August 27, 2025 • 23 mins
It's not pretty, but you can save yourself a lot of heartache. PLUS: Being a reality TV husband and the downsides of fame.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we're going to start talking about divorce again because
people have been asking about it too much, and I'm
going to talk more about concepts versus like this exact
thing happened to me. Now, this will be informed by
my own institutional knowledge, but I'm going to talk in
a way that will help people that are stuck and
(00:32):
they think they're never going to get out.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I can promise you will get out.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It will feel like a death, it will feel like
you're being tortured. It will feel like misery, pain. You
will lose hair, you will get gray, your skin will
be dry, you will be exhausted, you'll be dehydrated. But
there will be things you can do. If you're in
a contentious divorce with someone that has some control over you,
(00:58):
often someone has some control. You had a leg up
or an upper hand. You make more money, you have
a better job, you're more attractive, you're more desired, your.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Family has money.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If you have a leg up, your spouse or partner
will often try to impose power and muster up power
and exert power to make them feel powerful. And it
can be torture because in the way that a small
dog or a small little bug buzzing in your ear
could do a lot of damage and torment. A person
(01:32):
who wants to torture you can.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So you need.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Tools to mitigate that and to deal with it for
your own personal sanity and for the long game and
for the strategy, because like in a sport, divorce is
a sport, and a difficult divorce and a custody battle
is a sport. And in order for you to navigate
that and do well at that, you have to preserve
your own energy. So if you flap your wings and
(01:57):
get worked up for every single thing, which is what
people getting divorced do, you won't be able to go
the long haul.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Have enough money to go to the.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Long haul, Preserve your energy, preserve your money, preserve your piece,
and get what you want because it takes a long
time because the legal system is bullshit. It is archaic,
and it is not proportionate to what's going on, and
it's designed terribly. So if you're in a contentious situation
and things are happening, actions are happening, and or you're
(02:30):
getting emails or texts that are difficult, I would say,
let's call this divorce communication. Texting should be eliminated. If
you're in any version of a contentious situation. It doesn't
matter if you have kids together. It doesn't matter matter
if you have five kids together. Everything can be done
in an email. Things can be done by a proxy,
by another person. It doesn't matter if the person that
(02:52):
you're communicating with doesn't want to do that and acts
like the law won't let you. It doesn't matter if
the lawyers say you're supposed to be working with them
to communicate. Judges don't look at every single piece of minutia.
They'll never hear most of the things that you're complaining
to your friends about. So you should not be texting
at all, and you could even block. Just make sure
(03:13):
you're clear that there is another form of communication if
you need to get in touch with me or convey
anything to me. This is my assistant, this is my friend,
this is my proxy or email. Wait six hours after
receiving something to respond. If it's not urgent, but if
it is going to have some little snide comment in it,
or something that might trigger you, or calling you a
(03:33):
bad mother or father, it doesn't matter, wait six hours
to respond. You will react within the six hours. You
will respond after the six hours and be dispassionate, and
it will cost you a lot less money because by
reacting all the time, you call your lawyers, you email them.
You want them to know this thing that you think
is the biggest thing ever I've experienced torment, but it
(03:58):
still is not in a vacu one thing like, don't
go running to the principle about everything, keep copious notes,
be organized, and do not react. The only way that
an individual thing would matter is if it was part
of a pattern, or you had asked for someone to
stop doing something formally via email. Be seeing the right
(04:19):
people so you always have a record of it, and
that person repeatedly does something that makes you uncomfortable, so
you can tear yourself up from the very beginning, from
day one of a divorce, even if you think it's amicable. LOL,
have clear, organized correspondence and if you can be CC
someone that's not a lawyer, and if you do b
(04:41):
CC lawyers.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Tell your lawyers not.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
To look unless you tell them to, and not to charge.
You don't need them opening up every email, but if
you ever need it, it's an insurance policy. So you said,
please stop doing this, or it makes me uncomfortable that,
or I don't feel safe, or these things that in
a vacuum don't mean anything. One day, in a pattern,
they might mean something. So be organized, as if you're
(05:05):
spending millions of dollars on a real estate project, knowing
where all the receipts are, where everything went exactly what's
going on. Divorce is a marathon and a golf game.
You will think you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Are moving forward, and you might even have to go
back to a hole before.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
In golf, two holes before, you might have to stop.
In a marathon, you might have to run backwards, but
you will get to the eighteenth hole and the twenty
sixth mile. But you're going to treat this like a marathon,
and you're going to be a lean, efficient legal athlete,
and ninety five percent of the legal work is going
(05:45):
to be done by you, by you being organized and thorough.
None of what lawyers are doing is rocket science. Okay,
it's not. If you call up my former lawyers, they
will tell you that I could be a lawyer if
you handed me a law degree about custody and divorce.
About those things, I know every single thing about them.
(06:06):
So I realize I walked away from this because it
was personal and about me, but I'm walking back into
it and turning it divorce.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
This time it's about you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So I'm gonna give you guys all the tools, all
the instruction, all the shortcuts and all the solutions, And
the biggest thing I would say is get yourself notebook
with tabs and be organized with your emails, and don't
over communicate. Don't over react every time someone says something
(06:44):
to you that's negative or tells you something that you
know isn't true, or tells you or antagonizes you or
taunts you, you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Need to react.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It doesn't matter if you don't let it bother you,
and you cannot get caught up in the minutia. Someone
(07:16):
recently reached out to me to ask me how to
tell their kid that the other parent is an asshole.
Now that's going to sound crazy, and the answer is never,
because basically, what a judge said to me when Bruma
was a little girl was a custody battle between two
parents is like watching your child's drown and there's nothing
(07:37):
you could do about it, meaning you're doing everything that's
wrong for them and they're helpless. But that was about
a custody battle, and one thing that I have heard
and always knew because I had heard from enough people,
was that you never trash the other parent to the kid.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It will backfire. It focks them up.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It's not something you get the immediate reaction about, meaning
even if they agree with you, disagree with you, it's
not something that the damage is available right then.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
It's something that like festers.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
And the thing is they see everything, they feel everything,
they absorb everything. They just don't articulate it and they
don't process it. It comes to fruition later and they
have this movie that files back into their memory and
they kind of put pieces together, and they talk to
their friends who are going through things. Some kids' friends
have families who cheated on one another, have other families
(08:26):
they've started, have different kinds of divorces, have all the
things right, And basically then when their teens start to
talk to their friends and it helps them to process
certain things. And you have to have a way to
talk to your kids about things. So here's the thing.
You have to look deep and really understand how problematic
you are. We all are problematic in some way, and
(08:49):
you have to find people around you that you trust,
not a therapist that you're paying not your best friend.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Really dig deep and find out how much it really
is them and how much it really is you. And
you have to reflect on this, okay, because either way
it's doing damage to your kids.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You want your kids to love both parents and be
loved by both parents. If your ex gets with someone else,
you want your kid to like them and that person
to like your kids. If your ex has a kid
with someone else, you want your kid to like or
love that child and have a good relationship. It's hard
because you want to be the favorite. My daughter said
(09:27):
the other day, and my best friend has a dog
like this. My daughter is like, I want like a
Yorkie that only loves me and hates everyone else, right,
which is like funny and hysterical, But like I was like,
whenever Biggie goes somewhere and the dogs go somewhere and
someone is playing with them, Brin gets jealous. She makes
a joke of it, but like she gets jealous. I'm like, no,
you want as many people to love them. It's about
their life. So the more people around your kids loving them.
(09:48):
Tiger Woods's X once said that about the more people
loving her kids with regards to whoever he was with.
So you want your child to be the happiest possible,
and that it means not having the angst and the
service inside about hating their other parent, having issues with that,
hating their other parents' family, and that will happen on
(10:09):
their own. They will feel that on their own. They're people.
But you don't want to do it any favors. Now,
if something's happening with your child that's making them feel
bad about themselves. Let's say the other parent promises to
see them then doesn't keeps blowing them off, is super selfish,
gets drunk, does drugs, is verbally abusive, is controlling something
(10:31):
that is not positive for your child. Then you can
step in and not in a trashing the person way,
but then you can step in and say, listen, if
you have this power, you may have no power and
you have to send your kid there, But if you
have this power, you could say, when they get to
a certain age, you don't have to go there. If
this is affecting you emotionally and not just like that
(10:53):
parent is a disciplinarian and the kid runs to the
other parent because I don't bullshit with that either. That's bullshit,
but meaning if something is this is verbally abusive or
affecting your child's well being, or there's abnormal pressure in
some way as it pretends to sports and it's affecting
their well being, you can step in and if they're
old enough to make their own decisions, you could say
you don't have to go there, or you can explain
(11:15):
the way that that person is acting towards you has
nothing to do with you, It has to do with them.
You can explain their circumstances. You can explain how they
grew up. You could say they came from an abusive background,
or this is not what is healthy. So don't feel
bad about yourself about that parent's actions. But what you
can't do is be like, no, they're a jerk, they're selfish.
(11:37):
You can't start gossiping to your friends on the phone
about what they did in front of your kid and
just talking bad about them. It has to be in
a controlled way, and your child when they're in a
car alone with you, or when you're at a dinner
or not on your phone, will bring it up, but
don't lean into it too much. Like it's almost like
a friend says you. Jane's a piece of shit and
(11:58):
you're like, oh my god, I know and she did this.
That's not what you're doing with your kid. You're listening.
You may validate, and you can help to provide healthy context,
but what you're not going to do is pile on
and be like a gossip because they may be venting
to you. It's like you could talk bad about your
own mom, but you don't want anyone else to do it.
(12:18):
They may be venting to you about something that happened
because they need someone.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
They don't want you to pile on and start trashing
their parent, even if they've said something that the parent
did that wasn't great. You're not supposed to jump on.
It's a tricky business and you don't want to get
in that habit. Your only goal is to frame something
and to help your child have a better emotional relationship
to it, healthier emotional well being. So don't take it
(12:46):
as an opening to trash your ex. And that's a
fine line because there will be a time and you
actually if you have a terrible, terrible ex, and not
because of dumb little things like oh he took his
bimbo young girl to the PTA, meeting like, that's not
it meaning the person's really fucked up, like really fucked up,
and it's just everybody really strongly believes that because everybody
(13:10):
makes mistakes. But if this person is strongly fucked up,
then you need to figure out a way to protect
your child. And when that person is really fucked up
and your child knows it, it's ironic, that's the time
that you'll say better things about that X. You could
hate that X, and you'll say your parent loves you.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They love you.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
The way they're acting has nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with them.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
They love you.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
They weren't set up with the proper capability to show it.
They have drawbacks because of this, but they love you.
Do not let this affect how you feel about yourself.
Everyone loves you, and your job as a child is
not to manage the parent child relationship. Your job is
to be a child, to do well in school, to
have fun, to be outside, to feel joy, and to
(13:58):
feel passion, and not to worry about adult topics. It's
a very important distinction. It's critical because it's tempting, but
don't do it, because you're poisoning your child. You're literally
slowly but surely giving them small doses of poison. And
you want them to have self esteem and feel loved.
And the most important relationship that they will have with
(14:21):
a woman or a man starts and is defined, and
its foundation is with the parents or the primary caregivers.
(14:43):
There's a woman on Miami and her former husband was
on social media today and he was describing a series
of events that the audience in the comments who have
watched and I have not, were believing.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Usually you see these.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Men of housewives and usually like if it's the one
for my Miami Lenny who I met once, who was
with Lisa Hoxie and he cheated, no one is on
his side. No one's on most of the men's sides
when they're coming in, and so on this case, this
man was talking about how the show portrayed him as
being broke because that's something she said, and all these
(15:18):
different things about him that affected his life and like
I think, affected his business, affected his reputation. He loved her,
and he was honest about that too, which is what
made me believe it, because he wasn't trashing her, but
he was saying that she perpetuated a narrative about him
on the show that made him say, I love her,
(15:42):
but she's never giving this show up, so I'm walking out.
And there was an honesty to it, and I was thinking,
how what I've said before about the reality reckoning and
how toxic it is, I actually did think back then
about the other people whose lives were ruined that they
didn't even sign up up for this. Okay, they didn't
(16:02):
even sign up for this, and yes, going on, maybe
they did it for their partner, or maybe they even
think it's going to be good for their business, whatever,
but you can't know until you experience it. And it's
like these toxic platforms that I never realized when I
was on it. And again I left my own volition,
(16:23):
my own choice. I wasn't fired, so there's no bitterness,
and I had a good run and I've had good
experiences like that I created as a result of it.
But it makes me realize how disgusting it actually is.
And I was thinking about these like sort of casualties
of it, and I was thinking about my cushy contract
and how I said in on this podcast that I
(16:45):
had a very cushy contract. I could come as I
wanted I could go as I wanted. I got paid
more than anyone else, And people wonder, how do I
know and why? I know because I was very close
with the powers that be and they told me so,
and also because I asked for whatever I wanted and
that number keptain. And I was talking about my cushy contract,
not as a flex but because I had a daughter
and I was a victim of divorce. And the network
(17:08):
responded to that saying, we're just so glad that she's
finally acknowledging that we were so sensitive to her situation.
Loll No, it happens all the time. It happened with
Ryan Seacrest when he was on the show Kelly and Ryan.
I think he was flying private every week, going back
and forth. It happened when I was asked to do
the masked singer and I said no. I decided not
(17:28):
to do it because I thought, what's the point of
me like being just anonymous. The few people that do
like me like me because of just being me. They
don't like me because of being in a disguise. And
I didn't want to do it, and I could do
it the back and forth of LA. I didn't want
to be exhausted. They offered me Fox offered me a
private plane to go back and forth because they wanted
me on the show. It's not because they liked me
or they was sensitive to my situation. Like, chase the
(17:50):
money with most things, with any things, chase the money,
find the money. It's happening because of money. Whatever it is,
that's just the truth. Sorry, it's happening because of money.
I heard Sharon Stone on social media talking about something
that Sylvester Stallone said to her, and I don't remember
(18:11):
exactly what it was, but it was basically saying, the
plight of someone famous when someone comes up to you
with wide eyes and you don't know whether they have
a pen or a gun, meaning they want to get
your autograph or shoot you. And it changed overnight, over
the course of a weekend because of a movie. And
(18:31):
what Sharon presumably is describing is her fame that catapulted
after basic instinct and how jarring it is to experience
overnight fame that did not land. It doesn't matter, it's
not public. No one really cares. I mean it's public
because it was on social media, but people in the
comments were like, really, do you know what it's like
(18:51):
to have a family of four that you have to feed,
and like work a minimum wage job.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And I remember this from.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
When I was shooting my talk shit produced by Ellen DeGeneres,
on the set of her talk show, and I remember
them saying it wasn't about me. I guess it was
about her, or just celebrity culture in general. The three
EPs were saying, nobody wants to hear celebrities whine about
celebrity like in any capacity, because it gives tone death
(19:18):
and delusional and like you really don't understand the way
the world works. And I actually agree with that, and
I get that. I'm saying that it does become jarring
when you can't have a normal life and people say, like,
you ask for this, But when it involves children, people
(19:40):
don't talk about children enough. So what I've been experiencing,
which I think I've discussed with you before, is the
conflict of knowing and explaining to my daughter that every
one of the people that comes up to me at
a restaurant, or that's standing behind helping you with your
groceries at Trader Joe's, or Jasmine serving me at the
Broken Egg restaurant, like this is the one encountered they're
(20:03):
having with you. They don't sit down and think about
your life and that you've had fifty of these, Nor
are you thinking about their life and understand that they
have three kids, they might have a special needs kid,
they might be broken, might have an ailing parent. Like
people have to just do what they're doing in their
own lives and engage in a certain way based on
what's happening in the moment. Everybody doesn't get a hall
pass for what else is going on. So the thing is,
(20:26):
she was saying, like you chose the profession, you didn't
choose the fame, then don't choose that profession if you
don't want to smell like onions, don't work as a
chef in a kitchen. So I recognize that I have
chosen to be in a career that means and wanted
it by the way. That means that people are going
to come up to you. So then how do you
(20:46):
navigate it? And for me, the only challenging thing is
my daughter really not the only there's a lot of
grabbiness ever since my social media pop off, but my daughter, like,
she really didn't sign up for this. So when people
come up to a sort of restaurant and they don't
really come up to her. They're coming up to me,
But nor did she sign up for them to come
up to her. That's maybe even worse, but like she's
(21:10):
an invisible person, And so people come up to me
and we're having a mommy and me meal, and then
I'm like breathless and exasperated because I want to give
the person the moment that they deserve, but also cherish
and honor my daughter. And when people say that some
people were very rude to them, I don't think that
most people are just rude assholes. I think that some
(21:33):
people will walk up to them mid bite at a
meal when they're with their children, and they're trying to
navigate that again, there's no plight and woe is them.
I was just explaining something because sometimes I go out
with my daughter and it's been worse in Florida, and
I just want to be alone with her and have
a moment with her, and she has to share me
with the public, and I sometimes feel bad about that,
(21:55):
and I justify it by saying to her, these people
bought our house. These people are paying for your education,
and it's literally true. It's not like a bullshit, like
saying like our grandparents would be like I used to
walk ten miles to get to school, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It's literally true. She can see it. It's tangible.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
This house, everything in it is because of you and
the people like So, then the same thing for Sharon Stone,
whatever happened to her over that weekend, whatever Sylvester Stalone
said over that weekend, her house is bought because of it.
So don't take the house if you're not going to
take the fame ramifications. And again, no one wants to
hear celebrities and rich people complain about anything. It's true,
(22:36):
even if they have worked for it, it's still the
financial lottery because it triggered people when Kim Kardashian said,
nobody wants to work anymore, and people do work really
hard and don't get to a place where people who
have privilege and access and education do. So some people
do really want to work, but we'll never get there,
and that's just not fair.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
What back the answer that as what happen
So we're going to start talking about divorce again because
people have been asking about it too much, and I'm
going to talk more about concepts versus like this exact
thing happened to me. Now, this will be informed by
my own institutional knowledge, but I'm going to talk in
a way that will help people that are stuck and
(00:32):
they think they're never going to get out.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I can promise you will get out.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It will feel like a death, it will feel like
you're being tortured. It will feel like misery, pain. You
will lose hair, you will get gray, your skin will
be dry, you will be exhausted, you'll be dehydrated. But
there will be things you can do. If you're in
a contentious divorce with someone that has some control over you,
(00:58):
often someone has some control. You had a leg up
or an upper hand. You make more money, you have
a better job, you're more attractive, you're more desired, your.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Family has money.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If you have a leg up, your spouse or partner
will often try to impose power and muster up power
and exert power to make them feel powerful. And it
can be torture because in the way that a small
dog or a small little bug buzzing in your ear
could do a lot of damage and torment. A person
(01:32):
who wants to torture you can.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So you need.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Tools to mitigate that and to deal with it for
your own personal sanity and for the long game and
for the strategy, because like in a sport, divorce is
a sport, and a difficult divorce and a custody battle
is a sport. And in order for you to navigate
that and do well at that, you have to preserve
your own energy. So if you flap your wings and
(01:57):
get worked up for every single thing, which is what
people getting divorced do, you won't be able to go
the long haul.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Have enough money to go to the.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Long haul, Preserve your energy, preserve your money, preserve your piece,
and get what you want because it takes a long
time because the legal system is bullshit. It is archaic,
and it is not proportionate to what's going on, and
it's designed terribly. So if you're in a contentious situation
and things are happening, actions are happening, and or you're
(02:30):
getting emails or texts that are difficult, I would say,
let's call this divorce communication. Texting should be eliminated. If
you're in any version of a contentious situation. It doesn't
matter if you have kids together. It doesn't matter matter
if you have five kids together. Everything can be done
in an email. Things can be done by a proxy,
by another person. It doesn't matter if the person that
(02:52):
you're communicating with doesn't want to do that and acts
like the law won't let you. It doesn't matter if
the lawyers say you're supposed to be working with them
to communicate. Judges don't look at every single piece of minutia.
They'll never hear most of the things that you're complaining
to your friends about. So you should not be texting
at all, and you could even block. Just make sure
(03:13):
you're clear that there is another form of communication if
you need to get in touch with me or convey
anything to me. This is my assistant, this is my friend,
this is my proxy or email. Wait six hours after
receiving something to respond. If it's not urgent, but if
it is going to have some little snide comment in it,
or something that might trigger you, or calling you a
(03:33):
bad mother or father, it doesn't matter, wait six hours
to respond. You will react within the six hours. You
will respond after the six hours and be dispassionate, and
it will cost you a lot less money because by
reacting all the time, you call your lawyers, you email them.
You want them to know this thing that you think
is the biggest thing ever I've experienced torment, but it
(03:58):
still is not in a vacu one thing like, don't
go running to the principle about everything, keep copious notes,
be organized, and do not react. The only way that
an individual thing would matter is if it was part
of a pattern, or you had asked for someone to
stop doing something formally via email. Be seeing the right
(04:19):
people so you always have a record of it, and
that person repeatedly does something that makes you uncomfortable, so
you can tear yourself up from the very beginning, from
day one of a divorce, even if you think it's amicable. LOL,
have clear, organized correspondence and if you can be CC
someone that's not a lawyer, and if you do b
(04:41):
CC lawyers.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Tell your lawyers not.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
To look unless you tell them to, and not to charge.
You don't need them opening up every email, but if
you ever need it, it's an insurance policy. So you said,
please stop doing this, or it makes me uncomfortable that,
or I don't feel safe, or these things that in
a vacuum don't mean anything. One day, in a pattern,
they might mean something. So be organized, as if you're
(05:05):
spending millions of dollars on a real estate project, knowing
where all the receipts are, where everything went exactly what's
going on. Divorce is a marathon and a golf game.
You will think you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Are moving forward, and you might even have to go
back to a hole before.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
In golf, two holes before, you might have to stop.
In a marathon, you might have to run backwards, but
you will get to the eighteenth hole and the twenty
sixth mile. But you're going to treat this like a marathon,
and you're going to be a lean, efficient legal athlete,
and ninety five percent of the legal work is going
(05:45):
to be done by you, by you being organized and thorough.
None of what lawyers are doing is rocket science. Okay,
it's not. If you call up my former lawyers, they
will tell you that I could be a lawyer if
you handed me a law degree about custody and divorce.
About those things, I know every single thing about them.
(06:06):
So I realize I walked away from this because it
was personal and about me, but I'm walking back into
it and turning it divorce.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
This time it's about you.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So I'm gonna give you guys all the tools, all
the instruction, all the shortcuts and all the solutions, And
the biggest thing I would say is get yourself notebook
with tabs and be organized with your emails, and don't
over communicate. Don't over react every time someone says something
(06:44):
to you that's negative or tells you something that you
know isn't true, or tells you or antagonizes you or
taunts you, you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Need to react.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It doesn't matter if you don't let it bother you,
and you cannot get caught up in the minutia. Someone
(07:16):
recently reached out to me to ask me how to
tell their kid that the other parent is an asshole.
Now that's going to sound crazy, and the answer is never,
because basically, what a judge said to me when Bruma
was a little girl was a custody battle between two
parents is like watching your child's drown and there's nothing
(07:37):
you could do about it, meaning you're doing everything that's
wrong for them and they're helpless. But that was about
a custody battle, and one thing that I have heard
and always knew because I had heard from enough people,
was that you never trash the other parent to the kid.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It will backfire. It focks them up.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
It's not something you get the immediate reaction about, meaning
even if they agree with you, disagree with you, it's
not something that the damage is available right then.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
It's something that like festers.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
And the thing is they see everything, they feel everything,
they absorb everything. They just don't articulate it and they
don't process it. It comes to fruition later and they
have this movie that files back into their memory and
they kind of put pieces together, and they talk to
their friends who are going through things. Some kids' friends
have families who cheated on one another, have other families
(08:26):
they've started, have different kinds of divorces, have all the
things right, And basically then when their teens start to
talk to their friends and it helps them to process
certain things. And you have to have a way to
talk to your kids about things. So here's the thing.
You have to look deep and really understand how problematic
you are. We all are problematic in some way, and
(08:49):
you have to find people around you that you trust,
not a therapist that you're paying not your best friend.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Really dig deep and find out how much it really
is them and how much it really is you. And
you have to reflect on this, okay, because either way
it's doing damage to your kids.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You want your kids to love both parents and be
loved by both parents. If your ex gets with someone else,
you want your kid to like them and that person
to like your kids. If your ex has a kid
with someone else, you want your kid to like or
love that child and have a good relationship. It's hard
because you want to be the favorite. My daughter said
(09:27):
the other day, and my best friend has a dog
like this. My daughter is like, I want like a
Yorkie that only loves me and hates everyone else, right,
which is like funny and hysterical, But like I was like,
whenever Biggie goes somewhere and the dogs go somewhere and
someone is playing with them, Brin gets jealous. She makes
a joke of it, but like she gets jealous. I'm like, no,
you want as many people to love them. It's about
their life. So the more people around your kids loving them.
(09:48):
Tiger Woods's X once said that about the more people
loving her kids with regards to whoever he was with.
So you want your child to be the happiest possible,
and that it means not having the angst and the
service inside about hating their other parent, having issues with that,
hating their other parents' family, and that will happen on
(10:09):
their own. They will feel that on their own. They're people.
But you don't want to do it any favors. Now,
if something's happening with your child that's making them feel
bad about themselves. Let's say the other parent promises to
see them then doesn't keeps blowing them off, is super selfish,
gets drunk, does drugs, is verbally abusive, is controlling something
(10:31):
that is not positive for your child. Then you can
step in and not in a trashing the person way,
but then you can step in and say, listen, if
you have this power, you may have no power and
you have to send your kid there, But if you
have this power, you could say, when they get to
a certain age, you don't have to go there. If
this is affecting you emotionally and not just like that
(10:53):
parent is a disciplinarian and the kid runs to the
other parent because I don't bullshit with that either. That's bullshit,
but meaning if something is this is verbally abusive or
affecting your child's well being, or there's abnormal pressure in
some way as it pretends to sports and it's affecting
their well being, you can step in and if they're
old enough to make their own decisions, you could say
you don't have to go there, or you can explain
(11:15):
the way that that person is acting towards you has
nothing to do with you, It has to do with them.
You can explain their circumstances. You can explain how they
grew up. You could say they came from an abusive background,
or this is not what is healthy. So don't feel
bad about yourself about that parent's actions. But what you
can't do is be like, no, they're a jerk, they're selfish.
(11:37):
You can't start gossiping to your friends on the phone
about what they did in front of your kid and
just talking bad about them. It has to be in
a controlled way, and your child when they're in a
car alone with you, or when you're at a dinner
or not on your phone, will bring it up, but
don't lean into it too much. Like it's almost like
a friend says you. Jane's a piece of shit and
(11:58):
you're like, oh my god, I know and she did this.
That's not what you're doing with your kid. You're listening.
You may validate, and you can help to provide healthy context,
but what you're not going to do is pile on
and be like a gossip because they may be venting
to you. It's like you could talk bad about your
own mom, but you don't want anyone else to do it.
(12:18):
They may be venting to you about something that happened
because they need someone.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
They don't want you to pile on and start trashing
their parent, even if they've said something that the parent
did that wasn't great. You're not supposed to jump on.
It's a tricky business and you don't want to get
in that habit. Your only goal is to frame something
and to help your child have a better emotional relationship
to it, healthier emotional well being. So don't take it
(12:46):
as an opening to trash your ex. And that's a
fine line because there will be a time and you
actually if you have a terrible, terrible ex, and not
because of dumb little things like oh he took his
bimbo young girl to the PTA, meeting like, that's not
it meaning the person's really fucked up, like really fucked up,
and it's just everybody really strongly believes that because everybody
(13:10):
makes mistakes. But if this person is strongly fucked up,
then you need to figure out a way to protect
your child. And when that person is really fucked up
and your child knows it, it's ironic, that's the time
that you'll say better things about that X. You could
hate that X, and you'll say your parent loves you.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They love you.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
The way they're acting has nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with them.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
They love you.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
They weren't set up with the proper capability to show it.
They have drawbacks because of this, but they love you.
Do not let this affect how you feel about yourself.
Everyone loves you, and your job as a child is
not to manage the parent child relationship. Your job is
to be a child, to do well in school, to
have fun, to be outside, to feel joy, and to
(13:58):
feel passion, and not to worry about adult topics. It's
a very important distinction. It's critical because it's tempting, but
don't do it, because you're poisoning your child. You're literally
slowly but surely giving them small doses of poison. And
you want them to have self esteem and feel loved.
And the most important relationship that they will have with
(14:21):
a woman or a man starts and is defined, and
its foundation is with the parents or the primary caregivers.
(14:43):
There's a woman on Miami and her former husband was
on social media today and he was describing a series
of events that the audience in the comments who have
watched and I have not, were believing.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Usually you see these.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Men of housewives and usually like if it's the one
for my Miami Lenny who I met once, who was
with Lisa Hoxie and he cheated, no one is on
his side. No one's on most of the men's sides
when they're coming in, and so on this case, this
man was talking about how the show portrayed him as
being broke because that's something she said, and all these
(15:18):
different things about him that affected his life and like
I think, affected his business, affected his reputation. He loved her,
and he was honest about that too, which is what
made me believe it, because he wasn't trashing her, but
he was saying that she perpetuated a narrative about him
on the show that made him say, I love her,
(15:42):
but she's never giving this show up, so I'm walking out.
And there was an honesty to it, and I was thinking,
how what I've said before about the reality reckoning and
how toxic it is, I actually did think back then
about the other people whose lives were ruined that they
didn't even sign up up for this. Okay, they didn't
(16:02):
even sign up for this, and yes, going on, maybe
they did it for their partner, or maybe they even
think it's going to be good for their business, whatever,
but you can't know until you experience it. And it's
like these toxic platforms that I never realized when I
was on it. And again I left my own volition,
(16:23):
my own choice. I wasn't fired, so there's no bitterness,
and I had a good run and I've had good
experiences like that I created as a result of it.
But it makes me realize how disgusting it actually is.
And I was thinking about these like sort of casualties
of it, and I was thinking about my cushy contract
and how I said in on this podcast that I
(16:45):
had a very cushy contract. I could come as I
wanted I could go as I wanted. I got paid
more than anyone else, And people wonder, how do I
know and why? I know because I was very close
with the powers that be and they told me so,
and also because I asked for whatever I wanted and
that number keptain. And I was talking about my cushy contract,
not as a flex but because I had a daughter
and I was a victim of divorce. And the network
(17:08):
responded to that saying, we're just so glad that she's
finally acknowledging that we were so sensitive to her situation.
Loll No, it happens all the time. It happened with
Ryan Seacrest when he was on the show Kelly and Ryan.
I think he was flying private every week, going back
and forth. It happened when I was asked to do
the masked singer and I said no. I decided not
(17:28):
to do it because I thought, what's the point of
me like being just anonymous. The few people that do
like me like me because of just being me. They
don't like me because of being in a disguise. And
I didn't want to do it, and I could do
it the back and forth of LA. I didn't want
to be exhausted. They offered me Fox offered me a
private plane to go back and forth because they wanted
me on the show. It's not because they liked me
or they was sensitive to my situation. Like, chase the
(17:50):
money with most things, with any things, chase the money,
find the money. It's happening because of money. Whatever it is,
that's just the truth. Sorry, it's happening because of money.
I heard Sharon Stone on social media talking about something
that Sylvester Stallone said to her, and I don't remember
(18:11):
exactly what it was, but it was basically saying, the
plight of someone famous when someone comes up to you
with wide eyes and you don't know whether they have
a pen or a gun, meaning they want to get
your autograph or shoot you. And it changed overnight, over
the course of a weekend because of a movie. And
(18:31):
what Sharon presumably is describing is her fame that catapulted
after basic instinct and how jarring it is to experience
overnight fame that did not land. It doesn't matter, it's
not public. No one really cares. I mean it's public
because it was on social media, but people in the
comments were like, really, do you know what it's like
(18:51):
to have a family of four that you have to feed,
and like work a minimum wage job.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And I remember this from.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
When I was shooting my talk shit produced by Ellen DeGeneres,
on the set of her talk show, and I remember
them saying it wasn't about me. I guess it was
about her, or just celebrity culture in general. The three
EPs were saying, nobody wants to hear celebrities whine about
celebrity like in any capacity, because it gives tone death
(19:18):
and delusional and like you really don't understand the way
the world works. And I actually agree with that, and
I get that. I'm saying that it does become jarring
when you can't have a normal life and people say, like,
you ask for this, But when it involves children, people
(19:40):
don't talk about children enough. So what I've been experiencing,
which I think I've discussed with you before, is the
conflict of knowing and explaining to my daughter that every
one of the people that comes up to me at
a restaurant, or that's standing behind helping you with your
groceries at Trader Joe's, or Jasmine serving me at the
Broken Egg restaurant, like this is the one encountered they're
(20:03):
having with you. They don't sit down and think about
your life and that you've had fifty of these, Nor
are you thinking about their life and understand that they
have three kids, they might have a special needs kid,
they might be broken, might have an ailing parent. Like
people have to just do what they're doing in their
own lives and engage in a certain way based on
what's happening in the moment. Everybody doesn't get a hall
pass for what else is going on. So the thing is,
(20:26):
she was saying, like you chose the profession, you didn't
choose the fame, then don't choose that profession if you
don't want to smell like onions, don't work as a
chef in a kitchen. So I recognize that I have
chosen to be in a career that means and wanted
it by the way. That means that people are going
to come up to you. So then how do you
(20:46):
navigate it? And for me, the only challenging thing is
my daughter really not the only there's a lot of
grabbiness ever since my social media pop off, but my daughter, like,
she really didn't sign up for this. So when people
come up to a sort of restaurant and they don't
really come up to her. They're coming up to me,
But nor did she sign up for them to come
up to her. That's maybe even worse, but like she's
(21:10):
an invisible person, And so people come up to me
and we're having a mommy and me meal, and then
I'm like breathless and exasperated because I want to give
the person the moment that they deserve, but also cherish
and honor my daughter. And when people say that some
people were very rude to them, I don't think that
most people are just rude assholes. I think that some
(21:33):
people will walk up to them mid bite at a
meal when they're with their children, and they're trying to
navigate that again, there's no plight and woe is them.
I was just explaining something because sometimes I go out
with my daughter and it's been worse in Florida, and
I just want to be alone with her and have
a moment with her, and she has to share me
with the public, and I sometimes feel bad about that,
(21:55):
and I justify it by saying to her, these people
bought our house. These people are paying for your education,
and it's literally true. It's not like a bullshit, like
saying like our grandparents would be like I used to
walk ten miles to get to school, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It's literally true. She can see it. It's tangible.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
This house, everything in it is because of you and
the people like So, then the same thing for Sharon Stone,
whatever happened to her over that weekend, whatever Sylvester Stalone
said over that weekend, her house is bought because of it.
So don't take the house if you're not going to
take the fame ramifications. And again, no one wants to
hear celebrities and rich people complain about anything. It's true,
(22:36):
even if they have worked for it, it's still the
financial lottery because it triggered people when Kim Kardashian said,
nobody wants to work anymore, and people do work really
hard and don't get to a place where people who
have privilege and access and education do. So some people
do really want to work, but we'll never get there,
and that's just not fair.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
What back the answer that as what happen
Host
Bethenny Frankel
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