May 4, 2022 • 54 mins
Leah is live from sunny Ibiza, while Demetri is…not. But both are joined by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, the men behind the new series "The Big Conn" as they dive deep into the psyches of con men, swindlers and scammers. Plus the hot topics are crime and comedy with the assault on Dave Chappelle and the latest on the Bill Murray situation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Crime. Hello, we one, and welcome back to another episode
of Real Time Crime. I'm your host Leo Lamar and
I have with me sometimes now oftentimes Dmitri. Hello, oftentimes Dmitri.
(00:25):
I'm in paradise. I know you are. And this is
the first time we're doing this podcast, like all the
way around the world. It's nine pm here, and I
will say that it doesn't make it any easier the
later it gets for me, and it doesn't make it
any easier the earlier we do this for me, So
it's never easy for me. That was the whole reason
we sent you over there was because we're like, we
(00:47):
could do the podcast a regular time, but it'll be
nighttime for her. It'll be perfect and Leo will finally
be awake. Well, let me tell you, I could sleep
as late as you will let me. Oh boy. And
I'm in a eza in case anyone who's interested, No,
I won't say Abitha because apparently that's not actually how
you're supposed to say it. It annoys me anyway, so yeah,
(01:08):
and mostly because it annoys Dmitri. Today we will be
discussing a couple of hot topics, some of your favorite
I's only got a sexphone operator right now. I don't
know what they sound like, but sure, sure, sure, sure
how much it's twenty dollars per minute. So of course
we've got two amazing guests for you today, and we'll
(01:29):
be talking about The Big Con, which airs on Apple
TV Plus and on Apple Podcasts May six. So get
excited because we've got guests who are gonna be speaking
to the nature of that show and the podcast. Our
first guest today is James Lee Hernandez. He's a multi
(01:49):
Emmy and pg A Award nominated filmmaker and critically acclaimed podcaster.
He recently directed, wrote, and edited the five time Emmy
nominated HBO origin old documentary series mcmillions with his creative
partner Brian Lazarte, who will be meeting next Hernandez executive
produced the series with Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Archie Gibbs,
(02:11):
and Lazarte. Hernandez as a founding partner of fund Meter,
a TV and film production company specializing in Stranger than Fiction,
scripted and unscripted content. Recently announced, Hernandez and Lazarte are writing, directing,
an executive producing two documentary series for Apple TV Plus
through fund Meter, The Big Con, and The Jet. Both
shows are slated to be released in two and then
(02:33):
we have Brian Lazarte. He's an Emmy nominated filmmaker and editor.
His credits include a variety of award winning documentaries and series,
most notably mcmillions for HBO, which he wrote, directed, executive produced,
and edited alongside James Lee Hernandez. His four part Apple
TV Plus original docs series The Big Con and Apple
TV Plus original documentary series The Jet will be available
(02:55):
to stream this year. Some other credits may include Katie
Perry part of Me three d a, HBO's Emmy Award
winning Sonic Highways, fed Up at ESPN's Emmy Award winning
Hawaiian The Legend of Eddie Aku, thirty for thirty. I mean,
the list goes on and on, and we are so
excited to be speaking with them today about their new show,
The Big Con, which is a four part Apple TV
(03:17):
Plus documentary series with a companion podcast about Eric c.
kN hilarious that his last name is Con when he's
a con man. Yeah, I mean, it's hilarious who defrauded
the government and taxpayers over half a billion dollars. Former
Eastern Kentucky attorney Eric S. Kon is known for committing
(03:38):
the largest social Security fraud case in history. The Big
Con examines his larger than life story, the people he defrauded,
and his inevitable run from the law. The trailer described
Cohn as one of the biggest lawyers in Appalachia and
his celebrity was unavoidable. He used his riches to attract
porn stars, throw out rageous parties, and open to Halloween
themed brothel. My kind of guy. He had ventually caught
(04:00):
the eye of law enforcement after defrauding taxpayers in the
United States. Out of mill subscribers can watch the four
part documentary series and Apple TV Plus, and anyone can
listen to The Companion Show on Apple Podcast when both
premiere on May six. M HM, Hi James and Brian,
(05:01):
So nice to meet you. Hello, nice to meet you
as well, and Leeah. I don't usually record from what
looks like the inside of an insane asylum, but I
am in a BISA, not to brag, and I'm this
is the only location that has WiFi. There's no five
G on this island. I mean, nothing works here and
yet I have three bars of service here. So this
(05:24):
is the room that I'm podcasting in today. I don't
want to tell her that her regular apartment looks more
like an insane asylum than her hotel room. But well,
he's not wrong that that actually that journey took me
all over the place. One I was going to think
that you actually were insane asylum, and I learned her.
And now I'm a little upset that we're not at
some party with you right now on the beach. So
(05:47):
I'll deal. Well, I do have three brain cells left,
so I will end up in an insane asylum. Comes
full circle really at our our l A premiere last
night and we're up a little late, so we thanks
for the invite, guys, not that I could have made it,
just you know, wanted to be invited so I could say, no,
I'm in a pizza. Yeah, understandable. Just so you know,
(06:12):
I gave you both very big intros with all of
your credits right before this, so just so yeah, so
just yeah, And that's the show, ladies and gentlemen, So
just pretend that you feel really loved by us and
respected if that's okay, Yeah, that easy. I mean, it's
(06:32):
show business, baby, So we already told people a little
bit about the big Con and we're very excited for
your new series and the Companion podcast. So now we've
got a ton of questions for you to hit us gently.
I mean, I'm not Will Smith, you know, yeah, true,
(06:57):
he was. He was bobbing and leaving. You know, he's
doing great. I mean the most notable hit now is
Dave Chappelle last night, and then Chris Rock came on
and said, was that you Will Smith? You guys heard
about this? I'm sure yes. I mean as a comedian,
I find this terrifying. Terrifying. It is like that's the
that's like the terrible thing about this is that now
(07:18):
that's all of a sudden like normalizes something insane like
that happening, which it absolutely should not be. And hopefully
it goes back to the seventies, eighties and nineties of
the Academy Awards next year where there's some insanely large
stage that people tripped all over themselves. I also missed
just seeing those videos in general. But yeah, that's just
(07:40):
very unfortunate and like nobody should have to deal with that. Yeah. No,
there's been some sort of opening where even the NBA
playoffs now people are like storming the courts. It seems,
you know, more at a rapid pace and more frequently
people are running on and interrupting things. And I mean,
obviously it's got to have something to do with with
a notoriety and that's TikTok and this and that. But
(08:01):
it's like it's it's it's kind of insane. I think
you think this is going to be the norm. So
I'm just I'm pretending for a moment that like this
is just a fluke, uh that we're experiencing at the moment. Yeah,
I think that reality TV has become so rampant that
it's blending so much with society where people feel like
(08:23):
they have to do all of these crazy things to
get noticed, you know, TikTok, reality television and and it's
everyone's just one upping each other constantly. And I don't
think that these are challenges, so to speak, but I
do think society has become unrealistic with what people can
and cannot do. You know, there's no proper morals anymore.
And wanted to talk about but right up your guy's
(08:47):
alley though, like the Tinder swindler, right, he he swindled
people out of all this money and so what happened?
They're like, Oh, he's gonna get his own TV show,
So why would these people see consequences accept the potential
upside to doing stuff like that. Speaking of ch if
you guys could check your pockets, I've already stolen your
identities and your money. But thank you so much. I
hope to get a TV deal out of this. Yeah. Yeah,
(09:10):
I mean that is a really fascinating thing as you
start to look at as true crime has gotten more
and more popular and really what has now been deemed
true cons uh, it almost feels like, in a certain sense,
there's the annadel v level of know how she achieved
what she wanted to achieve. Her whole thing was wanting
to be famous and recognized and be this whole hous thing.
(09:32):
There is an entire TV show, scripted TV show on
Netflix about her, and she won. It's it's like the
end of the movie seven, Like, even though you think
that person lost, they actually did achieve the thing they wanted.
It's true. And as someone who's in ABISA getting a
v I P experience and not taking any of the
(09:54):
g A routes, I will say v I P is
always better. Thanks for the continuing to rub that in. Yeah,
I feel like we should do a shot every time
she mentioned we didn't get wasn't coming through yet. I
don't know what's happening, and Adelvia and Adelvie keeps winning. Okay,
So you guys just really quickly right from millions to
(10:18):
the big Con. What led you to your fascination with
con artists and swindlers to begin with? I don't I
don't know if it's necessarily were attracted to con artists
or swindlers. I think we're just I am sorry what
I mean, you know, it's quite the dating. Well, the
(10:39):
the the attractive component of mcmillions was that this happened,
you know, in the in the nineties when all of
us were playing this crazy game, right, um, And so
it's pulling back the curtain at like what was happening
behind the scenes, and it's incredible fraud story. And at
the helm of it was this uh as con artists,
(11:00):
right And in this case, because our main character is
named con Uh, there is certainly a natural attraction to
this person. But after doing a fraud story like mcmillians,
like we weren't we weren't really thinking, Hey, our next
project is going to be necessarily a fraud story, and
and if we did it, how can we do it different?
(11:21):
What's something that we hadn't really tapped into in this
type of genre. And one of the things that we
didn't have with mcmillions was Jerry Jacobson, who was the
you know, the main person right at the helm. We
had everyone else talking about him, and the series really
didn't suffer. We don't feel like for not having them,
but for the big con we knew we wanted to
(11:44):
hear from Eric himself and we he was actually one
of the first people that we reach out to to
really see if we could build his trust and if
he could participate and how could we make that happen.
And through that process, he revealed that he'd been writing
kind of his life story. He shared it with us
and it was like, you know, this insane, uh rose
(12:06):
colored glasses view of his his life. It read like
a movie. So uh, we knew that that was going
to be an ingredient that would make this significantly different.
But the stakes of this story are so much greater
uh than mcmillions, And I think we were just captivated
by the possibilities of where this story can go. No
one had really done a deep dive on this before.
(12:28):
But I mean this is insane. Obviously you go back
to the guy's name is con right off the bat,
maybe he's destined for this, but I mean he stole
more than five fifty million and social security benefits. Like, yeah,
obviously we don't want to spoil the you know everyone's
gonna watch it anyway, But how does it How do
you go about something like does this? Does this? Did
(12:48):
it trickle in? He's like, I'm gonna start with this
and then just realized what a grand scheme it could
be and just kept it kept snowballing in a sense, Yeah,
he started out just as a regular attorney doing sales
with security benefits and just in general and eastern Kentucky,
the two main counties are Pike County and uh and
Floyd County, and there two basically counties that are propped
(13:11):
up completely by coal mining and and the eighties, seventies
and eighties, Pike County had more millionaires per capita than
any other county in the nation. Now it is one
of the poorest counties in the nation because coal just
is going away. It's really almost fully pulled out of
the area. But part of that is coal mining is
a very very difficult profession, and so you have a
(13:34):
lot of younger people, specially young men that are in
their forties and fifties, that are now just totally decimated
by working in the coal industry. They can't work anymore,
they can't stand, they can't really sit for long periods
of time, and so they need to go on these
benefits to help them for the rest of their lives.
Eric saw this and also saw the opportunity that a
(13:55):
lot of these people don't know lawyers. They don't they
it's all word of mouth. They just well, you know,
who did you like a friend and neighbor, who did
you get your benefits from? Okay, I'm gonna go to
that person. And so he bought out every billboard in
the small town. He did all these crazy commercials. He
bought out like almost every ad in the newspaper. They
(14:16):
were doing radio ads, it's songs. He was really, as
he referred to himself, a marketing genius in the sense
that everybody then knew Eric con is the person you
go to to get your benefits. And what they didn't
understand is that behind the scenes, Eric was getting these
rubber stamps to just put anybody on benefits because he
(14:36):
had public officials and judges on the payroll. Wow, I mean,
that's straight up mafia style, it is, and it's wild
because it's not really that complex of a scheme. It's
the the tried and true. You know, you scratch my back,
I scratch yours. Um. But at the same time, it
(14:59):
exposes this massive flaw in the system of social security
because the reason, one of the reasons con was so
successful is that he was getting people benefits in like
two months. Normally people had to wait eighteen months to
two years to get their benefits. And that is all
because of the way social security works. It just takes
(15:20):
so so long to get you approved to get these benefits.
If the system worked better than things like this wouldn't happen.
It seems to me, excuse me. The people that are
best at this, whether it be the mcmillions or this um,
they have to have two things. They have to be smart,
right they have they have to be smart to pull
this kind of thing off. But they have to just
(15:42):
give zeros about anybody that they're affecting. I mean, right,
they don't care about anybody else. Well. Eric C. Khan
is one of the most fascinating complex characters. I think
in a documentary series. Uh we when we non biased opinion,
it's it's obviously can we start calling him Eric con artist? Please?
(16:06):
I mean he just I think when people watch the
documentary series, you're gonna go into it thinking you know
who he is. Uh, and you're gonna have strong feelings
about him, and then by the fourth episode, by the end,
you might have a completely different feeling about him. Uh.
And are you gonna make us like this guy? Yeah?
(16:30):
Reasoning is he giving all the money to charity? I
don't even I don't even think like that. I think
it's more of a feeling that you might have. Um,
I don't know if you'll know how you'll feel. You
you're just gonna feel different. Um. But you know when
you talk about like what is it about these people?
Is it narcissism? Is it greed? Uh? Is it the
(16:51):
lack of shame? Right? Which you know it very well
could be. Um, and that could be a superpower, right,
Like I don't give him so I'm gonna all right,
I don't know. Wow, he's been acting really strangely are
we are we allowed to swear you haven't listened to
the podcast, which is clear, but I mean, well, or
(17:12):
you didn't listen to me thirty seconds ago I said,
zero seconds ago. Or you haven't listened to any of
my stand up. Yeah. No, just go on, guys, go ahead,
please please feel free to curse. Feel free to curse,
all right, But you know, at the at the point
in which you learn about how crazy this crime is,
right Eric, I mean, social security is not a stexy
(17:35):
um like backdrop for a crime. And it's one of
the reasons why he got away with it first so long,
because people weren't paying attention or people just didn't understand it.
And when you try to dig in, it's a little complicated.
And so one of the things that we really worked
hard at was find a way to really help people
understand this in a really entertaining and fun way. And
(17:59):
because there is a lot of humor, there's a lot
of you know, just quirky, uh, stranger than fiction components
of the story. But there's also this great tragedy. I mean,
when when Eric does this, you know, gets away with
her for ten years, uh, when he finally gets busted,
he goes on the run, and while he's on the run,
(18:20):
this crazy thing happens in eastern Kentucky, uh, with everybody
who was associated with him in one way or the other. Um.
And it's part of the devastation of this story as well.
I feel like we it's hard to follow up questions
about that without giving away too much. It feels like true, yeah,
(18:40):
well you know, Bob, and weave through the minefield of
giving too much away. Ye. It sounds like there's a
lot that that that that is going to happen. And
so it's a four part series, right, correct. So it's
(19:03):
a four part documentary series on Apple TV Plus called
The Big Hunt coming out Basis and um. It really
takes you through the journey of Eric and you really
start to understand who he is. But at the core
of this entire thing are these two whistleblowers, Sarah and Jennifer.
(19:24):
They worked for the Social Security Administration in one of
the local offices in West Virginia and they had been
ringing the alarm bells for years that something was going
on with one of the judges and with Eric Kahan.
But they were only on one side of it. They
couldn't really figure it out, but they were staying, Look,
this is not supposed to happen the way that this
(19:46):
is going. And it is fascinating because until Damian Plata,
who wrote the Wall Street Journal article about this, they
weren't even recognizing local news wasn't wanting to cover it.
People that at work that they were supposed to report
any sort of wrongdoing or anything to just turn their
backs on them and and a lot and retaliated against them,
(20:09):
try to get them fired. Um. And so we we've
really seen this journey what it means to stand up
for what you think is right, because Sarah Jennifer didn't
get any sort of benefit at all out of standing
up against the Social Security administration. Actually quite the opposite.
They were chastise and really like and they they people
(20:31):
try to get them fired, but they stood up for
what was right. And it also shows, you know, with
Damien stepping in and shining a light on this and
then all of a sudden that leads to a Senate
hearing that leads to investigations happening. Um. It shows why
the news exists because you know, all of us, as
individual citizens, there's only so much we can do. Our
voice can only be so loud, But when you have
(20:53):
the megaphone of an EFC, like the Wall Street Journal,
that really holds a government entity to a task. It's
interesting what you said. I find that more common nowadays,
where people who are afraid to do the right thing
or to speak up because it's it almost it's like
it doesn't matter the people that say, oh, hey, this
is people are being hurt by this, this this is
being done, we need to stop this. Then all of
(21:15):
a sudden, those guys get slandered to those guys get
and it's like it's it's a it's a fine line
to walk. So I think there's I think heroes in
that sense kind of stand out more nowadays when they
can get stuff done and get people behind them. It's hard.
I mean you even see it with the Me Too
movement where some people who come out against people who
have harmed them. Now people don't want to work with
(21:35):
them for whatever reason, and it's difficult to come forward.
But you know, I would like to just pivot really
quickly and maybe go back to talking about Eric. But
Eric was apparently super popular in Kentucky, right, and he
was touted as this like modern day Robin hood. H
where do you think that that characterization came from? If
(21:59):
you can give us a little nugget without giving too
much a way, Well, in a lot of ways, he
really did want to help people, or at least on
the surface, well it appeared, I mean Elizabeth Holmes said
the same thing, right. I mean, he you know, he
was born in that region of the country, and so
(22:20):
he had seen first him his parents were, you know,
in the cold camps and uh, and so he'd seen
extreme poverty. Um. And so I think that there was
an inherent like interest in wanting to do something for
his area. UM. Now, people can argue that that's not
what his motivations were, certainly, but he was providing benefits
(22:42):
to people who needed them, and he was providing them
faster than anyone else, and he was guaranteeing them when
other people were having to wait for a year and
a half or more to get their benefits. He was saying, hey,
I can get it too in thirty days, like when
you don't have an income, like you can't wait a year,
especially if you've got real medical problems, like how are
(23:05):
you supposed to survive? Or eighteen months while you wait
to get an easily check of nine dollars a month
from the from the federal government. So and that's usually
like at most. So he was able to do something
that no other attorney could, and everybody who went to
him just sall like, okay, well this this person is
(23:26):
saving my life right now. Um. And when you think
of Robin and do you think of you know, stealing
from the ridge and giving the poor like it's a
victimous crime, It's like, well, Eric, you know, had his
deal with a with a judge and he was you know,
basically cheating the system and and getting money for people
faster because of this you know corruption that was happening
within his you know, popular people. But his you know,
(23:50):
this idea of it being a victim was crime. And like, oh,
the government has all this money, so who cares if
I'm you know, taking a few million to help my
my neighbors here get their benefits faster. But that isn't
the case. I mean, we all like as far as
you know people in the States, right, like we all
pay in at the system, right our taxes go into
this safety net of social security, and we don't think
(24:12):
about it now because it's like especially being young, we're
thinking like, oh, it's our parents are grandparents like dealing
with social Security. But there's a huge portion of this
fund that's allocated to the stability benefits. It's a designed
for people that if you can't work because you've got
injured on a job or just you know, felt ill
and can't you know, perform anymore, like what you know,
(24:34):
what safety net do we have? And this is it?
And deaps someone take advantage of it is essentially someone
who's stealing money from all of us. About him, sorry,
as you're talking about him, I like him more and more.
I'm like, ah, I see what he was likable. I
knew that's gonna happen. Now she's gonna want to know
if he's singled there it is. Well, that does get
into the side of Eric. That is really interesting because
(24:58):
we talked about an episode and we get a very
deep into it in episode two. But he's had a
few wives, so he's always looking back at the list. Really,
it sounds like there's hope for me. I stand by
the modern day robin Hood for you. I stand by
the modern day robin Hood nickname, because if Robin Hood
was like the world is so upside down. Now. I
(25:20):
think that's exactly how Robin would Robin Hood would act now,
It's just it wouldn't be that that glorious like stealing
from the bridge. There'd be some sort of side takes,
some sort of shitty thing on the side. I swore
for you guys, and so I stand by that nickname.
I think you can have it, and Leah, don't pursue
a relationship with him. I'm not going to, no question.
Do you think that he actually thought he was going
(25:41):
to get away with it? Oh, you know, we've talked
to Eric a lot, and it's been really fascinating to
see the process of topping him over the past almost
three years. At this point, Um, he never necessarily thought
he was going to totally get away with it. He
has been described and even himself said he kind of
(26:04):
he likes to take risks. One of his best friends
and old assistants said that she felt like he was
addicted to risk taking. And you know, in this situation
the with one of the judges he was working with
main judge, they talk about and we have this in
the series that yeah, they could do something and if
(26:25):
anything ever went down, they just take it to the grave.
But as we all see in this day and age,
there's just way too much evidence, way too much of
a paper trail. Uh. Technology is too good to be
able to just keep anything secret basically anymore. Um. And
so it is definitely in a situation where you just
try to stay present and think, well, this is working now,
(26:48):
and you know, in the future, I'm sure I'll be
able to figure something out to get to get out
of it. Yeah. There there's a lot of different ways
to think about this, because when we were making mcmillions, UH,
there's always the people who are in in you know,
working with Jerry Jacobson that said like, okay, this is
the last one, this is the last time. But with
(27:09):
Eric uh and what's revealed in the documentary series, and
we talked about it early on, it's just the relationship
he has with this one special judge and between the
two of them. Uh, there's you know, the judges helping
rubber stamp all these people through the system, and the
judge has what is called judicial independence. So there's kind
(27:30):
of this loophole in the system where they have the
ability to make decisions whether or not someone gets benefits
independent of anybody else. With no oversight and that, and
and that's how they realize like, hey, there's nothing anybody
can do about what we're doing. Um I can put
a hundred percent of the people through the system and
(27:52):
nobody can do anything about it. Uh. But obviously, as
the you know, this goes on for years and years,
and these whistleblowers who actually worked, you know, within the
Social Security Administration are saying, hey, something is not right here,
like there, this system is not it's not designed like
this and it's not supposed to be functioning like this.
(28:15):
But you you'll see within the documentary series like just
how broken it is that, you know, they couldn't they
couldn't get the word out. They couldn't they were trying
to like make the point to supervisors, they were trying
to go to press, they were trying to go anyway.
No one wanted to touch it until this one Wall
Street drone reporter independent on his own, started looking into
(28:38):
this and realizing, like, how is it possible a judge
it's approving of all cases that he sees when the
average you know, administrative law judge like does like sixty
and this guy is like doing twice the three times
as many cases per years everybody, Like it just doesn't
add up, like of the people you see not be disabled. Wow,
(29:04):
But but doesn't it also show the loopholes and the
issues with the system itself. It's almost like he should
be thanked for showing the ways in which people can
calm the system. Yeah, not really, we can say that
that he exposed the issues. You guys don't want to
(29:28):
thank a criminal, that's so weird. Yeah, I'm thankful that
when we have a story to tell that includes them.
But yeah, but really it does show like huge, very
huge flaws in Social Security and that is the massive
underlying thing with us. We we lure you in with
the craziness of Eric, but there's actually a point to
(29:49):
this entire situation, which is Social Security administration really has
a lot of huge flaws. It's one of the largest
entities in American government. It's one of the largest budgets,
and if there's a lot of money, people are going
to try to exploit it. But this really shows that
human beings that are waiting for their benefits, that need
(30:10):
those benefits shouldn't be waiting a year and a half.
They need help now. And to be able to show
how this is exploited and it's funny. And when we
talked to the Senate Subcommittee of Investigations who looked into
this to really lead onto this big Senate hearing, which
is a very climactic moment in the series. They talked
(30:33):
about the fact that they came to the realization and
senators came to the realization that nobody had really asked
for records from the Social Secure administration for about fifty years.
They kind of just let Social Security do their own thing.
But every single government entity needs oversight. It doesn't matter
what it is. There's a reason for checks and balances
(30:55):
because things can get loaded, things can get continue to
run in a certain way, become very comfortable, and if
you're not trying to make things more efficient, then you're
just hurting the people who need it most. Yeah. I mean,
I know that we don't have as much time with
you as we want, so maybe we could just ask
a final question. Great, thank you, So that'll be a
(31:19):
goals perfect. So you know that you know you've studied
multiple con artists at this point through the years, do
you feel like there's a common through line or a
common thread that they share personality wise that you've seen
or noticed. Yeah, I think that there. I mean, I
don't know if there's necessarily a common through line, but
(31:43):
there's definitely the uh ability to as James pointed out before,
is like to take that risk, you know, inherently, Like
we all kind of ponder like if you could you know,
if you I mean we talked about with Mgmion Psyche
if you saw you know, a wallet on the ground
and had you know, ten thous dollars in it? Uh,
(32:05):
Like what compels you to pick that wallet up and
return it to the rightful owner with all the money
in it? Um? But if no one's around, like, and
you need the money, Uh, what's not to stop you
from just taking it and saying, hey, this is my
lucky day. And we're always you know, we find ourselves
in these unique moments of life where we're conflicted or
(32:29):
we we have to make a choice about what's the
right thing to do and what's the wrong thing to do.
And I think what's fascinating with this is it's an
illustration of what happens when someone leads, you know, leans
into that temptation. Uh, when someone says, hey, I'm just
gonna go for it. Um, I think what happens in
a lot of these cases is you get away with
(32:50):
it once and you're like, oh my gosh, there was
a thrill to it perhaps, or like, look, it's not
hurting anybody, so let me do it again. And then
it becomes so systematic and you're not even thinking that
you're committing a crime. Um And I think a lot
of people talk themselves into thinking, hey, I'm kind of
(33:11):
owed this for something. They justify it with something else
in their life. Right, it's the rationalization that you can
go down and you get away with a little bit.
You can get away with a little bit. And the
thing that we always see is that, unfortunately, and everyone's
experienced this, greed gets the better of you if you
let it. And on the other side of that is
that level narcissism of I'm owed this. This is I'm like,
(33:34):
I'm not hurting anybody. The U. S. Government is the
largest entity on the planet basically, so what if I'm
taking a few extra million dollars from them? How's that
going to affect a budget that's trillions of dollars? And
it is we just we've we've with mcmillions. It was
funny because and all in all, they stalled about four
(33:55):
million dollars. This is five and fifty million dollars, and
but the motivations are very much the same. Yeah. Well,
and I think that there's there's probably commonalities too with
childhood or some sort of trauma or some experience that
really affected kind of how like in the case of
Eric's ekhan in a story like we we actually we
(34:18):
talked about Eric's mom and what he was like his
relationship with his mom, and we feel like in a
lot of ways, like that did affect his desire to
get out there, his desire to be recognized, his desire
to do something that was meaningful, and you know, I
(34:38):
had to have some success in a small town. Like
he was a he wasn't he was a geniue. I
mean he self proclaimed genius by the way. He uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm now a fraud con person. Yeah, So, you know,
there's there's a lot of commonalities, but there's also there's
(35:00):
got to be something that you can trace back to
early in life with all these people that's like, hey,
I you know, this is the reason why I decided
to pick up that wallet and claim the ten thousands
of my stuff rather than try to do the right
thing that makes sense. I mean, I'm I'm more totally
interested in knowing more about the Halloween themed brothel and
(35:24):
wondering if if people were having sex and zombie which
and sexy Donald Trump costumes. Uh, that whole thing. That
is one of the most shocking things we've found out about.
When we're talking to people about Eric, it came up that, oh, yeah,
Eric had a brothel. Because part of what you learned
(35:46):
in the series is that one week out of every
single month, Eric would fly somewhere around the world to
try and basically find a new wife, women a biza.
Sorry what so he's getting a you know, the the
conjugal visits you might have to go to talk but
if only you do how many times I talked about
(36:07):
conjugal visits? Okay, go on. So we we find that
he's traveling around the world doing other stuff, and then
it comes up that like, oh, at one point Eric
bought a brothel and owned and random brothel, and we're
just mind blown about this whole thing. I mean, our
entire team we worked with here at fund Meter was like,
is this is this real? Then we start researching it
(36:29):
and sure enough. Yeah. I even talking to Eric. He
talks about it in the series of you know, was
it a brothel? Was it a go go? And he
one of my personal favorite quotes of it. You know,
it was like, you know, you go there and if
you like it, you take it home. That's that's sort
of how he looked his go go slash brothel. But um,
(36:51):
it is it is a wild scenario. And uh, I
really wish it still existed because I'd love to go
to Thailand and uh has a pat Hi there? I haven't.
I haven't heard anything. After Leah suggested that there was
such a thing as a sexy Donald Trump costume, I
was like, I was like, is it Is it a
good thing that we don't have any photos? Or I
(37:15):
want to see that. I could see it now, someone
just with a spray tanned orange face, with white eyes,
a wig and just nothing else. All right, moving on,
So everyone's gonna have nightmares tonight thanks to me? Or
is there anything else about the show? Any last thoughts
that you want to tell us or the listeners about,
(37:37):
or any parting words that you want to share. I mean,
I think one of the things that you said before
about like you know, you know, standing up for what's right,
and like there's a there's an inspirational side to this
story as well, And there's also a cautionary tale of
what happens when you can are a problem. Um, because
(38:01):
with our two whistleblowers, they were saying, hey, there's a
problem here, and they were being ignored, and they were
being were time and time again. What happens with a
problem when you ignore it. It doesn't just go away
like a lot of people wanted to. Uh, it just
becomes a bigger problem and a bigger problem. And this
is really a horrific illustration of how big that problem
(38:25):
can get and how can affect so many people. And
I had just one person early on just said you
know what, right, there's a problem here and I can
help stop it. But so many people avoided it, and
then people went out of their way to actually stop
them from making that problem known to other people. And
(38:45):
it so I think that there's a great cautionary tale
in this story. So it's got everything. It's got humor,
it's got tragedy, it's got inspiration, it's got sell them
sell it's got from Halloween being yeah, yeah, the underlying
sexy Donald Trump's is we just like as outrageous as
(39:11):
Eric is, and he's crazy and saying and fun and
just watching his commercials will make you laugh. But at
the same time, there are people that are still fighting
to try and get their benefits back. This is still
a problem right now, and you know, the people that
are fighting for their benefits have really had a hard time.
So we're really we hope above anything that this shines
(39:33):
a light on this entire topic so that the people
who need help can get it, and that some changes
at the very top, governments, whole level start to happen
so things like this don't happen again. Amazing. I'm looking
forward to it. And on a personal note, I want
to thank you guys for mcmillions because I was in
the nineties. I was on a mission to win that thing.
(39:53):
I had a lot of food I didn't want to
eat because somehow I thought I was like Charlie and
the chocolate factory. I saw one of those little things
on the ground and then I went and I was like,
that's it, and I picked it up and I never won.
So the fact that you exposed that there was a
problem and it wasn't just me um, sadly, I appreciate
all that. I remember it also as a little kid,
very very young, because I'm eighteen basically, so I don't
(40:17):
like that you guys laughed, but uh, well is what's
the legal drinking age and a visa, isn't it? So yeah, yeah,
yeah I don't drink, but yeah I'm barely legal. But
I know I remember it as a kid too. And
also mcmillian's helped me get through the pandemic. So much
(40:38):
appreciated to you. We're like, oh, good content, thank you,
thank you. That's that's awesome to hear. You know. We
we worked insanely hard on that entire thing, and uh,
the big con got us through the pandemic because that's
basically all we've been been doing since the world shut down.
So that was an interesting challenge, but we we got
(40:59):
it done well. James and Brian, thank you so much
for coming on the podcast today, and anyone who's listening.
If you have Apple tv plus, congratulations you've made a
great choice. If not, download it now so that you
can also watch the show. It's coming out May six,
so tomorrow, and you can also listen to the Companion
(41:19):
Show on Apple Podcasts. Yes, the Big on on Apple
TV plus Basics. Then there's a companion podcast. What else
do we have fun new year? We got a new
line of kidding. Yeah. Well, if you guys wanted to
buy my new fragrance, it's Curious by Britney Spears and
it's out now, so check yourselves at CBS. Gentlemen, it's
(41:42):
been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much
for coming on the podcast today, and we can't wait
to watch the show and listen to the podcast. Oh,
thank you so much for having us. Thanks guys, Well,
of course, have a good one, all right, you too,
bye bye ye, all right you guys. In today, our
(42:10):
hot topics are going to be Dave Chappelle getting attacked
on stage at the Netflix as a Joke festival, and
a complaint against Bill Murray over a difference of opinion
on set shutting down a film. So we're going in
real Hollywood today. Let's talk about Bill Murray first, because
I can't even believe anyone would complain about Bill Murray.
This just seems ridiculous to me. However, I don't know
(42:33):
if you know this, but there was actually previously a
complaint against Bill Murray during uh the filming of Charlie's
Angels in two thousand, when Lucy Lou said that she
had some issues with him and that he was hurling
insults at her while doing a scene and some of
the language was and I quote, inexcusable and unacceptable. So
interesting to hear that, But now moving forward. Apparently for
(42:58):
roughly two weeks after search Like Pictures suspended production on
the film Being Mortal to investigate a complaint filed against
Bill Murray, the actor described the inciting incident as a
difference of opinion. During a recent sit down with c NBC,
Murray said, I had a difference of opinion with a
woman I'm working with. I did something I thought was
funny and it wasn't taken that way. The company, the
(43:19):
movie studio, wanted to do the right things, so they
wanted to check it all out and investigate it, and
so they stopped the production. Murray said that the woman
who filed the complaint are they're both trying to make
peaks with each other. He says, We're both professionals, we
like each other's work, we like each other. I think
if we can't really get along and trust each other,
there's no point in going there's no point in going
further working together or making the movie as well. Oh yeah, yeah,
(43:43):
I like Bill Murray a lot. I'm a big fan.
Yeah yeah, I'm not. I'm not justifying anything that I
don't know. I don't know what was said, the stuff
I don't know, the Charlie's Angels things. If something was
done wrong, then I'm not then I don't advocate that,
but I really I'm a big fan of his I
(44:03):
kind of don't. This doesn't feel like a major thing.
This sounds like maybe somebody was offended or maybe there
was something, and it sounds like they're working it out there.
And I'm almost content. And I'm not saying I don't
want to talk about it, but I'm almost content leaving
it at that, because I feel like a lot of
people get involved in stuff that doesn't need it and
it becomes a bigger thing. I'm not ready to take
Bill Murray down without the facts, and I don't want
(44:25):
to take Bill Murray down, and I don't want other
people take him down if he did something wrong. I
hope that they can work that out. Do people ever
know what was said? I don't know. It sounds like
they're kind of keeping it pretty close to the vest. Now.
I think I'd be foolish to say no, because I
think everything eventually comes out. Um, it seems crazy that
with all the information and the Amber heard and Johnny
(44:46):
Depp trial, we know everything that happened between them, including
shifting the bed. How could we not know what was
said on set? And you know, I think the social
opinion always impacts the actual decision as well, and and
you know, it can affect people's careers. So we found
out that something happened that people didn't think was that
big of a deal. Maybe it would make this woman
(45:06):
look really bad and then and it would make the
studios look ridiculous and everyone look ridiculous. But if they
if what he said was really bad and they're trying
to protect Bill, you know, there's just so many ways
that's can all play out. Yeah, And I think that's
that's kind of where I'm at. I think we don't
always need to be a giant court of opinion. I
(45:28):
think it's good to weigh in on stuff. It's good
to know stuff. But you know, things happened, you know,
I know there was this thing recently with Steve Martin
when people went back and like the King Tut thing,
and it's like, guys, that was thirty years ago. It
was a different context. You can't go back and dig
that up. Granted this just happened now, but I don't
know that there has to be this. To me, without knowing,
it doesn't sound like it's there's a major thing. There's
(45:49):
no police, there's no you know. So it's like, whatever
it was, it sounds like it can be. It can
be cleaned up without it without it going through you know,
the general court of opinion. Man, I wish I knew
what was said. I really do. I'm so nosy. But
also because yeah, ay, and be also because you know,
(46:09):
I think that as a comedian sometimes you just not
that you don't know the line, but it's just you
have no filter and you kind of assume around other
artists you can just be free and be yourself. And
sometimes it's never meant to make someone feel uncomfortable or
make someone feel bad. Maybe you're just you know, saying
something ridiculous or yeah, we have no idea what the
(46:32):
context was. We don't know if he was talking about
someone on set. We don't know if he was talking
about something completely random and she just found it inappropriate,
and so, you know, it's it's always interesting to see
how people get slammed for something that maybe nothing or
or nothing that might be something. There's a lot of
pressure when you're brought in to do something as a comedian,
and as a comedian and actor, you know, there's a
(46:53):
lot of pressure. You're you're almost seen as you know,
you've got to kind of entertain people on the set.
You got and I'm not saying that means cross lines,
but sometimes you feel like, okay, well I gotta do this.
So it is possible that you would say some stuff
that normally you wouldn't say, or maybe it was a
long day and you did. I'm not making excuses for him,
but I'm saying that this is a thing there is
pressure to entertain, so it's very possible. Like you said,
(47:13):
you start, you know, kind of joking around with people
on the line, gets a little blurred and all of
a sudden you've gone over it, which it's a lot
easier to do nowadays. Do you think it's going to
harm his career this incident. I don't think so. I
hope not, and I think it's gonna be a little
bit of a gray area if we don't find out
what happened, because then people will be like, well, I
don't know what I'm dipping my toe in here, so right,
(47:35):
I mean, Dave Chappelle survived cancel culture, Joe Rogan survived
cancel culture. I think that there are some people who
are so much larger than the entertainment industry that can't
be canceled. Yeah, and I'd like to Fahil Murray seems
like one of those people. And Bill Murray is not
someone that has been you know, um an ass and
has has done things. He's known for being, you know,
(47:58):
a good guy and in a lot of different situations.
Although I've got questions for Lucy Lou. Yeah. Right. Anyway,
speaking of drama in the workplace and Hollywood, if you
haven't heard about this yet, just the other night in
Hollywood at the Hollywood Bowl, Dave Chappelle was tackled by
(48:20):
someone in the front row who had a gun and
a knife. How they got the gun in the knife
into the Hollywood Bowl when they were metal detectors and
everyone's phones were being locked up is beyond me. Apparently
they were so consumed with locking up people's phones that
they missed a gun, Like, how does that not go
through the metal detector. It's all very odd. And apparently
this guy snuck into the front row. He didn't have
(48:41):
a front row seat or anything, and he went on
stage tackled Dave Chappelle and this is all for Netflix
as a joke, and he came up, he stood up,
Chris Rock came grabbed the mic. Set is that you
Will Smith, L O L. And Jamie Fox, Jon Stewart,
all the other comedians just started running and chasing and
beating the ship out of this guy along with security.
(49:03):
He left mangled, his arm was broken, twisted in a
million pieces. But I mean, man, this is um this
is pretty despicable. Also, you know, I wonder what the
motive was. We haven't even gotten there. With Will Smith
and Chris Rock, we know what the motive was, We
know what was going on, but with this guy, we
have no clue. Right And also, you know, there were
(49:26):
no consequences for Will Smith physically, you know, he professionally
he's been you know, banned for ten years and blah
blah blah. But for this guy, he was immediately tackled,
beat up. It's just interesting to see how there's a
difference and how people are treated Because a reputation walked
on stage and smacked Chris Rock. Uh, somebody that was
(49:49):
unknown jumped up and and and tackled Dave Chappelle, So
that that's the difference. The difference is people like, oh,
I know this guy is once he's walking up, what
he do? Oh I can't believe he did that. That's
not like him. This is who knows what this guy
is doing? So they grabbed him and beat him up,
and you know, neither is correct. Both are scary. Um.
I tend to think that the obviously that Dave Chappelle
(50:12):
one is is a is more scary to think about.
Because I got past security, got on stage tackle him.
It could have been gun had a gun, I mean,
I still just don't. Also, that is so bizarre that
the guy brought a gun but decided to get on
stage and tackle him instead of using the gun. I mean,
I just read somewhere that it was a replica gun,
(50:33):
but then he had a real knife attached to it
like that right there says there's a whole bunch of
craziness going through that head. But um, to do any
of that but um, yeah, it could have been a
thousand times worse than it was. It could have been
a thousand times worse. The fact that Dave just brushed
it off and everyone started making jokes immediately goes to
show you how jaded comedians are already by violence or
(50:55):
like expecting something bad to happen that shouldn't be the norm.
I know, and I'm torn because I really appreciate the
professionalism of being able to bounce both of them, Chris
Rock to being able to bounce back and and do
what you're what you do make people feel a little
more comfortable to make some jokes about it. But it's
also like I don't want that. I don't want the
ability to do that to diminish the reaction to these
(51:17):
types of things, right, And and I know as a
comedian I deflect with comedy a lot. In fact, last night,
I was having a very intense emotional conversation with someone.
I just made a joke and I just thought, in
that moment, why did I have to do that? You know,
it's because I was so uncomfortable that I had to
bring laughter into it and make it less serious and
to take away any element of pain or anything for
(51:40):
me or the other person. And a lot of times
I'm just you know, I do that, and I think
that a lot of comedians do that because it's our
fence mechanism and it makes everything okay. Not everything needs
to be made okay. Like that's a pretty scary thing
to happen. But anyway, I mean, look, the podcast wentlong today.
It's short, but it went long. Does that make sense?
(52:05):
And now Dmitri has to go be a celebrity And
I'm sorry, Dmitri. Did you get invited to Tom Cruise's
new movie premiere? I did. I'm I'm off to the
top gun Maverick premiere. And will you take photos on
the red carpet with your arm extended out pretending to
hold an invisible person so that I can photoshop myself
into the photos. It's just the way you painted that, right.
There is probably a no I'll go out and pretend
(52:28):
to hold an invisible person. I'm probably gonna say no,
but I'll see what I can do. We don't want
to seem crazy on the red carpet in front of
all your peers and Tom Cruise, that's so weird. There's
enough crazy out there. I think I'm gonna stand and
stand down on this. Ha ha. Okay, Well, you have
a fabulous time on the red carpet. I mean at
the movie premiere tonight. I'm wondering who you're wearing. I
would love to see photos at the gown, you know,
(52:49):
I'm just so curious. Well, if you'll have me back,
I'd love to come back and talk about it. If
you guys also see a crime in the future, one
that is Dimitri's hair and makeup that I'm sure we'll
follow after this, it's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna be
a beautiful wig. If you see a crime, like, for example,
(53:09):
if you were at Netflix is a joke last night,
two nights ago, when this airs, or whenever you're listening
to it. If you were in there and you saw
what happened, you're supposed to call us. You know that, right.
We have a call in number for this exact reason,
and you know what it is. It's eight six six crime.
If you witness a crime that's not too scary, you like,
(53:30):
don't don't call us for the scary ones, you know
what I mean. Like, that's when you call the cops,
So we're not the cops. We can't do anything for you.
We're social slits. You know this crime and you want
to call and confess. We can help you with that too. Yeah, sure,
like we'll pardon your sins. We will call in eight
six six twenty one crime. That's eight six six two
one two seven four or six three eight six six
(53:50):
twenty one crime six to anyone crime that's eight six
six two one two seven four six three. All right, y'all,
it's day safe. Have a great night that. Don't commit
any crimes until the next podcast. Okay, love you all. Bye.
It's real time. Crop it real time Gray, I mean,
(54:15):
is it actually real time crime or solving anything or
is that just the thing we say, it's a thing
we say, got it? Okay, see you next week for
more real time crime, only on i Heart Radio.
Crime. Hello, we one, and welcome back to another episode
of Real Time Crime. I'm your host Leo Lamar and
I have with me sometimes now oftentimes Dmitri. Hello, oftentimes Dmitri.
(00:25):
I'm in paradise. I know you are. And this is
the first time we're doing this podcast, like all the
way around the world. It's nine pm here, and I
will say that it doesn't make it any easier the
later it gets for me, and it doesn't make it
any easier the earlier we do this for me, So
it's never easy for me. That was the whole reason
we sent you over there was because we're like, we
(00:47):
could do the podcast a regular time, but it'll be
nighttime for her. It'll be perfect and Leo will finally
be awake. Well, let me tell you, I could sleep
as late as you will let me. Oh boy. And
I'm in a eza in case anyone who's interested, No,
I won't say Abitha because apparently that's not actually how
you're supposed to say it. It annoys me anyway, so yeah,
(01:08):
and mostly because it annoys Dmitri. Today we will be
discussing a couple of hot topics, some of your favorite
I's only got a sexphone operator right now. I don't
know what they sound like, but sure, sure, sure, sure
how much it's twenty dollars per minute. So of course
we've got two amazing guests for you today, and we'll
(01:29):
be talking about The Big Con, which airs on Apple
TV Plus and on Apple Podcasts May six. So get
excited because we've got guests who are gonna be speaking
to the nature of that show and the podcast. Our
first guest today is James Lee Hernandez. He's a multi
(01:49):
Emmy and pg A Award nominated filmmaker and critically acclaimed podcaster.
He recently directed, wrote, and edited the five time Emmy
nominated HBO origin old documentary series mcmillions with his creative
partner Brian Lazarte, who will be meeting next Hernandez executive
produced the series with Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Archie Gibbs,
(02:11):
and Lazarte. Hernandez as a founding partner of fund Meter,
a TV and film production company specializing in Stranger than Fiction,
scripted and unscripted content. Recently announced, Hernandez and Lazarte are writing, directing,
an executive producing two documentary series for Apple TV Plus
through fund Meter, The Big Con, and The Jet. Both
shows are slated to be released in two and then
(02:33):
we have Brian Lazarte. He's an Emmy nominated filmmaker and editor.
His credits include a variety of award winning documentaries and series,
most notably mcmillions for HBO, which he wrote, directed, executive produced,
and edited alongside James Lee Hernandez. His four part Apple
TV Plus original docs series The Big Con and Apple
TV Plus original documentary series The Jet will be available
(02:55):
to stream this year. Some other credits may include Katie
Perry part of Me three d a, HBO's Emmy Award
winning Sonic Highways, fed Up at ESPN's Emmy Award winning
Hawaiian The Legend of Eddie Aku, thirty for thirty. I mean,
the list goes on and on, and we are so
excited to be speaking with them today about their new show,
The Big Con, which is a four part Apple TV
(03:17):
Plus documentary series with a companion podcast about Eric c.
kN hilarious that his last name is Con when he's
a con man. Yeah, I mean, it's hilarious who defrauded
the government and taxpayers over half a billion dollars. Former
Eastern Kentucky attorney Eric S. Kon is known for committing
(03:38):
the largest social Security fraud case in history. The Big
Con examines his larger than life story, the people he defrauded,
and his inevitable run from the law. The trailer described
Cohn as one of the biggest lawyers in Appalachia and
his celebrity was unavoidable. He used his riches to attract
porn stars, throw out rageous parties, and open to Halloween
themed brothel. My kind of guy. He had ventually caught
(04:00):
the eye of law enforcement after defrauding taxpayers in the
United States. Out of mill subscribers can watch the four
part documentary series and Apple TV Plus, and anyone can
listen to The Companion Show on Apple Podcast when both
premiere on May six. M HM, Hi James and Brian,
(05:01):
So nice to meet you. Hello, nice to meet you
as well, and Leeah. I don't usually record from what
looks like the inside of an insane asylum, but I
am in a BISA, not to brag, and I'm this
is the only location that has WiFi. There's no five
G on this island. I mean, nothing works here and
yet I have three bars of service here. So this
(05:24):
is the room that I'm podcasting in today. I don't
want to tell her that her regular apartment looks more
like an insane asylum than her hotel room. But well,
he's not wrong that that actually that journey took me
all over the place. One I was going to think
that you actually were insane asylum, and I learned her.
And now I'm a little upset that we're not at
some party with you right now on the beach. So
(05:47):
I'll deal. Well, I do have three brain cells left,
so I will end up in an insane asylum. Comes
full circle really at our our l A premiere last
night and we're up a little late, so we thanks
for the invite, guys, not that I could have made it,
just you know, wanted to be invited so I could say, no,
I'm in a pizza. Yeah, understandable. Just so you know,
(06:12):
I gave you both very big intros with all of
your credits right before this, so just so yeah, so
just yeah, And that's the show, ladies and gentlemen, So
just pretend that you feel really loved by us and
respected if that's okay, Yeah, that easy. I mean, it's
(06:32):
show business, baby, So we already told people a little
bit about the big Con and we're very excited for
your new series and the Companion podcast. So now we've
got a ton of questions for you to hit us gently.
I mean, I'm not Will Smith, you know, yeah, true,
(06:57):
he was. He was bobbing and leaving. You know, he's
doing great. I mean the most notable hit now is
Dave Chappelle last night, and then Chris Rock came on
and said, was that you Will Smith? You guys heard
about this? I'm sure yes. I mean as a comedian,
I find this terrifying. Terrifying. It is like that's the
that's like the terrible thing about this is that now
(07:18):
that's all of a sudden like normalizes something insane like
that happening, which it absolutely should not be. And hopefully
it goes back to the seventies, eighties and nineties of
the Academy Awards next year where there's some insanely large
stage that people tripped all over themselves. I also missed
just seeing those videos in general. But yeah, that's just
(07:40):
very unfortunate and like nobody should have to deal with that. Yeah. No,
there's been some sort of opening where even the NBA
playoffs now people are like storming the courts. It seems,
you know, more at a rapid pace and more frequently
people are running on and interrupting things. And I mean,
obviously it's got to have something to do with with
a notoriety and that's TikTok and this and that. But
(08:01):
it's like it's it's it's kind of insane. I think
you think this is going to be the norm. So
I'm just I'm pretending for a moment that like this
is just a fluke, uh that we're experiencing at the moment. Yeah,
I think that reality TV has become so rampant that
it's blending so much with society where people feel like
(08:23):
they have to do all of these crazy things to
get noticed, you know, TikTok, reality television and and it's
everyone's just one upping each other constantly. And I don't
think that these are challenges, so to speak, but I
do think society has become unrealistic with what people can
and cannot do. You know, there's no proper morals anymore.
And wanted to talk about but right up your guy's
(08:47):
alley though, like the Tinder swindler, right, he he swindled
people out of all this money and so what happened?
They're like, Oh, he's gonna get his own TV show,
So why would these people see consequences accept the potential
upside to doing stuff like that. Speaking of ch if
you guys could check your pockets, I've already stolen your
identities and your money. But thank you so much. I
hope to get a TV deal out of this. Yeah. Yeah,
(09:10):
I mean that is a really fascinating thing as you
start to look at as true crime has gotten more
and more popular and really what has now been deemed
true cons uh, it almost feels like, in a certain sense,
there's the annadel v level of know how she achieved
what she wanted to achieve. Her whole thing was wanting
to be famous and recognized and be this whole hous thing.
(09:32):
There is an entire TV show, scripted TV show on
Netflix about her, and she won. It's it's like the
end of the movie seven, Like, even though you think
that person lost, they actually did achieve the thing they wanted.
It's true. And as someone who's in ABISA getting a
v I P experience and not taking any of the
(09:54):
g A routes, I will say v I P is
always better. Thanks for the continuing to rub that in. Yeah,
I feel like we should do a shot every time
she mentioned we didn't get wasn't coming through yet. I
don't know what's happening, and Adelvia and Adelvie keeps winning. Okay,
So you guys just really quickly right from millions to
(10:18):
the big Con. What led you to your fascination with
con artists and swindlers to begin with? I don't I
don't know if it's necessarily were attracted to con artists
or swindlers. I think we're just I am sorry what
I mean, you know, it's quite the dating. Well, the
(10:39):
the the attractive component of mcmillions was that this happened,
you know, in the in the nineties when all of
us were playing this crazy game, right, um, And so
it's pulling back the curtain at like what was happening
behind the scenes, and it's incredible fraud story. And at
the helm of it was this uh as con artists,
(11:00):
right And in this case, because our main character is
named con Uh, there is certainly a natural attraction to
this person. But after doing a fraud story like mcmillians,
like we weren't we weren't really thinking, Hey, our next
project is going to be necessarily a fraud story, and
and if we did it, how can we do it different?
(11:21):
What's something that we hadn't really tapped into in this
type of genre. And one of the things that we
didn't have with mcmillions was Jerry Jacobson, who was the
you know, the main person right at the helm. We
had everyone else talking about him, and the series really
didn't suffer. We don't feel like for not having them,
but for the big con we knew we wanted to
(11:44):
hear from Eric himself and we he was actually one
of the first people that we reach out to to
really see if we could build his trust and if
he could participate and how could we make that happen.
And through that process, he revealed that he'd been writing
kind of his life story. He shared it with us
and it was like, you know, this insane, uh rose
(12:06):
colored glasses view of his his life. It read like
a movie. So uh, we knew that that was going
to be an ingredient that would make this significantly different.
But the stakes of this story are so much greater
uh than mcmillions, And I think we were just captivated
by the possibilities of where this story can go. No
one had really done a deep dive on this before.
(12:28):
But I mean this is insane. Obviously you go back
to the guy's name is con right off the bat,
maybe he's destined for this, but I mean he stole
more than five fifty million and social security benefits. Like, yeah,
obviously we don't want to spoil the you know everyone's
gonna watch it anyway, But how does it How do
you go about something like does this? Does this? Did
(12:48):
it trickle in? He's like, I'm gonna start with this
and then just realized what a grand scheme it could
be and just kept it kept snowballing in a sense, Yeah,
he started out just as a regular attorney doing sales
with security benefits and just in general and eastern Kentucky,
the two main counties are Pike County and uh and
Floyd County, and there two basically counties that are propped
(13:11):
up completely by coal mining and and the eighties, seventies
and eighties, Pike County had more millionaires per capita than
any other county in the nation. Now it is one
of the poorest counties in the nation because coal just
is going away. It's really almost fully pulled out of
the area. But part of that is coal mining is
a very very difficult profession, and so you have a
(13:34):
lot of younger people, specially young men that are in
their forties and fifties, that are now just totally decimated
by working in the coal industry. They can't work anymore,
they can't stand, they can't really sit for long periods
of time, and so they need to go on these
benefits to help them for the rest of their lives.
Eric saw this and also saw the opportunity that a
(13:55):
lot of these people don't know lawyers. They don't they
it's all word of mouth. They just well, you know,
who did you like a friend and neighbor, who did
you get your benefits from? Okay, I'm gonna go to
that person. And so he bought out every billboard in
the small town. He did all these crazy commercials. He
bought out like almost every ad in the newspaper. They
(14:16):
were doing radio ads, it's songs. He was really, as
he referred to himself, a marketing genius in the sense
that everybody then knew Eric con is the person you
go to to get your benefits. And what they didn't
understand is that behind the scenes, Eric was getting these
rubber stamps to just put anybody on benefits because he
(14:36):
had public officials and judges on the payroll. Wow, I mean,
that's straight up mafia style, it is, and it's wild
because it's not really that complex of a scheme. It's
the the tried and true. You know, you scratch my back,
I scratch yours. Um. But at the same time, it
(14:59):
exposes this massive flaw in the system of social security
because the reason, one of the reasons con was so
successful is that he was getting people benefits in like
two months. Normally people had to wait eighteen months to
two years to get their benefits. And that is all
because of the way social security works. It just takes
(15:20):
so so long to get you approved to get these benefits.
If the system worked better than things like this wouldn't happen.
It seems to me, excuse me. The people that are
best at this, whether it be the mcmillions or this um,
they have to have two things. They have to be smart,
right they have they have to be smart to pull
this kind of thing off. But they have to just
(15:42):
give zeros about anybody that they're affecting. I mean, right,
they don't care about anybody else. Well. Eric C. Khan
is one of the most fascinating complex characters. I think
in a documentary series. Uh we when we non biased opinion,
it's it's obviously can we start calling him Eric con artist? Please?
(16:06):
I mean he just I think when people watch the
documentary series, you're gonna go into it thinking you know
who he is. Uh, and you're gonna have strong feelings
about him, and then by the fourth episode, by the end,
you might have a completely different feeling about him. Uh.
And are you gonna make us like this guy? Yeah?
(16:30):
Reasoning is he giving all the money to charity? I
don't even I don't even think like that. I think
it's more of a feeling that you might have. Um,
I don't know if you'll know how you'll feel. You
you're just gonna feel different. Um. But you know when
you talk about like what is it about these people?
Is it narcissism? Is it greed? Uh? Is it the
(16:51):
lack of shame? Right? Which you know it very well
could be. Um, and that could be a superpower, right,
Like I don't give him so I'm gonna all right,
I don't know. Wow, he's been acting really strangely are
we are we allowed to swear you haven't listened to
the podcast, which is clear, but I mean, well, or
(17:12):
you didn't listen to me thirty seconds ago I said,
zero seconds ago. Or you haven't listened to any of
my stand up. Yeah. No, just go on, guys, go ahead,
please please feel free to curse. Feel free to curse,
all right, But you know, at the at the point
in which you learn about how crazy this crime is,
right Eric, I mean, social security is not a stexy
(17:35):
um like backdrop for a crime. And it's one of
the reasons why he got away with it first so long,
because people weren't paying attention or people just didn't understand it.
And when you try to dig in, it's a little complicated.
And so one of the things that we really worked
hard at was find a way to really help people
understand this in a really entertaining and fun way. And
(17:59):
because there is a lot of humor, there's a lot
of you know, just quirky, uh, stranger than fiction components
of the story. But there's also this great tragedy. I mean,
when when Eric does this, you know, gets away with
her for ten years, uh, when he finally gets busted,
he goes on the run, and while he's on the run,
(18:20):
this crazy thing happens in eastern Kentucky, uh, with everybody
who was associated with him in one way or the other. Um.
And it's part of the devastation of this story as well.
I feel like we it's hard to follow up questions
about that without giving away too much. It feels like true, yeah,
(18:40):
well you know, Bob, and weave through the minefield of
giving too much away. Ye. It sounds like there's a
lot that that that that is going to happen. And
so it's a four part series, right, correct. So it's
(19:03):
a four part documentary series on Apple TV Plus called
The Big Hunt coming out Basis and um. It really
takes you through the journey of Eric and you really
start to understand who he is. But at the core
of this entire thing are these two whistleblowers, Sarah and Jennifer.
(19:24):
They worked for the Social Security Administration in one of
the local offices in West Virginia and they had been
ringing the alarm bells for years that something was going
on with one of the judges and with Eric Kahan.
But they were only on one side of it. They
couldn't really figure it out, but they were staying, Look,
this is not supposed to happen the way that this
(19:46):
is going. And it is fascinating because until Damian Plata,
who wrote the Wall Street Journal article about this, they
weren't even recognizing local news wasn't wanting to cover it.
People that at work that they were supposed to report
any sort of wrongdoing or anything to just turn their
backs on them and and a lot and retaliated against them,
(20:09):
try to get them fired. Um. And so we we've
really seen this journey what it means to stand up
for what you think is right, because Sarah Jennifer didn't
get any sort of benefit at all out of standing
up against the Social Security administration. Actually quite the opposite.
They were chastise and really like and they they people
(20:31):
try to get them fired, but they stood up for
what was right. And it also shows, you know, with
Damien stepping in and shining a light on this and
then all of a sudden that leads to a Senate
hearing that leads to investigations happening. Um. It shows why
the news exists because you know, all of us, as
individual citizens, there's only so much we can do. Our
voice can only be so loud, But when you have
(20:53):
the megaphone of an EFC, like the Wall Street Journal,
that really holds a government entity to a task. It's
interesting what you said. I find that more common nowadays,
where people who are afraid to do the right thing
or to speak up because it's it almost it's like
it doesn't matter the people that say, oh, hey, this
is people are being hurt by this, this this is
being done, we need to stop this. Then all of
(21:15):
a sudden, those guys get slandered to those guys get
and it's like it's it's a it's a fine line
to walk. So I think there's I think heroes in
that sense kind of stand out more nowadays when they
can get stuff done and get people behind them. It's hard.
I mean you even see it with the Me Too
movement where some people who come out against people who
have harmed them. Now people don't want to work with
(21:35):
them for whatever reason, and it's difficult to come forward.
But you know, I would like to just pivot really
quickly and maybe go back to talking about Eric. But
Eric was apparently super popular in Kentucky, right, and he
was touted as this like modern day Robin hood. H
where do you think that that characterization came from? If
(21:59):
you can give us a little nugget without giving too
much a way, Well, in a lot of ways, he
really did want to help people, or at least on
the surface, well it appeared, I mean Elizabeth Holmes said
the same thing, right. I mean, he you know, he
was born in that region of the country, and so
(22:20):
he had seen first him his parents were, you know,
in the cold camps and uh, and so he'd seen
extreme poverty. Um. And so I think that there was
an inherent like interest in wanting to do something for
his area. UM. Now, people can argue that that's not
what his motivations were, certainly, but he was providing benefits
(22:42):
to people who needed them, and he was providing them
faster than anyone else, and he was guaranteeing them when
other people were having to wait for a year and
a half or more to get their benefits. He was saying, hey,
I can get it too in thirty days, like when
you don't have an income, like you can't wait a year,
especially if you've got real medical problems, like how are
(23:05):
you supposed to survive? Or eighteen months while you wait
to get an easily check of nine dollars a month
from the from the federal government. So and that's usually
like at most. So he was able to do something
that no other attorney could, and everybody who went to
him just sall like, okay, well this this person is
(23:26):
saving my life right now. Um. And when you think
of Robin and do you think of you know, stealing
from the ridge and giving the poor like it's a
victimous crime, It's like, well, Eric, you know, had his
deal with a with a judge and he was you know,
basically cheating the system and and getting money for people
faster because of this you know corruption that was happening
within his you know, popular people. But his you know,
(23:50):
this idea of it being a victim was crime. And like, oh,
the government has all this money, so who cares if
I'm you know, taking a few million to help my
my neighbors here get their benefits faster. But that isn't
the case. I mean, we all like as far as
you know people in the States, right, like we all
pay in at the system, right our taxes go into
this safety net of social security, and we don't think
(24:12):
about it now because it's like especially being young, we're
thinking like, oh, it's our parents are grandparents like dealing
with social Security. But there's a huge portion of this
fund that's allocated to the stability benefits. It's a designed
for people that if you can't work because you've got
injured on a job or just you know, felt ill
and can't you know, perform anymore, like what you know,
(24:34):
what safety net do we have? And this is it?
And deaps someone take advantage of it is essentially someone
who's stealing money from all of us. About him, sorry,
as you're talking about him, I like him more and more.
I'm like, ah, I see what he was likable. I
knew that's gonna happen. Now she's gonna want to know
if he's singled there it is. Well, that does get
into the side of Eric. That is really interesting because
(24:58):
we talked about an episode and we get a very
deep into it in episode two. But he's had a
few wives, so he's always looking back at the list. Really,
it sounds like there's hope for me. I stand by
the modern day robin Hood for you. I stand by
the modern day robin Hood nickname, because if Robin Hood
was like the world is so upside down. Now. I
(25:20):
think that's exactly how Robin would Robin Hood would act now,
It's just it wouldn't be that that glorious like stealing
from the bridge. There'd be some sort of side takes,
some sort of shitty thing on the side. I swore
for you guys, and so I stand by that nickname.
I think you can have it, and Leah, don't pursue
a relationship with him. I'm not going to, no question.
Do you think that he actually thought he was going
(25:41):
to get away with it? Oh, you know, we've talked
to Eric a lot, and it's been really fascinating to
see the process of topping him over the past almost
three years. At this point, Um, he never necessarily thought
he was going to totally get away with it. He
has been described and even himself said he kind of
(26:04):
he likes to take risks. One of his best friends
and old assistants said that she felt like he was
addicted to risk taking. And you know, in this situation
the with one of the judges he was working with
main judge, they talk about and we have this in
the series that yeah, they could do something and if
(26:25):
anything ever went down, they just take it to the grave.
But as we all see in this day and age,
there's just way too much evidence, way too much of
a paper trail. Uh. Technology is too good to be
able to just keep anything secret basically anymore. Um. And
so it is definitely in a situation where you just
try to stay present and think, well, this is working now,
(26:48):
and you know, in the future, I'm sure I'll be
able to figure something out to get to get out
of it. Yeah. There there's a lot of different ways
to think about this, because when we were making mcmillions, UH,
there's always the people who are in in you know,
working with Jerry Jacobson that said like, okay, this is
the last one, this is the last time. But with
(27:09):
Eric uh and what's revealed in the documentary series, and
we talked about it early on, it's just the relationship
he has with this one special judge and between the
two of them. Uh, there's you know, the judges helping
rubber stamp all these people through the system, and the
judge has what is called judicial independence. So there's kind
(27:30):
of this loophole in the system where they have the
ability to make decisions whether or not someone gets benefits
independent of anybody else. With no oversight and that, and
and that's how they realize like, hey, there's nothing anybody
can do about what we're doing. Um I can put
a hundred percent of the people through the system and
(27:52):
nobody can do anything about it. Uh. But obviously, as
the you know, this goes on for years and years,
and these whistleblowers who actually worked, you know, within the
Social Security Administration are saying, hey, something is not right here,
like there, this system is not it's not designed like
this and it's not supposed to be functioning like this.
(28:15):
But you you'll see within the documentary series like just
how broken it is that, you know, they couldn't they
couldn't get the word out. They couldn't they were trying
to like make the point to supervisors, they were trying
to go to press, they were trying to go anyway.
No one wanted to touch it until this one Wall
Street drone reporter independent on his own, started looking into
(28:38):
this and realizing, like, how is it possible a judge
it's approving of all cases that he sees when the
average you know, administrative law judge like does like sixty
and this guy is like doing twice the three times
as many cases per years everybody, Like it just doesn't
add up, like of the people you see not be disabled. Wow,
(29:04):
But but doesn't it also show the loopholes and the
issues with the system itself. It's almost like he should
be thanked for showing the ways in which people can
calm the system. Yeah, not really, we can say that
that he exposed the issues. You guys don't want to
(29:28):
thank a criminal, that's so weird. Yeah, I'm thankful that
when we have a story to tell that includes them.
But yeah, but really it does show like huge, very
huge flaws in Social Security and that is the massive
underlying thing with us. We we lure you in with
the craziness of Eric, but there's actually a point to
(29:49):
this entire situation, which is Social Security administration really has
a lot of huge flaws. It's one of the largest
entities in American government. It's one of the largest budgets,
and if there's a lot of money, people are going
to try to exploit it. But this really shows that
human beings that are waiting for their benefits, that need
(30:10):
those benefits shouldn't be waiting a year and a half.
They need help now. And to be able to show
how this is exploited and it's funny. And when we
talked to the Senate Subcommittee of Investigations who looked into
this to really lead onto this big Senate hearing, which
is a very climactic moment in the series. They talked
(30:33):
about the fact that they came to the realization and
senators came to the realization that nobody had really asked
for records from the Social Secure administration for about fifty years.
They kind of just let Social Security do their own thing.
But every single government entity needs oversight. It doesn't matter
what it is. There's a reason for checks and balances
(30:55):
because things can get loaded, things can get continue to
run in a certain way, become very comfortable, and if
you're not trying to make things more efficient, then you're
just hurting the people who need it most. Yeah. I mean,
I know that we don't have as much time with
you as we want, so maybe we could just ask
a final question. Great, thank you, So that'll be a
(31:19):
goals perfect. So you know that you know you've studied
multiple con artists at this point through the years, do
you feel like there's a common through line or a
common thread that they share personality wise that you've seen
or noticed. Yeah, I think that there. I mean, I
don't know if there's necessarily a common through line, but
(31:43):
there's definitely the uh ability to as James pointed out before,
is like to take that risk, you know, inherently, Like
we all kind of ponder like if you could you know,
if you I mean we talked about with Mgmion Psyche
if you saw you know, a wallet on the ground
and had you know, ten thous dollars in it? Uh,
(32:05):
Like what compels you to pick that wallet up and
return it to the rightful owner with all the money
in it? Um? But if no one's around, like, and
you need the money, Uh, what's not to stop you
from just taking it and saying, hey, this is my
lucky day. And we're always you know, we find ourselves
in these unique moments of life where we're conflicted or
(32:29):
we we have to make a choice about what's the
right thing to do and what's the wrong thing to do.
And I think what's fascinating with this is it's an
illustration of what happens when someone leads, you know, leans
into that temptation. Uh, when someone says, hey, I'm just
gonna go for it. Um, I think what happens in
a lot of these cases is you get away with
(32:50):
it once and you're like, oh my gosh, there was
a thrill to it perhaps, or like, look, it's not
hurting anybody, so let me do it again. And then
it becomes so systematic and you're not even thinking that
you're committing a crime. Um And I think a lot
of people talk themselves into thinking, hey, I'm kind of
(33:11):
owed this for something. They justify it with something else
in their life. Right, it's the rationalization that you can
go down and you get away with a little bit.
You can get away with a little bit. And the
thing that we always see is that, unfortunately, and everyone's
experienced this, greed gets the better of you if you
let it. And on the other side of that is
that level narcissism of I'm owed this. This is I'm like,
(33:34):
I'm not hurting anybody. The U. S. Government is the
largest entity on the planet basically, so what if I'm
taking a few extra million dollars from them? How's that
going to affect a budget that's trillions of dollars? And
it is we just we've we've with mcmillions. It was
funny because and all in all, they stalled about four
(33:55):
million dollars. This is five and fifty million dollars, and
but the motivations are very much the same. Yeah. Well,
and I think that there's there's probably commonalities too with
childhood or some sort of trauma or some experience that
really affected kind of how like in the case of
Eric's ekhan in a story like we we actually we
(34:18):
talked about Eric's mom and what he was like his
relationship with his mom, and we feel like in a
lot of ways, like that did affect his desire to
get out there, his desire to be recognized, his desire
to do something that was meaningful, and you know, I
(34:38):
had to have some success in a small town. Like
he was a he wasn't he was a geniue. I
mean he self proclaimed genius by the way. He uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm now a fraud con person. Yeah, So, you know,
there's there's a lot of commonalities, but there's also there's
(35:00):
got to be something that you can trace back to
early in life with all these people that's like, hey,
I you know, this is the reason why I decided
to pick up that wallet and claim the ten thousands
of my stuff rather than try to do the right
thing that makes sense. I mean, I'm I'm more totally
interested in knowing more about the Halloween themed brothel and
(35:24):
wondering if if people were having sex and zombie which
and sexy Donald Trump costumes. Uh, that whole thing. That
is one of the most shocking things we've found out about.
When we're talking to people about Eric, it came up that, oh, yeah,
Eric had a brothel. Because part of what you learned
(35:46):
in the series is that one week out of every
single month, Eric would fly somewhere around the world to
try and basically find a new wife, women a biza.
Sorry what so he's getting a you know, the the
conjugal visits you might have to go to talk but
if only you do how many times I talked about
(36:07):
conjugal visits? Okay, go on. So we we find that
he's traveling around the world doing other stuff, and then
it comes up that like, oh, at one point Eric
bought a brothel and owned and random brothel, and we're
just mind blown about this whole thing. I mean, our
entire team we worked with here at fund Meter was like,
is this is this real? Then we start researching it
(36:29):
and sure enough. Yeah. I even talking to Eric. He
talks about it in the series of you know, was
it a brothel? Was it a go go? And he
one of my personal favorite quotes of it. You know,
it was like, you know, you go there and if
you like it, you take it home. That's that's sort
of how he looked his go go slash brothel. But um,
(36:51):
it is it is a wild scenario. And uh, I
really wish it still existed because I'd love to go
to Thailand and uh has a pat Hi there? I haven't.
I haven't heard anything. After Leah suggested that there was
such a thing as a sexy Donald Trump costume, I
was like, I was like, is it Is it a
good thing that we don't have any photos? Or I
(37:15):
want to see that. I could see it now, someone
just with a spray tanned orange face, with white eyes,
a wig and just nothing else. All right, moving on,
So everyone's gonna have nightmares tonight thanks to me? Or
is there anything else about the show? Any last thoughts
that you want to tell us or the listeners about,
(37:37):
or any parting words that you want to share. I mean,
I think one of the things that you said before
about like you know, you know, standing up for what's right,
and like there's a there's an inspirational side to this
story as well, And there's also a cautionary tale of
what happens when you can are a problem. Um, because
(38:01):
with our two whistleblowers, they were saying, hey, there's a
problem here, and they were being ignored, and they were
being were time and time again. What happens with a
problem when you ignore it. It doesn't just go away
like a lot of people wanted to. Uh, it just
becomes a bigger problem and a bigger problem. And this
is really a horrific illustration of how big that problem
(38:25):
can get and how can affect so many people. And
I had just one person early on just said you
know what, right, there's a problem here and I can
help stop it. But so many people avoided it, and
then people went out of their way to actually stop
them from making that problem known to other people. And
(38:45):
it so I think that there's a great cautionary tale
in this story. So it's got everything. It's got humor,
it's got tragedy, it's got inspiration, it's got sell them
sell it's got from Halloween being yeah, yeah, the underlying
sexy Donald Trump's is we just like as outrageous as
(39:11):
Eric is, and he's crazy and saying and fun and
just watching his commercials will make you laugh. But at
the same time, there are people that are still fighting
to try and get their benefits back. This is still
a problem right now, and you know, the people that
are fighting for their benefits have really had a hard time.
So we're really we hope above anything that this shines
(39:33):
a light on this entire topic so that the people
who need help can get it, and that some changes
at the very top, governments, whole level start to happen
so things like this don't happen again. Amazing. I'm looking
forward to it. And on a personal note, I want
to thank you guys for mcmillions because I was in
the nineties. I was on a mission to win that thing.
(39:53):
I had a lot of food I didn't want to
eat because somehow I thought I was like Charlie and
the chocolate factory. I saw one of those little things
on the ground and then I went and I was like,
that's it, and I picked it up and I never won.
So the fact that you exposed that there was a
problem and it wasn't just me um, sadly, I appreciate
all that. I remember it also as a little kid,
very very young, because I'm eighteen basically, so I don't
(40:17):
like that you guys laughed, but uh, well is what's
the legal drinking age and a visa, isn't it? So yeah, yeah,
yeah I don't drink, but yeah I'm barely legal. But
I know I remember it as a kid too. And
also mcmillian's helped me get through the pandemic. So much
(40:38):
appreciated to you. We're like, oh, good content, thank you,
thank you. That's that's awesome to hear. You know. We
we worked insanely hard on that entire thing, and uh,
the big con got us through the pandemic because that's
basically all we've been been doing since the world shut down.
So that was an interesting challenge, but we we got
(40:59):
it done well. James and Brian, thank you so much
for coming on the podcast today, and anyone who's listening.
If you have Apple tv plus, congratulations you've made a
great choice. If not, download it now so that you
can also watch the show. It's coming out May six,
so tomorrow, and you can also listen to the Companion
(41:19):
Show on Apple Podcasts. Yes, the Big on on Apple
TV plus Basics. Then there's a companion podcast. What else
do we have fun new year? We got a new
line of kidding. Yeah. Well, if you guys wanted to
buy my new fragrance, it's Curious by Britney Spears and
it's out now, so check yourselves at CBS. Gentlemen, it's
(41:42):
been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much
for coming on the podcast today, and we can't wait
to watch the show and listen to the podcast. Oh,
thank you so much for having us. Thanks guys, Well,
of course, have a good one, all right, you too,
bye bye ye, all right you guys. In today, our
(42:10):
hot topics are going to be Dave Chappelle getting attacked
on stage at the Netflix as a Joke festival, and
a complaint against Bill Murray over a difference of opinion
on set shutting down a film. So we're going in
real Hollywood today. Let's talk about Bill Murray first, because
I can't even believe anyone would complain about Bill Murray.
This just seems ridiculous to me. However, I don't know
(42:33):
if you know this, but there was actually previously a
complaint against Bill Murray during uh the filming of Charlie's
Angels in two thousand, when Lucy Lou said that she
had some issues with him and that he was hurling
insults at her while doing a scene and some of
the language was and I quote, inexcusable and unacceptable. So
interesting to hear that, But now moving forward. Apparently for
(42:58):
roughly two weeks after search Like Pictures suspended production on
the film Being Mortal to investigate a complaint filed against
Bill Murray, the actor described the inciting incident as a
difference of opinion. During a recent sit down with c NBC,
Murray said, I had a difference of opinion with a
woman I'm working with. I did something I thought was
funny and it wasn't taken that way. The company, the
(43:19):
movie studio, wanted to do the right things, so they
wanted to check it all out and investigate it, and
so they stopped the production. Murray said that the woman
who filed the complaint are they're both trying to make
peaks with each other. He says, We're both professionals, we
like each other's work, we like each other. I think
if we can't really get along and trust each other,
there's no point in going there's no point in going
further working together or making the movie as well. Oh yeah, yeah,
(43:43):
I like Bill Murray a lot. I'm a big fan.
Yeah yeah, I'm not. I'm not justifying anything that I
don't know. I don't know what was said, the stuff
I don't know, the Charlie's Angels things. If something was
done wrong, then I'm not then I don't advocate that,
but I really I'm a big fan of his I
(44:03):
kind of don't. This doesn't feel like a major thing.
This sounds like maybe somebody was offended or maybe there
was something, and it sounds like they're working it out there.
And I'm almost content. And I'm not saying I don't
want to talk about it, but I'm almost content leaving
it at that, because I feel like a lot of
people get involved in stuff that doesn't need it and
it becomes a bigger thing. I'm not ready to take
Bill Murray down without the facts, and I don't want
(44:25):
to take Bill Murray down, and I don't want other
people take him down if he did something wrong. I
hope that they can work that out. Do people ever
know what was said? I don't know. It sounds like
they're kind of keeping it pretty close to the vest. Now.
I think I'd be foolish to say no, because I
think everything eventually comes out. Um, it seems crazy that
with all the information and the Amber heard and Johnny
(44:46):
Depp trial, we know everything that happened between them, including
shifting the bed. How could we not know what was
said on set? And you know, I think the social
opinion always impacts the actual decision as well, and and
you know, it can affect people's careers. So we found
out that something happened that people didn't think was that
big of a deal. Maybe it would make this woman
(45:06):
look really bad and then and it would make the
studios look ridiculous and everyone look ridiculous. But if they
if what he said was really bad and they're trying
to protect Bill, you know, there's just so many ways
that's can all play out. Yeah, And I think that's
that's kind of where I'm at. I think we don't
always need to be a giant court of opinion. I
(45:28):
think it's good to weigh in on stuff. It's good
to know stuff. But you know, things happened, you know,
I know there was this thing recently with Steve Martin
when people went back and like the King Tut thing,
and it's like, guys, that was thirty years ago. It
was a different context. You can't go back and dig
that up. Granted this just happened now, but I don't
know that there has to be this. To me, without knowing,
it doesn't sound like it's there's a major thing. There's
(45:49):
no police, there's no you know. So it's like, whatever
it was, it sounds like it can be. It can
be cleaned up without it without it going through you know,
the general court of opinion. Man, I wish I knew
what was said. I really do. I'm so nosy. But
also because yeah, ay, and be also because you know,
(46:09):
I think that as a comedian sometimes you just not
that you don't know the line, but it's just you
have no filter and you kind of assume around other
artists you can just be free and be yourself. And
sometimes it's never meant to make someone feel uncomfortable or
make someone feel bad. Maybe you're just you know, saying
something ridiculous or yeah, we have no idea what the
(46:32):
context was. We don't know if he was talking about
someone on set. We don't know if he was talking
about something completely random and she just found it inappropriate,
and so, you know, it's it's always interesting to see
how people get slammed for something that maybe nothing or
or nothing that might be something. There's a lot of
pressure when you're brought in to do something as a comedian,
and as a comedian and actor, you know, there's a
(46:53):
lot of pressure. You're you're almost seen as you know,
you've got to kind of entertain people on the set.
You got and I'm not saying that means cross lines,
but sometimes you feel like, okay, well I gotta do this.
So it is possible that you would say some stuff
that normally you wouldn't say, or maybe it was a
long day and you did. I'm not making excuses for him,
but I'm saying that this is a thing there is
pressure to entertain, so it's very possible. Like you said,
(47:13):
you start, you know, kind of joking around with people
on the line, gets a little blurred and all of
a sudden you've gone over it, which it's a lot
easier to do nowadays. Do you think it's going to
harm his career this incident. I don't think so. I
hope not, and I think it's gonna be a little
bit of a gray area if we don't find out
what happened, because then people will be like, well, I
don't know what I'm dipping my toe in here, so right,
(47:35):
I mean, Dave Chappelle survived cancel culture, Joe Rogan survived
cancel culture. I think that there are some people who
are so much larger than the entertainment industry that can't
be canceled. Yeah, and I'd like to Fahil Murray seems
like one of those people. And Bill Murray is not
someone that has been you know, um an ass and
has has done things. He's known for being, you know,
(47:58):
a good guy and in a lot of different situations.
Although I've got questions for Lucy Lou. Yeah. Right. Anyway,
speaking of drama in the workplace and Hollywood, if you
haven't heard about this yet, just the other night in
Hollywood at the Hollywood Bowl, Dave Chappelle was tackled by
(48:20):
someone in the front row who had a gun and
a knife. How they got the gun in the knife
into the Hollywood Bowl when they were metal detectors and
everyone's phones were being locked up is beyond me. Apparently
they were so consumed with locking up people's phones that
they missed a gun, Like, how does that not go
through the metal detector. It's all very odd. And apparently
this guy snuck into the front row. He didn't have
(48:41):
a front row seat or anything, and he went on
stage tackled Dave Chappelle and this is all for Netflix
as a joke, and he came up, he stood up,
Chris Rock came grabbed the mic. Set is that you
Will Smith, L O L. And Jamie Fox, Jon Stewart,
all the other comedians just started running and chasing and
beating the ship out of this guy along with security.
(49:03):
He left mangled, his arm was broken, twisted in a
million pieces. But I mean, man, this is um this
is pretty despicable. Also, you know, I wonder what the
motive was. We haven't even gotten there. With Will Smith
and Chris Rock, we know what the motive was, We
know what was going on, but with this guy, we
have no clue. Right And also, you know, there were
(49:26):
no consequences for Will Smith physically, you know, he professionally
he's been you know, banned for ten years and blah
blah blah. But for this guy, he was immediately tackled,
beat up. It's just interesting to see how there's a
difference and how people are treated Because a reputation walked
on stage and smacked Chris Rock. Uh, somebody that was
(49:49):
unknown jumped up and and and tackled Dave Chappelle, So
that that's the difference. The difference is people like, oh,
I know this guy is once he's walking up, what
he do? Oh I can't believe he did that. That's
not like him. This is who knows what this guy
is doing? So they grabbed him and beat him up,
and you know, neither is correct. Both are scary. Um.
I tend to think that the obviously that Dave Chappelle
(50:12):
one is is a is more scary to think about.
Because I got past security, got on stage tackle him.
It could have been gun had a gun, I mean,
I still just don't. Also, that is so bizarre that
the guy brought a gun but decided to get on
stage and tackle him instead of using the gun. I mean,
I just read somewhere that it was a replica gun,
(50:33):
but then he had a real knife attached to it
like that right there says there's a whole bunch of
craziness going through that head. But um, to do any
of that but um, yeah, it could have been a
thousand times worse than it was. It could have been
a thousand times worse. The fact that Dave just brushed
it off and everyone started making jokes immediately goes to
show you how jaded comedians are already by violence or
(50:55):
like expecting something bad to happen that shouldn't be the norm.
I know, and I'm torn because I really appreciate the
professionalism of being able to bounce both of them, Chris
Rock to being able to bounce back and and do
what you're what you do make people feel a little
more comfortable to make some jokes about it. But it's
also like I don't want that. I don't want the
ability to do that to diminish the reaction to these
(51:17):
types of things, right, And and I know as a
comedian I deflect with comedy a lot. In fact, last night,
I was having a very intense emotional conversation with someone.
I just made a joke and I just thought, in
that moment, why did I have to do that? You know,
it's because I was so uncomfortable that I had to
bring laughter into it and make it less serious and
to take away any element of pain or anything for
(51:40):
me or the other person. And a lot of times
I'm just you know, I do that, and I think
that a lot of comedians do that because it's our
fence mechanism and it makes everything okay. Not everything needs
to be made okay. Like that's a pretty scary thing
to happen. But anyway, I mean, look, the podcast wentlong today.
It's short, but it went long. Does that make sense?
(52:05):
And now Dmitri has to go be a celebrity And
I'm sorry, Dmitri. Did you get invited to Tom Cruise's
new movie premiere? I did. I'm I'm off to the
top gun Maverick premiere. And will you take photos on
the red carpet with your arm extended out pretending to
hold an invisible person so that I can photoshop myself
into the photos. It's just the way you painted that, right.
There is probably a no I'll go out and pretend
(52:28):
to hold an invisible person. I'm probably gonna say no,
but I'll see what I can do. We don't want
to seem crazy on the red carpet in front of
all your peers and Tom Cruise, that's so weird. There's
enough crazy out there. I think I'm gonna stand and
stand down on this. Ha ha. Okay, Well, you have
a fabulous time on the red carpet. I mean at
the movie premiere tonight. I'm wondering who you're wearing. I
would love to see photos at the gown, you know,
(52:49):
I'm just so curious. Well, if you'll have me back,
I'd love to come back and talk about it. If
you guys also see a crime in the future, one
that is Dimitri's hair and makeup that I'm sure we'll
follow after this, it's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna be
a beautiful wig. If you see a crime, like, for example,
(53:09):
if you were at Netflix is a joke last night,
two nights ago, when this airs, or whenever you're listening
to it. If you were in there and you saw
what happened, you're supposed to call us. You know that, right.
We have a call in number for this exact reason,
and you know what it is. It's eight six six crime.
If you witness a crime that's not too scary, you like,
(53:30):
don't don't call us for the scary ones, you know
what I mean. Like, that's when you call the cops,
So we're not the cops. We can't do anything for you.
We're social slits. You know this crime and you want
to call and confess. We can help you with that too. Yeah, sure,
like we'll pardon your sins. We will call in eight
six six twenty one crime. That's eight six six two
one two seven four or six three eight six six
(53:50):
twenty one crime six to anyone crime that's eight six
six two one two seven four six three. All right, y'all,
it's day safe. Have a great night that. Don't commit
any crimes until the next podcast. Okay, love you all. Bye.
It's real time. Crop it real time Gray, I mean,
(54:15):
is it actually real time crime or solving anything or
is that just the thing we say, it's a thing
we say, got it? Okay, see you next week for
more real time crime, only on i Heart Radio.
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