October 27, 2025 • 45 mins
The terms “Nonmonogamummy” and “Pussy Palace” weren’t exactly on our cultural bingo cards for 2025… yet here we are. Lily Allen’s new album is a gloriously messy post-divorce confessional — a world away from the Gwyneth Paltrow school of conscious uncoupling.
And, Season 2 of Nobody Wants This has finally dropped — but one of our hosts is far too distracted by Kristen Bell’s latest Instagram post to care. Holly, Amelia and Jessie ask: does an actress have to be likeable for her show to work?
Plus, freebirthing — what it is, why it’s trending, and how it’s dividing the internet.
If you or somebody you know has experienced sexual assault and are in need of support, please call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732. Help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And, always consult your healthcare provider for advice specific to your situation.
Support independent women's media
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Before we start the show, I have a question.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Do you guys remember and I'm mainly directing this at
my millennial counterpart.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Let me just put a head. I already have a
side part.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Okay, did you ever have doorbads that hung from your
door frame at home?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
No? I was aware of them. They kind of wrote
a little hippist to me, did you have? Yes?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Okay, yes I did, and I was reminded.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
I saw a picture online recently and I was like,
why did I think they looked good? Like I had
pink plastic disgusting obviously, like the cheapest, most revolting ones.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Did you get them from Tree of Life?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I think I might have got them from Tree of Life?
And I like had to annoy mum about them for
why why were doorbads?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
They are so annoying?
Speaker 6 (01:09):
They are?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
And then you kind of partied them like a fringe
in order to get in and out.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Which is interesting. It feels very millennial in itself, pushing
like a fringe.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
A gen xer would never write.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Were you ever I had them not that long ago.
We had a fly problem to solve and our.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
Kitchen door, and I didn't want one of those plastic
slapping things, and so I was like, let's bring door
beads back from the naughties.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You know how long that lasted? A hot minute.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
They weren't pink though, they were like tasteful wooden ones.
You can still buy them on the internet. They kept
falling off the dog like to grab them, like tow
them like that, and they're noisy, and they did not
deter the flies.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So in the end we got rid of them again.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Okay, because I then had this image of all the
doorbads we bought an entire generation, going, no, what happened
to them? Are they all on the shoreline of some country,
just wasting away this crap plastic?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
How dare my mum let me ever have them?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I actually love hate the idea of a desert island
just filled with the detritus of millennial ado lessons.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Did you ever have an inflatable chair that was seen through?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, which I thought was so cool?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Women's Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
The aesthetic was absolutely revolting.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Hello and welcome to Mama Mia. Out loud, it's what
women are actually talking about. On Monday, the twenty seventh
of October. I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Amelia Last.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
And here's what's made our agenda today. Lily Allen has
burnt consciously uncoupling to the ground with an absolutely searing
divorce album that gives a full tea spilling of all
the cheating that her husband's been doing.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And I am here.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
F Plus, Kristen Bell is really great in Netflix's season
two rom com Nobody Wants This?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So Why?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And I hung up about what she said on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And the tragic free Birthing story.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I can't stop thinking about. So what is free birthing
and why is it on the rise?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
But first, I've got some renovation news in case you
missed it. It was the block finale last night and
it was a real rollercoaster. People around the office have
been describing it as traumatic.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Controversial.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Coppers Britt and Taz won five hundred and twenty thousand
in a very hectic auction, but two of the other houses,
and this was the shock, were passed in at auction.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Two of them.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's happened before in the show, but it's unusual to
have two in the same series.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
And Severe life.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and it included the fan favorites Em and Ben,
which was pretty surprising because the judges loved their renovation.
So it was very dramatic, a little bit upsetting. But
speaking of renovations, and now the dramatic upsetting renovation is happening,
and this one is in Washington, DC. Did you like
my segue?
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I was just about to say, Amelia Lester, that segue
deserves some kind of pod people.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Lord right there.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
That was all because I've seen something, an aerial view, something,
something destroying a wing. What has he got counsel approval?
I feel like this is.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the East wing of the White House, which is
one hundred and twenty three years old, has been demolished
last week for a ballroom. So Trump, I've been talking
about a ballroom for a while, and people like he
seems really obsessed with the idea of a ballroom. But
then he just like went ahead and demolished like a
quarter of the White House without getting any of the
requisite approvals. I should say, some people think that the
(04:48):
White House needs a ballroom, it actually doesn't have a
space for like big fancy dinners, and right now they
have to put up a tent for them. And you
know what's annoying to put up tents for things really is?
And if it rains, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Sotoria Beckham about that.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Another very relatable part about this is that it was
meant to cost two hundred million, but now it's going
to cost three hundred million.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Every rent they're taught to the block people about these
things happen.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Who is paying for it? Trump essentially started kind of
a gofund me for it. He basically cast a hat
around a few of the people who got involved with
a winkle vised remember the Google, little company called Google,
little little company called Amazon, little company called Matter. You know,
just the usual suspects. They just really want Trump to
have a ballroom.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
They have no interest whatsoever in making sure that Trump
feels favorable towards them, none whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
There's just no reverence or respect towards the historical significance
of the White House.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Yes, there is no reverence in respect.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
There is also the fact that architects are concerned that
this may not be a viable plan. So what we
know about this ballroom which the White House has been
demolished for, is a picture that Trump held up in
the White House last week. So news organizations and architects
have been zooming in on this picture to try and
figure out what's coming.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Did he draw the picture?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
But the architects are worried, and you don't want architects worried,
Like they're on that list of professions that you just
want to be feeling good about, things like sushi, chefs, architects, doctors,
you know, this is the list. They're worried because the
drawing has some mistakes. There's a staircase to nowhere, and
on some of the windows collide, which I'm told colliding
(06:36):
windows not good.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
Not on if it was me, Like it sounds like
he's done what I would do, which is like I'm
drawing all the things I want, and it's like the
you know, the.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Twenty three story treehouse.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
It's like got a curly whirly staircase to nowhere, it's
got a double plunge call like Winter's Basement. It's got
a spa, it's got a cinema, and I'm like, I
want all these things, and.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I've got loads of money because those guys gave it
to me, So just make it happen.
Speaker 6 (06:59):
I have one question, Familia, if I've learned anything from
Love It or Listed, you don't generally renovate places if
you're planning to move out, unless you're going to sell.
So he doesn't have to leave the White House in
like two to three years.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Does it sound like someone who's about to move Yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Think it's three hundred million dollar renovation is going to
take a bit of time, and experts do say that
they think it's unlikely it's going to be finished by
the end of his term.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
That said, you're completely right.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
He is meant to leave office in twenty twenty eight,
and I don't know if you have a countdown clock
going or anything.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
I know some people do.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I tend to think he just likes building things, knocking
things down, putting gold on everything. I tend to be
a bit more sanguine about that. But I know that,
for instance, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has said
exactly that he's concerned that this shows he doesn't want
to go. So the actor Kristen Bell has a lot
going on right now. I don't know a lot about
her other than the fact that she was in Frozen.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I also guys, yeah, well, Elsa, do you want to
build this up?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Anna?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, everyone at school was obsessed with Ronie ka Maas.
I didn't watch it, but that's how I knew her
before this.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Now she is in season two of a hit Netflix
show called Nobody Wants This, which just came back last week,
And I've been watching it because I loved the first season,
and I got to tell you, I am not enjoying it.
And it's got nothing to do with the script. It's
got nothing to do with the great songs or really
even the great acting. It's got to do with Kristen
Bell herself.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What she done.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
She went on.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Instagram last week and did something a little bit silly
and has now been a subject of a bit of
a pileon online. She posted on Instagram wishing a happy
anniversary to her husband, Dak Shepherd, who was also an
actor and a comedian.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
He's a comedian, but he is best done these days.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
As a podcaster, and the caption on the instagram said
happy anniversary to her husband. She thanked him for saying
that he'd never kill her, even though he was incentivized
to do so, and it showed Dax hugging one of
the couple's tween daughters. And it came during Domestic Violence
(09:05):
Awareness Month in the US, and a lot of people
didn't like this joke. They'd been making jokes like this
for a long time. These two a twenty twelve press
tour that they did together. An interview for that has resurfaced.
They were promoting a movie that I don't think I
ever knew existed called Hit and Run. Talking about Daxa's truck.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
We drove to brunch and the first thing I said
five minutes into the writer said this sounds like it's.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Going to break.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And I was very offended.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
And then I hit her several times and.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Then I got beat up, and I guess what, I
never opened my mouth again.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
My goodness, you guys have quite the interesting relationship.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So I'm watching Nobody Wants This season two. I'm thinking
about the really bad domestic violence joke, and I'm finding
Kristen Bell's presence grating and annoying As a result. Am
I being unfair or worse?
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Sexist? Jesse?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Look, I saw this from a distance.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I saw headlines about she's written something a joke as
a caption, which is a domestic violence joke, and it's
impoor taste.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And I went, oh, here we go.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
All right, someone puts something a little bit clumsy and
this is the tear down. And I immediately thought of
John Legend and Chrissy Tagan and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively,
and I thought, this is tearing down these couples who
part of their brand is their coupledom, right, And then
I actually read the caption and I went, oh, that's bad.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Like I thought, it was a misstep.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
This is the thing about selling your relationship is that
when your relationship becomes your brand, people don't actually know you,
so the context and nuances of your in jokes are
not easily conveyed to others. So you just see that
and you go, well, this has been published on a
public platform. People have said, oh, poor taste. What has
bamboozled me is that she hasn't deleted it. Because she
(11:00):
has not deleted it, it's still there and she's limited comments.
I don't always think that people owe an apology. And
the kind of going back the teen years to another joke,
she said, I kind of go thirteen years was a
very different moment, even for domestic violence. I feel like
we've come a long way with awareness and sensitivity. But
(11:20):
to let the joke stand, I find to be a
really interesting choice.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Holly, you love this couple, I do obsessed. Tell me
why she's left the joke up.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
I don't know, because I feel the same way that
Jesse does, and about the joke.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I don't think it's even a joke.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
I just think I think it's very much one of
those things that maybe they say to each other, you
know what I mean, and that just should have always
stayed private. But the thing that's interesting about this when
I persecute how I feel about it, because I'm very
much of the opinion that you should never joke about
domestic violence, whoever you are, I just genuinely think, leave
it alone. You know, remember all the fuss about Matt Rife,
(11:57):
who's the stand up comedian who likes to do it?
You know, there've always been lots of controversial since who
liked it. Yeah, for me, it's not something you joke about,
So I'm totally there. But because I have a parasocial
relationship with these two, because an arm cherry, that's what
you call people who listen to arm tere X, but
Dax Shepherd's podcast, which is one of the biggest podcasts
in the world. He got a multimillion dollar deal for it.
They have everybody on that show, from Brad Pitt onwards.
(12:20):
You know, I feel differently about it, because anytime there's
an internet pileon, if you haven't parasocial relationship with those people,
you give them more grace. I think out louders feel
that way about us when they see a headline in
the Daily Mail about one of us or whatever happens. Occasionally,
people who don't know us will read that, take it
all as gospel and go yep, and people who listen
(12:41):
to the show will be like, oh, that was that
joke they made about blast so because I am in
their world and what I know about their.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Stick is that so.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
Kristen bal It's interesting that you guys don't really know
much about her, because she's very much considered America's sweetheart.
She's huge, she's a musical theater star. She never puts
a foot wrong, she's squeaky clean, and Dak Shepherd has
always been painted as from the wrong side of the tracks,
working class man made good. He comes from an abusive background.
He talks a lot about masculinity vulnerability. The masculinity is
the whole thing of his show.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Right when you say abusive background, was that within his
family grounds?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (13:15):
So on armche expert Dax has talked a lot about
how when he was young he was sexually abused, that
he had a difficult childhood, that he watched his mom
being the subject of physical abuse from a stepfather. So
I don't think that he thinks that domestic violence is
funny either.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think they probably just have.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
This dialogue between the two of them that is best
behind closed doors.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
So it's interesting that you brought up the name Brad
Pitt right because I watched the F One movie and
we've talked about how that was actually an incredible box
office hit. Now that man has been accused, it has
not been tried in a court of law, but accused
of actual domestic violence, do we punish a woman who
(13:58):
made a mis calculated, not funny joke about domestic violence
more than we would a man who actually perpetrated it.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I'm really interested that you brought up Blake Lively because
I hadn't even thought about that until you mentioned it,
but that's sort of what's going on here. I've decided
that I don't like Kristen Bell because, as Holly says,
I think you're exactly right. I don't know much about her.
This joke or comment on Instagram is really what's informing
my impression of her, and I've decided that she's not
(14:28):
likable and it's ruining my enjoyment of the show. But
I don't think that I expect that male actors need
to be likable. I think I just want them to
act well. Like, for instance, I love the TV show
The Bear. Jeremy Allen White in that show is amazing.
I just saw him in the New Springsteen movie and
he's great in that. I don't know anything about him.
(14:50):
I mean, he could be an awful person, but there's
something compelling about his face and his presence, and so
I'm just willing to be swept away with him.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
And so it was almost a trap, right because nobody
wants this. In order to sell that show, Kristin had
to sell her marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't think that's true.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And Adam had to sell his relationship with Layton.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I don't think that's true.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
I think that was part of the I think in
mainstream America, outside of armchair experts nerds like me, she's
very famous and he's not really very famous. I think,
if anything, he's a bit bad for her brand, just
because he's rough and ready, and he talks about all
kinds of stuff on that show. He talks about his
drug addiction, he talks about his opinions on all kinds
of things. I think her people probably encourage her to
(15:29):
not talk about that relationship too much because I think
that she's squeaky clean Disney princess right. If anything, he
kind of muddies the edges of her very likable image.
So I don't think that she posted this as part
of the pr campaign for nobody wants this. I think
she did it because they are that couple who always
(15:49):
do that. They always do the happy birthdays and the
things like the Beckhams do and whatever you think about that,
because your point's absolutely right, Jesse is, well, if you've
got millions of followers, as they do, and you publicize
your relationship in that way, you are absolutely opening the
door to criticism. But I don't think it was part
of the strategy. I think it was more of a
misstep one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I think it's been for the rollout of the show.
She was meant to appear on the Today Show, which
is one of the biggest shows in America, if not
the biggest, last week to promote the show, and just
did not show up. And I cannot imagine that that
was what the people who concocted the publicity campaign.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
For this day, because she's not a not showing up
kind of person.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
She is well known for being extra try hard, right,
you know, consummate professional, always with a smile, all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's what she does.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
So the fact that she didn't show up shows how
rattled they are by this, because usually they roll over.
They had a ding dong a while ago social media
ding dong a while ago when they posted they're sort
of in that friend group of like Jimmy Kimmel, Jennifer Aniston,
and they posted a picture of their dinner table at
Thanksgiving US something and there was no one of color
at the table and they got smashed for privileged richness whiteness,
(17:00):
and they wrote it out and spoke about it on
the show. I think they think, oh, you can ride
this out, It'll be okay. But I think that this
one has crossed the line.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
My sense with this, and this is where I've found
that the discourse gets incredibly uncomfortable. Is that when you
start reading think pieces opinion analysis on this, it basically
starts with three paragraphs on how terrible Dax's podcast is.
There is an article that has been published on substack
by quite a reputable writer which is basically arguing that
(17:31):
Kristen Bell has always been a dick. And it's like,
and that's what I think. I go, all right, talk
about the joke and the issue with the joke. I
think sometimes what we do is we wait for the
misstep and it comes and we go, oh, I can
talk about how I've always found her face annoying. And
that's where the sexism comes in.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And having established that the whole bar for likability is
so much higher for women than it is for men,
I think all three of us can agree on that. Jesse,
you're a bit of a scholar of the cancel to.
You used to have a podcast with the same name.
I'm curious when a woman is derided as unlikable. We
saw it with Blake Lively, now we're seeing it with Kristen.
(18:11):
Is there anything she can do to kind of claw
back into the realm of the likable. It's such a
sort of subjective thing to describe someone. I don't see
how you correct.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
That I disappear.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Jennifer Lawrence just did it.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Jennifer Lawrence was tired with the annoying brush, which is
often about over exposure.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And Hathaway and Hathaway.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I don't think she can because she's too old for that,
like as in literally she's been They were engens when
that happened to them. But she's now forty five. By
Hollywood law, she shouldn't be having this kind of success
at the age she's at, and she has been exceptionally
likable throughout her career. You know, as I say, squeaky
clean Disney princess, I think that this level of success
(18:52):
that nobody wants, this is cracked. This mainstream number one
in thirty countries. All that stuff has made her a
tall poppy in a way that she probably wasn't before,
and so now the knives are out for her.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Is also about the genre. Do we want our rom
com stars? If I'm invested in you and you've finding
love and finding you like them all in the show?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Is the bar a bit higher.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Than a dramatic actress, like I don't care if I
like Scarlett Johnsen, I don't care so much about her
private life because she's a serious.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Seriously telling me that you would not watch this show
because you don't like her since she made that joke,
I find that amazing.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Oh, I love the show, and I've been bing by.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Show, but I'm interrogating a response I'm having to this
second season where I don't feel as swept away. I
don't feel the escapist element of this show, which was
its whole appeal. These two very photogenic, charming people finally
getting together. I want to be swept away in the
love story, and there's a little part of me that's
not able.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
To do that anymore.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
If you are watching season two, if nobody wants this,
and I certainly am, and I have a whole lot
of other things I want to discuss about this, so
I hope we're going to do another episode on it soon.
I'm obsessed with trying to work out how old those characters.
Isn't it to be? Can we agree to do that?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Please? Anyway.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Mama Merea's new podcast, Watch Party, has a whole episode
about this, So go to watch party wherever you listen
to your podcasts and listen to their series on Nobody
Wants This Season two.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
In a moment, what is free birthing and why is
it on the rise in Australia. I came across an
absolutely tragic story last week about a popular Melbourne nutritionist
and food influencer named Stacy Hatfield. The thirty year old
(20:43):
gave birth to her first child, Axel, at home and
due to an extremely rare post birth complication, she died
suddenly on the way to hospital. We do not know
how she died, and, as many health professionals have pointed out,
women die of rare complications following childbirth in.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Hospital too, did the baby die to No.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
The husband was the one who posted about it just
last week. It actually happened at the end of September
and he is with the baby. There's a gofund me
at the moment that a lot of people are sharing
because he obviously can't go back to work and it's
an enormous.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Shock and pain to the family.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I don't want to prosecute a choice a woman and
her family made, as her husband and all those who
loved her are so deep in unimaginable grief. What you
might have seen if you read this news, however, is
the word free birth and some analysis about whites on
the rise. And in fact, the ABAC did a brilliant
investigation back in July about how this was happening and
(21:44):
they interviewed some duelers and some experts.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
About their experience.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
So it's a common misconception that a home birth and
a free birth are the same thing, right. It was
reported by The Herald's son over the weekend that Hatfield
chose a free birth, and that is when someone chooses
to birth at home without the help of a doctor
or a.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Midwife, sometimes not even sometimes in a forest.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sure, yeah, exactly, So it's that absence of a medical profession.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yes, they might have a duela, and a dueler is
someone who doesn't have medical accreditation and is generally much
cheaper than a midwife. A home birth, on the other hand,
sees a woman supported by a trained practitioner who is
registered with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency. Often that's
(22:35):
at least one midwife that's going to be at home
with you and if things turn, they will get you
to hospital. There have been other high profile cases of
women opting for free births and having health complications or
tragically losing their babies. Amelia, why do you think free
birthing is on the rise?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I didn't know a lot about it until I started
reading into it, and the ABC investigation was really excellent
and informative. It made the point that a lot of
women have been making, I would say, in the last
ten to twenty years, which is there's been as kind
of reckoning around how women are treated during pregnancy and
childbirth in the medical system quote unquote medical system where
(23:17):
they are often made to feel like incubators, are made
to feel that the fetus's needs are primary and that
their needs a secondary. And so I think that these
kinds of turning to alternative systems are coming out of
this very real need. I found one stat from the US,
Unfortunately I couldn't find an Australian equivalent. That's set in
twenty twenty three, twenty percent of American women felt mistreated
(23:40):
at their most recent birth. That's a really shocking statistic
when you think about it, and you mentioned that they're cheaper.
Some figures I read online were that a private midwife
might start at around eight thousand dollars, or as the
radical birthkeepers or sovereign midwives as they know and they're
not actual midwives, that's the term that they use. Sovereign midwives.
They can start it around four thousand and people call
(24:02):
this a cult of birth because it is an online movement.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
It is radical.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
A lot of them shun the idea of any medical intervention,
even when it is needed, and it strikes me as
another kind of example of how in online spaces you
can be pushed into really extreme radical positions from a
place of genuine questioning and need.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Absolutely I think that's exactly what's behind it. I think
we shouldn't overblow it. Ninety seven percent of Australian births
are in hospital, whereas there are countries in the world.
Holland is always mentioned in this because they have a
really thirty percent of births in Holland are at home,
so home birth is very common in lots of cultures.
But I think that here the stats show that it's
(24:46):
a tiny, tiny percentage of people who are choosing not
to have their babies in hospitals at all, never mind
free birthing. But I agree with the Medie one hundred percent.
I think that if it is, it's almost as a
radical reaction to some of the dismissal that women have felt.
And although we don't have the stats, as you said, Amelia,
when New South Wales recently conducted a very well publicized
(25:09):
trauma inquiry, they had more than four thousand applications immediately
from people saying that they had felt in some way
traumatized by their birth. And the thing is, now, if
you go online with that information and feeling that way,
it's quite easy to be funneled into a more and
more extreme place where if you just start with I
(25:30):
felt disrespected by the professionals caring for me during my pregnancy,
it isn't hard when we're in an environment where algorithms
are incentivized to be more and more extreme, to end
up closer and closer and watching more and more examples
that seem fine and safe and great of people basically
eschewing traditional medical care that totally misrepresent the reality of
(25:52):
what's happening.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
What's hard to is that I think in Australia there
can be a little bit of stigma associated with home
birth and with maybe questioning any medical not medical advice,
but maybe thinking that you'd like to do it a
different way or on your terms, and you kind of
get funneled into this, and I guess free birthing is
(26:14):
a more radical extension of that into this place where
then you're kind of off all the records. And by that,
I mean there is no data that can tell us
how safe or unsafe free birthing really is because hospitals
don't have that.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Which is or actually how common it is, to be honest.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Yes, which means that it is difficult for women to
make informed choices about what they're going to do when
they can't see the reality. I suppose, and I understand
the and I've felt this in certain communities, this reticence
to consider pregnancy a medical condition, as though there is
(26:55):
something wrong with your health, when it is a state
and people say it's perfectly natural. And there's also this
trend on TikTok that I've been seeing, and actually more
broadly a lot's been written about it where people don't
want scans when they're saying they think it's a natural process.
I don't need to know, and they see it as
(27:17):
the first step in medical intervention, and they go, can
I actually change the outcome? Am I going to find
out something that I have no control over? And of course,
you know, as someone currently experiencing a twin, pregnancy scans
do feel important because things can go wrong quite quickly.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
But I've just found that I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I have a curiosity about it, I suppose, and an
understanding that people can have really traumatic experiences in medical settings.
It's important to acknowledge to the practice of birthing on country.
I remember I did an interview with an Aboriginal woman
who talked about this, and it's about the spiritual connection
(27:57):
between a mother, a baby and their ancestral land, the
country to which they belong. And so there are also
cultural dynamics here that it is if you take someone
from their country, their ancestral land, and force them to
give birth in a hospital five hours away, then that
can really disrupt an important part of who they are.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Back to what you were just saying about, there's a
trend on TikTok that say shoes scams, which is certainly
not encouraged. We should be No, I no know, but
that there's almost a spectrum that once you step into
it that's kind of goes from my body knows what
to do. That is something that you hear a lot.
My body knows what to do. There's almost a spectrum
that starts there and can end with arsuing everything yes,
(28:44):
saying no to everything. And I think that's what I
was getting at when I was saying how the algorithm
can be radicalizing in that space, because there's nothing dangerous
about asking questions about whether or not you have to
do exactly what your mum did or your sister did
or whoever, or if you've had a negative birth experience,
(29:06):
wanting to have more say in how the next one goes.
There's nothing dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Or radical about that.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
It just feels that maybe there's this pathway that is
maybe more clearly laid out than it was once. It's
like starts with asking questions, a bit like lots of
other things on the internet.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well. In fact, that pathway is particularly sought out by
women who have been failed by the system or who
have felt excluded from it. So many of the women
who choose to free birth this is again according to
that ABC investigation, are considered high risks. So they might
be women who had had caesareans, which are often a
very alienating or even traumatic experience for women, they might
(29:44):
have diabetes or high BMI. They might be of an
advanced geriatric age for pregnancy, where you're over thirty five
and you're made to feel like you're just way too
old to be having a child. So if you've already
started to feel like you don't belong, that's maybe why
you start looking for these parts.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
I think there's something very appealing too about someone looking
at you and telling you your body knows how to
do this and it will be fine, because that is
not what a doctor is paid to tell you. Is
you go in and you're presented with the risks, and
I like data and I like percentages, but they're realistic
about the probability that something will happen. The idea that someone.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Is so self assured and so confident.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Angela Gallo talked about this in the ABC article. She
used to run courses for duelers. I know a lot
of people who who swear by duelers and say they're amazing,
and they offer physical and emotional support, but they are unregulated,
so they don't have any medical training. But she used
to do these training sessions and then she had four
times the police knock on her door and say we've
(30:50):
lost babies, we've lost mothers.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
What are you teaching them?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Essentially, And eventually she just pulled the course, pulled her
Instagram page, and went, I can't control the ethics of
what these people do afterwards, which was that they were
radicalizing themselves to go no intervention, only free birth, never
take them to the hospital, which is not what she
was espousing in the first place.
Speaker 6 (31:13):
There's also a tension and me has spoken about this
on the show before. There's a tension between the fact
that sometimes it feels like birth has been fetishized to
this enormous point of like, you know, everything about it
must be perfect. I need to have this, and I
need to have that, and it needs to go like this,
and it needs to go like that. And a lot
of people will say, when they've been parents for a
long time, like a birth is a moment. It's what
(31:35):
comes after that's important. But then on the other hand,
that is enormously patronizing to women, because nothing is more
life changing. Very few women will go through anything as
profound and as dangerous and as transformative as birth. So
it's like, on one hand we kind of say, don't matter,
(31:55):
you know what I mean, just do what the doctor
tells you and shut up. And then on the other hand,
we're like, but nothing will ever matter more, and it's like,
how do you deal with those two things?
Speaker 5 (32:03):
It is a bit all.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Or nothing in terms of how the medical system deals
with birth too. So I had a doula for my
first child, which I had in a hospital setting. Let's
just say the douler in the hospital setting do not mix.
Like ideally you would want to be able to supplement
your medical care with the support that you felt that
you needed. But it's often very awkward to bring these
(32:27):
two systems in collision with one another. So no wonder
we have this sense that it's like this way or
the highway.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
In Australia, there are some strict regulations around home births,
so whatever you choose, make sure you are consulting with
a medical professional to get the advice that's right for you.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
Lily Allen just burned down the celebrity all Friends here
divorce announcement with a scathing meditation on an unevenly open marriage.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mummyer
out loud, just for Mummyer subscribers follow the link in
the show notes to get your daily dose of Out
Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
If you've been wondering what's been going on with Lily
Allen's divorce wander no more friends? Do you even know
my millennial friends? Who Lily Allen is?
Speaker 5 (33:22):
I do?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (33:23):
Put her in some context for anyone in the audience
who's like, oh, she's kind of she's that English one.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I've got the perfect analogy for you. She's kind of
like a harder edged Sabrina Carpenter, so like talks about
sex but in a little bit more of a harder
edged way, or maybe Olivia Rodrigo.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
And in fact, Olivia Rodrigo.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Invited Lily Allen on stage at Glastonbury and they covered
Lily Allen's very famous song fuck You, which they dedicated
to the US Supreme Court. Justice is what over turned
Ruby Wade.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So she's kind of political, bit of a shitsterer.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
She was a contemporary of Amy Winehouse, she was. I
think I saw her live at Big Day Out. Yeah,
I'm gonna say two thousand.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
Did you sweep through your door beads as you went?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I did, and I reckon I was like in the
mosh pity bit at the front and it was just
big Lily Allen fan.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
She's always been one of the more interesting pop stars
right because she's always just said what she thinks. I
could talk to you for an hour about her famous
English background, her various marriages, her drug addictions, but we
won't because today we are talking specifically about her divorce
because she has released a new album. It sort of
came from nowhere on the weekend. It's called West End Girl,
(34:33):
and I have never heard a more detailed account of
the breakdown of a marriage. Do you want me to
tell you what happened? Y?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Please, because if you listen to the album a couple
of times I have, I can give you a book.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Wait, who's she married to?
Speaker 6 (34:45):
So she married David Harbor. Now are you Stranger Things people?
So I am a Stranger Things person. He plays Hopper,
who's like the tough but soft cop big star in
that show.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Every time I just need to see his face and
I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay, I know his face.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
So she married him in Vegas in twenty twenty after
they met on Reya and DVID forre a year.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Is there an age difference between them.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
I don't think it's too significant, but he's a bit older.
The wedding picks are darling.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
She had a short dress.
Speaker 6 (35:10):
She was wearing a very cute short dress. They were
eating in and out burgers with her kids. She's got
two little girls from her previous marriage to Sam Cooper,
who is always described as a builder, which I think
is code for he is a civilian, not a famous person.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
They're teenagers now, according to her lyrics.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
They are so her kids are now tweeny teens now.
Thanks to the album, I know exactly what happened next,
she and the girls moved to New York City to
be with David. They get a rental near acute school.
She describes this in her first song, near a cute school,
very important. And then they get a big, fancy brownstone
that you can see on Architectural Digest.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
If you feel like a watch full of red flag
hid it is amazing. I mean, David Harber hits on
ad during the videos, which that.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Is a red fla and she says in the song,
She's like, I could never have afforded this house. Feels
a bit awkward, but anyway, here we are. She puts
her key in the lock of the new house and
her phone rings, and she's offered a play on the
West End. So she's done a bit acting, but not
too much, so she says she takes it. She tells
David he's not happy, doesn't want to going off to
London and being in a play. She's supposed to be
(36:17):
wife at home in New York. Now, she says, his
whole demeanor changes. She takes it anyway, because she's an
independent woman. That play was in twenty twenty one. It's
called a ghost story.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
So she's in London. She's in a hotel room all alone. Again.
This is from the song I'm paraphrasing her the lyrics
from the song.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Did she get good reviews for the play?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
She did?
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Stella reviews. She's in London hotel room, all alone. He
calls her and tells her that he's a man with
needs and he wants to open their marriage. On the album,
you can hear her side of this conversation. She tells
him she's very sad about it, but she wants him
to be happy. So they draw up parameters discretion, preferably
financial transactions as in pay for it.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Sorry, this is all in a song.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
All in the songs Wow.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Only strangers, not people they know, so they keep going.
She says in the songs that her marriage is unevenly open.
She tries to be a modern wife, a non Monoga mummy.
There's a song called non Monoga Mummy, I just want Uneasy,
(37:22):
and she details on a song called Dallas Major that
sometimes she dabbles herself in this. The lyrics of that
song go, so I go by Dallas Major on the
dating apps. But that's not really my name, you know,
I used to be quite famous. That was way back
in the day. Yes, I'm here for validation, and I
probably should explain how my marriage has been opened since
my husband went astray. I'm almost nearly forty and just
(37:44):
shy of five foot two. I'm a mum of teenage children.
Does that sound like fun to you?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
She is so clever, she is so clever, And.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
The chorus of that song just goes, I hate it here,
I hate it here, I hate it here.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Anyway.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
What happens next is it becomes obvious that David is
not just dabbling, he is stepping outside of the agreed rules.
One day he comes home again. This is all in
the songs. One day he comes home from set and
she makes him a nice dinner and he shows us
something on Instagram on his phone, and we've all been here.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
The way he grabs that phone back really quickly makes
her go, what are you hiding?
Speaker 6 (38:19):
So she snoops, And then these are the lyrics from
the song too. She finds Madeline. There's a song on
the album called Madeline. We had an arrangement be discreet
and don't be blatant. There had to be payment. It
had to be with strangers. But you're not a stranger,
are you, Madeline?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Did you know Holly Wainwright that Madeleine has come forward
in the last about twelve hours. So who is Madelene?
Is someone that he knows. That is not her name.
Her name is something else. It's a pseudonym, but she
has come forward. She has a young child herself and
has basically said, guys, I don't want this attention, to
(38:57):
which I say, you probably didn't have to come forward.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
But well, it turns out that Madeline was kind of
the least of Lily's problems, because, as she recounts on
a song called Pussy Palace, She then finds out that
he's renting an apartment in the West Village, so as
a red flag, and she says in the song, I
didn't know it was your pussy palace.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I always thought it was a dojo because.
Speaker 6 (39:18):
If he's big in karate, if you google him, you'll
see him a lot in his whites. I found a
shoe box full of handwritten letters from broken hearted women
wishing you could have been better. A Dwayne read bag
with the handles tied, sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside,
hundreds of trojans. You're so fucking broken? How are they
(39:40):
giving you a good picture about?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
How? It is?
Speaker 6 (39:42):
Not a lot of mystery in this album? So they'd split.
Unsurprisingly after all this, in February this year, they confirmed
they're split. I want to know, is this a refreshingly
honest break from the pretense of, like, you know, the
Orlando and Katie kind of we love each other, we
support each other, everything's fine here, you know, nothing to
see or is it a one sided hit job? Because
(40:05):
important note talking about Kristen Bell. The likability Stranger thing
has been on hiatus for years and it's about to
come back, and it's going to be the biggest thing
in the world at the end of this year, and
he'll be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
What do we think?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Oh, I'm so into minds about it. On the one hand, okay,
so she wrote this in ten days the month that
they split, and as you say, Holly, they didn't split
two or three years ago, they split five minutes ago, really,
and so feels very fresh, doesn't it, Yes, which is
the appeal.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
That's kind of what you want.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Like, it's kind of boring hearing someone talk about a
breakup that they've processed.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, the unprocessed drivel.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
The reviews have been really split too. I think some
people have said it's a bit sad, and some people,
like Variety said it was a stunner.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
That was the word they used.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think the album's great by the way I've listened.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
They made the point that it's really different from past
like divorce breakup albums like think of Beyonce's Lemonade, which
was also a surprise drop, or Taylor's The Torture Poet's Department,
or a Gel's thirty and it says what's really different
about this is that usually the artist is speaking from
a place of like but everything's fine, now we've sorted
it all out like that was very much Beyonce, very
(41:14):
much Taylor their mos with their breakup albums. But this
is very much still in it. It's very much still
riding from the wound, not the scar very much, which.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Like the best art, lies in its specificity, right, we
need the specific.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
The tie, the handles are tied on, the plastic bag.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Always know about the butt plug because imagery.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Right, And I think could he not have used a
reusable tope bag when he went to buy all these things?
Speaker 6 (41:41):
Really?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
The thing is is that I find it quite fresh,
even though I think there's no question it's a one
sided hit job. I'm sure he has a version of
this story, right, I'm sure he does. I'm sure he
doesn't come off particularly well in that either. But you know,
I'm sure he has his issues with Lily Allen. But
there's something fresh about a woman writing about this, the
idea that she was trying to be cool with it.
She was trying to be, as she writes, I was
(42:05):
trying to be the modern wife. You know, I knew
you wanted like Madonna whare and you've kind of put
me in the Madonna bit but I can be like,
she's trying hard, and she's been talking in the interviews
about how dating apps have changed everything about marriages. She
might have met him on RAYA, but also he had
endless options in his pocket all the time. So I
love the freshness of hearing all that explored. And I
(42:26):
also think you would be so mad with this guy
because I just need to read you a quote that
he said about her and why he decided to marry her. Okay,
he was talking about her kids and he says, the
little one was riding along and she was going like David, Dad, David,
because the d got her confused, and the older one
got very upset, and she was like, he's not our dad.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
He's not our dad. The younger one goes, well, what
is he? Then?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
And I was like, I need to marry this woman
because the emotional fallout would be terrible. How mad would
you be with that guy who was like, laud you
into like, I mean, okay, you'd have to probably, as
you say.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
A protector, a savior.
Speaker 6 (43:01):
Yeah, then he screws you over when you're like, I
am good. I mean, if her side of the story
is to be believed.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I had to say the Architectural Digest video. I submit
that as evidence. That came out in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
Three, so two years ago.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
So it sounds like, according to the chronology that you've
laid out for us, the open marriage was already ineffected
by that point, and she seems so ill at ease
with him, and there are so many moments where he
demeans her through jokes. Basically, There's one point where he
criticizes her for how much money he's had to spend
on her giant wardrobe. There's another moment where they talk
(43:36):
about how they have a sofa. It's a double backed
sofa so that after they've argued, they don't have to
sit next to each other. There's so many parts of
it where, looking back in retrospect, you think this dynamic
is really off.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I did want to mention also that she's forty.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I think that's really significant because both with say Lemonade
and Torture Poets Department, these were written by women in
their thirties. Adele's thirty, unsurprisingly was written by a woman
younger than Lily Allen. And there's something about turning forty
that I can almost hear in this album. There's a
sense of like I don't need to pretend everything's perfect anymore.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
Although obviously he gets whacked hard in this album, it's
also very self reflectively sad. There's a song on there
called Relapse, because she's famously had a lot of issues
with drugs and she's sober, living a sober life, and
shows it's easier to do in America because the culture's
in place in a way that it isn't really in England.
And there's a song on there called Relapse where she
talks about how going through all this, how much she
(44:33):
wants to drink or take pills, but if she does,
she knows she'll lose her kids. Like it's a very
raw acc and there's something to be respected about that,
but it also kind of makes me envisioned a dog
who rolls over and shows their tummy, because there's also
something very vulnerable about that, like you're going to get
attacked for being this honest, like you just are you.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
It's the antithesis, though, to the PR crisis.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Notes written by in a notes.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
App checked by both lawyers, a whole lot of words
that mean absolutely nothing. I think that's why it's quite
there's something very refreshing about it.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
I think you should go listen. Well, Lily's a legend
in my eyes. I I hope she finds happiness. A
massive thank you out loud as to all of you
for listening to today's show and to our fabulous team
for putting it all together. Don't forget you can also
watch us on YouTube. We're going to be back in
your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
God Bye.
Speaker 6 (45:32):
Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you
love the show and you want to support us, subscribing
to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it.
There's a link in the episode description.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Before we start the show, I have a question.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Do you guys remember and I'm mainly directing this at
my millennial counterpart.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Let me just put a head. I already have a
side part.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Okay, did you ever have doorbads that hung from your
door frame at home?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
No? I was aware of them. They kind of wrote
a little hippist to me, did you have? Yes?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Okay, yes I did, and I was reminded.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
I saw a picture online recently and I was like,
why did I think they looked good? Like I had
pink plastic disgusting obviously, like the cheapest, most revolting ones.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Did you get them from Tree of Life?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I think I might have got them from Tree of Life?
And I like had to annoy mum about them for
why why were doorbads?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
They are so annoying?
Speaker 6 (01:09):
They are?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
And then you kind of partied them like a fringe
in order to get in and out.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Which is interesting. It feels very millennial in itself, pushing
like a fringe.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
A gen xer would never write.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Were you ever I had them not that long ago.
We had a fly problem to solve and our.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
Kitchen door, and I didn't want one of those plastic
slapping things, and so I was like, let's bring door
beads back from the naughties.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
You know how long that lasted? A hot minute.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
They weren't pink though, they were like tasteful wooden ones.
You can still buy them on the internet. They kept
falling off the dog like to grab them, like tow
them like that, and they're noisy, and they did not
deter the flies.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So in the end we got rid of them again.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Okay, because I then had this image of all the
doorbads we bought an entire generation, going, no, what happened
to them? Are they all on the shoreline of some country,
just wasting away this crap plastic?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
How dare my mum let me ever have them?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I actually love hate the idea of a desert island
just filled with the detritus of millennial ado lessons.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Did you ever have an inflatable chair that was seen through?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, which I thought was so cool?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Women's Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
The aesthetic was absolutely revolting.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Hello and welcome to Mama Mia. Out loud, it's what
women are actually talking about. On Monday, the twenty seventh
of October. I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Amelia Last.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
And here's what's made our agenda today. Lily Allen has
burnt consciously uncoupling to the ground with an absolutely searing
divorce album that gives a full tea spilling of all
the cheating that her husband's been doing.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And I am here.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
F Plus, Kristen Bell is really great in Netflix's season
two rom com Nobody Wants This?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So Why?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And I hung up about what she said on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And the tragic free Birthing story.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I can't stop thinking about. So what is free birthing
and why is it on the rise?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
But first, I've got some renovation news in case you
missed it. It was the block finale last night and
it was a real rollercoaster. People around the office have
been describing it as traumatic.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Controversial.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Coppers Britt and Taz won five hundred and twenty thousand
in a very hectic auction, but two of the other houses,
and this was the shock, were passed in at auction.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
Two of them.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's happened before in the show, but it's unusual to
have two in the same series.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
And Severe life.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, and it included the fan favorites Em and Ben,
which was pretty surprising because the judges loved their renovation.
So it was very dramatic, a little bit upsetting. But
speaking of renovations, and now the dramatic upsetting renovation is happening,
and this one is in Washington, DC. Did you like
my segue?
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I was just about to say, Amelia Lester, that segue
deserves some kind of pod people.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Lord right there.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
That was all because I've seen something, an aerial view, something,
something destroying a wing. What has he got counsel approval?
I feel like this is.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the East wing of the White House, which is
one hundred and twenty three years old, has been demolished
last week for a ballroom. So Trump, I've been talking
about a ballroom for a while, and people like he
seems really obsessed with the idea of a ballroom. But
then he just like went ahead and demolished like a
quarter of the White House without getting any of the
requisite approvals. I should say, some people think that the
(04:48):
White House needs a ballroom, it actually doesn't have a
space for like big fancy dinners, and right now they
have to put up a tent for them. And you
know what's annoying to put up tents for things really is?
And if it rains, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Sotoria Beckham about that.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Another very relatable part about this is that it was
meant to cost two hundred million, but now it's going
to cost three hundred million.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Every rent they're taught to the block people about these
things happen.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Who is paying for it? Trump essentially started kind of
a gofund me for it. He basically cast a hat
around a few of the people who got involved with
a winkle vised remember the Google, little company called Google,
little little company called Amazon, little company called Matter. You know,
just the usual suspects. They just really want Trump to
have a ballroom.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
They have no interest whatsoever in making sure that Trump
feels favorable towards them, none whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
There's just no reverence or respect towards the historical significance
of the White House.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Yes, there is no reverence in respect.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
There is also the fact that architects are concerned that
this may not be a viable plan. So what we
know about this ballroom which the White House has been
demolished for, is a picture that Trump held up in
the White House last week. So news organizations and architects
have been zooming in on this picture to try and
figure out what's coming.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Did he draw the picture?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
But the architects are worried, and you don't want architects worried,
Like they're on that list of professions that you just
want to be feeling good about, things like sushi, chefs, architects, doctors,
you know, this is the list. They're worried because the
drawing has some mistakes. There's a staircase to nowhere, and
on some of the windows collide, which I'm told colliding
(06:36):
windows not good.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
Not on if it was me, Like it sounds like
he's done what I would do, which is like I'm
drawing all the things I want, and it's like the
you know, the.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Twenty three story treehouse.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
It's like got a curly whirly staircase to nowhere, it's
got a double plunge call like Winter's Basement. It's got
a spa, it's got a cinema, and I'm like, I
want all these things, and.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I've got loads of money because those guys gave it
to me, So just make it happen.
Speaker 6 (06:59):
I have one question, Familia, if I've learned anything from
Love It or Listed, you don't generally renovate places if
you're planning to move out, unless you're going to sell.
So he doesn't have to leave the White House in
like two to three years.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Does it sound like someone who's about to move Yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Think it's three hundred million dollar renovation is going to
take a bit of time, and experts do say that
they think it's unlikely it's going to be finished by
the end of his term.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
That said, you're completely right.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
He is meant to leave office in twenty twenty eight,
and I don't know if you have a countdown clock
going or anything.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
I know some people do.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I tend to think he just likes building things, knocking
things down, putting gold on everything. I tend to be
a bit more sanguine about that. But I know that,
for instance, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has said
exactly that he's concerned that this shows he doesn't want
to go. So the actor Kristen Bell has a lot
going on right now. I don't know a lot about
her other than the fact that she was in Frozen.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
I also guys, yeah, well, Elsa, do you want to
build this up?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Anna?
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, everyone at school was obsessed with Ronie ka Maas.
I didn't watch it, but that's how I knew her
before this.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Now she is in season two of a hit Netflix
show called Nobody Wants This, which just came back last week,
And I've been watching it because I loved the first season,
and I got to tell you, I am not enjoying it.
And it's got nothing to do with the script. It's
got nothing to do with the great songs or really
even the great acting. It's got to do with Kristen
Bell herself.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What she done.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
She went on.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Instagram last week and did something a little bit silly
and has now been a subject of a bit of
a pileon online. She posted on Instagram wishing a happy
anniversary to her husband, Dak Shepherd, who was also an
actor and a comedian.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
He's a comedian, but he is best done these days.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
As a podcaster, and the caption on the instagram said
happy anniversary to her husband. She thanked him for saying
that he'd never kill her, even though he was incentivized
to do so, and it showed Dax hugging one of
the couple's tween daughters. And it came during Domestic Violence
(09:05):
Awareness Month in the US, and a lot of people
didn't like this joke. They'd been making jokes like this
for a long time. These two a twenty twelve press
tour that they did together. An interview for that has resurfaced.
They were promoting a movie that I don't think I
ever knew existed called Hit and Run. Talking about Daxa's truck.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
We drove to brunch and the first thing I said
five minutes into the writer said this sounds like it's.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Going to break.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And I was very offended.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
And then I hit her several times and.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Then I got beat up, and I guess what, I
never opened my mouth again.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
My goodness, you guys have quite the interesting relationship.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So I'm watching Nobody Wants This season two. I'm thinking
about the really bad domestic violence joke, and I'm finding
Kristen Bell's presence grating and annoying As a result. Am
I being unfair or worse?
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Sexist? Jesse?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Look, I saw this from a distance.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I saw headlines about she's written something a joke as
a caption, which is a domestic violence joke, and it's
impoor taste.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And I went, oh, here we go.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
All right, someone puts something a little bit clumsy and
this is the tear down. And I immediately thought of
John Legend and Chrissy Tagan and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively,
and I thought, this is tearing down these couples who
part of their brand is their coupledom, right, And then
I actually read the caption and I went, oh, that's bad.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Like I thought, it was a misstep.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
This is the thing about selling your relationship is that
when your relationship becomes your brand, people don't actually know you,
so the context and nuances of your in jokes are
not easily conveyed to others. So you just see that
and you go, well, this has been published on a
public platform. People have said, oh, poor taste. What has
bamboozled me is that she hasn't deleted it. Because she
(11:00):
has not deleted it, it's still there and she's limited comments.
I don't always think that people owe an apology. And
the kind of going back the teen years to another joke,
she said, I kind of go thirteen years was a
very different moment, even for domestic violence. I feel like
we've come a long way with awareness and sensitivity. But
(11:20):
to let the joke stand, I find to be a
really interesting choice.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Holly, you love this couple, I do obsessed. Tell me
why she's left the joke up.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
I don't know, because I feel the same way that
Jesse does, and about the joke.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I don't think it's even a joke.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
I just think I think it's very much one of
those things that maybe they say to each other, you
know what I mean, and that just should have always
stayed private. But the thing that's interesting about this when
I persecute how I feel about it, because I'm very
much of the opinion that you should never joke about
domestic violence, whoever you are, I just genuinely think, leave
it alone. You know, remember all the fuss about Matt Rife,
(11:57):
who's the stand up comedian who likes to do it?
You know, there've always been lots of controversial since who
liked it. Yeah, for me, it's not something you joke about,
So I'm totally there. But because I have a parasocial
relationship with these two, because an arm cherry, that's what
you call people who listen to arm tere X, but
Dax Shepherd's podcast, which is one of the biggest podcasts
in the world. He got a multimillion dollar deal for it.
They have everybody on that show, from Brad Pitt onwards.
(12:20):
You know, I feel differently about it, because anytime there's
an internet pileon, if you haven't parasocial relationship with those people,
you give them more grace. I think out louders feel
that way about us when they see a headline in
the Daily Mail about one of us or whatever happens. Occasionally,
people who don't know us will read that, take it
all as gospel and go yep, and people who listen
(12:41):
to the show will be like, oh, that was that
joke they made about blast so because I am in
their world and what I know about their.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Stick is that so.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
Kristen bal It's interesting that you guys don't really know
much about her, because she's very much considered America's sweetheart.
She's huge, she's a musical theater star. She never puts
a foot wrong, she's squeaky clean, and Dak Shepherd has
always been painted as from the wrong side of the tracks,
working class man made good. He comes from an abusive background.
He talks a lot about masculinity vulnerability. The masculinity is
the whole thing of his show.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Right when you say abusive background, was that within his
family grounds?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (13:15):
So on armche expert Dax has talked a lot about
how when he was young he was sexually abused, that
he had a difficult childhood, that he watched his mom
being the subject of physical abuse from a stepfather. So
I don't think that he thinks that domestic violence is
funny either.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think they probably just have.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
This dialogue between the two of them that is best
behind closed doors.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
So it's interesting that you brought up the name Brad
Pitt right because I watched the F One movie and
we've talked about how that was actually an incredible box
office hit. Now that man has been accused, it has
not been tried in a court of law, but accused
of actual domestic violence, do we punish a woman who
(13:58):
made a mis calculated, not funny joke about domestic violence
more than we would a man who actually perpetrated it.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I'm really interested that you brought up Blake Lively because
I hadn't even thought about that until you mentioned it,
but that's sort of what's going on here. I've decided
that I don't like Kristen Bell because, as Holly says,
I think you're exactly right. I don't know much about her.
This joke or comment on Instagram is really what's informing
my impression of her, and I've decided that she's not
(14:28):
likable and it's ruining my enjoyment of the show. But
I don't think that I expect that male actors need
to be likable. I think I just want them to
act well. Like, for instance, I love the TV show
The Bear. Jeremy Allen White in that show is amazing.
I just saw him in the New Springsteen movie and
he's great in that. I don't know anything about him.
(14:50):
I mean, he could be an awful person, but there's
something compelling about his face and his presence, and so
I'm just willing to be swept away with him.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
And so it was almost a trap, right because nobody
wants this. In order to sell that show, Kristin had
to sell her marriage.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't think that's true.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
And Adam had to sell his relationship with Layton.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I don't think that's true.
Speaker 6 (15:08):
I think that was part of the I think in
mainstream America, outside of armchair experts nerds like me, she's
very famous and he's not really very famous. I think,
if anything, he's a bit bad for her brand, just
because he's rough and ready, and he talks about all
kinds of stuff on that show. He talks about his
drug addiction, he talks about his opinions on all kinds
of things. I think her people probably encourage her to
(15:29):
not talk about that relationship too much because I think
that she's squeaky clean Disney princess right. If anything, he
kind of muddies the edges of her very likable image.
So I don't think that she posted this as part
of the pr campaign for nobody wants this. I think
she did it because they are that couple who always
(15:49):
do that. They always do the happy birthdays and the
things like the Beckhams do and whatever you think about that,
because your point's absolutely right, Jesse is, well, if you've
got millions of followers, as they do, and you publicize
your relationship in that way, you are absolutely opening the
door to criticism. But I don't think it was part
of the strategy. I think it was more of a
misstep one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I think it's been for the rollout of the show.
She was meant to appear on the Today Show, which
is one of the biggest shows in America, if not
the biggest, last week to promote the show, and just
did not show up. And I cannot imagine that that
was what the people who concocted the publicity campaign.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
For this day, because she's not a not showing up
kind of person.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
She is well known for being extra try hard, right,
you know, consummate professional, always with a smile, all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's what she does.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
So the fact that she didn't show up shows how
rattled they are by this, because usually they roll over.
They had a ding dong a while ago social media
ding dong a while ago when they posted they're sort
of in that friend group of like Jimmy Kimmel, Jennifer Aniston,
and they posted a picture of their dinner table at
Thanksgiving US something and there was no one of color
at the table and they got smashed for privileged richness whiteness,
(17:00):
and they wrote it out and spoke about it on
the show. I think they think, oh, you can ride
this out, It'll be okay. But I think that this
one has crossed the line.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
My sense with this, and this is where I've found
that the discourse gets incredibly uncomfortable. Is that when you
start reading think pieces opinion analysis on this, it basically
starts with three paragraphs on how terrible Dax's podcast is.
There is an article that has been published on substack
by quite a reputable writer which is basically arguing that
(17:31):
Kristen Bell has always been a dick. And it's like,
and that's what I think. I go, all right, talk
about the joke and the issue with the joke. I
think sometimes what we do is we wait for the
misstep and it comes and we go, oh, I can
talk about how I've always found her face annoying. And
that's where the sexism comes in.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And having established that the whole bar for likability is
so much higher for women than it is for men,
I think all three of us can agree on that. Jesse,
you're a bit of a scholar of the cancel to.
You used to have a podcast with the same name.
I'm curious when a woman is derided as unlikable. We
saw it with Blake Lively, now we're seeing it with Kristen.
(18:11):
Is there anything she can do to kind of claw
back into the realm of the likable. It's such a
sort of subjective thing to describe someone. I don't see
how you correct.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
That I disappear.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Jennifer Lawrence just did it.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Jennifer Lawrence was tired with the annoying brush, which is
often about over exposure.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And Hathaway and Hathaway.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
I don't think she can because she's too old for that,
like as in literally she's been They were engens when
that happened to them. But she's now forty five. By
Hollywood law, she shouldn't be having this kind of success
at the age she's at, and she has been exceptionally
likable throughout her career. You know, as I say, squeaky
clean Disney princess, I think that this level of success
(18:52):
that nobody wants, this is cracked. This mainstream number one
in thirty countries. All that stuff has made her a
tall poppy in a way that she probably wasn't before,
and so now the knives are out for her.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Is also about the genre. Do we want our rom
com stars? If I'm invested in you and you've finding
love and finding you like them all in the show?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Is the bar a bit higher.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Than a dramatic actress, like I don't care if I
like Scarlett Johnsen, I don't care so much about her
private life because she's a serious.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Seriously telling me that you would not watch this show
because you don't like her since she made that joke,
I find that amazing.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Oh, I love the show, and I've been bing by.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Show, but I'm interrogating a response I'm having to this
second season where I don't feel as swept away. I
don't feel the escapist element of this show, which was
its whole appeal. These two very photogenic, charming people finally
getting together. I want to be swept away in the
love story, and there's a little part of me that's
not able.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
To do that anymore.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
If you are watching season two, if nobody wants this,
and I certainly am, and I have a whole lot
of other things I want to discuss about this, so
I hope we're going to do another episode on it soon.
I'm obsessed with trying to work out how old those characters.
Isn't it to be? Can we agree to do that?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Please? Anyway.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Mama Merea's new podcast, Watch Party, has a whole episode
about this, So go to watch party wherever you listen
to your podcasts and listen to their series on Nobody
Wants This Season two.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
In a moment, what is free birthing and why is
it on the rise in Australia. I came across an
absolutely tragic story last week about a popular Melbourne nutritionist
and food influencer named Stacy Hatfield. The thirty year old
(20:43):
gave birth to her first child, Axel, at home and
due to an extremely rare post birth complication, she died
suddenly on the way to hospital. We do not know
how she died, and, as many health professionals have pointed out,
women die of rare complications following childbirth in.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Hospital too, did the baby die to No.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
The husband was the one who posted about it just
last week. It actually happened at the end of September
and he is with the baby. There's a gofund me
at the moment that a lot of people are sharing
because he obviously can't go back to work and it's
an enormous.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Shock and pain to the family.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I don't want to prosecute a choice a woman and
her family made, as her husband and all those who
loved her are so deep in unimaginable grief. What you
might have seen if you read this news, however, is
the word free birth and some analysis about whites on
the rise. And in fact, the ABAC did a brilliant
investigation back in July about how this was happening and
(21:44):
they interviewed some duelers and some experts.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
About their experience.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
So it's a common misconception that a home birth and
a free birth are the same thing, right. It was
reported by The Herald's son over the weekend that Hatfield
chose a free birth, and that is when someone chooses
to birth at home without the help of a doctor
or a.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Midwife, sometimes not even sometimes in a forest.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sure, yeah, exactly, So it's that absence of a medical profession.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yes, they might have a duela, and a dueler is
someone who doesn't have medical accreditation and is generally much
cheaper than a midwife. A home birth, on the other hand,
sees a woman supported by a trained practitioner who is
registered with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency. Often that's
(22:35):
at least one midwife that's going to be at home
with you and if things turn, they will get you
to hospital. There have been other high profile cases of
women opting for free births and having health complications or
tragically losing their babies. Amelia, why do you think free
birthing is on the rise?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I didn't know a lot about it until I started
reading into it, and the ABC investigation was really excellent
and informative. It made the point that a lot of
women have been making, I would say, in the last
ten to twenty years, which is there's been as kind
of reckoning around how women are treated during pregnancy and
childbirth in the medical system quote unquote medical system where
(23:17):
they are often made to feel like incubators, are made
to feel that the fetus's needs are primary and that
their needs a secondary. And so I think that these
kinds of turning to alternative systems are coming out of
this very real need. I found one stat from the US,
Unfortunately I couldn't find an Australian equivalent. That's set in
twenty twenty three, twenty percent of American women felt mistreated
(23:40):
at their most recent birth. That's a really shocking statistic
when you think about it, and you mentioned that they're cheaper.
Some figures I read online were that a private midwife
might start at around eight thousand dollars, or as the
radical birthkeepers or sovereign midwives as they know and they're
not actual midwives, that's the term that they use. Sovereign midwives.
They can start it around four thousand and people call
(24:02):
this a cult of birth because it is an online movement.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
It is radical.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
A lot of them shun the idea of any medical intervention,
even when it is needed, and it strikes me as
another kind of example of how in online spaces you
can be pushed into really extreme radical positions from a
place of genuine questioning and need.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
Absolutely I think that's exactly what's behind it. I think
we shouldn't overblow it. Ninety seven percent of Australian births
are in hospital, whereas there are countries in the world.
Holland is always mentioned in this because they have a
really thirty percent of births in Holland are at home,
so home birth is very common in lots of cultures.
But I think that here the stats show that it's
(24:46):
a tiny, tiny percentage of people who are choosing not
to have their babies in hospitals at all, never mind
free birthing. But I agree with the Medie one hundred percent.
I think that if it is, it's almost as a
radical reaction to some of the dismissal that women have felt.
And although we don't have the stats, as you said, Amelia,
when New South Wales recently conducted a very well publicized
(25:09):
trauma inquiry, they had more than four thousand applications immediately
from people saying that they had felt in some way
traumatized by their birth. And the thing is, now, if
you go online with that information and feeling that way,
it's quite easy to be funneled into a more and
more extreme place where if you just start with I
(25:30):
felt disrespected by the professionals caring for me during my pregnancy,
it isn't hard when we're in an environment where algorithms
are incentivized to be more and more extreme, to end
up closer and closer and watching more and more examples
that seem fine and safe and great of people basically
eschewing traditional medical care that totally misrepresent the reality of
(25:52):
what's happening.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
What's hard to is that I think in Australia there
can be a little bit of stigma associated with home
birth and with maybe questioning any medical not medical advice,
but maybe thinking that you'd like to do it a
different way or on your terms, and you kind of
get funneled into this, and I guess free birthing is
(26:14):
a more radical extension of that into this place where
then you're kind of off all the records. And by that,
I mean there is no data that can tell us
how safe or unsafe free birthing really is because hospitals
don't have that.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Which is or actually how common it is, to be honest.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Yes, which means that it is difficult for women to
make informed choices about what they're going to do when
they can't see the reality. I suppose, and I understand
the and I've felt this in certain communities, this reticence
to consider pregnancy a medical condition, as though there is
(26:55):
something wrong with your health, when it is a state
and people say it's perfectly natural. And there's also this
trend on TikTok that I've been seeing, and actually more
broadly a lot's been written about it where people don't
want scans when they're saying they think it's a natural process.
I don't need to know, and they see it as
(27:17):
the first step in medical intervention, and they go, can
I actually change the outcome? Am I going to find
out something that I have no control over? And of course,
you know, as someone currently experiencing a twin, pregnancy scans
do feel important because things can go wrong quite quickly.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
But I've just found that I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I have a curiosity about it, I suppose, and an
understanding that people can have really traumatic experiences in medical settings.
It's important to acknowledge to the practice of birthing on country.
I remember I did an interview with an Aboriginal woman
who talked about this, and it's about the spiritual connection
(27:57):
between a mother, a baby and their ancestral land, the
country to which they belong. And so there are also
cultural dynamics here that it is if you take someone
from their country, their ancestral land, and force them to
give birth in a hospital five hours away, then that
can really disrupt an important part of who they are.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Back to what you were just saying about, there's a
trend on TikTok that say shoes scams, which is certainly
not encouraged. We should be No, I no know, but
that there's almost a spectrum that once you step into
it that's kind of goes from my body knows what
to do. That is something that you hear a lot.
My body knows what to do. There's almost a spectrum
that starts there and can end with arsuing everything yes,
(28:44):
saying no to everything. And I think that's what I
was getting at when I was saying how the algorithm
can be radicalizing in that space, because there's nothing dangerous
about asking questions about whether or not you have to
do exactly what your mum did or your sister did
or whoever, or if you've had a negative birth experience,
(29:06):
wanting to have more say in how the next one goes.
There's nothing dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Or radical about that.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
It just feels that maybe there's this pathway that is
maybe more clearly laid out than it was once. It's
like starts with asking questions, a bit like lots of
other things on the internet.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well. In fact, that pathway is particularly sought out by
women who have been failed by the system or who
have felt excluded from it. So many of the women
who choose to free birth this is again according to
that ABC investigation, are considered high risks. So they might
be women who had had caesareans, which are often a
very alienating or even traumatic experience for women, they might
(29:44):
have diabetes or high BMI. They might be of an
advanced geriatric age for pregnancy, where you're over thirty five
and you're made to feel like you're just way too
old to be having a child. So if you've already
started to feel like you don't belong, that's maybe why
you start looking for these parts.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
I think there's something very appealing too about someone looking
at you and telling you your body knows how to
do this and it will be fine, because that is
not what a doctor is paid to tell you. Is
you go in and you're presented with the risks, and
I like data and I like percentages, but they're realistic
about the probability that something will happen. The idea that someone.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Is so self assured and so confident.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Angela Gallo talked about this in the ABC article. She
used to run courses for duelers. I know a lot
of people who who swear by duelers and say they're amazing,
and they offer physical and emotional support, but they are unregulated,
so they don't have any medical training. But she used
to do these training sessions and then she had four
times the police knock on her door and say we've
(30:50):
lost babies, we've lost mothers.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
What are you teaching them?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Essentially, And eventually she just pulled the course, pulled her
Instagram page, and went, I can't control the ethics of
what these people do afterwards, which was that they were
radicalizing themselves to go no intervention, only free birth, never
take them to the hospital, which is not what she
was espousing in the first place.
Speaker 6 (31:13):
There's also a tension and me has spoken about this
on the show before. There's a tension between the fact
that sometimes it feels like birth has been fetishized to
this enormous point of like, you know, everything about it
must be perfect. I need to have this, and I
need to have that, and it needs to go like this,
and it needs to go like that. And a lot
of people will say, when they've been parents for a
long time, like a birth is a moment. It's what
(31:35):
comes after that's important. But then on the other hand,
that is enormously patronizing to women, because nothing is more
life changing. Very few women will go through anything as
profound and as dangerous and as transformative as birth. So
it's like, on one hand we kind of say, don't matter,
(31:55):
you know what I mean, just do what the doctor
tells you and shut up. And then on the other hand,
we're like, but nothing will ever matter more, and it's like,
how do you deal with those two things?
Speaker 5 (32:03):
It is a bit all.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Or nothing in terms of how the medical system deals
with birth too. So I had a doula for my
first child, which I had in a hospital setting. Let's
just say the douler in the hospital setting do not mix.
Like ideally you would want to be able to supplement
your medical care with the support that you felt that
you needed. But it's often very awkward to bring these
(32:27):
two systems in collision with one another. So no wonder
we have this sense that it's like this way or
the highway.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
In Australia, there are some strict regulations around home births,
so whatever you choose, make sure you are consulting with
a medical professional to get the advice that's right for you.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
Lily Allen just burned down the celebrity all Friends here
divorce announcement with a scathing meditation on an unevenly open marriage.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mummyer
out loud, just for Mummyer subscribers follow the link in
the show notes to get your daily dose of Out
Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
If you've been wondering what's been going on with Lily
Allen's divorce wander no more friends? Do you even know
my millennial friends? Who Lily Allen is?
Speaker 5 (33:22):
I do?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (33:23):
Put her in some context for anyone in the audience
who's like, oh, she's kind of she's that English one.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I've got the perfect analogy for you. She's kind of
like a harder edged Sabrina Carpenter, so like talks about
sex but in a little bit more of a harder
edged way, or maybe Olivia Rodrigo.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
And in fact, Olivia Rodrigo.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Invited Lily Allen on stage at Glastonbury and they covered
Lily Allen's very famous song fuck You, which they dedicated
to the US Supreme Court. Justice is what over turned
Ruby Wade.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So she's kind of political, bit of a shitsterer.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
She was a contemporary of Amy Winehouse, she was. I
think I saw her live at Big Day Out. Yeah,
I'm gonna say two thousand.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
Did you sweep through your door beads as you went?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I did, and I reckon I was like in the
mosh pity bit at the front and it was just
big Lily Allen fan.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
She's always been one of the more interesting pop stars
right because she's always just said what she thinks. I
could talk to you for an hour about her famous
English background, her various marriages, her drug addictions, but we
won't because today we are talking specifically about her divorce
because she has released a new album. It sort of
came from nowhere on the weekend. It's called West End Girl,
(34:33):
and I have never heard a more detailed account of
the breakdown of a marriage. Do you want me to
tell you what happened? Y?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Please, because if you listen to the album a couple
of times I have, I can give you a book.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Wait, who's she married to?
Speaker 6 (34:45):
So she married David Harbor. Now are you Stranger Things people?
So I am a Stranger Things person. He plays Hopper,
who's like the tough but soft cop big star in
that show.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Every time I just need to see his face and
I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay, I know his face.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
So she married him in Vegas in twenty twenty after
they met on Reya and DVID forre a year.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Is there an age difference between them.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
I don't think it's too significant, but he's a bit older.
The wedding picks are darling.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
She had a short dress.
Speaker 6 (35:10):
She was wearing a very cute short dress. They were
eating in and out burgers with her kids. She's got
two little girls from her previous marriage to Sam Cooper,
who is always described as a builder, which I think
is code for he is a civilian, not a famous person.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
They're teenagers now, according to her lyrics.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
They are so her kids are now tweeny teens now.
Thanks to the album, I know exactly what happened next,
she and the girls moved to New York City to
be with David. They get a rental near acute school.
She describes this in her first song, near a cute school,
very important. And then they get a big, fancy brownstone
that you can see on Architectural Digest.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
If you feel like a watch full of red flag
hid it is amazing. I mean, David Harber hits on
ad during the videos, which that.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Is a red fla and she says in the song,
She's like, I could never have afforded this house. Feels
a bit awkward, but anyway, here we are. She puts
her key in the lock of the new house and
her phone rings, and she's offered a play on the
West End. So she's done a bit acting, but not
too much, so she says she takes it. She tells
David he's not happy, doesn't want to going off to
London and being in a play. She's supposed to be
(36:17):
wife at home in New York. Now, she says, his
whole demeanor changes. She takes it anyway, because she's an
independent woman. That play was in twenty twenty one. It's
called a ghost story.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
So she's in London. She's in a hotel room all alone. Again.
This is from the song I'm paraphrasing her the lyrics
from the song.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Did she get good reviews for the play?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
She did?
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Stella reviews. She's in London hotel room, all alone. He
calls her and tells her that he's a man with
needs and he wants to open their marriage. On the album,
you can hear her side of this conversation. She tells
him she's very sad about it, but she wants him
to be happy. So they draw up parameters discretion, preferably
financial transactions as in pay for it.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Sorry, this is all in a song.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
All in the songs Wow.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Only strangers, not people they know, so they keep going.
She says in the songs that her marriage is unevenly open.
She tries to be a modern wife, a non Monoga mummy.
There's a song called non Monoga Mummy, I just want Uneasy,
(37:22):
and she details on a song called Dallas Major that
sometimes she dabbles herself in this. The lyrics of that
song go, so I go by Dallas Major on the
dating apps. But that's not really my name, you know,
I used to be quite famous. That was way back
in the day. Yes, I'm here for validation, and I
probably should explain how my marriage has been opened since
my husband went astray. I'm almost nearly forty and just
(37:44):
shy of five foot two. I'm a mum of teenage children.
Does that sound like fun to you?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
She is so clever, she is so clever, And.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
The chorus of that song just goes, I hate it here,
I hate it here, I hate it here.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Anyway.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
What happens next is it becomes obvious that David is
not just dabbling, he is stepping outside of the agreed rules.
One day he comes home again. This is all in
the songs. One day he comes home from set and
she makes him a nice dinner and he shows us
something on Instagram on his phone, and we've all been here.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
The way he grabs that phone back really quickly makes
her go, what are you hiding?
Speaker 6 (38:19):
So she snoops, And then these are the lyrics from
the song too. She finds Madeline. There's a song on
the album called Madeline. We had an arrangement be discreet
and don't be blatant. There had to be payment. It
had to be with strangers. But you're not a stranger,
are you, Madeline?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Did you know Holly Wainwright that Madeleine has come forward
in the last about twelve hours. So who is Madelene?
Is someone that he knows. That is not her name.
Her name is something else. It's a pseudonym, but she
has come forward. She has a young child herself and
has basically said, guys, I don't want this attention, to
(38:57):
which I say, you probably didn't have to come forward.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
But well, it turns out that Madeline was kind of
the least of Lily's problems, because, as she recounts on
a song called Pussy Palace, She then finds out that
he's renting an apartment in the West Village, so as
a red flag, and she says in the song, I
didn't know it was your pussy palace.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I always thought it was a dojo because.
Speaker 6 (39:18):
If he's big in karate, if you google him, you'll
see him a lot in his whites. I found a
shoe box full of handwritten letters from broken hearted women
wishing you could have been better. A Dwayne read bag
with the handles tied, sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside,
hundreds of trojans. You're so fucking broken? How are they
(39:40):
giving you a good picture about?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
How? It is?
Speaker 6 (39:42):
Not a lot of mystery in this album? So they'd split.
Unsurprisingly after all this, in February this year, they confirmed
they're split. I want to know, is this a refreshingly
honest break from the pretense of, like, you know, the
Orlando and Katie kind of we love each other, we
support each other, everything's fine here, you know, nothing to
see or is it a one sided hit job? Because
(40:05):
important note talking about Kristen Bell. The likability Stranger thing
has been on hiatus for years and it's about to
come back, and it's going to be the biggest thing
in the world at the end of this year, and
he'll be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
What do we think?
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Oh, I'm so into minds about it. On the one hand, okay,
so she wrote this in ten days the month that
they split, and as you say, Holly, they didn't split
two or three years ago, they split five minutes ago, really,
and so feels very fresh, doesn't it, Yes, which is
the appeal.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
That's kind of what you want.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Like, it's kind of boring hearing someone talk about a
breakup that they've processed.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, the unprocessed drivel.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
The reviews have been really split too. I think some
people have said it's a bit sad, and some people,
like Variety said it was a stunner.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
That was the word they used.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think the album's great by the way I've listened.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
They made the point that it's really different from past
like divorce breakup albums like think of Beyonce's Lemonade, which
was also a surprise drop, or Taylor's The Torture Poet's Department,
or a Gel's thirty and it says what's really different
about this is that usually the artist is speaking from
a place of like but everything's fine, now we've sorted
it all out like that was very much Beyonce, very
(41:14):
much Taylor their mos with their breakup albums. But this
is very much still in it. It's very much still
riding from the wound, not the scar very much, which.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Like the best art, lies in its specificity, right, we
need the specific.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
The tie, the handles are tied on, the plastic bag.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Always know about the butt plug because imagery.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Right, And I think could he not have used a
reusable tope bag when he went to buy all these things?
Speaker 6 (41:41):
Really?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
The thing is is that I find it quite fresh,
even though I think there's no question it's a one
sided hit job. I'm sure he has a version of
this story, right, I'm sure he does. I'm sure he
doesn't come off particularly well in that either. But you know,
I'm sure he has his issues with Lily Allen. But
there's something fresh about a woman writing about this, the
idea that she was trying to be cool with it.
She was trying to be, as she writes, I was
(42:05):
trying to be the modern wife. You know, I knew
you wanted like Madonna whare and you've kind of put
me in the Madonna bit but I can be like,
she's trying hard, and she's been talking in the interviews
about how dating apps have changed everything about marriages. She
might have met him on RAYA, but also he had
endless options in his pocket all the time. So I
love the freshness of hearing all that explored. And I
(42:26):
also think you would be so mad with this guy
because I just need to read you a quote that
he said about her and why he decided to marry her. Okay,
he was talking about her kids and he says, the
little one was riding along and she was going like David, Dad, David,
because the d got her confused, and the older one
got very upset, and she was like, he's not our dad.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
He's not our dad. The younger one goes, well, what
is he? Then?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
And I was like, I need to marry this woman
because the emotional fallout would be terrible. How mad would
you be with that guy who was like, laud you
into like, I mean, okay, you'd have to probably, as
you say.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
A protector, a savior.
Speaker 6 (43:01):
Yeah, then he screws you over when you're like, I
am good. I mean, if her side of the story
is to be believed.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I had to say the Architectural Digest video. I submit
that as evidence. That came out in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
Three, so two years ago.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
So it sounds like, according to the chronology that you've
laid out for us, the open marriage was already ineffected
by that point, and she seems so ill at ease
with him, and there are so many moments where he
demeans her through jokes. Basically, There's one point where he
criticizes her for how much money he's had to spend
on her giant wardrobe. There's another moment where they talk
(43:36):
about how they have a sofa. It's a double backed
sofa so that after they've argued, they don't have to
sit next to each other. There's so many parts of
it where, looking back in retrospect, you think this dynamic
is really off.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
I did want to mention also that she's forty.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I think that's really significant because both with say Lemonade
and Torture Poets Department, these were written by women in
their thirties. Adele's thirty, unsurprisingly was written by a woman
younger than Lily Allen. And there's something about turning forty
that I can almost hear in this album. There's a
sense of like I don't need to pretend everything's perfect anymore.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
Although obviously he gets whacked hard in this album, it's
also very self reflectively sad. There's a song on there
called Relapse, because she's famously had a lot of issues
with drugs and she's sober, living a sober life, and
shows it's easier to do in America because the culture's
in place in a way that it isn't really in England.
And there's a song on there called Relapse where she
talks about how going through all this, how much she
(44:33):
wants to drink or take pills, but if she does,
she knows she'll lose her kids. Like it's a very
raw acc and there's something to be respected about that,
but it also kind of makes me envisioned a dog
who rolls over and shows their tummy, because there's also
something very vulnerable about that, like you're going to get
attacked for being this honest, like you just are you.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
It's the antithesis, though, to the PR crisis.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Notes written by in a notes.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
App checked by both lawyers, a whole lot of words
that mean absolutely nothing. I think that's why it's quite
there's something very refreshing about it.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
I think you should go listen. Well, Lily's a legend
in my eyes. I I hope she finds happiness. A
massive thank you out loud as to all of you
for listening to today's show and to our fabulous team
for putting it all together. Don't forget you can also
watch us on YouTube. We're going to be back in
your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
God Bye.
Speaker 6 (45:32):
Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you
love the show and you want to support us, subscribing
to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it.
There's a link in the episode description.
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