Okay, at the time, you're in a Russian hospital, right, I'm in a Russian hospital. And as you can tell by my history, I hate hospitals. They give me anxiety. They freaked me out. I spent way too much time in them as a kid. I cannot stand hospital. So I'm like literally watching Netflix on my phone because like I can't think. I cannot be here in my mind, I Am not going to sit here and stare at the ceiling feeling like super nauseous still.

And I remember at the time, I hadn't been fully admitted yet because they hadn't figured out my insurance, and so I was in like a weight like one of those like waiting rooms where there's like a ton of beds and you're only really separated by like a sheet. Um. I was in one of those for like probably three hours, and uh, I remember the wheeled this guy in. Keep

in mind, I'm so nauseous. They wheeled this guy in from Boston of all places, and this guy has severe diarrhea and has had diarrhea for forty eight hours and would go into full detail in length for the next twenty minutes while I sat and choked down my vomit for it was it was laughable. I was just like, this is not happening to me. Why why are we both in this Russian hospital? So they ended up admitting me.

I spent the next three days in the hospital begging them to let me go because I wanted to get back to work. I had to have a fill in which was just like this is my show. I need to get through the World Cup like this, I need a medal of honor. Once I finished it, uh, and I was, I was like devastated, and I just like watched TV and ate crutons and waited until my goldbladder went down to normal size. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk a lot end up in the nation.

Catch all of our shows at Fox sports radio dot com and within the I heart radio app search f s R to listen live. I'm Clay Travis. Is Rachel Bannetta talking about our gallbladder on Wins and Losses and they figure out what caused your gallbladder to just like double in size. They said, it's a combination of things. It was like, it could have been stressed, it could

have been eating different foods, which we absolutely were. The food in Russia was um as you can assume pretty different um not sleep, all of these things, and I was like, I check all those boxes. So yeah, it makes sense that I have a large callblatterer. But it just took. It took like three days and I started feeling a little bit normal. But then I couldn't eat normal food for like a couple of a couple of weeks. I had to have like boiled chicken and rice just

until my my body went back to normal. So you come back from you survive living in Russia, you come back and you want to do television maybe? And when did you hear so walk it In is being worked on. I guess that we're like the next summer, right, like the next summer after the after the World Cup? Or was it the same summer, I literally from from Russia. Like, let's say on a Friday, and I got an email saying, Charlie Dixon, who's our boss now, wants to have lunch

with you on Monday. Are you around? And I was like yeah, sure, And so I come to the Fox lot and I have lunch with Charlie and Charlie's is like there, I'm developing a show, um and uh Chris, and I'm gonna host it. And I really want you to be the fill in, like whenever she's sick or wants to go on vacation. I want you to be the designated number one fill in. That way, you're gonna get reps on TV, you're gonna learn this space, You're

it's it's just like the perfect place for you. And he says like, if it's not this, if you're not interested in this, it's something else, like we definitely want to get you on TV this year and and like you know, more experience in yeah, yah YadA. And I was just like I'm absolutely down, Like I will start tomorrow whatever you need. And he's like, okay, great, good here, glad you're into it. Blah blah blah blah. Somehow from that Monday to literally the following Monday, ship hit the

van and he called me on money. He was like, okay, so how would you actually like to host the whole thing because that's that's that's up for graps now, UM. And I was just like, yes, yes, yes that's terrifying, but yes I'm in UM. And so he's like, Okay, we're gonna like test it out and you can meet the guys and and we'll see. He's like, I'm not promising anything, but let's just you know, go to the next step and and see what this looks like. And so we were all I mean, you guys were flowed

to l A still had no idea. I think in their minds they were like, okay, well she's gonna host it. Still to me, I was just like, okay, this is very much like a tryout. I need to be very proper and like just like really well everybody. And uh so I showed up to the meeting, um Met stal Met Todd had met you once before, and uh we

just had like a really great first table read. I don't know what it was, um, but do you remember that like all of us were just like clicking and driving and like making fun of each other from the get go. From the beginning, this is like how we have done this show. Uh. And I remember like people looking around at each other at the table and they're like, Okay,

this is it. This is a group. Uh. And then like a couple of days later, they Charlie called me into his office and he's like, so we wanted to host this show, and I just pretend vomited. I was like okay, and uh yeah, and then we just did like a bunch of trier and so a bunch of rehearsals leading up to the show and then it was lunched.

So probably from the time that I found out I was getting the show, it was like two weeks until it actually happened two weeks three weeks to be And by the way, Charrissa decided she had so much going on she couldn't do a daily one hour show, which then left it open for who was going to be the host, and you just swept right in. But talking about taking risks, and I'm Clay Travis, Rachel Barnetta Wins and Losses. You've taken a lot of risks and a lot of creative risk in your career, but you didn't

know anything about gambling like that. You you you were like, yeah, I'll do the show, but you're I mean you said earlier like you didn't know much about soccer when you started MLS. You just kind of threw yourself into to it, and they gave you like a binder to try to learn as much as you could before gambling started. Right. One thing that I'm really saying full for is I'm a quick learner. If I'm if I'm like dedicated to something,

then I will pick it up. Um. And so that, yes, they gave me a binder, the Gambling Bible, and I went home and I just started pairing through that thing and had somebody like sit with me and kind of like understood, like because gambling, I feel like when you first look at it's a lot of numbers. It's like

super intimidating. It's like WHOA, this is the language that I don't even understand sometimes until somebody sat with me and talked to me as a human being and like discussed every kind of game that you could play in terms of sports gambling, and I just got it. I picked it up, and then I just had to learn the terms and like how to say the numbers and the way that we say it with the halves and and the plus and minus and YadA YadA, YadA um

and then I just figured it out. But also, football is not something that I was like, I've covered soccer for the past few years, and even if it was something that I was watching, I haven't. I haven't covered in a way that you're full on talking about it every single day, especially on TV, and TV basically have to be pretty bang on about everything that you're talking about in terms of like facts, unless you're Clay Travis. Um. So that was also something I was having to learn

as well. Uh So I dove into sports gambling, I dove into football, and I picked it up relatively quickly. But then it was also like finding the confidence to talk about it too, um and talk about it in like a way that you would talk to your friends, because that's exactly what our show is like, a bunch of people chatting about, you know, what games they like and what kind of bets they like. So it was a lot of work. It was a ton of work.

I remember like being very close to panic attack a couple of the nights leading up to our first show because I was like, I don't know if I can do this, Like I think they've got the wrong person. Um, But thankfully things things went the right way. How So we talked about that first table read. We were it's not on the lot. We're sitting there. For people who

may not understand what that's like. It's there's no cameras, there's no dress up, like, there's no you know, makeup or anything, or nobody's dressed in fancy clothes or any thing like that, but you just kind of do a mock show. And almost from the get go it was really really smooth. I mean, I knew Furman, I didn't know sal at all. I didn't. I didn't know you other than to have met you at that Super Bowl party, and so I don't think you knew anybody, right, Like

you didn't know any of the three of us. No, I I didn't know anyone. I remember our boss calling me and being like, do you know who cousins Salas? And I was like, yeah, that's that name. Sounds really familiar. And I had my computer in front of me and I looked it up and I'm like, oh, yeah, Jimmy kimbl Okay, I got that uh, and then I had met you literally one time before, um, and I didn't know Todd Furman, So I was just like I was

going in pretty blind for sure. So how so first of all they announced the show and are you like people immediately are going to say things bad about me? Right? Like? I did anybody say anything bad about sal Or Furman to you? Um? I don't think so. I think it was all yeah. I remember my mom calling me and being like who, Like what is this Clay's guy? What is this deal? Like? Why is everyone one? You know?

You would sink when you announced the show that everyone's going to be like raw raw raw, Yes, like this is amazing, congratulations and they're like I would watch it if Clay Travis wasn't on it. It's like what am I signing up for? Oh my goodness? Um, but I was excited. I remember there's a photo of my mom that my aunt's hook when I called her and told her that I got the job, and it's just like her with a huge smile on her face being like, oh my god. So that was pretty cool. But it's exciting.

I mean, it's like a new venture and people that have watched you grow for as long as people have been watching me grow. I think when I say, like, all right, I'm moving on to TV, people are like that is awesome. Like I said, I've had a lot of I've been really lucky and had a lot of uh positive people following me, and so I I don't really get a lot of nasty stuff unless you're Tom Allen Bauld. Yeah, of course. So how nervous were you

before the first show? Um, I was freaking out. I was freaking out, and I was freaking out for a long while after that. Like I the first half of of our season, I probably didn't sleep much. Like I was just like constantly in fear of getting something wrong. And like that dates back to when I was a kid, Like I didn't have somebody who was being like great job, Like you should have all the confidence in the world, because, like like I said, my parents were busy with other things.

And so my therapist has helped me and navigate that road. Um, but uh so I'm constantly just in fear of like being wrong, saying the wrong thing, not doing well, screwing up, getting fired. I mean even yesterday we had our you know, we've we've had our season premiere of of season two of Blocking In, and um, my boss was just like, yeah, I got I got a couple of notes. I'm like, you know, you have to call me tonight and tell me those notes now or else I will think about

it until tomorrow morning. And they were all good notes. But he called me like, I know, I had to call you because you're just gonna go crazy over these things. And he's like, I'm guess I'm glad that you know the kind of person I am now. Um, but it took a while to kind of find my footing and

get comfortable. And live television is terrifying when you're first starting out, and I think people, I'm sure people realize that it's a scary thing, but when you're sitting in front of the camera, you feel so I felt like a kid. I felt like a child that first day, like, oh my god, somebody please hold my hand and walk

me through this because I cannot do it alone. But thankfully I just like blacked out and got through it and got through the next day and the next day and the next day, and now I'm like, you know, pretty used to it and feel much more confident about everything in terms of you know what, we're talking about, but it was pretty scary there for a while. So what I think is fascinating about you in particular is you're young, um, but you don't like you can be made fun of on the television show in a way

that I think a lot of people can't. Um, and like people make fun of me all the time. Whatever I'm forty, I've been through, you know, like that's kind of been my life story for a while. But I feel like in this Instagram age that we're in, so many people are like they want to put out a version of themselves is perfect, but you're comfortable in the imperfect. Why do you think that is? Um? I don't know.

I think I just want to be I know it's gonna sounds so losory, but I just want to be me because I look at so many other people on Instagram they're like putting out this perfect version of themselves and like, to be honest, I definitely curate my Instagram to what I wanted to be. I'm not like showing all the sad stuff that I've talked about on here, um, but I feel like it would be so easy for me to post photos where I'm like looking good and you know, feeling good, and I feel like my followers

would probably jump way up. And you know, anytime I even post a selfie on my Instagram, it's like astronomically more like said, if I were to post the sunset picture, you know what I mean. So I can see what works, but I just don't want to be that. I feel like I absolutely want to be an advocate for women in this space in sports and in television, and there's

not a ton of us. And so when I'm looking at somebody, whether it's on social media or TV and I and they've got like, you know, gigantic boobs and they look perfect, I'm like, I can't do that. I can't be that person. But maybe if somebody's watching me and I'm being a goofball and totally imperfect and messing up my lines and laughing at myself, and maybe they're like, Okay, I can do that and be probably better than that.

I just I do think about that a lot, and I would never want to be somebody that I'm not and and that version of you know, and kudos to those women who can feel comfortable in their skin and be sexy and all that stuff. That's just like not who I am, and I never want to be like that. I just want to be the goofy me that I am. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app

search f s R to listen live. We're talking to Rachel bonetto wins and Losses. You get tagged a lot on things that I say or do, and people are like, how in the world can you stand that awful human being, Clay Travis. People, A lot of people who are listening to this right now are already going to like me

or at least tolerate me. But also there will be people who are listening to this right now that are fans of yours that don't really know me, or they are fans, or they're just finding this, And I hope this is something people will listen to for a long time in the future, and they're listening to this after you just won an Emmy or after you after you

just won some award for an acting related venture. But what I would argue is people don't have to agree on everything to like each other, right, And I address this because I'm sure that you're gonna get tagged as soon as I put it up, Like, how in the world can you spend time with Clay like you and I don't agree on a lot of different things in the world. I don't agree on one of different things with my wife or my parents everybody else. I tend

to get along with everyone. And I feel like there's a sort of zeit guest that's out there right now of if you don't agree with everything, you shouldn't be hanging out with this person. And I feel like, even though we disagree on things, you probably agree with me. That life would be kind of boring if you only hung out with people who agreed with you on everything.

I think that's true. And I think that, if anything, you have taught me that this year, because I feel like, you know, I'm, you know, pretty to the left and I don't agree with some of the things that that you post, and um, same with some of my family, Like some of my family voted for Trump and I don't necessarily agree with that, but um, that doesn't necessarily

mean they're an absolutely atrocious person. And I think that, Um, it's like our society is a mess right now because all of us hate each other because of where we stand politically, and that's just never really been the case before, and it's only going to make problems worse. So I think that, you know, going into this show, I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna have to Travis. He was just talking about boobs on CNN, Like, how am I

going to what you think? By the way, when you heard that, I said that I was the first amendment in boobs absolut you know, like you were Dingleberry, I was like, this guy's a loser. What is he doing? He's trying to get a right, like a rise out of women. And I was, I was, I remember you.

I was talking to somebody, one of my girlfriends who was also working in sports, and we were talking about it the day that you did that, and I was just like I was pissed because it was at a time I think, like the me too stuff was happening, and it was just a time to be angry as a woman. And I was just like, how dare he? Like that's just so stupid. Give us a little bit more than that, and like talk about women in a way that we deserve to be talked about, not just

like from our boobs, and I was. I was genuinely angry. And then you know, people I say stupid stuff too, and not to say that, you know, you should have said that. You shouldn't have said that. We don't need to go back into that. But I think that just because somebody tweet something or says something that does not tell you totally and completely who that person is. And I think that that's what I've learned this year from

doing the show. And sal and I had a lot of conversations about this in the beginning because him and I are, you know, relatively similar, and you know what we what we think and what we feel. I don't mean to speak for him, but um, Tim and I have this conversation like we totally thought we were gonna hate you because we thought you were gonna be a

butt head, and you're not. You invited my mom into your home, and my mom's met your mom, and our families have come together and you've been nothing but nice and supportive to me and my career. And it's a little bit disappointing that you're not as big of an asshole as I thought you were going to be, because I was fully prepared to hate you you are. You know,

I think that you're right. I think that um, you know, I I'm not going to agree with everything that you say, and you're not gonna agree with everything that I say. But that doesn't mean that we should not try to be friends. Because what I've realized is that you and I do have a lot in common and we stand on the same ground in some places, and that's what makes people friends, and that's what makes relationships happen. And I think that more people should have, uh an outlook

on that. And in fact, I spend some time with my my uncle who you know, otherwise I'm I have nothing in common with a couple of weeks ago and him and I had a conversation which we hadn't had in like a couple of years, and I tried to be on common ground because that's trying, like, that's me trying to look at the world in this light. Now, you know, Uh, last couple of questions for you, and thanks for all the times. Uh, the last couple of questions for you. You're not even ten years out of

high school. If that's weird, Yeah, And I still think that's crazy. And I think there's a lot of people who are going to be listening and think that's crazy too, because you remember your ten year high school unions or whatever else. But if you were about to have your twenty year high school reunion, so eleven years from now, a decade plus, what would you hope you have done by thirty eight that you haven't done b by thirty eight. I hope that, first off, I really just hope that

I'm happy, because we can. I feel like this phase of my life, I'm realizing like I've already done a ton of stuff with my career, and um, that's it. It's it's not everything. Money, isn't everything your accolades, like, it's just not It's not what you want to leave the world with. So I hope that I'm in a place that I am happy and not so career obsessed, which I am right now. I hope that that kind of like dies down a little teeny tiny bit and

I'm at a place that I'm happy with. But also that I just like keep on growing and taking on more opportunities and and just staying the same person and not becoming, um a jerk or an asshole. And I feel like going home helps that a lot, because my mom still lives in a very very small town with only like a hundred people. And so going back to those places where no one knows who you are and um you're treated like everybody else is is very grounding

and a beautiful thing for me. And then I just keep on making stuff because we can, so we can get caught up in our busy day to day, Like we do a live show every single day, it's almost impossible to go home and have energy to do anything like a freaking two hour podcast right now. But UM, I hope I came on writing and making something that I'm really proud of. And um, I've got some projects on the on the back burner that I'm going to try and put my all into this year and snap

again like I did when I was like ten years ago. Um, And I just hope I'm happy, I said last, this is the last question. So you are what I like? Is I like people who are honest, right and authentic and just saying what they think and what they feel. Um do you worry at all about being so open and you know sort of an arrow where there are

almost no privacy at times? Right? Um? Or is that just something you're naturally comfortable with because there's people who are listening to this right now and they're going to say, Wow, I love Rahl. I didn't know her before, and they're gonna be like this. Every thing that she said in this podcast was so honest and I knew you would,

but sometimes in our society that's rare. Yeah, well, I think that, Um, I don't know for me, Okay, when when I think about mental health, and I think about depression and anxiety, and I also have obsessive compulsive disorder that was really bad when I was younger. That used to make me feel crazy. I used to think that I was a crazy person and that nobody else on this planet felt that way, and that made me feel isolated. It made me feel disgusted when I thought about myself.

I hated myself for that. And it wasn't until you know, recently, people have been more open about their mental health, and I've learned more about obsessive compulsive disorder because people talk about it more, and um, I've been able to feel more comfortable in my skin, and so I feel like, you know, there's there's nothing that I feel to attached to in my personal life beside maybe like my personal relationship. Would you guys like to make kind of almost every

single day. Don't know that he's ever going to propose to you, to be honest. Besides that, like you know, every everything that I've been through, I hope talking about it helps other people go through it. Like the loss of my father, that was something that I was really really hard to overcome, and I can only hope. That's why I talk about it, is that people talking about things that pertain to me, when they're open about it,

it's made me feel better. So then I realize, Okay, well, if I keep on pushing this and keep on talking about whether it's mental health or grieving and death and or success or being a female in sports, um or being really lucky, you know, there's so many people that could hear my story and be like, oh ship, like it doesn't matter, Like if I work hard, I could get lucky and and have this career that I've been

been I've been hoping for. So I think it's so beneficial on in so many ways to be open about your struggles and also your winds as well, because you don't know who's listening, You don't know who it can eventually help are you happy now. I'm pretty happy. I'm getting there. I'm working on it. I go to therapy every single week and that's been really helpful. It's do you go to therapy? Do you talk to anybody? You probably should? I have so many, so many voices in

my head. I just talked to them. Um No, I'm I'm. I can say I'm definitely working on it. I think I'm really I'm I'm finally this year, I'm like, wow, I can't believe I've done so much, even even like taking moments like this when I'm like looking back on my career, even though it's been fairly short so far, it's like I've done a lot and I've worked my butt off, like I'm exhausted, and I'm still going and I'm still so hungry for more. Um So, I don't

know if the lever be uh. I hope that one day I can fully be like I'm good, I'm I'm really happy in this space. I think that I'm just so hungry right now for everything that's coming down the pipe, and and for this new season will block it in and next year and next year and next year, and um, I'm just like so excited. I just want to do more.

I want to be exhausted at the end of every single day, like you do Ray Go Show, you do a podcast, you do television, Like do you probably feel so fulfilled when you hit your pillow everything that you're you're mentally and physically exhausted. I want to I want to be feeling those things. Rachel Banantta Go follow her

on Twitter. She is outstanding. If you haven't before, I'm telling you that in the years ahead, and I rarely say this, in the years ahead, you're gonna do pretty awesome stuff, and I'm excited to see all the things that you're gonna do. But in the meantime, she's hanging out with us on lock It In every single afternoon.

Go follower, And if you're listening to this year's down the line, I think it'll be cool if you tag us, assuming Twitter still around in ten years or My hope is in doing these long form podcasts that they almost stand as like, uh, you know, like different sort of seminal moments where people can go back and be like, oh, I hope that this is just as good to listen to in a decade as it is next. Pretty cool, very cool. Thanks for having anybody. Thank you. This Wins

the Losses. I'm Clay Travis Ratis on iTunes. This has been wins and losses. Sorry Clay Travis and Joe Banana. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live.