October 16, 2025 • 33 mins
Tammy Hembrow returns to dating as the new face of Tinder. Sarah’s Day’s fitness challenge kicks off. Molly Mae praises Heinz Beans over their marketing genius...AND Louis Tomlinson opens up for the first time about One Direction’s ‘cold split’.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torba and coming up on today's show, Tammy Hembro
returns to dating as the new face of Tinder. Sarah's
Day's Fitness challenge kicks off, and Louis Tomlinson opens up
for the first time about One Direction's cold split. But
(00:24):
first I am joined by both Amy and Sophie. It
is the first time in over six months that all
three of us have been on the podcast. By the
birth episodes, there's a bit of pressure. There's better be
a good episode if all three of us are on
a I know we are on a strict time schedule
as well. Somehow we are managing to do this while
all of our kids are either napping or with their grandparents. Now,
(00:45):
I want to kick things off by talking about an
unorthodox partnership that developed between Molly May and Heinz. Amy,
can you tell us more? Now, when you think of
Molly May, you'd never think she would actually share an
unboxing of Heinz Baked Beans. However, the Heinz team clearly
have their finger on the pulse because they said Molly
a can adorned with Emily's beans, Bambe's beans and Dory's beans.
(01:09):
And as Molly said in a video, if you know
you know now. We discussed this on the show a
couple of weeks ago. But this is in reference to
that viral video of Molly May's daughter discussing who she
wanted to bite at daycare. Let's throw to a little
bit of what she said.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I gotta bite some Oh no, no, I gotta buy no, way, no.
We don't use our mouth to bite, do we? What
do we use our mouth for? Oh, for food, for eating?
We bite our food. Don't buy anyone, okay bye, ale no,
(01:51):
byey no.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Clearly someone on the marketing team of Heines or an
opportunity and ran with it. The only thing that doesn't
make sense in my mind is during that clip Molly said,
we don't bite Emily, we don't bite Dory, but we
bite food, and this is food, this is Emily's beans.
Well they're clearly, Sophi're giving each of the girl's beans
to eat instead of biting each other. That is the
(02:17):
whole clever thing about this campaign, and it is just
such great reactive marketing. I mean, this wouldn't have cost
Heines much money at all, and the exposure they have
now received from Molly's channel, and also due to all
of the countless TikTok videos that have been put up,
it's absolutely priceless. It actually does make me feel like
cracking open a tin of bake beings, but I feel
like there're more something that you enjoy in winter, which
(02:39):
obviously in the UK is coming up to winter. Well.
The Heines campaign has also allowed Molly to address the
viral video in a little bit more detail, so she
cleared up a misconception. She revealed that one of the
girls Bambi intended on biting wasn't actually named Dory, as
all the memes ran with. Let's take a listen to
what she said.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
This is the perfect time for me to I actually
loved that. People think it's story, but it's actually story
and that's who she was talking about. You know, I
think either way it's not really acceptable, but it was story,
not Dory. Even sky TV, like the sky TV channel,
they were posting on their TikTok account pictures of Dory
from like finding Nemo. I was just like, listen, like, however,
(03:21):
they want to interpret it ass like either way it's
not okay, and either way, I don't condone it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
But it's interesting because story features quite often on Molly's channel.
She is the daughter of Molly's best friend, so Bambi
doesn't seem very happy with her. Yeah, but remember when
they were trying to crack the code of who the
bite was. Initially she said that one of her friend's
daughters also got bitten, and so maybe unbernigns to her
(03:46):
it was actually baby you bitter? Did you guys see?
There was a TikTok that went viral and it was
a photo someone posted of their childhoo'd been bitten at
daycare and her name was Emily and everyone was flooding
the comment section saying, well she must go to Molly
May's daughter's daycare. Well, I hope Amby takes some beans
for her as an apology. Roomors are true.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I'm officially in my new dating era, and yes I'm
on Tinder looking for my next crush.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Tammy Hembro has announced she's looking for her next crush
on Tinder. The og fitness influencer made the revelation as
part of a paid partnership with the Dating app Ironically.
The news comes just weeks after Tinder's former ambassador and
AFL player Bailey Smith publicly friend zone Tammy Kate. Can
you tell us more about the announcement? Well, Tammy shared
(04:34):
the Real in collaboration with Tinder, and at the time
of recording, it's had over a million views. Now Tammy
and Tinder definitely knew what they were doing. In the real,
Tammy is sitting in her car like she does for
a lot of her candid content, and text appeared on
the screen that said, addressing the rumors, I clicked on
this so quickly. Let's take a listen to some of
what she said.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
My dating life always seems to make headlines, but you're
hearing it here far. I'm officially putting myself back out there. Honestly,
I feel like everyone thinks dating has to be so serious.
It's supposed to be fun. So I'm on Tinder to
see who's out there. Hopefully I meet some people who
match my vibe and if it turns into something more,
even better.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
There were pretty mixed reviews in the comments section of
this paid partnership post. There was a lot of commentary
about how much she got paid to promote Tinder. One
person wrote love you girl, but be real right now?
How much did they pay you? And that comment got
over one point two thousand likes. Another follower was happy
for Tammy, writing you know what. Hell yeah, Tinder paid
(05:39):
her a stack to promo this, so why the hell
not go you? What do we think she got paid
for this? It would have had to be a hell
of a lot, considering she's putting out there that she's single.
She's had to make a public profile where essentially I'm
assuming she's pretending that she's actively looking on there. She's
not looking on there, she would be on raya. I
would say she would be paid in the hundreds of
(06:01):
thousands for this, because it means that she has to
publicly open up about her dating life, which she already
gets so much flak for, and she got a lot
of flak in the comments. She ended up having to
go on an Instagram story and say, guys, don't hate
the player, hate the game, come on now. I also think,
judging by her audience size, this would have been a
massive paycheck as well. So I don't think you're far
(06:23):
off when you're saying the hundreds of thousands there was
also a lot of commentary around people being surprised that
she was single. Lots of people were writing, didn't you
just get married? I mean, come on, keep up everyone. Well,
the thing that just surprised me the most was, obviously
Bailey Smith had his huge campaign with Tinder, and I
just thought, wait a sec, are you guys at Tinder
trying to claim that this is how they met? Like,
(06:45):
are you backtracking now? Oh, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
A lot of people seem confused. I think that the
Tinder marketing team were just clever and thought, oh my god,
Bailey's Smith and Tammy hambroke dating has received so much publicity,
let's reach out to her and see if she's keen.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I'm kind of happy for Tinder because the pair were
first spoted just weeks after the company launched Bailey as
the face of their double dating campaign. It kind of
screwed the campaign over for them, and it's incredible marketing
from Tinder. I don't know if it necessarily screwed over
their campaign because I feel like Tinder has a bit
of a reputation for being a casual dating app, and
(07:19):
clearly Tammy and Bailey, we're just seeing where things went.
They weren't particularly serious, but it was obvious that they
didn't meet on Tinder. I mean Bailey confirmed on the
Kyle and Jackie oshow that he slid into her DMS.
And we've got to remember the point of getting Bailey
Smith on Tinder was so that they could attract a
lot of females back to the app. And you know,
if you think there's no point he's not even on
(07:41):
here because he's dating Tammy, hembro like it did throw
a spanner in the works to their campaign. It is
an interesting move though, because by using Bailey Smith as
an ambassador, they were clearly going for a female Gen
Z audience with Tammy, her following would predominantly be millennial women.
So are they trying to attract both of those different
(08:01):
age groups on board. I think Tinder have more got
her on board because they know that traditional media are
going to jump on this. Every time Tammy does something
since her divorce, even traditional media cover it. So brand awareness,
isn't it. Yeah, So they've got so much coverage. I
mean a lot of people probably thought Tinder was no
longer around. I mean, dating apps at the moment are
(08:22):
going through a really tricky time. Just recently we saw
Bumble cut a third of its workforce. Tinder have been
in a similar predicament. They've cut thirteen percent of jobs
at their place of work. Well, when I chat to
any single friends, everyone says that they're always on Hinge.
I found it a little bit far fetched that people
now think that the whole Tammy and Bailey relationship was
(08:42):
just a PR campaign for Tinder, because if it was,
it's definitely beaten out the Indian Boubet campaign when she
was supposedly working an office job. But it doesn't really
make any sense that this was a campaign because, as
we've established, they didn't meet on Tinder well, and also,
if you look at it logically, it would make more
sense if they were both ambassadors at time for Tinder,
because it would be like, oh, they must have met
(09:02):
on the app. But it's clearly just reactive PR and
it's not as if Tammy's popped up saying, you know,
I met a really great guy on this app. There's
no actual connection between the Tammy campaign and the Bailey campaign.
I wonder what Bailey's thinking about it, because it seems
like perhaps they're not speaking anything. Oh, I think that's
all bullshit. I think they're still seeing each other. Just
because Bailey didn't bring Tammy to the Brown though, it
(09:25):
doesn't mean everything is off, like you don't actually bring
someone you're casually seeing to a huge awards night like
that putting it out there. Do we think part two
of the campaign is a reunion between Bailey and Tammy.
Maybe they reconnect on Tinder and we see them back
out on the Gold Coast. I don't know if this
campaign is helping Tammy though, because a lot of people
(09:45):
have been keeping score about who's winning the breakup between
Matt and Tammy, and I think Matt has been playing
it incredibly well over the last couple of weeks. He's
been garnering a lot of sympathy recently. Obviously that might
have dropped off a bit after he was seen out
with his new Adelaide Go Well. The timing of this
campaign launching is interesting because, as you said, over the weekend,
Matt was spotted in Adelaide with a new woman. It
(10:06):
kind of seems like every time Matt does something, Tammy
manages to take the attention back. And on day two
of the five sixty Challenge, along with over two thousand
of you have fun. We are all doing it together.
Sarah's Day's five to sixty Challenge kicked off this week
with more than two thousand women signing up to take part.
(10:27):
While sales figures have likely hit three hundred thousand dollars,
the stat has led many to question Sarah's relevance. Okay,
what do you think about the number of people who've
signed up. Well, she's clearly made a lot of money
off the bat with this program because it costs one
hundred and forty five dollars, and when your times that
by two thousand, you hit just under three hundred k,
(10:48):
which is a massive amount of money. But when you
consider that she has a following of one million people,
it's a pretty low percentage of her followers that she's
actually got to purchase this fitness program. Well, I wouldn't
be turning my nose up at three hundred thousand dollars
though in a couple of weeks. Oh, definitely not. But
I do think it is reflective of the relevance that
Sarah has, particularly when you look at the sales figures
(11:10):
for her previous e books. So she's sold five different
ebooks and she has promoted heavily on her website and
across social media that she's had one hundred and fifty
thousand downloads on those e books. So when you consider
that the latest e book has only had two thousand,
that's a long way off what she used to do.
But the other ebooks have been around for quite some
(11:31):
time now. I think the first e book was launched
ten years ago, so yeah, but I think that they
had the majority of downloads at the start. Well, it's
not particularly surprising because in recent years she's really moved
away from fitness content and she's more moved into the
motherhood space. When she was at her peak, she was
releasing three vlogs a week. Nowadays you're lucky to get
(11:54):
one vlog a month. I'm hoping this actually is a
reflection on the fact that as a society we can
now see through toxic diet culture and people are no
longer willing to sign up to this sixty day program
where that pushes this very toxic rhetoric around exercising and
punishing yourself and being accountable. I also think though a
(12:15):
lot of it has to do with the fact that
there's a lot of competition out there since Sarah first
launched her ebooks. You know, we've got so many different
influencer guides, and a lot of influencers have moved from
ebooks to apps that are a lot cheaper. I mean,
one hundred and forty five dollars for a sixty day
program is a lot of money. Her previous ebooks were
half the price. It is really expensive. But it's funny
(12:35):
you mentioned the toxic element, Kate, because I think that's
what actually has appealed to the people that have signed up,
because I was speaking to a friend and she said, look,
I know that Sarah's Day can be toxic, but it
kind of makes you want to do the guide because
I do want to get fit and I see the
results that she has.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
An anonymous member of our Facebook group actually submitted a
similar post saying, I have been looking at the guide
and I know it's probably toxic, but should I do it?
And the feedback in our Facebook community was no, don't
do it. A lot of people were like, just get
onto chat GPT and get them to draw a plan
up for you, because it is a waste of money
considering that Sarah Day has no qualifications. I mean, I'm
(13:13):
actually quite concerned because a lot of the commentary since
this challenge has taken part is that people are finding
it really difficult, and some people are saying, I haven't
been able to walk since doing the challenge? Are there
any alternatives that we can do? And she's had to
put out a video showing alternative exercises, saying, oh, this
is actually an intermediate advance program, but if you're a beginner,
(13:34):
you can do this now. Oh nowhere in the marketing
did it ever say intermediate to advance. I think Sarah
has just got her audience wrong, particularly considering that she's
been marketing a program for mums returning to exercise that
is far too difficult. I succumb to the temptation. I
want to say. It was probably seven years ago and
I bought one of her ebooks. I think it was
(13:55):
The Sweaty Shred of One Sweat to shred It, Oh
well yeah, Sweat to ShredIt, whatever it's called. And it
was because I really wanted the results. I mean, Sarah
has an incredible figure. Anyway, it was torture this plant.
Every day there was a new workout that seemed to
be just crueler than the last one. I remember she
said to get a pack of cards and throw them
(14:15):
on the ground, and then each suit would be a
particular type of exercise, and then the number on them
would be how many you had to do. And if
you consider how many cards are in a pack of cards,
oh my god, it was absolutely hellish and it was
just not realistic or enjoyable. Well, it's interesting you mentioned
her Sweat to ShredIt Guide because the first workout was
recycled from that program, and it seems like she's just
(14:37):
repeating some of the workouts that are in previous e books,
which if I had bought those before, I don't know
how I'd feel about it. Well, she seems to be
complaining a bit about the challenge herself, because, as we've
touched on, there are a set of rules that you
need to abide by when you're doing the challenge, which
just seems particularly archaic. And she complained that she didn't
like the no social media after six pm. It is
(15:00):
an interesting rule because it means she can't actually document
what she's having for dinner on the meal plan, which
is another way to promote her product. Ye, she should
have done after eight pm. She's probably kicking herself I'm
just so worried about how many injuries are going to
be sustained from this program, particularly because it's sixty days
of consecutive exercise with no rest and recovery. What percentage
(15:22):
of the two thousand do we think are actually completing
the full six day it also, well, what's also different
this time around about her marketing this style of program
is that a lot of these people who have purchased it,
they have their right of reply on TikTok now, so
they can jump on TikTok, they can complain about their injuries,
complain about how difficult it is, and it would be
(15:43):
very difficult having a brand these days with that in mind,
particularly a program like that. In all. Honestly, though, do
you think she cares? Because it kind of seems like
a bit of a money grab to me. The fact
that her perfume didn't really work out with Who Is Elijah, Well,
it didn't work out. Now she's been able to pout
this program and pocket what three hundred K. There wouldn't
have been too much monetary input into getting it, you know,
(16:05):
other than a graphic design or what else would she
have spent money on. I actually think that it's more
her trying to rework her image and find herself again
after having three children, and before those three children, she
was fanatical about exercise. So in that sense, I'm happy
for her that she's leaning back into something that interests her,
but not really happy that this program is quite outdated.
(16:26):
Oh god, so yeah, so earnest of you. It's clearly
a cash grab and it's worked. It's made on nearly
three hundred thousand dollars. I'm sure that nice little deposit
into her bank account might be going towards her second
beach house.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
These are all the same faces that I've seen every
single day, but I've never quite felt an energy like
that in the room. There was like, are this emptiness for.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The first time. Former One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson has
given inside details about the band's decision to go on
a hiatus. Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast,
Louis labeled the split as cold and said he can't
imagine a reunion after Liam Payne's death now. So Louie's
appearance on the podcast was a pretty big deal. It
ended up screening in theaters across the US and UK.
(17:11):
I'm just spewing that it wasn't screened here in Australia
because I am a massive One Direction fan and I
was grouped by this interview. It was definitely also long
enough to be a movie. It was nearly two and
a half hours, and I felt like he came across
really well. He was very articulate, thoughtful in what he said,
and also very humble. He's straight upset off the bat
(17:32):
that he's aware that he's not the best singer in
the world and admitted at times that he's been very
uncomfortable with his success. I have to say, like I
am a One Direction fan. I went to their concert
when they came here and Adelaide loved their music, but
I was never really you know, I wasn't one of
those obsessive fans. I didn't really know a lot about
Louis Well. I think that we were too old to
(17:52):
be sort of a fandom. So it was really interesting
to actually hear him talk for two hours, because when
you know One Direction do end you only hear very
little bits and pieces from the boys. But he was
a bit of a fan favorite, I think more for
his personality rather than his ability. Yeah, and he was
one of my favorites purely on looks like very You know,
(18:13):
I thought it was really cute at the time, and
I was like, wow, I knew there was something about
him because he just came across as such a nice guy.
Reflecting on what he said about his success, it was
quite interesting because he said it's only been in the
past two years that he's actually put up his awards
in his house, and he explained that he was worried
when people came over that they would notice the awards
(18:35):
and it would make them feel uncomfortable and the conversation
would instantly gravitate back to his success. And he said
that in life, he just wants to be in an
even playing field with everyone, and he doesn't want to
be that guy in the band who won those awards.
It's really clear that he's craving this sense of normality.
The part of the podcast that really touched me the
most was when he spoke about losing his mum and
(18:56):
his sister, because we haven't actually heard until now himself
speak in detail about what actually happened and how he
felt at the time. Yeah, And I think what really
shone through was that even though he's had all of
these terrible things happened to him and these big losses,
he still remains this glass half full kind of guy.
He said that he doesn't want to be pitied or
defined by those moments in his life. You could tell
(19:19):
he carried a lot of guilt around being away During
his One Direction days, he spoke about how he has
identical twin sisters and he started to not be able
to tell them apart. So he used to be like, oh,
hey babe, hey babe, But he said, it doesn't even
think they know that he couldn't tell them as well.
He said he'd never told his sister's Daisy or Phoebe
that story. Now, what I was really fascinated to hear
(19:41):
about was ten years on how Louis actually felt about
Zay Maleck's departure from One Direction, because at the time,
fans were really shocked by Zain's decision and they feared
it was the beginning of the end of the band,
which it ended up being, and Louis admitted that he
was absolutely crushed by this decision and he was devastated
(20:01):
as Zay was actually one of his best mates in
the band at the time. I was really interested to
hear what went on behind the scenes. Because Louis was
the one that actually lashed out at Zaye on social media.
You could tell he really wasn't happy about it. Yeah. Well,
in this interview he said it felt like a betrayal
because they were best friends. And he went on to
share these stories I supposed to demonstrate how close they were.
(20:22):
They were the only two band members at the end
who actually continued sharing their dressing rooms with one another,
because he said, initially when they started One Direction, they
didn't want to be this band who were up themselves
and had individual dressing rooms, but that ended up being
the case. He also spoke about how he and Zane
would return to the tour bus after each show and
(20:43):
smoke weed and play Call of Duty or Zombies together,
and this was off the back of Stephen Bartlett bringing
up Liam Payne's interview that he did a number of
years ago where he spoke about using the mini bar
as a vice following the big shows, and Louis admitted
that his vice was weed. I was surprised how often
he dropped about smoking weed because I think I still
(21:04):
think of him as being that young boy from One Direction.
It was such a squeaky clean band that if a
story like that had come out while they were in
the band in its heyday, I think it would have
been massive. That's because weed is pretty small fry and
as he said that it gave him a sense of
normality because he knew that his mates back home were
doing the same thing. And it's not a big deal,
(21:25):
but I'm just saying that I feel like if that
story broke it would have been a massive Yeah. Well,
remember the huge headlines when Prince Harry got caught with weed.
It was like front page news. Yeah. Well, I suppose
there would have been a lot of discussions around the
fact that their role models to young kids. But it
is quite interesting because he said that the weed really
suited his brain at the time because they would have
such a crazy experience on stage that he would have
(21:47):
all of this noise in his head and the weed
would help quieten it down. And he described it as
a really lovely way to debrief with Zayan after the shows,
away from all of the madness, where he said that
they would just get into cliche stoner chats about UFOs
and other controversial topics like that. So for Louis, when
Zayne announced that he was leaving, he thought, well, why
(22:10):
didn't he speak openly to me about this before and
give him the heads up that he was going to
make this announcement. Well, the way Louis found out was
the fact that Zaye didn't rock up to this coke
commercial that they had, and Louis said that if Zaane
didn't want to do something, he literally wouldn't do it,
So it wasn't like a big deal that Zayn hadn't
shown up, But then later that day the announcement broke
and it just left him absolutely flawed. Louis did question
(22:33):
whether Zayn would have regretted that decision. He said that
he surely must miss the band, and he pointed out
that when you're in a band, you can share out
the jobs that you don't want to do, and it
sounded like Zayn hated giving press interviews, and he said,
you know, well he's got to do all of that
now himself, which he probably really dislikes. He also admitted
that when they've caught up in recent years, Zayne's departure
(22:56):
has really been the elephant in the room and they
haven't actually discussed it. He said that there will be
a time for that, but when he said that, I
was wondering if that was a little bit of a
teaser for the docuseries that's meant to be airing on Netflix.
When Zane and Louie drive around the US, I think
that they're going to tackle it head on. Then, yeah,
because we spoke about that in a recent Subs episode
(23:16):
and I thought the exact same thing, Kate. When I
was listening to it, I was like, he is clearly
teasing this television show. Well, do you know what's ironic?
Because when One Direction broke up, I really thought that
all of the band members were on board and they
were all really keen to move on to their solo
careers and maybe they'd had enough of the One Direction days.
But it was clear that Louis was absolutely shattered by
(23:37):
the news, and he said that it had an immense
impact on him. Let's have a listen to some of
what he said.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah, it was awful. It wasn't until after the event
that I realized that I actually computed all these feelings.
But it was like I was straight grieving for it,
and that was grieving the band. I'm someone who unfortunately
has a little bit of experience in grief and albeit
it felt different, but it was a first the same thing.
It was something that I really wanted that couldn't have anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You could tell how upset he was by the fact
that he seemed really rattled by the word hiatus, and
even he didn't know what that actually meant. In terms
of the length, I found it fascinating, the blow by
blow detail he gave about that meeting. Did anyone else
think it was Harry that split the whole band? He
obviously got an independent deal. Yeah, he said that whilst
(24:25):
it was a discussion between the four band members and
not representatives, there was this coldness in the air. Let's
have a listen to more of what he said.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
It was an atmosphere that never really felt in the
band because normally, like I said, with arms arm in arms,
it's all this camaraderie and then all of a sudden
you get someone thinking more independently and more for themselves,
which by the way, they have every right to do,
of course, but it just felt the room felt cold
that day. I can remember that in particular, there was
it was I'm trying to find the right metaphor for it,
(24:56):
but it was it was something where these are all
the same faces that I've seen it every single day,
but I've never quite felt an energy like that in
the room. There was like a there was this emptiness,
and I think probably because we knew, we all knew
collectively where it was going, you know, and that's probably
some friction between those ideas.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I mean, I love Harry, but it made me sad.
I was like, this is bullshit, Like you should have
stayed together. Yeah, And the fact that Louis had already
referenced at the start of this interview that he felt
like he didn't have the best voice. You could tell
that he knew that this was such a big hit
for him because he was now having to get against
the likes of Harry Styles. Well, that's the thing. He
said that he was quite naive at the time because
(25:38):
he kept asking how long is this break going to
last for? Because he said, well, if I'm going to
explore my own solo career, I kind of need to
know what I'm going to be back in the band,
which made me feel really sad. And he said that
he never really got an answer because he doesn't think
that the person involved, aka Harry Styles, was brave enough
to answer that question and let them know he was
really the end of things. Well, it was always him
(26:00):
and Liam that seemed like the only two that were
keen to actually do some kind of One Direction reunion.
It doesn't seem like any of the other members cared
about it. Yeah, because it sounds like Louie's relationship with
the other band members really dwindled since they split up.
Steven Bartlett ask Louis if he had had conversations with
the guys about how they were coping post One Direction,
(26:22):
and Louis admitted that he'd only had those conversations with Liam.
He said, when he sees the other boys, it's deeper
than surface level conversations, but sometimes there is the element
of feeling like it's all a bit of small talk,
whereas with Liam, he said he could speak on a
much deeper level. He said that Liam was almost like
a brother to him, and he really loved him deeply.
(26:42):
I was wondering if that's because not to be awful,
but in terms of success, Louis and Liam's solo careers
at that point were quite comparable. I mean, obviously Harry
Styles has done the best out of them, I'd say,
followed by Zay and then Nile, and maybe they felt
like they could be more open because there wasn't that
sort of competition. Well, Louis said he felt comfortable having
(27:04):
conversations with Liam about how much they missed the band,
whereas he said that they would never want to say
that to the other guys because they were worried that
maybe they'd be like, oh, things aren't going well in
their solo careers. I think it's that he didn't want
to be pitied by the more successful band members. And
it's clear that Louis has really struggled with comparing his
solo success to the days of One Direction. I mean,
(27:26):
he has recently released a number one album. He's got
a new single out, which surprised me. I want to
listen to the song Lemonade. Have you heard it? No?
I did want to have a listen after the interview.
Was it good? I hate to say it because I
really wanted to like it, But no, I didn't like it.
I'm hoping that there are stronger songs on his album.
Is this like a Taylor Swift album? Though? Where you
(27:46):
first listened to the song, you're not really sure? Could
it grow on us? Maybe maybe I need to give
it another coach. Do you know what's crazy? The day
that we're recording this is actually a whole year since
Liam Payne passed away. Oh my god. And in this interview,
Louis revealed the moment he found out about Liam's passing.
So he said he was in his car in la
and he had just dropped off his son Freddy at
(28:07):
school and he was pulling back up when Nile rang him,
and he said, Nile said something along the lines of, oh, lads,
have you seen the news. I'm assuming that was a
four way call.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well, Louis didn't actually touch on whether it was, but
it must have been because I kept rewinding it to
sit here if he said lad or lads? Yeah, so,
and Louis said, as soon as Nile said those words,
he instantly knew what he meant, because he said he
had been worried about Liam for quite some time and
he actually had a similar feeling to when he found
out about his younger sister, Felicity's death of a drug overdose.
(28:38):
As you touched on, Kate, and he said that even
though he tried to give his one hundred and fifty
percent to Liam and his sister, it wasn't nearly enough,
and sometimes he has this arrogance where he thinks, maybe
I could have helped more. But what Liam was going
through was so much deeper than what he could have
done for him. It's sad to think that it wasn't
such a shock because obviously to all of us who
(29:00):
don't know Liam, we were absolutely flawed by it. But
it does make you feel sick thinking about the fact
that it was quite obvious to his band members and
his friends that things weren't quite going right for him,
and that you know that his mind is and everything
like that, couldn't have done more to help me. I
think there were a few concerned people online because he
was posting some quite bizarre videos and he was also
(29:22):
being ridiculed for a lot of the content. Remember he
was at Nile's concert and people were putting up these
mean tiktoks of him interacting with the crowds. Yeah. Well,
Louis actually spoke about the trolling that Liam received right
before his death, and as you said, Amy, it was
after he attended Nile's concert in Argentina. Let's have a
listen to what he said.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
I take the tour thing for example, and he's at
the toy show and people were people were making comments
of how much he was loving the attention on a
service level. That's someone who wants attention if you just
look a little bit deeper, that's someone who's just been
in the biggest band in the world and wants those
situations again and had those live situations again and craves
for that.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That made me really sad because I remember before he
passed away seeing videos of him greeting fans outside of
his hotel, and he was so personable with them and
really spent a lot of time with them, and I mean,
you could tell he was really enjoying it, which I
think obviously people didn't like. People are like, oh, he's
just desperate for attention. Well, also when he was at
Na's performance, he was standing on the podium of the
(30:28):
VIP box he was in and everyone was chanting and
he was dancing and, as you said, lapping up the attention.
But as Louis put, well, if your career isn't going
as well as you'd like it to go, and you
have had success in the biggest bands in the world,
then of course you're going to be craving a bit
of that attention. Yeah, of course, I mean you're going
to play into it. One of the saddest parts of
(30:50):
the interview for me was actually when Louis was talking
about how much Liam would have valued his friendship with
Stephen Bartlett for some reason that maybe you just feel
so too, Yeah, as if that friendship was so special
because Steven's obviously very well known in the business world.
And even just the way Louis spoke about how misunderstood
Liam was, it really gave an insight into like it
(31:13):
kind of made me think of him as a baby
type of character. Louis described him as having puppy dog
energy and said that he had this huge desire to
be liked, and Louis said he wished if Liam could
have truly seen how people perceived him at the end
and how brilliant he was, because he would have been
absolutely shocked by the reaction. Louis also said that losing
(31:34):
Liam made him grieve the band again. Let's have a
listen to what he said.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
There's now only three other people on the planet that
can deeply understand my professional journey like you never seen,
never have, but never like I just can't. I can't
ever imagine I'm not sure what would be right to him,
(32:00):
say sake of argument twenty five years time. It's like
a fucking Oasis thing. They offer us an arm and
a leg and they're like, come back and do this
many shows. I don't know, Yeah, I think it just
it just completely put a pen in all that. And
the irony is there was no one campaigning for One
(32:21):
Direction to get back together more than Lim, and like
I would say, I came in a close second. Actually,
like definitely.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It hurt my heart hearing how badly Liam had been
campaigning to get the band back together, because it would
have just been so epic. And Liam, when you listen
back to the songs, he was really the voice of
One Direction, So I can see how it would feel
wrong to do it without him. As much as I
would love to see a One Direction reunion, I just
(32:50):
don't think it would work. I love how Louis was like,
I mean, you know, if they tuck a bunch of
money at us, sure we would have come back. But
now there's a bit of a you know, a question
mark over because I mean it would just be incredibly sad. Well,
that is all we have time for today. Thank you,
so much for joining us for this episode. It was
nice to have all three of us back on board.
(33:11):
This episode was recorded on the traditional land of the
Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay respect to
elders past and present.
Hello and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Kate Torba and coming up on today's show, Tammy Hembro
returns to dating as the new face of Tinder. Sarah's
Day's Fitness challenge kicks off, and Louis Tomlinson opens up
for the first time about One Direction's cold split. But
(00:24):
first I am joined by both Amy and Sophie. It
is the first time in over six months that all
three of us have been on the podcast. By the
birth episodes, there's a bit of pressure. There's better be
a good episode if all three of us are on
a I know we are on a strict time schedule
as well. Somehow we are managing to do this while
all of our kids are either napping or with their grandparents. Now,
(00:45):
I want to kick things off by talking about an
unorthodox partnership that developed between Molly May and Heinz. Amy,
can you tell us more? Now, when you think of
Molly May, you'd never think she would actually share an
unboxing of Heinz Baked Beans. However, the Heinz team clearly
have their finger on the pulse because they said Molly
a can adorned with Emily's beans, Bambe's beans and Dory's beans.
(01:09):
And as Molly said in a video, if you know
you know now. We discussed this on the show a
couple of weeks ago. But this is in reference to
that viral video of Molly May's daughter discussing who she
wanted to bite at daycare. Let's throw to a little
bit of what she said.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I gotta bite some Oh no, no, I gotta buy no, way, no.
We don't use our mouth to bite, do we? What
do we use our mouth for? Oh, for food, for eating?
We bite our food. Don't buy anyone, okay bye, ale no,
(01:51):
byey no.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Clearly someone on the marketing team of Heines or an
opportunity and ran with it. The only thing that doesn't
make sense in my mind is during that clip Molly said,
we don't bite Emily, we don't bite Dory, but we
bite food, and this is food, this is Emily's beans.
Well they're clearly, Sophi're giving each of the girl's beans
to eat instead of biting each other. That is the
(02:17):
whole clever thing about this campaign, and it is just
such great reactive marketing. I mean, this wouldn't have cost
Heines much money at all, and the exposure they have
now received from Molly's channel, and also due to all
of the countless TikTok videos that have been put up,
it's absolutely priceless. It actually does make me feel like
cracking open a tin of bake beings, but I feel
like there're more something that you enjoy in winter, which
(02:39):
obviously in the UK is coming up to winter. Well.
The Heines campaign has also allowed Molly to address the
viral video in a little bit more detail, so she
cleared up a misconception. She revealed that one of the
girls Bambi intended on biting wasn't actually named Dory, as
all the memes ran with. Let's take a listen to
what she said.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
This is the perfect time for me to I actually
loved that. People think it's story, but it's actually story
and that's who she was talking about. You know, I
think either way it's not really acceptable, but it was story,
not Dory. Even sky TV, like the sky TV channel,
they were posting on their TikTok account pictures of Dory
from like finding Nemo. I was just like, listen, like, however,
(03:21):
they want to interpret it ass like either way it's
not okay, and either way, I don't condone it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
But it's interesting because story features quite often on Molly's channel.
She is the daughter of Molly's best friend, so Bambi
doesn't seem very happy with her. Yeah, but remember when
they were trying to crack the code of who the
bite was. Initially she said that one of her friend's
daughters also got bitten, and so maybe unbernigns to her
(03:46):
it was actually baby you bitter? Did you guys see?
There was a TikTok that went viral and it was
a photo someone posted of their childhoo'd been bitten at
daycare and her name was Emily and everyone was flooding
the comment section saying, well she must go to Molly
May's daughter's daycare. Well, I hope Amby takes some beans
for her as an apology. Roomors are true.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I'm officially in my new dating era, and yes I'm
on Tinder looking for my next crush.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Tammy Hembro has announced she's looking for her next crush
on Tinder. The og fitness influencer made the revelation as
part of a paid partnership with the Dating app Ironically.
The news comes just weeks after Tinder's former ambassador and
AFL player Bailey Smith publicly friend zone Tammy Kate. Can
you tell us more about the announcement? Well, Tammy shared
(04:34):
the Real in collaboration with Tinder, and at the time
of recording, it's had over a million views. Now Tammy
and Tinder definitely knew what they were doing. In the real,
Tammy is sitting in her car like she does for
a lot of her candid content, and text appeared on
the screen that said, addressing the rumors, I clicked on
this so quickly. Let's take a listen to some of
what she said.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
My dating life always seems to make headlines, but you're
hearing it here far. I'm officially putting myself back out there. Honestly,
I feel like everyone thinks dating has to be so serious.
It's supposed to be fun. So I'm on Tinder to
see who's out there. Hopefully I meet some people who
match my vibe and if it turns into something more,
even better.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
There were pretty mixed reviews in the comments section of
this paid partnership post. There was a lot of commentary
about how much she got paid to promote Tinder. One
person wrote love you girl, but be real right now?
How much did they pay you? And that comment got
over one point two thousand likes. Another follower was happy
for Tammy, writing you know what. Hell yeah, Tinder paid
(05:39):
her a stack to promo this, so why the hell
not go you? What do we think she got paid
for this? It would have had to be a hell
of a lot, considering she's putting out there that she's single.
She's had to make a public profile where essentially I'm
assuming she's pretending that she's actively looking on there. She's
not looking on there, she would be on raya. I
would say she would be paid in the hundreds of
(06:01):
thousands for this, because it means that she has to
publicly open up about her dating life, which she already
gets so much flak for, and she got a lot
of flak in the comments. She ended up having to
go on an Instagram story and say, guys, don't hate
the player, hate the game, come on now. I also think,
judging by her audience size, this would have been a
massive paycheck as well. So I don't think you're far
(06:23):
off when you're saying the hundreds of thousands there was
also a lot of commentary around people being surprised that
she was single. Lots of people were writing, didn't you
just get married? I mean, come on, keep up everyone. Well,
the thing that just surprised me the most was, obviously
Bailey Smith had his huge campaign with Tinder, and I
just thought, wait a sec, are you guys at Tinder
trying to claim that this is how they met? Like,
(06:45):
are you backtracking now? Oh, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
A lot of people seem confused. I think that the
Tinder marketing team were just clever and thought, oh my god,
Bailey's Smith and Tammy hambroke dating has received so much publicity,
let's reach out to her and see if she's keen.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I'm kind of happy for Tinder because the pair were
first spoted just weeks after the company launched Bailey as
the face of their double dating campaign. It kind of
screwed the campaign over for them, and it's incredible marketing
from Tinder. I don't know if it necessarily screwed over
their campaign because I feel like Tinder has a bit
of a reputation for being a casual dating app, and
(07:19):
clearly Tammy and Bailey, we're just seeing where things went.
They weren't particularly serious, but it was obvious that they
didn't meet on Tinder. I mean Bailey confirmed on the
Kyle and Jackie oshow that he slid into her DMS.
And we've got to remember the point of getting Bailey
Smith on Tinder was so that they could attract a
lot of females back to the app. And you know,
if you think there's no point he's not even on
(07:41):
here because he's dating Tammy, hembro like it did throw
a spanner in the works to their campaign. It is
an interesting move though, because by using Bailey Smith as
an ambassador, they were clearly going for a female Gen
Z audience with Tammy, her following would predominantly be millennial women.
So are they trying to attract both of those different
(08:01):
age groups on board. I think Tinder have more got
her on board because they know that traditional media are
going to jump on this. Every time Tammy does something
since her divorce, even traditional media cover it. So brand awareness,
isn't it. Yeah, So they've got so much coverage. I
mean a lot of people probably thought Tinder was no
longer around. I mean, dating apps at the moment are
(08:22):
going through a really tricky time. Just recently we saw
Bumble cut a third of its workforce. Tinder have been
in a similar predicament. They've cut thirteen percent of jobs
at their place of work. Well, when I chat to
any single friends, everyone says that they're always on Hinge.
I found it a little bit far fetched that people
now think that the whole Tammy and Bailey relationship was
(08:42):
just a PR campaign for Tinder, because if it was,
it's definitely beaten out the Indian Boubet campaign when she
was supposedly working an office job. But it doesn't really
make any sense that this was a campaign because, as
we've established, they didn't meet on Tinder well, and also,
if you look at it logically, it would make more
sense if they were both ambassadors at time for Tinder,
because it would be like, oh, they must have met
(09:02):
on the app. But it's clearly just reactive PR and
it's not as if Tammy's popped up saying, you know,
I met a really great guy on this app. There's
no actual connection between the Tammy campaign and the Bailey campaign.
I wonder what Bailey's thinking about it, because it seems
like perhaps they're not speaking anything. Oh, I think that's
all bullshit. I think they're still seeing each other. Just
because Bailey didn't bring Tammy to the Brown though, it
(09:25):
doesn't mean everything is off, like you don't actually bring
someone you're casually seeing to a huge awards night like
that putting it out there. Do we think part two
of the campaign is a reunion between Bailey and Tammy.
Maybe they reconnect on Tinder and we see them back
out on the Gold Coast. I don't know if this
campaign is helping Tammy though, because a lot of people
(09:45):
have been keeping score about who's winning the breakup between
Matt and Tammy, and I think Matt has been playing
it incredibly well over the last couple of weeks. He's
been garnering a lot of sympathy recently. Obviously that might
have dropped off a bit after he was seen out
with his new Adelaide Go Well. The timing of this
campaign launching is interesting because, as you said, over the weekend,
Matt was spotted in Adelaide with a new woman. It
(10:06):
kind of seems like every time Matt does something, Tammy
manages to take the attention back. And on day two
of the five sixty Challenge, along with over two thousand
of you have fun. We are all doing it together.
Sarah's Day's five to sixty Challenge kicked off this week
with more than two thousand women signing up to take part.
(10:27):
While sales figures have likely hit three hundred thousand dollars,
the stat has led many to question Sarah's relevance. Okay,
what do you think about the number of people who've
signed up. Well, she's clearly made a lot of money
off the bat with this program because it costs one
hundred and forty five dollars, and when your times that
by two thousand, you hit just under three hundred k,
(10:48):
which is a massive amount of money. But when you
consider that she has a following of one million people,
it's a pretty low percentage of her followers that she's
actually got to purchase this fitness program. Well, I wouldn't
be turning my nose up at three hundred thousand dollars
though in a couple of weeks. Oh, definitely not. But
I do think it is reflective of the relevance that
Sarah has, particularly when you look at the sales figures
(11:10):
for her previous e books. So she's sold five different
ebooks and she has promoted heavily on her website and
across social media that she's had one hundred and fifty
thousand downloads on those e books. So when you consider
that the latest e book has only had two thousand,
that's a long way off what she used to do.
But the other ebooks have been around for quite some
(11:31):
time now. I think the first e book was launched
ten years ago, so yeah, but I think that they
had the majority of downloads at the start. Well, it's
not particularly surprising because in recent years she's really moved
away from fitness content and she's more moved into the
motherhood space. When she was at her peak, she was
releasing three vlogs a week. Nowadays you're lucky to get
(11:54):
one vlog a month. I'm hoping this actually is a
reflection on the fact that as a society we can
now see through toxic diet culture and people are no
longer willing to sign up to this sixty day program
where that pushes this very toxic rhetoric around exercising and
punishing yourself and being accountable. I also think though a
(12:15):
lot of it has to do with the fact that
there's a lot of competition out there since Sarah first
launched her ebooks. You know, we've got so many different
influencer guides, and a lot of influencers have moved from
ebooks to apps that are a lot cheaper. I mean,
one hundred and forty five dollars for a sixty day
program is a lot of money. Her previous ebooks were
half the price. It is really expensive. But it's funny
(12:35):
you mentioned the toxic element, Kate, because I think that's
what actually has appealed to the people that have signed up,
because I was speaking to a friend and she said, look,
I know that Sarah's Day can be toxic, but it
kind of makes you want to do the guide because
I do want to get fit and I see the
results that she has.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
An anonymous member of our Facebook group actually submitted a
similar post saying, I have been looking at the guide
and I know it's probably toxic, but should I do it?
And the feedback in our Facebook community was no, don't
do it. A lot of people were like, just get
onto chat GPT and get them to draw a plan
up for you, because it is a waste of money
considering that Sarah Day has no qualifications. I mean, I'm
(13:13):
actually quite concerned because a lot of the commentary since
this challenge has taken part is that people are finding
it really difficult, and some people are saying, I haven't
been able to walk since doing the challenge? Are there
any alternatives that we can do? And she's had to
put out a video showing alternative exercises, saying, oh, this
is actually an intermediate advance program, but if you're a beginner,
(13:34):
you can do this now. Oh nowhere in the marketing
did it ever say intermediate to advance. I think Sarah
has just got her audience wrong, particularly considering that she's
been marketing a program for mums returning to exercise that
is far too difficult. I succumb to the temptation. I
want to say. It was probably seven years ago and
I bought one of her ebooks. I think it was
(13:55):
The Sweaty Shred of One Sweat to shred It, Oh
well yeah, Sweat to ShredIt, whatever it's called. And it
was because I really wanted the results. I mean, Sarah
has an incredible figure. Anyway, it was torture this plant.
Every day there was a new workout that seemed to
be just crueler than the last one. I remember she
said to get a pack of cards and throw them
(14:15):
on the ground, and then each suit would be a
particular type of exercise, and then the number on them
would be how many you had to do. And if
you consider how many cards are in a pack of cards,
oh my god, it was absolutely hellish and it was
just not realistic or enjoyable. Well, it's interesting you mentioned
her Sweat to ShredIt Guide because the first workout was
recycled from that program, and it seems like she's just
(14:37):
repeating some of the workouts that are in previous e books,
which if I had bought those before, I don't know
how I'd feel about it. Well, she seems to be
complaining a bit about the challenge herself, because, as we've
touched on, there are a set of rules that you
need to abide by when you're doing the challenge, which
just seems particularly archaic. And she complained that she didn't
like the no social media after six pm. It is
(15:00):
an interesting rule because it means she can't actually document
what she's having for dinner on the meal plan, which
is another way to promote her product. Ye, she should
have done after eight pm. She's probably kicking herself I'm
just so worried about how many injuries are going to
be sustained from this program, particularly because it's sixty days
of consecutive exercise with no rest and recovery. What percentage
(15:22):
of the two thousand do we think are actually completing
the full six day it also, well, what's also different
this time around about her marketing this style of program
is that a lot of these people who have purchased it,
they have their right of reply on TikTok now, so
they can jump on TikTok, they can complain about their injuries,
complain about how difficult it is, and it would be
(15:43):
very difficult having a brand these days with that in mind,
particularly a program like that. In all. Honestly, though, do
you think she cares? Because it kind of seems like
a bit of a money grab to me. The fact
that her perfume didn't really work out with Who Is Elijah, Well,
it didn't work out. Now she's been able to pout
this program and pocket what three hundred K. There wouldn't
have been too much monetary input into getting it, you know,
(16:05):
other than a graphic design or what else would she
have spent money on. I actually think that it's more
her trying to rework her image and find herself again
after having three children, and before those three children, she
was fanatical about exercise. So in that sense, I'm happy
for her that she's leaning back into something that interests her,
but not really happy that this program is quite outdated.
(16:26):
Oh god, so yeah, so earnest of you. It's clearly
a cash grab and it's worked. It's made on nearly
three hundred thousand dollars. I'm sure that nice little deposit
into her bank account might be going towards her second
beach house.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
These are all the same faces that I've seen every
single day, but I've never quite felt an energy like
that in the room. There was like, are this emptiness for.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The first time. Former One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson has
given inside details about the band's decision to go on
a hiatus. Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast,
Louis labeled the split as cold and said he can't
imagine a reunion after Liam Payne's death now. So Louie's
appearance on the podcast was a pretty big deal. It
ended up screening in theaters across the US and UK.
(17:11):
I'm just spewing that it wasn't screened here in Australia
because I am a massive One Direction fan and I
was grouped by this interview. It was definitely also long
enough to be a movie. It was nearly two and
a half hours, and I felt like he came across
really well. He was very articulate, thoughtful in what he said,
and also very humble. He's straight upset off the bat
(17:32):
that he's aware that he's not the best singer in
the world and admitted at times that he's been very
uncomfortable with his success. I have to say, like I
am a One Direction fan. I went to their concert
when they came here and Adelaide loved their music, but
I was never really you know, I wasn't one of
those obsessive fans. I didn't really know a lot about
Louis Well. I think that we were too old to
(17:52):
be sort of a fandom. So it was really interesting
to actually hear him talk for two hours, because when
you know One Direction do end you only hear very
little bits and pieces from the boys. But he was
a bit of a fan favorite, I think more for
his personality rather than his ability. Yeah, and he was
one of my favorites purely on looks like very You know,
(18:13):
I thought it was really cute at the time, and
I was like, wow, I knew there was something about
him because he just came across as such a nice guy.
Reflecting on what he said about his success, it was
quite interesting because he said it's only been in the
past two years that he's actually put up his awards
in his house, and he explained that he was worried
when people came over that they would notice the awards
(18:35):
and it would make them feel uncomfortable and the conversation
would instantly gravitate back to his success. And he said
that in life, he just wants to be in an
even playing field with everyone, and he doesn't want to
be that guy in the band who won those awards.
It's really clear that he's craving this sense of normality.
The part of the podcast that really touched me the
most was when he spoke about losing his mum and
(18:56):
his sister, because we haven't actually heard until now himself
speak in detail about what actually happened and how he
felt at the time. Yeah, And I think what really
shone through was that even though he's had all of
these terrible things happened to him and these big losses,
he still remains this glass half full kind of guy.
He said that he doesn't want to be pitied or
defined by those moments in his life. You could tell
(19:19):
he carried a lot of guilt around being away During
his One Direction days, he spoke about how he has
identical twin sisters and he started to not be able
to tell them apart. So he used to be like, oh,
hey babe, hey babe, But he said, it doesn't even
think they know that he couldn't tell them as well.
He said he'd never told his sister's Daisy or Phoebe
that story. Now, what I was really fascinated to hear
(19:41):
about was ten years on how Louis actually felt about
Zay Maleck's departure from One Direction, because at the time,
fans were really shocked by Zain's decision and they feared
it was the beginning of the end of the band,
which it ended up being, and Louis admitted that he
was absolutely crushed by this decision and he was devastated
(20:01):
as Zay was actually one of his best mates in
the band at the time. I was really interested to
hear what went on behind the scenes. Because Louis was
the one that actually lashed out at Zaye on social media.
You could tell he really wasn't happy about it. Yeah. Well,
in this interview he said it felt like a betrayal
because they were best friends. And he went on to
share these stories I supposed to demonstrate how close they were.
(20:22):
They were the only two band members at the end
who actually continued sharing their dressing rooms with one another,
because he said, initially when they started One Direction, they
didn't want to be this band who were up themselves
and had individual dressing rooms, but that ended up being
the case. He also spoke about how he and Zane
would return to the tour bus after each show and
(20:43):
smoke weed and play Call of Duty or Zombies together,
and this was off the back of Stephen Bartlett bringing
up Liam Payne's interview that he did a number of
years ago where he spoke about using the mini bar
as a vice following the big shows, and Louis admitted
that his vice was weed. I was surprised how often
he dropped about smoking weed because I think I still
(21:04):
think of him as being that young boy from One Direction.
It was such a squeaky clean band that if a
story like that had come out while they were in
the band in its heyday, I think it would have
been massive. That's because weed is pretty small fry and
as he said that it gave him a sense of
normality because he knew that his mates back home were
doing the same thing. And it's not a big deal,
(21:25):
but I'm just saying that I feel like if that
story broke it would have been a massive Yeah. Well,
remember the huge headlines when Prince Harry got caught with weed.
It was like front page news. Yeah. Well, I suppose
there would have been a lot of discussions around the
fact that their role models to young kids. But it
is quite interesting because he said that the weed really
suited his brain at the time because they would have
such a crazy experience on stage that he would have
(21:47):
all of this noise in his head and the weed
would help quieten it down. And he described it as
a really lovely way to debrief with Zayan after the shows,
away from all of the madness, where he said that
they would just get into cliche stoner chats about UFOs
and other controversial topics like that. So for Louis, when
Zayne announced that he was leaving, he thought, well, why
(22:10):
didn't he speak openly to me about this before and
give him the heads up that he was going to
make this announcement. Well, the way Louis found out was
the fact that Zaye didn't rock up to this coke
commercial that they had, and Louis said that if Zaane
didn't want to do something, he literally wouldn't do it,
So it wasn't like a big deal that Zayn hadn't
shown up, But then later that day the announcement broke
and it just left him absolutely flawed. Louis did question
(22:33):
whether Zayn would have regretted that decision. He said that
he surely must miss the band, and he pointed out
that when you're in a band, you can share out
the jobs that you don't want to do, and it
sounded like Zayn hated giving press interviews, and he said,
you know, well he's got to do all of that
now himself, which he probably really dislikes. He also admitted
that when they've caught up in recent years, Zayne's departure
(22:56):
has really been the elephant in the room and they
haven't actually discussed it. He said that there will be
a time for that, but when he said that, I
was wondering if that was a little bit of a
teaser for the docuseries that's meant to be airing on Netflix.
When Zane and Louie drive around the US, I think
that they're going to tackle it head on. Then, yeah,
because we spoke about that in a recent Subs episode
(23:16):
and I thought the exact same thing, Kate. When I
was listening to it, I was like, he is clearly
teasing this television show. Well, do you know what's ironic?
Because when One Direction broke up, I really thought that
all of the band members were on board and they
were all really keen to move on to their solo
careers and maybe they'd had enough of the One Direction days.
But it was clear that Louis was absolutely shattered by
(23:37):
the news, and he said that it had an immense
impact on him. Let's have a listen to some of
what he said.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah, it was awful. It wasn't until after the event
that I realized that I actually computed all these feelings.
But it was like I was straight grieving for it,
and that was grieving the band. I'm someone who unfortunately
has a little bit of experience in grief and albeit
it felt different, but it was a first the same thing.
It was something that I really wanted that couldn't have anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You could tell how upset he was by the fact
that he seemed really rattled by the word hiatus, and
even he didn't know what that actually meant. In terms
of the length, I found it fascinating, the blow by
blow detail he gave about that meeting. Did anyone else
think it was Harry that split the whole band? He
obviously got an independent deal. Yeah, he said that whilst
(24:25):
it was a discussion between the four band members and
not representatives, there was this coldness in the air. Let's
have a listen to more of what he said.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
It was an atmosphere that never really felt in the
band because normally, like I said, with arms arm in arms,
it's all this camaraderie and then all of a sudden
you get someone thinking more independently and more for themselves,
which by the way, they have every right to do,
of course, but it just felt the room felt cold
that day. I can remember that in particular, there was
it was I'm trying to find the right metaphor for it,
(24:56):
but it was it was something where these are all
the same faces that I've seen it every single day,
but I've never quite felt an energy like that in
the room. There was like a there was this emptiness,
and I think probably because we knew, we all knew
collectively where it was going, you know, and that's probably
some friction between those ideas.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I mean, I love Harry, but it made me sad.
I was like, this is bullshit, Like you should have
stayed together. Yeah, And the fact that Louis had already
referenced at the start of this interview that he felt
like he didn't have the best voice. You could tell
that he knew that this was such a big hit
for him because he was now having to get against
the likes of Harry Styles. Well, that's the thing. He
said that he was quite naive at the time because
(25:38):
he kept asking how long is this break going to
last for? Because he said, well, if I'm going to
explore my own solo career, I kind of need to
know what I'm going to be back in the band,
which made me feel really sad. And he said that
he never really got an answer because he doesn't think
that the person involved, aka Harry Styles, was brave enough
to answer that question and let them know he was
really the end of things. Well, it was always him
(26:00):
and Liam that seemed like the only two that were
keen to actually do some kind of One Direction reunion.
It doesn't seem like any of the other members cared
about it. Yeah, because it sounds like Louie's relationship with
the other band members really dwindled since they split up.
Steven Bartlett ask Louis if he had had conversations with
the guys about how they were coping post One Direction,
(26:22):
and Louis admitted that he'd only had those conversations with Liam.
He said, when he sees the other boys, it's deeper
than surface level conversations, but sometimes there is the element
of feeling like it's all a bit of small talk,
whereas with Liam, he said he could speak on a
much deeper level. He said that Liam was almost like
a brother to him, and he really loved him deeply.
(26:42):
I was wondering if that's because not to be awful,
but in terms of success, Louis and Liam's solo careers
at that point were quite comparable. I mean, obviously Harry
Styles has done the best out of them, I'd say,
followed by Zay and then Nile, and maybe they felt
like they could be more open because there wasn't that
sort of competition. Well, Louis said he felt comfortable having
(27:04):
conversations with Liam about how much they missed the band,
whereas he said that they would never want to say
that to the other guys because they were worried that
maybe they'd be like, oh, things aren't going well in
their solo careers. I think it's that he didn't want
to be pitied by the more successful band members. And
it's clear that Louis has really struggled with comparing his
solo success to the days of One Direction. I mean,
(27:26):
he has recently released a number one album. He's got
a new single out, which surprised me. I want to
listen to the song Lemonade. Have you heard it? No?
I did want to have a listen after the interview.
Was it good? I hate to say it because I
really wanted to like it, But no, I didn't like it.
I'm hoping that there are stronger songs on his album.
Is this like a Taylor Swift album? Though? Where you
(27:46):
first listened to the song, you're not really sure? Could
it grow on us? Maybe maybe I need to give
it another coach. Do you know what's crazy? The day
that we're recording this is actually a whole year since
Liam Payne passed away. Oh my god. And in this interview,
Louis revealed the moment he found out about Liam's passing.
So he said he was in his car in la
and he had just dropped off his son Freddy at
(28:07):
school and he was pulling back up when Nile rang him,
and he said, Nile said something along the lines of, oh, lads,
have you seen the news. I'm assuming that was a
four way call.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well, Louis didn't actually touch on whether it was, but
it must have been because I kept rewinding it to
sit here if he said lad or lads? Yeah, so,
and Louis said, as soon as Nile said those words,
he instantly knew what he meant, because he said he
had been worried about Liam for quite some time and
he actually had a similar feeling to when he found
out about his younger sister, Felicity's death of a drug overdose.
(28:38):
As you touched on, Kate, and he said that even
though he tried to give his one hundred and fifty
percent to Liam and his sister, it wasn't nearly enough,
and sometimes he has this arrogance where he thinks, maybe
I could have helped more. But what Liam was going
through was so much deeper than what he could have
done for him. It's sad to think that it wasn't
such a shock because obviously to all of us who
(29:00):
don't know Liam, we were absolutely flawed by it. But
it does make you feel sick thinking about the fact
that it was quite obvious to his band members and
his friends that things weren't quite going right for him,
and that you know that his mind is and everything
like that, couldn't have done more to help me. I
think there were a few concerned people online because he
was posting some quite bizarre videos and he was also
(29:22):
being ridiculed for a lot of the content. Remember he
was at Nile's concert and people were putting up these
mean tiktoks of him interacting with the crowds. Yeah. Well,
Louis actually spoke about the trolling that Liam received right
before his death, and as you said, Amy, it was
after he attended Nile's concert in Argentina. Let's have a
listen to what he said.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
I take the tour thing for example, and he's at
the toy show and people were people were making comments
of how much he was loving the attention on a
service level. That's someone who wants attention if you just
look a little bit deeper, that's someone who's just been
in the biggest band in the world and wants those
situations again and had those live situations again and craves
for that.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That made me really sad because I remember before he
passed away seeing videos of him greeting fans outside of
his hotel, and he was so personable with them and
really spent a lot of time with them, and I mean,
you could tell he was really enjoying it, which I
think obviously people didn't like. People are like, oh, he's
just desperate for attention. Well, also when he was at
Na's performance, he was standing on the podium of the
(30:28):
VIP box he was in and everyone was chanting and
he was dancing and, as you said, lapping up the attention.
But as Louis put, well, if your career isn't going
as well as you'd like it to go, and you
have had success in the biggest bands in the world,
then of course you're going to be craving a bit
of that attention. Yeah, of course, I mean you're going
to play into it. One of the saddest parts of
(30:50):
the interview for me was actually when Louis was talking
about how much Liam would have valued his friendship with
Stephen Bartlett for some reason that maybe you just feel
so too, Yeah, as if that friendship was so special
because Steven's obviously very well known in the business world.
And even just the way Louis spoke about how misunderstood
Liam was, it really gave an insight into like it
(31:13):
kind of made me think of him as a baby
type of character. Louis described him as having puppy dog
energy and said that he had this huge desire to
be liked, and Louis said he wished if Liam could
have truly seen how people perceived him at the end
and how brilliant he was, because he would have been
absolutely shocked by the reaction. Louis also said that losing
(31:34):
Liam made him grieve the band again. Let's have a
listen to what he said.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
There's now only three other people on the planet that
can deeply understand my professional journey like you never seen,
never have, but never like I just can't. I can't
ever imagine I'm not sure what would be right to him,
(32:00):
say sake of argument twenty five years time. It's like
a fucking Oasis thing. They offer us an arm and
a leg and they're like, come back and do this
many shows. I don't know, Yeah, I think it just
it just completely put a pen in all that. And
the irony is there was no one campaigning for One
(32:21):
Direction to get back together more than Lim, and like
I would say, I came in a close second. Actually,
like definitely.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It hurt my heart hearing how badly Liam had been
campaigning to get the band back together, because it would
have just been so epic. And Liam, when you listen
back to the songs, he was really the voice of
One Direction, So I can see how it would feel
wrong to do it without him. As much as I
would love to see a One Direction reunion, I just
(32:50):
don't think it would work. I love how Louis was like,
I mean, you know, if they tuck a bunch of
money at us, sure we would have come back. But
now there's a bit of a you know, a question
mark over because I mean it would just be incredibly sad. Well,
that is all we have time for today. Thank you,
so much for joining us for this episode. It was
nice to have all three of us back on board.
(33:11):
This episode was recorded on the traditional land of the
Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay respect to
elders past and present.
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