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October 30, 2024 14 mins

Behind the Scenes with Dr. Abby: Celebrity Relationships, Loyalty, and Reputation in the Spotlight

This week’s PR Breakdown Live episode on Patreon takes a deep dive into celebrity relationships, loyalty, and the challenges of managing public perception. With Dr. Abby Metcalf joining as a special guest, this lively discussion covers how fame and success impact high-profile relationships, what drives public reputation, and the complexities that unfold when loyalty and fame collide.

Episode Highlights:

  • Celebrity Relationships and Fame: Dr. Abby shares insights on why high-profile figures often face unique relationship challenges, covering famous couples such as:
    • Patrick and Brittany Mahomes – How their relationship evolved from high school sweethearts to a branded partnership.
    • Shaquille O’Neal and Snoop Dogg – Examples of loyalty in long-term relationships amidst public careers.
    • Jon Bon Jovi – Insights on long-term celebrity marriages and why some last despite the spotlight.
  • Infidelity and Opportunity in Hollywood: A look into why fame often leads to temptation, featuring:
    • Bruce Springsteen, Justin Hartley, Ethan Slater – When fame tests loyalty.
    • Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez – Dr. Abby discusses why many high-profile breakups happen later in life, touching on the concept of “gray divorce.”
  • Public Reputation and Redemption: A discussion on reputation management, with a focus on:
    • Ellen DeGeneres – Molly’s take on Ellen’s career shifts, her latest Netflix special, and how handling public perception impacts her legacy.
  • Upcoming Masterclass on Managing Online Backlash: A sneak peek into the November 6th masterclass focused on handling backlash and protecting brand reputation, designed for communication professionals and anyone facing public scrutiny.

For more exclusive content, weekly insights, and live discussions, listeners are invited to join the Patreon community for full access to PR Breakdown Live.

Join us next week for more expert PR insights and behind-the-scenes stories!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome back to the PR Breakdown, where
we deep dive into strategiesbehind managing media, public
relations and crisiscommunication.
As always, I'm your host, mollyMcPherson, and today is really
tonight, because I just finisheda live with I don't know one of
my favorites out there, monthlyin my Patreon.

(00:22):
If you're not familiar withPatreon, it's a website that
allows you to bring all of yourpatrons together into one
community and in that communityyou can do whatever you want.
A lot of podcasters, a lot ofcontent creators have.
Patreon Substack is fornewsletters, you know people
writing content.
I love to have lives, so I tendto drop my podcast early.

(00:45):
You'll get an early episoderelease in my Patreon.
And then we have these weeklystreams as well, and this
community is such a greatcommunity and it's growing every
single day, and in theseweeklies we just bring this
collection of people togetherand now we get a lot of the same
people who come back, you know,week after week, and they drop
in and everyone has diversebackgrounds.

(01:06):
We're all from different places, different ages.
Love it when we talk aboutcertain people and we have to
educate certain people in thecommunity on who they are Like.
For example, a couple of weeksago we talked about Garth Brooks
and you know from a previousepisode we had talked about
Garth Brooks's current problemwith the lawsuit and the
allegations made by a formerhairstylist and makeup artist.

(01:29):
And I loved one of ourcommunity members, liz, who just
has the courage to come on andsay, could you just help me out
here, who's Garth Brooks?
And then we have every Gen Xerjust piling in there, not piling
on, but with every weird dustymemory we can think of.
And one of the funnier ones iswhen they were explaining it,
explaining who Garth Brooks was.

(01:50):
It was his song played at theend of every wedding in the 90s.
You know, friends in Low Places, that's what I'm talking about.
Like I haven't thought aboutthat song being played at
weddings in 20 years.
When somebody said that, itjust made me crack up.
That's why this community isfantastic.
So we have people from all ages, all backgrounds, both genders.

(02:11):
We have people who are thecelebrity files.
We have people who love PR.
We have people who love scandal.
We have people who just lovecommunity and getting to know
these people on these lives.
It's just fun.
So I definitely urge you tocheck it out.
It's patreoncom slash, mollyMcPherson.
I will include a link in theshow notes.
But tonight we talked about thetopic was a different one.
You know, abby and I werereally, we were really first

(02:35):
planning to speak about SeanCombs, p Diddy, and the more we
talked about it.
Abby, who is a therapist,psychologist, phd she's the one
who said you know, the topicmight be triggering for some
people because of the thingsthat he's done.
They're so bad, which is true,you know.
So many people ask me about himfrom a PR perspective, but it's
so hard to do the PRperspective when he's done such

(02:58):
horrible things he's beenaccused, I should say, of doing
such horrible things.
I don't like talking about it.
So when public moves are made,like when a lawyer makes a
statement, when he doessomething, when it involves
framing or reputation or thelegality of it all, then I'll
chime in.
But when it's just talkingabout things that he's done, I'm
out too and I was so happy orgrateful I should say that Dr

(03:19):
Abbey said that because I reallydidn't want to get into that.
So she came up with a topic thatwas a little more benign but
interesting nonetheless.
She was interested in this ideaof people who get married early
, like when they're high schoolsweethearts or they meet young
and then all of a sudden,someone hits it big.
So the inspiration was drawnfrom Patrick Mahomes and
Brittany Mahomes.

(03:39):
You know, they were high schoolsweethearts I believe they were
high school sweethearts, butthey got married right away and
now she is definitely part ofhis brand.
She's all over his Instagram,buddy Buddy, up with Travis and
Taylor Swift.
Certainly they're now co-ownersof the Kansas City Current, the
NWSL soccer team there, thewomen's league.
They make it as if, you know,she is the co-owner, but really,

(04:01):
you know, patrick Mahomes is,you know, is behind that.
You know she is the owner, butreally you know Patrick Mahomes
is, you know, is behind that.
But that was our launching pointand Abby was so great because
we started there and we justtalked about or we should say
she talked about why people, inparticular, particularly men,
that they might get marriedearly in life, you know, and why
athletes are interesting isbecause athletes that are great

(04:23):
in high school and great incollege they know they're going
to be great and so they want tohave a person with them.
So, yes, it could be someonethat they absolutely love, but
they're dating.
But for many people who did notmarry their high school
sweetheart.
You know that your relationshipin high school is much
different than your relationshipin college, your relationship
when you meet someone whenyou're 30, for instance.
But they cling on to thissweetheart because they don't

(04:45):
want to go into it alone andthey want to have someone with
them.
And there are many cases wherethey do stay together because
there's that security there.
So she mentioned so manydifferent couples.
You know who are like this anda lot of them, you know, were
athletes.
She talked about Shaq, shetalked about Shaquille O'Neal,
she talked about Snoop, talkedabout Jon Bon Jovi A lot of

(05:07):
these long-term marriages andpartnerships which then led us
into this topic of well, whatabout the ones who are cheating?
Because someone in the group hadmentioned Bruce Springsteen and
, like I'm looking at the chatright now, justin, the guy from
this Is Us Justin Hartley, ethanSlater and Ariana Grande.
We talked about Dave Chappelleand his wife, bruce Springsteen

(05:30):
and his wife, and then someonewrote is Bruce Springsteen
married?
Robert Smith from the Cure andhis wife, mary Poole, met when
they were in middle school andof course, dr Abbey said oh yeah
, my uncle managed the Cure andmanaged them.
She knows absolutely everybody,but then started naming, you
know, like all these names andof course we go into, you know,
travis and Taylor.
And then we talked about StevenSpielberg.

(05:51):
We talked about Jeff Bezos,lauren Sanchez, bill Gates,
melinda Gates and Abbey, thendiscussed how divorce happened.
When we talked about gradedivorce and we talked about
really I think it was her whobrought up Martin Short and
Meryl Streep, which give me my,the most favorite person on the
planet to me is Martin Short.
I mean by far and away.

(06:12):
I am watching Murders in theBuilding with Meryl Streep,
season three on it, but give meClifford.
And then Abby remarked that youknow, meryl Streep is so
familiar with a lot of thesedivorces, these great divorces,
and she said many times it'sfemales, it's the women who
leave men because they've had it, they've just had it.

(06:34):
She said men most times willstay in the marriage because
they already have what they want.
They have someone at home, theyhave someone who's making
dinner, they have someone who'sdealing with the kids, perhaps
the grandkids, and the guys cando whatever they want.
I mean typically she's sayingthis as a therapist with her
clients.
She said rarely, rarely, rarelyis a man leaving a woman.
Rarely, because she said mendon't want to be alone, men want

(06:56):
to have that companionship.
And she said it's not veryoften that you're going to get a
guy who gets divorced and thenis okay being divorced, they're
okay being alone, which I foundinteresting.
I certainly found thatinteresting.
So she did talk about.
And then she even said, likewith Martin Short and Meryl
Streep she said so often, evenwhen it's older, it's not even
about sex anymore, it's so muchof it is about companionship and

(07:18):
having that lovingcompanionship.
And then we started talkingabout Ellen DeGeneres, because
someone brought up EllenDeGeneres and Portia and then I
went on my I'll call it a riff,even though it was stronger than
a riff.
I'm not going to call it atirade, but after watching Ellen
DeGeneres on the Netflixspecial I watched it the night
before I did an interview withMelissa Etheridge for the Public

(07:39):
Relations Society of America.
They asked me to be themoderator not really moderator,
because I was the only oneinterviewing.
I interviewed her and my gosh,it was such an honor to be able
to do that.
So I spoke at 1030, I think,and I was finished at 1130.
And then I immediately had to go.
They came and they said theycame to get me and they said
Melissa is waiting.
I was like, oh okay, so thepeople who were standing there

(08:03):
waiting to talk and take photosand selfies, which was so much
fun.
I had to leave to go back andtalk to Melissa.
And I did talk to her backstageand we talked about a lot of
different people, becauseMelissa Etheridge knows everyone
in Hollywood.
But I did ask her about EllenDeGeneres and Melissa was
telling me she she felt bad forEllen and she said you know,
ellen just doesn't understand.
You know all the hate and Abbywas saying that as well.
You know that.

(08:23):
You know Ellen was a big deal,you know, especially in the
nineties when she was one of thefirst to come out for being gay
, and Melissa Etheridge was aswell from the musical piece of
it and she was blackballed,whereas Melissa was celebrated
for it and her career took off.
Ellen DeGeneres was definitelyblackballed and I do remember
that and I would agree to that.

(08:43):
And then Abby was remarkingabout couples.
She said think about it.
Everybody does it.
You may think that you're theperson in your relationship who
empties the dishwasher, but thenyour husband might come out and
say you know, you're not doinganything.
You're like, what?
Like?
I emptied the dishwasher, Idrove the kids, I did all these
different things.
Just because someone saysyou're a certain way doesn't
mean that you are, which Iagreed 100%.

(09:04):
But I said, Abby, this goesinto the realm of public
relations and reputationmanagement.
I said now we're sitting firmlyin my lane and the mistake that
Ellen DeGeneres made, of course, is this take where she's
blaming the public for herplight.
There's been so many instanceswhere Ellen, ellen DeGeneres has
been called out for not beingnice.
Now, had Ellen DeGeneres justcome out in her special and made

(09:27):
jokes about being labeled asnice when you're not nice and
turn it into humor now thatwould have been unbelievable and
people would have loved it andit probably would have
resurrected her career.
Honestly.
But instead, if you watched it,she came out and complained.
She basically blamed the publicfor her lie.
She blamed the public forlabeling her as kind.

(09:49):
It wasn't her choice to belabeled as kind and if there's
stories that came out that she'snot kind, well, it's not my
fault.
I didn't say that I was kindand it was just a horrible take.
It was a horrible, horribletake and that's the nuance.
That's the nuance and you haveto thread a needle and sometimes
you get right dead center andyou do it, but many times you
don't.
In this case, ellen DeGeneresdidn't do it, she did not do it.

(10:11):
You can't.
You cannot blame people in apublic statement, much less a
Netflix special.
Also, when you're not funnyanymore.
She was funny during her timein the nineties, but she also it
wasn't funny.
I mean, she had a couple funnylines in there, but that's the
end.
That's the end of Ellen.
As far as I'm concerned, thatis the very end.
But Abby did such a remarkablejob.
We talked about Jeff Bezos.

(10:31):
We talked about Jeff Bezos withLauren Sanchez, where she also
said it's likely that he'salready started cheating on
Lauren Sanchez, but he's notgoing to get rid of Lauren
Sanchez.
We talked about Bill andMelinda Gates.
That Melinda was, you know,obviously the one who said you
know, I'm kind of tired of this.
You know that Bill was kind ofskirting around.

(10:51):
Also, someone in the in thecommunity said in the chat you
know he, he was tied into theJeffrey Epstein piece as well.
But a great question from thecommunity does every famous
person go through things likethis, or some so strong, or some
so strongly who they are thatsuccess doesn't change them.
And Abby was saying it's justsaid such a great line and she
quoted like Chris Rock and I'mnot going to get this line right
Like, a guy is only as faithfulas his opportunity.

(11:11):
You know, and when you'refamous, you have so many
opportunities that come to youthat you, that people, just
can't resist them anymore.
So that's why it you know,celebrities singers, athletes,
rock stars it's really hard forthem to stay faithful because
there's just so manyopportunities where being
unfaithful is presented to themand then they often have long

(11:32):
suffering wives who stay therewith them.
But it was a great chat.
So this week on the podcast,it's quick, it's fast, because I
do have a big, big masterclasscoming next week, november 6.
It's all about online backlash,how to manage it.
So certainly that we have alink in the show notes if you

(11:53):
want to join me for that, 12pm3pm, 8pm Eastern Time how to
manage online backlash.
So, especially if you're incommunication or your brand or
your name, I'm definitely goingto urge you to join me in that
free masterclass.
But also join us in Patreon,because these weekly chats are
so interesting, the community isinteresting and it's really the
extension of this podcast.

(12:14):
Now, I know you're listening tothis, thinking where's the music
?
Where's the point?
Where's everything?
This is the point that I havebeen traveling for weeks on end.
Really for all of October Ihave been traveling, and even
right now I have to leave anddrive three and a half hours
back to New York, where I wasthis morning.
So that's where this podcast islanding.

(12:35):
I thought I'm just going to do awrap up on an amazing chat that
we had on Patreon, and Idefinitely encourage you to join
me there, especially when DrAbby is there.
But we're also going to haveother guests.
Vanessa Gregoriatis is going tobe back.
She is a long-form journalist,but she's won so many awards for
her writing.
But she's interviewed TaylorSwift a few times, justin Bieber

(12:56):
, justin Timberlake she'ssomeone who always, always has a
great story.
We were going to talk aboutElon Musk as someone who we were
going to mention because in herpodcast she talked about him.
We're going to have Dr KathyNickerson.
She's a specialist in affairs,so I love having people on here
who give education andbackground and just a deeper
dives on certain areas.
And then, certainly weekly, I'min here as well, and we're just

(13:19):
chatting about all the thingsthat are happening out there
right now.
So that's what I have for thisweek, you know, on the podcast.
On the podcast because it'squick and I feel like I've met
most of you anyway in just thelast few weeks, of all my
travels and all the talks, fromCalgary to New York City, to
Sacramento, to Boston, to NewYork, to Albany, I've just been
everywhere back to New England.
It's been, it's been quite arun, you guys.

(13:40):
So hope you can join me nextweek for the masterclass on
November 6.
And then I certainly hope thatyou can join me in Patreon,
because it's a great extensionof this podcast.
And boy are we having a greattime.
So that's all for this week onthe podcast.
Thanks so much for listening,thanks so much for joining and
for supporting and being a partof this community.

(14:02):
Bye for now.
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