Listen To Mario Catch Up With His Buddy NYT Best Selling Author & Former Male Model Steve Santagati!

Mario Lopez is joined by his buddy NYT Best Selling Author Steve Santagati to discover why Bad Boys Finish First, talk modeling during the 90s, and more!  Steve shares his fascinating life story including everything from his tough childhood and charting his own path in life to having a movie made based on him and losing everything at the age of 50.  Santagati's story is one you don't wanna miss!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Mario Lopez got another fun episode of Listen to
Mario four You this week, sitting down to chat with
a friend of mine, New York Times best selling authors
Steve Santa Gatti. Known this dude for years and what
an interesting character. Smart uh doesn't hold back and he's

(00:21):
got a pretty fascinating story. Anyway, Santa Gotti's gonna be
making his way in here, so let's get into the
Mario Santa Gatti, welcome, Thank you Lopez. How long have
I known you? Now? I was trying to figure that
out NPR. How long have I known you? I want
to say, like at least twelve years because I met
you If you remember this, I met you after I

(00:42):
had been fired from Extra. And here's a unique thing, guys.
Actually I was fired from another show called The Other Half,
and Mario replaced you did really replace me, but you
are filling It's like like generic version. No, actually I
did in the show was able to get picked up
because of it. I'll give people a little backstory. It

(01:03):
was the first male version. It was the first male
version of the View and it was with the legendary
Dick Clark in the Barbara Walters will roll if you will.
And then we had Danny Bona Ducci and Dr Jan
Adam is a plastic surgeon who's now infamous because Kanye
West mom died under his care um and then originally

(01:26):
well no, there wasn't supposedly anything about it. He did.
She did die under his care. Whether it was his
fault or not as different, but she did die under
his care. What do you starting conspiracies here? That's not debatable.
He was a position at the time, and you see
that's probably got fired comments like that. And then you
were supposed to be the single guy, but apparently, uh,

(01:47):
women didn't respond to your your That's actually exactly it.
That's what they told you because because that I couldn't
say that we were hiring udicated to the lad Tino markets,
not exactly. That would have been racist. That's exactly the matter.
That you can tell your ego what you want, but
I'm gonna keep it real because let's keep it doing here.

(02:09):
Let's keep real here. I love you. Let me preface
it by saying I love you, and I thought soften
the blow on a second. I saw your charm, just
that charming. But you do come across to a lot
of women, not all of them abrace according to who
women to just two women? Remember the producers told me

(02:29):
at the time, so or not? Yeah, exactly. I wanted
to ingrace dictators. Okay, No, I didn't know you when
you got fired. I didn't know you. But you were
coming across a little abrasive and it wasn't as warm
and it didn't appeal to the women. Okay, but I
got hot too. I thought you Times bestseller, hold hold on,
don't get don't get sensitive. We're gonna get to that.
Don't get a said, I got you relaxed that. I

(02:50):
just thought it was ironic that hold on it. Let
me tell you what happens we I'm gonna tell you
these are the facts. You got fired. Hold on a second.
You got fired I coincidently, not knowing you. We didn't
know each other. I got hired and as that single guy, right,
I was in my twenties at the time. Whatever and uh,
and then we went on for the show for a
couple of years and it was it was great experience.

(03:11):
And ironically, now we premiered when nine eleven happened. Okay,
nine eleven, so obviously horrible timing, but I just thought
It was a funny irony that I happen to replace
you on your in that show, and and you got
fired and we ended up being good friends later on.
Now you got fired on Extra as well. But I
didn't replace you there. I didn't replace you there. I

(03:33):
happened just to be the host. That was just a coincidence.
So I our lives keep crossing. But let's not talk
about you getting fired anymore. Like Ships in the Night. Okay,
you're from Boston originally, right, yeah, well near Boston, But
I gave up my mass whole card years ago because
New England is not in general, but by and large

(03:54):
are not very friendly people, you know, and especially as
you over the years, I'll be come more political. And
I watched what they're doing there in that sanctuary. We're
gonna get that hold on a second, slowdown. So you
so you're you're from outside of Massachusetts, well right now
in Massachusetts? Okay, right, yeah, it's and over Lowell, Tooksbury.

(04:15):
There you go that area. Okay, Jack Carroll Whack was
from Lowe. There you go, And well book did you
right on the road because you want to get the
hell out of there too. Hence that's why you call
me Mario Mario and we'll let me take something. It
is Mario Bruno Mars is not Bruno Mayers. I want
to take a space, Mario. We've just discovered people. We've

(04:39):
discovered people on Mars, not mayors. There's marcions but stupid cartoons.
I'm trying to talk about you. So you're from You're
raised here in Massachusetts. You're raised in Massachusetts in the
seventies and sixties. Sisters, I'm one of four kids. Where
do you fall? I'm the second old, but I'm like

(05:00):
I was treated like a middle child. Actually, So wait
were you saying? What do you mean by that? Because
your back back then, your mom and dad were together, right,
My mom and dad weregether for a very short period
of time. Uh you know. I was born again in
the sixties. So I was a product of that Italian
Irish marriage in Massachusetts, New England, especially that period of time.

(05:22):
And my father was a musician. My mother was an artist,
My father was a philanderer. I didn't her dad was
a musician. What do you play? He played piano and
sang and all this stuff. No, I can't play anything.
I play the radio. So that's about it. He uh,
he was a planner though you know, he was a
funny guy, charismatic. He's dead now. I didn't have any
relationship with him, as you can tell by the way

(05:44):
I say he's dead with like a blank face, which
you can't see because we're in radio or a microphone
here podcast. Sorry, I wasn't close, you know he was.
And here's the thing too, like one of the things.
And you know, there's not a lot I like about you, Mario,
but one of the things I do like is that
you spent time with your child. Though here's the thing,
especially when it comes to celebrity or any any person.

(06:04):
A lot of times you'll try to buy the kids stuff,
put them in front of a TV, put by them,
laptops and and iPads and all this stuff. But there
is no substitution. And I'm not a dad, but I'm
just telling my experience having not had a dad. There
is no substitution for spending time with your children right
and being strict, and when they're out of line, you
give him a smack on the ass. I agree with

(06:26):
you can't buy, you can't you can't raise. There's no
rule of thumb how to raise a great child or
a great citizen if you will. But there's ways that
you won't do it, and and that is by not
spending time with your child and not having the kid
to have any discipline. You know what, I absolutely agree
with you in all seriousness, and for not having a dad.
I wish more dad's had that same train of thought.

(06:47):
I think we'd have a stronger um youth. Which right,
which is why I never had children, Mario, Because Mario,
because I you know, I looked around me. I saw
my dysfunctional childhood, my other screaming, hitting us, hitting my
mother sometimes, all this craziness that was going on with
my cousins, getting girls, pregnant, whatnot. And I'd always hear

(07:08):
the car, the adults talking, and I said, I don't
want that. At a very young age, I began the mantra,
never get married, never had kids, never have kids at
a young age. Okay, so let's fast forward. Now there
was no love fest in the home, got it. But
but nevertheless he still did have a family there, a
family unit. Um. You graduated high school with a good student, No,

(07:31):
I was stone through tenth grade. I stopped working up
in eleventh and then when I had senior year, I
got serious because I was paying for college myself. So
you then you then you had ambitions. So my senior
year I did well, and then my first year you
went to Emerson. I transferred. At first, I went to
school in Canada because I was going to be an
environmental scientist, but I was horrible at math. You and

(07:52):
I both right, So I transferred from there and I
moved into Vermont, and I was gonna be an outdoor
wrect person, doing mountain climbing and all this stuff because
I love the outdoors. Well, that was wrong. But while
I was there, I lived in a farm, a dairy farm,
and I took care of an elderly couple by cooking
and cleaning, cutting firewood, keeping the house warm. That she
had rheumatory death right as he ran the farm. So

(08:14):
I learned how to do farm chores. So I never
look at anything, whether it's a gallon of gas or
a gallon of milk the same way, because I realized
how much energy it takes to get there. Yeah, so
I did that, and then I realized this was all wrong.
I realized that marketing and public relations runs the world.
Whatever you can get people to believe through branding and

(08:36):
imaging you can conquer. And so from that point on,
I transferred to Emerson. And so you're on a dairy farm.
And that was the Epiphanius was and all of a sudden,
like how was that college? Well, you know, I had
the utter of my hand hold on. I decided to
go to college. At that point, I was well, I

(08:56):
was in well, I was in Uh. Actually I went
to in State, which was Jim Cantor, the Weatherman. Okay,
he's a Cantory Okay, Okay, Jim Cantori the weather Man
went there. Okay, so ill I took one class in
public relations just for the hell of it. Okay, slowdown.
Were you in Canada? And then at the dairy form
I went. I went from Canada to Vermont, Vermont to Boston,

(09:19):
from Vermont to Boston. Okay, I'm at Emerson. Emerson's a
prestigious school, a good school. I would just school with
Roddy Dangerfields. How did you go to school? How did
you get in? You gotta be smart, I get it.
I actually had excellent grades at Lynden State, and then
I was also wrote a very good letter to get
into the school, and I can remember. So this day

(09:41):
I went into Emerson and they said, we accept you.
How are you going to pay for this? Because it
was a private school. I didn't have any parental funding,
no nothing, pretty ambitious for a kid with no supply
myself exactly. And I said to them, I said, there's
no way I'm going to be denied the education of
my choice based on finances. Put it this way. Cuts.
Two and a half years later, when I worked, walked
into the financial aid office. They knew me by name

(10:03):
because I would oh, I was working at big I
was hustling, I was getting uh, you know, I I
don't know. I wasn't Elizabeth Warren saying I was a
fake Indian, But I was in there. If there was
some random thing like have you ever passed a refrigerator
two in the afternoon, here's your scholarship, I was like,
I'm that guy. If there was, they were like, you
have two left feet, here's your scholarship. I was, I'm

(10:24):
applying for for us. Do you like trees? What did
you study there? I studied. I have two degrees from Emerson,
A Bachelors of Science and the Bachelors of Art. I
did all my electives and philosophy. But I did my
degree in communications, so marketing and PR very impressive for
a guy with no support and and um for you

(10:46):
to have. And I had a company there. I had
a company while I was in college. I had a
gene company, and I was on TV. I was interviewed.
I got myself interviewed on TV with Jimmy Stewart and
Tom Brokaw Stewart yep, back in the day I had.
I was in marketing and they wanted us to do
a paper on a product that I said, I'll do
it on jeans. So I said, well, if I'm gonna
do the paper on it, I may as well actually
do the company. So I did this company called Fit

(11:09):
for You. That's what it started. And I sold my
jeans to Jordan Marsh and Bloomingdale's in Boston and some boutiques.
And then I also wrote up a fake press release,
so I pretended I was a publicist and I wrote
this press release on myself. I had an editor write
it a writer better. I couldn't write at the time.
And I got on TV with Jimmy Stewart and Tom Broke.

(11:30):
I was in the Boston Globe. I was in some
of the local newspapers and stuff in Boston. It's a trip.
And I did that for a while and then I
hated it. Okay, so you so you graduated, you got
these degrees. How did modeling come into player? What did
you want to do? I mean, you're looking at me,
you tell me so, all right, So here's what happened.

(11:51):
So they go, look that might that might be able
to see my face better. You didn't work on your
comp But it's hey, uh, what what were the what
were what was your so? So here, So here's what happened.
So Emerson was extremely expensive. That's a good school. You
gotta degree from Emersson. You can get a job. Yeah,

(12:13):
but hold on. While I was at school, I still
got to pay for because I was getting literally well
as a school. They were sending me letters. You have
one week to pay, you have two weeks to pay.
Do you realize your payments coming up in thirty days.
It's a lot of stress. So I was at college
there and you know someone who suggested you should try modeling.
I had no money, but I had just enough to
pay for like some films. So I had this woman

(12:35):
who I loved to this day, Charlotte Stanley. She said,
all right, I'll take pictures of you. The pictures came
out and they thought I looked like Richard Gear. At
the time, Richard Gear was huge. Yeah, I could see that.
I could also see a young Doug Flutie, you know, seriously,
And Doug Flute is a handsome is not a good
is a handsome guy. I've been comparing. I've been talking

(12:56):
about's from Boston. Richard Gear was my thing. Richard Gear
was like, oh my god. And I'm thinking, but go on,
don't you see it? I see it. You're insulting Doug
Flutiel is a handsome man. I'm sure Doug Flute is
a very nice guy. But I'm sorry, Doug, I don't
look like you. All right. Well you called me your
that's your screensaver. When you call me, we go on.
So so that's why I won't be calling you anywhere.

(13:20):
So I looked like Richard Gear. And it's just Boston
was such a small market. I can see that. Actually,
Richard Gear, get, Richard Gear get. You know, American Jigglo
had come out like a few years earlier, so he
Richard Gear was a big star still freshen than mind
took offman. She cut this cut to the chase. I
graduated from college and I called the loan department of

(13:44):
the bank, and I thought I had a grace period
because they all lie to you, the bank, So yeah,
I just take the money, don't worry about it. I
called the bank and I said, how much will I
end up owing if I pay this off on the
schedule that you've given me? And they said well, and
I heard some clicking in the background. They said, julo
us dollars. I go fifty five thousand. Now, that's whoa.

(14:06):
So I said, well, how much do I oh? Now?
And they go thirty thousand, and I said, okay. I
wrote them a check. I was making that much money
modeling in Boston. In Boston, that much money. I remember
my first week, the first time, the first week, I
made a thousand dollars. I thought, yeah, this is it.
That's a lot of money. But I was always short.

(14:28):
I was always too short. I was five ten. You're
supposed to be six ft. But I was a hustler,
you know. So you graduated, the modeling thing is obviously
going well, and you decide, okay, I don't want to
get a quote, real job, as my dad's way. Yeah,
I'm gonna I'm gonna give this modeling thing a shot.
So you didn't stay in Boston. I moved immediately to

(14:49):
New York City. You have an agent, No, you didn't had.
I had no model agency in Boston, sorry, in um.
In New York City, I had an introduction to a
commercial agency called William Morris. Yes, and you might remember
that back then in seven there was three offices. There
was Laura Folgleman, who is now dead, Kevin Huvaine who's

(15:13):
now a huge agent, and then this other guy who
did voiceover and I forget his name. So I get
to New York. I don't have a pot to piston
or a window to throw it out of my second
day there, I get sent out in an audition and
I book a what's his name, Jan Michael Vincent. He
was an alcoholic, yes he was. So he was supposed
to do this Japanese whiskey commercial. He got drunk and

(15:35):
he couldn't do it. So they said, this guy looks
enough like Jan Michael Vincent. The job to the Japanese
two day job. Two day job, aged twenty one years old.
I got paid eleven thousand dollars. WHOA, You're like, okay,
my rent was paid. Now I was like, now, motherfucker's
let's go. I'm gonna take this town, so don't take it.
And I just I just never stopped and I started

(15:56):
doing Gillette and modeling. I traveled all over the world Australia.
So now you're living in New York and you're all
in on the modeling. You're actually a bright guy with degrees.
But you're like, I'm making too much money. I don't
want to have to entertain commercials and the girls, the girls,
Oh my god. I was working with some of those
beautiful girls in the world. So you're young, you're making money,

(16:17):
You're living in New York City, having a good time,
right single. This this era is what this is eighties seven,
The big thing, the big time for me was in
the nineties. That's when things got fun. By the time
the word grunge came out, I was at my worst
or my best, depending how you were looking at. If
I was dating you, I was at my worst. If

(16:39):
I was looking in the mirror, I was at my best.
So you so you wow, So what a fun time.
Listen if you're going to be in New York City,
you gotta be there with money and a job, because
it's too expensive a city. I don't know how people
survive otherwise. Back and the here's the thing, and the
nineties New York was a very special place. There was
still affordable rents and it was a very eclectic, diverse

(17:02):
group of people. When you went to a nightclub, you
didn't get in because you were super rich and you
were going to buy a bottle. We didn't even have
bottle service. We didn't even have cell phones or any
of that crap. You got in if you brought something
to the table, if you were cool, you had a
good look, you had style, the opposite of l a basically,
so if you had something, and so you did pick
you saw the studio fifty four days what was really brutal,

(17:25):
But they still had that thing. So the modeling thing
was working out, didn't work. It was it was amazing.
You're smart than the modeling thing. Well, that's a hell
of a combo. And essentially you never needed to use
your degrees for anything. And that well, that's the funny.
You should say that, mar Mario. Funny, funny you should
say that I'd never used my degrees because in actuality,

(17:46):
everything that I learned at Emerson, I actually used to
get where I am today, which was marketing yourself. You
in life, you were continually marketing the Ario Lopez product,
the Steve Sanagatti product. Whatever you are. Even if you're
not in this entertainment brand, you're creating your brand. I

(18:07):
don't care if you want to work in Silicon Valley,
you want to do construction, what is your brand? Who
are you? So? You're having a good time, You're partying
and that some of the girls. Since you're not going
to drop names, I'll drop them. I remember you tell
me you were going out with Taylor Dane. Yeah. I
dated Taylor Dane in the nineties, which was a blast. Yeah.
She was a smoke showy in the ass though. Leslie

(18:28):
wonder Leslie Wonderman, nice Jewish, Jewish girl from Long Island.
Love that tell it to my heart. And Kylie Minogue. Yeah,
Kylie and I had a fling back in the day
in Australia some friends. She was really fun. They're all
these girls are great. I don't know, did you. I
always keep my mouth shut. I never bragged about people
a long time Kylie was a lot of fun, and
so is Taylor. Didn't your party with Madonna too? Well?

(18:51):
So here's a thing. Uh this guy named chef Petty
Bone who wrote Vogue. Uh you know he we went
to a party on his roof and manhaw and Madonna
was there, and you know she would already been famous
because she's Madonna Donna, and I guess we couldn't get
over how how little she was, how short she was. Now.

(19:11):
She was just like this regular chick. And I was loyal.
I was like, if I'm going to a party. I
was never one of those sleeves bad guys that would
start flirting with someone. I kind of wanted to flirt
with her at the time, but I was like, whatever, Okay,
oh I thought I thought you you wouldn't know. Maybe
in my head I just embellished story, got it, got it,
But I know there was there was a lot of
models in between, and yeah they we had a good time.

(19:32):
You had a good time. Never never never had any
scares about being a possible dad. No. I was very,
very careful. And anybody that tells you to use condoms
all the time is lying. Here tell you like married
couples I'll tell you they're happy. It's like it's not true.
It might be true sometimes, but it's not true. All right,
So let's fast forward. Now, that was a great, great era,

(19:54):
great time in your life. Amazing When did you decide
to go to l A. So I had always treat
everything less, so I'd always made little run I always
made transitions. I was at the top of my modeling. Yes,
always very smart because I watched remember that movie Zoolander,
and they're spending all the money on like half pipes

(20:16):
and stereos and cars and girls and all this trap. Well,
I'd watch those guys go from rags to riches and
back to rags again, and I was like, you know what,
I have to be the through line of my career.
I have to be smart. I didn't need a lot
of stuff. I wasn't a person that came from money,
so I didn't need cars, and I never dated gold
digging girls or any of that stuff. So I was
very smart with it. But I wanted to transition. If

(20:36):
I got bored, I would take major risks, Like I
could have had a nice, solid, nice six figure careers,
continuing to model and continuing to do commercials, but I
got bored and I just stopped in retrospect. I should
have kind of let it weed off a little bit,
but I went straight to hosting. I said, what's this
thing called broadcast? And I wanted to broadcast? Wow, I

(20:56):
did not know that. I thought it just sort of
ran its course. No, no, no, I got out of
the top. I was still doing really not smart. No, yeah, thanks, No,
I mean, you know what I mean. For a smart guy,
I would I would imagine you don't know you're young.
I was twenty. I was thirty years old, thirty one,
and I was just like, I'm gonna go back. I'm
gonna I'm gonna do this. So I got a job

(21:17):
immediately for ESPN Men's Journal. You don't even like sports.
It was French. It was an adventure show, fly fishing, snowboarding,
rock climbing. It that's in New York at the time.
That was all over the country at the time. But
you're shooting it, okay, and then you got the bug
and you said, okay, I want to go try l
a and then no. And then I got a job

(21:39):
on American Journal Inside Edition, and I was their adventure
with Kid Hoover who's now on Access. Yes, so it
was Kid Hoover, me and and Karen Duffy from MTV.
We were called Team A J and so we were
supposed to go out and do all this crazy stuff. Well,
Team AJ went from me, Karen Duffy, and Kid Hoover
to Steve Santagatti because no one k Kit went off

(22:01):
and did something else, and then Karen Duffy allegedly got sick.
So I was by myself. After a year of working
every single day, no one worked harder. I said, this
isn't for me. I don't want to do hard news.
I don't want to do this crazy stuff. It was
making me crazy. And that's when I uh moved on.
Just did some one off projects, hosting this show and
that show, and then I had an agent here uh

(22:24):
and I ended up getting Uh. I forget what show
was next, but I ended up working for Extra At
one point, boy I hosted a wild life show. I
hosted a World Gone Wild and worked with Dan Funk
and Susan Winston. Now Susan Winston was a big name
back in the day. She worked for Morning That's That's right.
Eric Shots was kt L A. Eric Shots hired me
for a bunch of stuff too, uh man versus beast

(22:47):
one and two bachelorettess in Alaska with First First Reality
all this is in New York. This is all out
of l A. This is so, when did you move
to l A? I moved to l A for extra?
She moved to l A for extra. That opportunity came
while you were in New York. But they say you
need to move tal A for it. That's right? This
is what year? Oh god, fifteen years ago. Now you
moved t A. You're all in and you're not doing

(23:09):
the modeling thing. You're going to the hosting and you
had and you had a pretty good little run on extra, right,
was that's it? That was what I hear. The best
part about that, too, is I didn't even realize because
I didn't even look at contracts when I had an agent,
I used to just have them look at it. I
didn't even realize they had an out at six months.
I just thought as long as I did a good job,

(23:29):
I'd stay in. Right. Didn't work out that way, No,
they didn't. They didn't want to pay me. My belief
is they I was making I was making over two
hundred and something thousand dollars for a weekend host, and
uh corresponded and I worked hard for them. You know,
it was a pain in the ass. I'll be honest
with Marie. I don't know how you do entertainment, especially
in today's climate where everybody's offended at everything. That's all

(23:50):
another cup we're gonna get. But my point I was
I was more of a keep it real, say it out,
and that didn't always air well with Pete All no
you are. That's one of the things I like about
your candid, no filter. Okay, so here's here not that
then at what point? Then that Just like anything in entertainment,
there's ups and down, a lot of dry spells, right

(24:11):
when you decide to write a book. Okay, So now
I'm depressed. I lose the other This is the truth.
I lose the other half. I lose extra and I
have no friends in l A. It's very, very hard
to meet people here to become friends with. You can
say hi and things like that, but people here are,
in my experience of our vapid and and very all

(24:35):
looking for the bigger, better deal. What can you do
for me? And that just wasn't my whole thing. So
I moved back to Vermont, and September eleven happened, okay,
and every I think everybody in the country had an
epiphany in September eleven had happened, and I just took
my savings and I built a beautiful house on my

(24:55):
acres in Vermont, literally three months after I owned three
hundred acres I homestead. I bought three hundred acres when
I was twenty seven years old, and I finally built,
like the thirty five square foot house. When I say built,
I mean I built, I designed, I got my hands
dirty the whole thing I built. I put in the windows,
helped at the fireplace, you name it. I did. I

(25:17):
polished the concrete because you just built your house, just
the tree house again. So so I'm up in my
house and I had it was December. It was December,
and I built a pull up bar and I fell
on my head inside the house, and I lost my

(25:37):
smell and taste for two years. What do I not
know this? I love. When I rocked my brain, what
happened is I almost died. Actually, they were sort of
shocked that I was alive because I didn't go to
the hospital that night. It was a huge blizzard. I
was in my house and I fell, and I cracked
my skull and my brain rocked so hard inside my
head that it crushed all the old factory senses, which

(25:59):
are in the front of your forehead. We shouldn't have
been sparring that day. I was, well, that's the thing.
I'm not supposed to get hit in the head anymore.
So I went. I was in the hospital for eleven days.
I came out of the hospital. I was on oxy cotton,
which is a very very dangerous drug any kind of painkillers.
Stay the hell away from them. And I remember coming
off and you just go into these spells where you'd

(26:22):
be crying and you wouldn't know why you were crying.
You was flushing you out. You just you just you know.
I'm a guy that doesn't cry. I grew up at
a time you don't. Men don't cry. I still don't cry.
A matter of fact, a lot of guys I want
to slap unless someone died, including a family member or
your dog. Shut the funk up. I'm from the Clint
Eastwood school of hard knocks. You don't hear me interrupting
your kids, right, you get and one of the reasons.

(26:44):
I went in the ring with you because I think
it's good guy for guys to get punched. Occasionally hit
you harder, but sorry. So I'm in the house, the
snow is blowing. I'm depressed. I'm looking outside the window,
and I'm thinking to myself, what am I going to
do with myself now the TV business has changed. I'm depressed,
and so I'm sitting there at my computer by myself,

(27:07):
and I think I'm gonna start. I gotta put a
list together all the girls I've been with over the years.
So I start making a list. And if I can't
remember a name, I remember the circumstance. Got it now?
I was always I gonna imagine it's a rather large number.
It's just the number. Touchet going, Dan Funk one time,

(27:28):
Dan Funk the producer, don't don't d keep going, keep going.
So I'm sitting up there, I'm sitting up there with
my computer looking at the window, and it's like, you know,
no exaggeration, twenty blow out. And I'm starting to write
down these names. And then I started to think about myself.
Because I always kept quiet. I never I didn't have
any male friends. All my friends were either women or
gay guys, and I just kept my mouth shut. I
was never a person that bragged about my conquest, whether

(27:50):
it was a victorious secret model or a playmate kie moves.
It's an amateur hour. I'm not that guy exactly. And
I also loved women. I wasn't. Yes, was I being
a womanizer at the time, absolutely, but I didn't hate them.
I wasn't a misogynist or something like that. They were
in on the game. It was never me taking advantage
of someone or being sleazy. Does that make sense? And

(28:11):
I'm very, very very I don't know if the words
can trite or or or culpable for my engagement in
these relationships. Anyways. So I come up with this list
and I'm like, oh my god, I'm whispering to myself
because I'm losing my mind up there, like uh the
shining in Vermont, and I whispering to myself, and I go,
I wonder if they're onto guys like me, I mean really,

(28:34):
And by they I mean women, and by they I
mean these quote unquote air quotes I'm doing here psychologists
and therapists and these women writing these books and these
jerks writing these stupid ast romantic comedies, and so I
started researching. I started reading Cosmo, watching the Today Show,
watching all of the relationships segments, looking at the you

(28:54):
know why men, he's not that into you, and blah
blah blah, these larns. So it's one thing to have
a good idea, and it's a whole another thing to
actually put the effort into executing it, which is what
you did, especially when you're starting at forty years old

(29:15):
and you've already weathered so many battles and so many
so much, Mario. What they don't tell you in this
business is how much rejection we have. You're not good enough.
You're not tall enough, you're not young enough, you're not
skinny enough, you're not fat enough. You're not black enough,
you're not white enough, you're not Asian enough, you're not
this enough. Yeah, so there's so much rejection. So now forty,
I have to pick myself up. But I have nothing

(29:35):
to lose, right, So now I have to go to
New York City get another job. I'm now I'm sleeping
on couches again, sleeping on couches, and I get a
job representing Men's Journal magazine. Now for Yon Winner, part
of the uh, you know, you're rolling Stone brand. There
they had us Weekly, Ben's Journal and Rolling Stone and

(29:57):
I am a hit. I go on of Today's Show
and my first segment is joking around with Al Roker
and I get a call from the producer. They go,
what do you want to do next week? And I
was like, and Rolling Stone was shocked because they never
had anybody representing men's journal magazine that the networks wanted
to have on. It was always these boring guys going,

(30:18):
don't forget wax your tent poles before you put them together.
And remember raccoons bite, don't feed them. And I'm on
and I'm on, and I'm gonna come on with Al
Roker and I'm like, well, look at this big screen TV.
At Roker, I know nothing about TVs. Looks good to me.
Let's play ball, you know. I was like during the

(30:38):
super Bowl kind of thing. So we had fun. So
I came on and I was on the Today Show
over forty seven times. Wow, So wait a minute, and
you're sleeping on couches? Why why didn't you sell the
three hundred acres or at least a hundred and fifty
Because I was trying because selling seven hundred acres in
Vermont three Sorry, selling three acres in Vermont is not
like selling three hundred acres in law So Angeles. There's

(31:01):
a certain type of clientele that's going to be interesting. Okay,
So I finally sold it. I finally sold the property
in two thousand five or sit whatever, and I had
that money and I ended up getting an apartment and
you're now, you're now I'm back. So now I'm sitting
in the Today's Show green room one day, and this
is based on what I have been doing up in Vermont,

(31:22):
writing about all these girls I've been right. And I
go and I'm like, I'm sitting on the on the
couch and this is girl beside me. There's all these
women in the room, all these women like little Chicken.
And I go, I go, what do you do? And
she goes, oh, I worked for Random House. And I said, oh,
I have an idea for a book, which everybody and
their brother does. And she rolled her eyes looked at

(31:43):
me like yeah please, and she goes, what's it on?
And I go, why women like bad boys? And as
I said that, it was like, let the pigeons lose,
because every woman in that room turned and came at
me like, oh, I don't like that, as I love
bad was I hate that provoked reaction but not intentionally. No,

(32:03):
But that's then you knew you had sounds. So Selena
ended up being my neighbor where I was. Actually I
was still staying on a couch at this point, but
Selena and Selena Cocina was her name, Selena Cocina, which
translates that Selena dirty in Spanish. It's just a fact
she probably was. I never ate. So at the point
this point, I'm giving relationship advice to everybody, including Katie Kirk.

(32:26):
I had actually met and Coulter, and and culture was
such a bit I said, I want to break her. Now.
This is my opinion, this is my take on it.
But whatever, so I ended up making out believe it
or not, with a Coulter. I like. I like the diversity.
She's actually she's she's in my opinion, uh, in my opinion,

(32:46):
allegedly crazy, but she's actually very very smart. And uh
oh really, so you know it's not an act. Oh no,
she's she's crazy. No, it's not an act. She's very
very smart. I read her book. Actually, Katie Kirk, no No.
I liked Katie. I was actually introduced to Katie through
Lisa G from Extra and uh, Katie was nice. You know.

(33:07):
I was just talking to Katie about relationships and about
business and stuff of that. Ilk you know, cut to um.
I finished my I sell my book without a written proposal.
Hold on thing, you never wrote a book in your life.
I had never written a book. I had written articles published.
I had been published before in articles. But hold on thing,
you fought. You said you'd a while back in college.

(33:27):
You don't know how to write. I did. So how
did you learn? Because I read a lot. I started
reading after I got out of college. I read everything,
all classics from Herman Has to the all the Germans.
I read Japanese classics, all the German classics Lka La
gerta herman Has. Those are the German classs. I never

(33:49):
read a book. You'd be like you read that. You
were with raising brand box tops like you be the
back of the fruit loops box. And that's considered an
hafty day for you. It was a great read. It
was a sore. So where is so? No? I read
all the classics. A matter of fact, I read one
of this Okay, so you started reading a lot. But
so what I'd like to read too is double. When

(34:11):
you read a ton and you start applying that to
your writing, you can copy great writers, and you can
in the Emerson education kicked in. The Emerson Emerson education
kicked in. I had been writing you have to write
papers and things of that nature. But I got better
and better and better and so and you felt confident
enough to write a book, But I didn't. I always

(34:32):
did things, Mario. I had no idea, but I just
went balls to the walls. Was how to manual? Was
your approach to the book? No? My approach to the
book was basically explained to women. Uh, in a non
emasculating way, what men are up to, accepting us for
who we are. I was so sick of these people

(34:53):
bashing men were dogs, were pigs, were the problem of society. Ladies. No,
there's a reason you don't have a husband and a boyfriend.
And you don't understand role gender roles in the household.
One person is better than the other. But I do
things and you do things, and together we are a team.
And all these modern day feminist feminazis are not true feminists.

(35:17):
All they are is man haters. Most of them are
bitter and lonely and without orgasm. So now you're at
the point where you're on the Today Show dozens of times.
You've actually finished this book that you had no idea
how to write, but somehow you managed to complete it
and you're getting a lot of positive feedback without even

(35:38):
being out in the market. Yet who ends up publishing it?
How did that happen? Because there's one thing to write
a book, But then how did you get it published?
So I went to I I got ripped off by
one woman named Susan Lehman. In my opinion, she ripped
me off thirty thousand. She promised she was gonna help
me do this stuff. She sent me out to one appointment,
nothing happened, and so we're come from ready for this.

(35:59):
So I said, I'm sick of waiting for this woman.
I'm gonna go do it myself. So that woman I
met in the Today's Show The Today Show, Selena said,
I can get you a deal. I can get you
a meeting at random house, but I can't make you
any promises. I said, Okay. Three women sat in front
of me like American idol style, and I stood there,
and I told them and no one certain terms what

(36:22):
I had been up to from my entire adult life
as a male. And I dropped a few celebrity names
of women I either fooled around with or women I
had coached, etcetera, etcetera, all of which was true. And
they bought the book on the spot. Now, hold on,
hold on where lots from? So I called this woman
back because I'm so naive. This woman Susan Lehman, and

(36:43):
I said to her, they want to buy the book.
She goes, are you gonna sign our contract? You gotta
sign our contract because we had a contract together. So
now all of a sudden, she's all excited and she's
gonna make get me some great book deals, some great
If you don't know the publishing world, guys, there's a
thing called an advance. I didn't care about the advance.
I just wanted a book deal. So she ends up
making me. I signed this contract with her. She gets

(37:04):
a commission off the book for doing nothing. She didn't
give me a great advance, nothing, She did nothing over time.
So now when you book your own gig and they
end up getting nothing. By the way, rewind put a
pin for a second, what were you coaching women on?
You said you coached them. So I had always give

(37:25):
the women relationship advice. UM about guys. They would come
to me and they would say, this guy is doing this,
this is what happened, and what should I do? And
I would tell them because I was that guy a
lot of time, you know. And when I see things
like we saw recently on the news about Blaisie Ford
for example, well, I'd help these women in all types

(37:48):
of circumstances, all coming from all walks of life, rich, poor,
you name it, famous, you name it. I would help them.
Just had a reputation they started. I just there's one
girlfriend would say, hey, you should go ask Steve Square
Steve and I had all feel vout this. Some girl
came up to me the other day. I forgot to
tell you, and she said, I know your friends with Santagati.
Oh my gosh. She was helping me when I was

(38:08):
breaking up with my boyfriend. And and and because I
tell because I I don't live in some fantasy bubble
the way we wish life was. I tell them the
way life is and to use my advice based on that.
And you know, like when I was gonna start saying
about when I saw this blasi forward thing, and then
me too movements started. I have been to rape crisis
centers with women i've dated. I've had been updated women

(38:30):
that have been raped. I know what their their symptoms are.
I know how they act a girl that's been either
molested as a child or a girl that has been
raped as an adult. And when I see these trials
and these people coming forward saying they have been assaulted,
number one, it's a very very serious accusation. And number two,
I can see through the ones that are lying and
setting women back a hundred years, as I have experienced

(38:53):
with this. So so anyway, so I started giving advice.
I get the book deal. Now I'm panicked. I don't
know how to write a book. I had no idea,
so my in the in the deal they said you're
supposed to work with a writer because I had no
experience writing. I had published articles, et cetera, but I
didn't have any experience writing a full book A to B.
I'm friends with Rachel Ray at the time. I called

(39:15):
Rachel Ray and say, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
She was giving me a recipe for also I was.
I called her. I called her, I wanted a recipe
for also buco because I had a date that have
to do with your book. So I told her had
the book deal. She and she had had me on
her show many times at this point, and I said
to her, you know, they want me to work with
a writer. And she said, quote unquote, Steve, you do

(39:36):
not need a writer. You've got the most amazing voice.
All you need is an editor, just someone to edit
your structure, your sentence, you know, and things like that.
So I did, and I got a great girl from Harvard,
Aaron Cohen, who I loved, and the book and it flows,
Oh my go once you have that structure down, and
she's just like bang bang bang bang bang. You're typing away.

(39:58):
It's all coming out. All these stuff that I got
away with for years, all these things from hugging my
date so I could look at a girl behind her literally,
all this stuff from how women would shave and what
would guys would think about their breath and not talking
about going to the bathroom and all of these things
that that I was thinking and up to, and I

(40:21):
wanted to share it with them, not like you know,
lifting the veil if you will, But just look, ladies,
we're great people. Guys and women, men and women are great.
But you've got to know how the other person thinks
and why they think the way they do. It's science. See,
And if if I was a woman, i'd i'd listen
to someone like you. But you have to understand, are

(40:42):
you there may listen to me and no, it's true,
but it causes what's called cognitive dissonance because on the
other side they're holding ra ra be a feminist. This
is what it means, Rah Rah. Watch this romantic comedy.
This is what your life is supposed to look like.
Look at these magazines. This is what you're supposed to
dress like. This is the guy you're supposed to eight.
Everybody's supposed to look like Bradley Cooper or whatever, although

(41:02):
he's not that good looking anymore, but he used to be.
You're but you didn't let me finish. The reason I
said i'd listen to someone like you is because I
know you're unfiltered and you're coming completely canni. But also
you're a handsome guy, not to whatever. Yeah, you're a
handsome guy, and I know you've been through it as
opposed to I always tripped me out when I saw,
with all due respect, like a Steve Harvey or in

(41:24):
a season sorry, writing these relationship books about how women.
I'm like, really, how many women have you? Who do you? Would?
You know what I mean? It's like taking the physical
fitness tips from filling the bank Chris Farley, Right, you know,
so you want someone that you know it's probably has
been there, dutch At. That's what it's come of life.
And you're right, because life is not fair. The fact

(41:47):
of the matter is, good looking, charismatic guys have a
lot more experience with women than unfortunately, introverted, ugly, overweight,
or lazy men, just like good looking women have a
different aparans of life than women that don't take the
time to put their look together, or maybe just aren't
as genetically blased. But you might see more lazy than

(42:08):
lacking genetics. So let's fast forward to the book being complete. Okay,
the book is done? Now, is it met with? Is
it instantly embraced? The book is is not only immediately embraced.
This is two thousand seven, folks. The book is not
only immediately embraced, but every single day just about I'm

(42:32):
getting a call from my publisher. Oh my god, you
just got another advance from Italy. Korea bought this, Thailand
bought this, Spain bought this, France bought this. Germany boss,
So the games are international. The game the bad boys.
My whole mantra is bad boys finished first, and folks,

(42:52):
they will continue to finish first in our lifetime. That's
not going to change. That's mother nature, that's science. Define
that look in a nutshell. Nice guys finished last. There's
a reason for that. Bad boys are guys that make
up the rules as they go along. Number One, they
follow what what their instincts are. They follow their natural

(43:13):
uh inhibitions if you will, versus what society has told
them or or or try to put a framework of
how they're supposed to act. They're supposed to act. My
point being is like bad boys just these naughty, playful
going through life having fun. Yeah, we like boobs, we
like asks, we love women. That's a real bad boy,

(43:35):
not a player, not a misogynist. There's a big difference.
A misogynist is just a guy that just hates women.
And maybe he made it rich one day and now
he's using that to get late right, and a player
someone who actually plays games and manipulation. We all play games,
hold the whole. The player is a guy that brags
to his friends. He's showing pictures of the girls when
they send them nudes and things like that, and he's

(43:57):
he's so insecure because he has to build up numbers.
A bad boy. This is just who he is. This
is just it's a smirk, it's a smile. I can
see one across the room. I look at another bad
boy in the room, and I like you too, huh.
And I can and the same and the same thing,
with the same thing, with the same the same thing

(44:22):
with a bad girl. You know, the same thing. Well,
I see a bad girl in the room. She looks
at me. I look at her, and we know okay, okay,
hold on there by boy. Um. So the book is
met with success. You're getting international love and your month
after it comes out. My publisher who laughed at me
when I told her I was going to get on Oprah,
my publisher who laughed at me when I told her

(44:43):
I was going to be a New York Times bestseller,
called me on the phone. I was on the road
doing the book tour and said Steve, you made it.
You're a New York Times bestseller, and I was, Oh,
my god. And my aha moment, if you will, was
when I got to be invited on Oprah. And I'm
ortunately was before the book was released, so thank goodness,
they played reruns that summer and I got that media

(45:05):
hit off of Oprah. But I'm sitting there in the
front row and I'm Oprah's on stage at this point
before I went up in. My book is on the
big screen behind her, and my face and body is
on the cover of my book, and I'm looking at
Oprah my book, and I'm sitting in this room by myself,
with no publicist, no agents, no producers, no friends, all

(45:27):
alone in Chicago, looking up at this thing, and I thought,
fuck you, I made it, so go from there. So
then after that it was just a whirlwind. All these
shows were having me come on, women were yelling at me.
Tyra Banks was like, who hurt you? Who hurt you? Right?
Because it was it was met with some Yeah, it

(45:49):
was met with some drama. Yeah. They don't want to
believe it's true because they have been told guys was
supposed to act a certain way and that women are
supposed to act a certain way in a civilized society,
but that's not who we are now. I'm not saying
a tough guy walks to a restaurant and grabbed a
chicken off a weaker man's plate. But men are not

(46:16):
genetically programmed to be monogamous. It doesn't make sense. Don't
pay attention to me, Go look it up inside. Go
it's it's scientific as bio behavioral imperatives. I as a
Stanford professor in sociology and science, it's all science. Absolutely.
I don't want to bore your fans by talking about science,
but it's fact. If you look at why men desire

(46:39):
more than one woman, and you go back to the
caveman times and how we're successful to human beings, it
makes complete sense. Simply put in nine months, a man
can impregnant ten women. Impregnant ten women, therefore, he has
a much better chance of one of those offspring passing
his genetic line and surviving lions and tigers and disease
and cold and famine. That's a fact. Women, on the

(47:01):
other hand, are genetically designed to pick the alpha male,
the best gene line, the broadest shoulders, the greatest faith
symmetry the safest male on the block because she could
only have one child with him in nine months, and
that has to make she has to make sure that
she is genetically superior. So you're applying the animallying them
philosophy to philosophy. It's fact, it's science. And unfortunately we

(47:24):
let anybody mate. Now we don't even let people drive
without a license. You should have a license to have
a kid. I actually don't have a problem with that.
To say the truth, I actually don't have a problem that.
We've got a little solved. The self gold claps in
the room too. So this is fascinating because it's met
with success. He had a lot of women this are

(47:45):
are obviously upset with you, and it creates controversy, creating
buzz creates an awareness level. And and the book is
uh continuing to grow and you're making money and your
profile is rising. Okay, great. It even got to the
point where the book was turned into a film essentially
right aspired inspired a film. By the way, we haven't

(48:07):
even said the name of the book. What was the
name of the book. The book is called The Manual
A true Sorry, the title of the book is The
Manual and the subtitle is a true bad Boy explains
how men mate date and how women can come up
come out on top an actual sexual pun there, Yeah,
I did you gotta compromise with your publishers. I get it,

(48:29):
I get it. My title was the Manual, the man
How did it turn into a movie? So what happened
was I was going on all these talk shows, that
Today's show, you name it, I arguing with everyone, arguing
with everybody, and basically for the first time, coming out
and saying, it's not men's fault that you're single. It's

(48:49):
your fault. It's your fault because you're a loser and
you're gonna get your shipped together. So the I told
what happened, And did you honestly think women would embrace that?
He thought? The response, No, I I didn't, but we're
making it. But part of television's entertainment, part of the
television is is news, and I try to give a
good balance of entertainment. You gotta be held you gotta

(49:09):
be held accountable for behind you. I'm not talking to you,
I'm talking about women. Do have to be held accountable
and be a little honest, like, hey, you know what,
maybe it's not always, then maybe I need to work
on me a little bit. That's fair. So because I
was so outspoken, and I would talk about weight and
taking care of your body and not saying you need
to be skinny, but saying you need to live true
to your body type and take care of yourself and

(49:31):
work on your hair and your makeup and how you
dress and present yourself to the world. That's what I said,
so a priority I was. At the same time, these
big movie studios were calling me right and asking me
they had seen me on television. One the woman that
produced Forrest Gump, had contacted me and she connected me
with some she sent me to somebody else. So I

(49:51):
was so naive and so stupid. I gave them up.
How do you do it? Like what are you? What's
your life like on TV? And how did you all?
I told him everything. I was so excited to talk
about myself like I still am today. So I was
like talking about myself. So all of a sudden, I
start getting phone calls from people and they're like, Steve,
there's a movie about you from producers from I'm talking MTV,

(50:14):
v H one producers calling me, UM network television people
calling me, that know me, that had seen me on
these shows, and and all of a sudden I got
a call from Sony and they said, Mrs Senegal, would
you know, would like to have you would like to
screw have you screen the movie? They rented out a
movie theater for me and Maine. I was in Maine
at the time. Was the name of the movie, The
Ugly Truth, starring Tobard Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigel. That's

(50:34):
the Ugly Truth, so they and so they admitted that
I was the one that inspired the film, and they
gave me a little stipend if you will, for that
because they don't pay the leave folks. They're not gonna
pay you for your story unless you know you fell
in a well, right, but but he got to Yeah,
so I got the movie. Butler, Yeah, he plays me

(50:56):
and Katherine Butler was incredible and the whole crew and
Katherine Butler. So they get the movie. So now everything's rolling.
Only shows are still calling me on you know, I
want my own TV show, and I'm in l A.
And you know it's odd because you're here. You'll tell
everybody that I do not one of the things I
don't do is kiss your ass because you're a celebrity.

(51:19):
One of the first things I ever said to Mario Lopez, folks,
was I don't sign off on bad behavior, but I
will say this. So everything's rolling forward. I'm trying to
get it own TV show, and I was. It was crickets.
I couldn't get my own show. Mario calls me and
you said to me, you want to work on my
book with me, and so we worked on your book.
So we did that. That was my only job while

(51:40):
I was here. And at the same time, my world
fell apart. My financial advisor, this woman don Bennett you
can go Online, turned out to be a shyster and
defrauded me over defrauded me out of over a million
and a half dollars. Now I go from having this
great life, being on television all the time and wanting
my own TV show, to my relationship with this girl

(52:03):
fell apart in l a and having no money, no job,
no life. I sold everything that wasn't nailed down. So
let me interrupt you for a second. This is twice
since we've spoken that two women ironically have hoodwinked you. Yes,
the one for the thirty grand and now this one
for a million and a half. Do you think that's

(52:26):
God telling you he don't like ugly and maybe? Or
is that no pun intended ugly truth and no, but
it isn't. Don't you find that? No, I I don't
because you don't understand my world. My world was I don't.
When you are, you were inundated with women. That's how
you dealt with Was it a Bernie made off situation? Yes,

(52:49):
a matter of fact, her name is Don Bennett, and
I was one of the I was one of many
people that she ripped off. She also had a Ponzi
scheme going. I testified against her or the sec. But
in the interim, in the interim when you when I
lost everything, I just had a little shack in Maine.
So we're talking hold on. So you had let me
just remap, let me, let me recap money, let me
recap here. The family life not the best, but you

(53:11):
had the family on your own. Very ambitious, ended up
putting to college. You went through a dairy farmer. You
realize when you went to Emerson, prestigious college, you ended
up making money modeling. Then it was like a great career.
You're hanging out with the hosting, the modeling, making money
going these models, this and that. You decided at the
top of your game, foolishly, I think to stop and
walk away from that and then get into hosting. But

(53:33):
then it worked out and you're working and you're doing stuff,
and then you got inspired to write this book. You're
writing this book. It's met with great fanfare. It's a
successful all over the world, and they even make a
movie inspired by it. Life is great. But then, just
like everything in Hollywood, it's a temp job. Nothing is guaranteed.
You can't parlay it necessarily to the next thing. The

(53:54):
phone stop ringing, boom, and you get ripped off, double wammy.
So now you broke nothing here in l A. What
is going through your mind? What's going on? So you
you mean nothing? Right? Nothing? What happened? No more? I had?
Well when I say nothing, you know, I'm I was
fifty years old. I mean, you know, my my energy

(54:15):
and the battles you fight to get where I got
in this business where many and there's a lot of rejection.
It's very hard. So I was like, I have to regroup.
But I'm not a guy that puts his tail between
his legs. I'm a guy that will go and pull
off to the side, cry in the corner for a
minute and then go, Now what So I had a
hundred and eighty thousand dollars left and that's it. And now,

(54:37):
if anybody is fifty years old and they know what
eighty thousand might seem like a lot of money, it's
not gonna last you the rest of your life, especially
if all you know is television and you have to
get hired to be on TV. And this this business
is not only racist, sexist agists, it's youth obsessed, it's
it's you know whatever the best flavor of the week is.

(54:58):
That's this industry. So for me to you think I'm
gonna get another job and pull out of this was crazy.
I sold everything that wasn't nailed down and I built
a tiny home inside a van, a Ford Transit van,
and it looked like a little New England cottage on
the on the outside and the inside rather. Yeah you've
seen it, and I thank you. And I didn't know
how to do that either, but I just figured it out.

(55:19):
It's mostly common sense, which people lack these days, but
mostly common sense. So I built this van and you're
literally like that character on SNL living in a moving
in a van down by the river. But it got
even that that was a funny part. When I was
in Tennessee and I had these wonderful people Lisa and
Steve let me stay on their property down by the
river because I'm a big fly for sherman and surfer.
And I looked what woke up one morning and I

(55:40):
was like, oh my god, I'm literally a life coach,
relationship expert living in a van down by the river.
But but the worst, the saddest moment, the saddest moments
where the dark times. Because we're joking about this now
and you know, you're looking at this, Okay, it's everything's cool,
but it's not okay because I ended up going You know,
you're traveling and you're by yourself, and every night you

(56:02):
have to sleep someplace different. And when you go home
at night, you know the sounds of the refrigerator, you
know the sounds of your wife shutting the bathroom door,
how the bed creaks. But when you're living in a van,
you're parking someplace different every single night, and you don't know,
and you're by yourself, and the lonely, the loneliness itself
is daunting. And I remember some of the because some
of the Instagram posts, if they follow you and I

(56:23):
remember you, you sort of change your handle the Vandagotti Vantagotti.
That was my my has and came up with. But
but but but it looked pretty, uh, pretty idyllic in
the summertime, parking by the beach or surf and you're fishing. Yeah,
but then the wintertime. Wants to follow Debbie Downer on
on any kind of s right, right, you had a
pretty chipperratitude. But you're right when you're alone there and

(56:44):
you can't stay in the same place twice. You know,
where do you go to the bathroom? Where did you
go to the bathroom? The bathrooms of the least of
your problem. I don't know. That's a big problem for
me from men. There's bathrooms everywhere. There's a tree, show
me a tree, I'll show you a bathroom. Okay, that's
a big deal. Was is that? I there was this
wonderful surf shock uh in Coco Beach, Florida, And this

(57:06):
was kind of like my my moment um. But I
made a deal with him where I could park there
at night but leave in the morning and I was
kind of like security for there was quiet Flight where
Kelly Slater started in Coco Beach, and so I parked
back there and then I have to leave in the morning.
But one night I'm sitting in there and I'm and
it's raining out and by myself. It's in the winter,
and I'm thinking, how did I go from being on

(57:28):
OPRAH and having all this money and working so hard
my entire life to living in a van behind the
surf shock in Coco Beach, Florida. And when you don't
have an answer to that question, Mario Lopez, you think
about suicide, You think about a lot of really really
dark things. Went there. Yeah, I went there. I didn't
try to kick can kill myself. The only reason I
haven't tried to kill myself over the years, because I

(57:49):
think everybody has those feelings at some point, is because
I want to see how this movie ends. You. I've
been pretty resourceful since you were a kid and and
and then a fighter and always kind of south through it,
always um and I know your your appetite for women
still remain strong. How did that? Before I get some

(58:12):
more serious question, how did how do you hook up
in the van? Did you hook up in the van. No,
I didn't hook up in the van because I had
met my carr and girlfriend and my basically my end
if you will, my band. In my beginning, if you will,
one of the things you learn is I thought, as
before I got the van, I was an adult, but
my level of appreciation and my level of rawness went

(58:33):
to an completely different level when you have nothing and
you have to completely rely on the generosity of strangers.
People in this country are wonderful overall. They are nice,
aren't they. I think the narrative is blown out of proportion,
especially in social media, and they try to divide. But
I think most people are nice people. But I don't
think people most people are hateful or racist or I

(58:54):
think most people are nice. They are at the end
of the day. Even in the South they say the
South that they're not, They're not. I've had people invite
me into their homes, their their driveways, everything. But my
point being is what happened was as I had met Cameron,
who I'm with now years ago, and you get to
a point as a guy, as a bad boy, if
you will, where it's like you're spending time with one

(59:16):
person and having someone that you has your back and
your best friend and someone you can be in love with.
Don't fake it. Don't just do it because you're trying
to pull someone into your own craziness or your malae
if you will. But if you find someone that you
love and then you can get along with, don't don't
lose them. The grass is not greener on the other side.
It's just another set of tips. It's just another ass.
And more importantly, men, all women to us are crazy.

(59:41):
You choose the crazy you can live with, and I
just choose the crazy I can live with you. I
love her, can I can? I tell you something, how
proud I am to hear you say that as a friend,
and how it makes me feel when you say you
love her, and you know what, I love her because
the fact that she knew you were down here living
in a vantage. She stuck by me. She's stuck by

(01:00:02):
that is right or die, and that gets priceless as
you get older. You can't you can't substitute. Can't you
can't buy that, You can't substitute that. And having the
pleasure of hanging out with you, guys and seeing you happy,
it's so nice to see man. But it's all I
think just in life in general too, not not necessarily
just timing, but how you learn to, like you said,

(01:00:25):
appreciate certain things you You gain a new level of
respect on um, your outlook towards on life. I want
and and I love the place you are now. I
want to fast forward just because we can keep talking
for hours. But now I think it's fascinating. Before you
vowed never to settle down, be with a girl, get married,
and you know how you refer to Cameron as your wife.

(01:00:45):
Now you're happy. So cut to You're now at a
place you've all of a sudden turned into Bob the
builder and you literally build your own house in this
beautiful property on the beach in Maine, on your own.
How do you How does one learn how to be
a contractor in construction? Well? Before YouTube, it was difficult,
but you get really did you go to the YouTube videos? Well?

(01:01:06):
You know, like, here's the thing. I have very unorthodox
way of which I do things. A lot of construction
is common sense. There's engineering, which you hire an engineer
to make sure the house isn't gonna fall in your head.
But in terms of structure, men specifically have been building
nests and homes for millions of years. So it's in us.
It's what we call an atavistic quality. If you a primal, primal,

(01:01:31):
it's a primal instinct in us to to to take
care of a woman, to build a home. So what
I do is I I came up. I always wanted
to live in like a fairy tale house. I always
wanted to do a show for HDTV where we built
Hansel and Gretel's home, or the Doctor Seus's home, or
something fun, you know, like Charlie Brown's house or whoever
it was that we screw up with his children. I

(01:01:53):
wanted to build that house. And I'm like, you know what,
I don't need a lot of space. I've been living
in a van. Everything bigger than seventy square feet is rate.
So I designed this house that's eight d six square
feet and it's called the Once upon a Time Home.
Looks like a home out of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
That's right, it looks like and it does. And when
I was building it, people laugh, like they do a

(01:02:13):
lot of things I do. But we literally in the
summer we have traffic stopping because it hits a chord
in every adult's heart of what it would like to
be childlike, not childish, childlike and have that that that
that fantasy Disney home. I love it. I love it.
And Cameron moved in and she we have a cat

(01:02:34):
named Duney and done. He acts like a dog in
the house. Settling. I didn't settle, settling me exactly. I
don't like. I don't like that word too, that I
didn't settle just because I had married, uh have kids.
She sits my cord. She did. That's another that's a
whole another topic for another day. But you know what,

(01:02:57):
in all seriousness, like, I'm happy bow to you. You
got that at the great place, the great girl, and
you're at the beach. And now here's something before we
wrap up, just a couple of things that throw at
your really quick. Something I think is fascinating that you've
gotten into and you've been a talking head none you're
resourcing back on TV and doing stuff, not just the
relationship stuff, but also you're a big advocate, or I

(01:03:17):
should say you're you're spoken out against all the political
correctness that we've gotten to this day and age. It
seems incorrect me if I'm wrong, you can only have
a certain school of thought, especially the entertainment industry, of
it aligns with a certain party and group thing, because
if not, then the party of tolerance all of a
sudden doesn't tolerate too much of if you happen to
have a separate independent thoughts called bigotry and fascism and fascism.

(01:03:42):
The word fascism, if you look it up, it's uh,
it's it's it's connected to the right, the far right,
if you will. But nowadays everything switched around. And what
I have a problem with political correctness specifically, is because
it's a lie. Political correctness is a form of lying
and it's just and it can go way too far.
There's a difference between being polite, which is not making

(01:04:04):
fun of somebody who has disadvantaged, or being racist or
something to this effect. But there are something called a stereotype,
and that is a negative personification of different types of people.
We all know the exist, we all see them, we
don't like them, we want to avoid them. I can

(01:04:25):
give you a simple one that I probably won't get
yelled at that too badly. Jersey Shore. That's a certain
type of cheesy guy on the Jersey Shore. They make
fun of Italians. I'm Italian, but they have no problem
on the front page of a newspaper going forget about it.
That's I don't want to say racist, but that's big
at it. But we don't care because Italians are the

(01:04:45):
best in the world anyways. My point being is that
like there was a time when we could Archie Bunker,
Archie Bunker and all in the family and the Jeffersons
and good times, they brought out those issues. I have
a real problem political correctness. I think that the these
people are against the First Amendment. I have a problem
with people that are against the Second Amendment as they

(01:05:06):
drive around with their armed guards. Um. I have a
problem with most of the political landscape right now. I
never thought in my life that I would agree with
anything Kanye West said. But they've started a new thing
called Blexit, which is blacks who I love, and she
is exiting from the from the Democratic Party because they

(01:05:26):
just use those people. They never helped them. You know,
you look at Los Angeles. I don't want to get
too politically because that's not what this is about. But
you look at being on the road like I was.
I saw a lot of homeless people, but the worst
places where where they had trying to infl try to
get socialism going. Those are the worst sanctuary cities, most homeless,
most drugs, most crime, most problems, last question, really quick.

(01:05:51):
Social media going to be the end of us as
a society. It seems to divide more people than its
original intent and uniting us and creating the discussion and
being open to opposing point points of view. It seems
like you can now fall into your segregated group. Thinks
human beings are very arrogant and like the most niche

(01:06:11):
groups seem to be the most vocal and the don't
make the most groups are empty drums making the loudest
noise um. I think that social people human beings have
to realize to always question themselves and challenge themselves. For example,
I happen to like Fox News. Now I'll also listen
to NPR in my car. I don't agree with most
of what they say, but I listened to it. On Twitter.

(01:06:33):
I follow people purposely that don't agree with me, that
don't think like I do, because I want to hear
opposing opinions. Most importantly, I don't want to become a drone,
a brainwashed liberal on the hard far left that has
a talking points racist Nazi text is fall of fob.
It's like, God, get a thought of your own, get

(01:06:55):
an original idea, let's talk about it. They go crazy.
I just situation the other day, not too long ago,
a girl says to me, I believe in open conversation
and just you know, talk about things, keep things out
in the open. And then I said, oh, good, me too.
I said, for example, I'm a big Trump supporter. Ray.
She went nuts, triggered. I'm like, oh, that went well.

(01:07:17):
She didn't even know if I was telling the truth.
I could have been joking. My point being we need
to stop negotiating with terrorists. If someone doesn't like what
you say on social media or television and they want
to boycott your sponsor, they want to ruin your life,
they want to bash you tough shit, come to my
house and tell me to my face. Life's too sure.

(01:07:39):
We don't need to waste it on the internet arguing
with the people we don't know. Santa Gatti, we covered
a lot man, Thank you, Mario having thank you for
having me on. I look forward to the next one.
Thank you. So don't forget a new episodes and listen
to Mario dropping every Friday. All on Mario dot com
to catch up on the podcast, and please make sure
you follow, Listen to mar you on I heart Radio,

(01:08:01):
and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts.
More fun next week. Thank you so much for listening.