May 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Joe Biden’s latest health scare has sparked a reckoning—and it’s raising big questions about what happens when compassion clashes with a potential cover-up.
Also, have we all forgotten something about Tom Cruise... AKA the Last Real Movie Star? We're here to remind you.
And in today’s group chat — the woman with heels in her tote, the couple not speaking at dinner, the Strava-obsessed show-off... Be honest. Which woman did you swear you’d never become?
Put your best listening ears on because Mia, Jessie and Holly unpack all this—and a whole lot more—on today's show. 🍿
What To Listen To Next:
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- Listen: The Most Mocked Woman In The World
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- Listen: The Mushroom Trial Details We Can't Stop Thinking About
What to read:
- There's still an insatiable interest in Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's divorce. This story proves it.
- Katie Holmes has never been able to say what happened to her. But we're starting to find out.
- Tom Cruise hadn't spoken about Nicole Kidman in over 20 years. He just made a rare comment about her.
- Tom Cruise finally found someone who wants to jump out of a plane with him. Romantically.
- The 4 stages of dating Tom Cruise.
- 'I've been using Ozempic for 5 months... and the haters were right.'
- Inside the growing trend of Ozempic 'microdosing'.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on the.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Product had notes of geranium. Is that a flower? Yes,
yes it is citrusy Berger Mott Yes, Seda Absolute, Cedar, Ceda, Absolute,
Mask Rose and Mask Demid Right, Jesse, I know I
never said words before out loud.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
We know.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud what women are actually
talking about On Wednesday, the twenty first of May. I'm
Holly Wainwright, I'm Meya Friedman.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I'm Jesse Stevens and Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We are going to be seeing you tomorrow night for
the last show of our twenty twenty five tour and
we are excited. But on today's show, when compassion bumps
into cover up the reckoning over Joe Biden's health, Tom
and Nicole, Tom and Katie and the man often called
the last great movie star remains one of our Roman
(01:14):
Empire obsessions. Why and the woman with heels in her bag,
the couple not talking at the restaurant, and the woman
who can't shut up about her early morning polates class.
Who is the woman you always told yourself you wouldn't
become but first Mia Friedman.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In case you missed it, the new Liberal leader, Susan Lay,
has had the most intense week of her life. First
she got a new job as opposition leader, then her
mother died, and now her coalition partner of eighty years,
the National Party has broken up with her, saying it's
not us, it's you. Now. The Nationals focus on rural
(01:48):
and regional Australia, and Holly is our regional correspondence, so
please explain to us why did they break up.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The Nationals do say that they are laser focused on
representing the nine million Aussies who do not live in
a capital city. Right, And this is a big problem
for the Libs because capital cities are who threw them
out this election. So the Liberals no longer have anyone
voting for them in the capital cities and they want
to win them back. So the Libs are kind of
like you. Nationals are like our country cousins who are
(02:17):
making us appear a little bit daggy in front of
all the cool city people.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So the Libs are saying, so can you change a bit,
like can you have a bit of a makeover so
that we could appeal to those city people, and the
Nationals are saying, but hold on, we won all our seats,
so why should we change when people like us like
we are. It's you guys who lost. It's not us,
it's you. That's kind of what has happened.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
What I want to know is what the impact of
this is going to be, because this is one of
the longest standing I think it is the longest standing
political coalition in the world. This isn't the first time
that they've split, although it's been very short term when
they've split in the past.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Nineteen eighty seven they had a little break like Ross
and Rachel, and they think they did got.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Back together, which is lovely. But does this mean that
the Liberal Party would be moving more sort of centrist
because the Nationals are often positioned as being a bit
more conservative than the Liberals.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Right, the Nationals have said that in this big reckoning
that the Libs are having, they want to hold on
to some of the things they took to the Parliament,
notably nuclear power, right, the commitment to nuclear power, and
the Libs have realized that that's on the nose. So yes,
the Libs have got to remake themselves to make themselves
look sexy and the nats they think are holding them
back a bit. But to MEA's point about Ross and Rachel,
(03:38):
a lot of people are saying this is just a break,
it is not a divorce, because neither of these parties
can ever get back into Parliament without each other, so
this might be a little bit. Let's pretend we've broken
up during the relaunch phase, but before the wedding, we
might just get back together.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I wonder if they might have a little rebound with
Clive Palmer's party or pull In Hanson's party in.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Case you missed it. The main streaming of medical weight loss,
including gpl on drugs like ozempic, we go vi, monduro
become more and more common, might also bring down the
price of airline tickets. Apparently, this is kind of interesting
to think about. The collective human weight of a plane
(04:21):
accounts for about twenty five percent of the costs for
the airline because obviously the heavier the plane, the more
fuel you need. That's why they weigh our bags, that's
why they have limits on what you can take on board,
et cetera, et cetera, and so generally the thinking is
if people weigh less because as a culture, as a
widespread phenomena, people are losing weight because of these drugs,
(04:44):
it could cost less to fly a plane. United Airlines
in the States estimate if the average passenger weight drops
by about five kilos, United Airlines could save twenty seven
million gallons of fuel per year and save about eighty
million dollars. Now, of course, we know that companies don't
(05:04):
always pass on save costs to consumers, so we might
be a bit suspicious of this idea. Suddenly everything's going
to get cheaper. But is this just a sign of
just how widespread the effects could be of these so
called miracle drugs.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You know, this is interesting. It's talking about the consequences
and the knock on effects that people might have not considered.
Some of the others is just a change in spending
and behavior. So, for example, one of the effects of
these golp one drugs for a lot of people is
that they've got less desire to drink alcohol and even
do things like bite their nails or shop compulsively, some
(05:40):
of the things that these drugs inhibit. And so already
they're seeing a reduction in the basket size in a
lot of grocery stores, particularly in America, that they're putting
down to this. Even things like gambling, all of those
kind of impulses are said to be reduced by golp one.
(06:00):
So we don't yet know what the knock on effects
of all of those things are going to be.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The question of how a society and culture changes. I
mean the predictions that half of say a UK or
a US or an Australian population could be on these drugs,
So the question of how that impacts how a society
arranges itself is fascinating. One I've read about is reduced
sick days, because we know that everything from blood pressure
(06:26):
to heart disease to obviously the diabetes impact. People are saying,
if health is improved, then you've got less sick days
for people. The other is how gyms are being rearranged.
So there is an enormous focus on building muscle, because
if you are on these drugs then it can have
(06:47):
an impact on your muscle. So rather than having we've
spoken about this on the show before ten years ago,
the cardio floor was full of women on treadmills. Now
it looks like a lot of gyms are going to
have to reorganize themselves so that their strength and weight
flaws are more of a focus. And there are personal
trainers and programs that focus on people who are on
(07:07):
these drugs and need to do particular exercises. And the
other thing is the impact on social and family lives.
There was an article in the Telegraph UK about you
know what happens when the dinner table? Isn't this focus
in family life because maybe some people aren't particularly interested
(07:30):
in food anymore. I did hear someone say, remember Yohn
Hari wrote a book he talked about how it changed
him some of these drugs, And I heard someone ask recently,
what is the impact if half a population has been
dealing with some emotional issues through food, which we know
(07:52):
that's not for everyone, but for some people that is
a crutch. Where does that go? Because for yo Han Hari,
he said that he was confronted with a lot of
psychological issues that he hadn't explored before because he was
able to cover them with emotional eating. So we just
find it fascinating to think what the world might look
(08:12):
like in five or ten years when a drug takes
over a population.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And obviously we are not recommending anyone takes these drugs
or doesn't take these drugs. That's a conversation for you
and your doctor.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Over the weekend, a spokesman for former President Joe Biden
announced that the eighty two year old had been diagnosed
with aggressive prostate cancer. In a statement, his office said
he had been having increasing urinary symptoms and was last
week seen by doctors there. He was diagnosed with prostate
cancer and the cancer cells have spread it to the bone. Now,
(08:48):
prostate cancer is something you might often hear men die
with rather than of. It is highly survivable, with about
one in six men being diagnosed in their lifetime. But
it is also the second leading cause of cancer death
in men. And there's a scale called the Gleason Scale
when it comes to prostate cancer, and it ranges from
six to ten in severity, and Biden's cancer sits at
(09:10):
a nine. That's why it's being described as aggressive. President
Donald Trump expressed his sympathy for Biden, but then went
on to cast doubt about the timing of his advanced
cancer diagnosis. Here are some of what he said.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I think it's very sad. Actually, I'm surprised that it
wasn't you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago,
because they get to stage nine. That's a long time.
So it's a look, it's a very very sad situation.
I feel very badly about it, and I think people
should try and find out what happened, because I'll tell
you the Walt I don't know if it had anything
to do with the hospital. Walter Reader is really good.
(09:47):
They're some of the best doctors I've ever seen. I
don't even know if they were involved, but a doctor
was involved in each case. Maybe it was the same doctor.
And somebody is not telling the facts. That's a big problem.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But Trump isn't the only one inviting speculation on Biden's health.
A book is about to be released called Original Sin.
It's all about the alleged cover up of Biden's physical
and mental deterioration by his inner circle. And there's a
story in there about him not recognizing George Clooney, who
was not only a very longtime friend decades and decades
their relationship had gone on major donor to the Democrats,
(10:23):
but he is also George Clooney. Maya, how much of
this is a conspiracy theory that serves the Republican Party,
and how much of it is about legitimate political reporting.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I think it's both, and I think it's so sad.
And I've been reading a few excerpts of this book
that's coming out, co authored by Jack Tapper, who's a
CNN reporter and who was actually one of the moderators
on that debate where Biden was so catastrophically revealed his
(10:56):
decline in that first debate against Trump, and he sort
of never recovered from that, held on for sort of
three weeks, but then had to leave. And when this
news broke, I thought, Oh, that's going to make that conversation,
which I think is a really legitimate conversation about whether
the Democratic Party and particularly those close to Biden covered
(11:17):
up his decline and kept it from the public. That
conversation won't be able to be had now because it's
incredibly awkward and the timing is awful, and it seems
really insensitive. That grab from Trump was really indicative of
the mood where it starts, everyone's like thoughts and prayers.
This is tragic to a man who's experienced so much tragedy.
You know, he lost his baby daughter and his first
(11:39):
wife in a car accident, and his eldest son to
a brain tumor a number of years ago. His surviving
two children spiraled into drug addiction. But it's very quickly
given way to this actually reinforcing the idea that there's
been a cover up, because you know Trump, you'll be
shocked to him he spoke when he said stage nine.
(12:00):
There's no stage nine, but he was talking about the
Gleason scale. And it's true. There are tests that can
pick up prostate cancer much much earlier blood tests and
more regular exams. And that suggests that either he's known
for a really long time, or he wasn't attending to
his physical health and perhaps not looking after himself in
the way that we would have been led to expect.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Is there any suggestion that the announcement is to do
with those books because this conversation about cover up, and
I listened to interviews with the authors of those books
just recently. In the lead up to those coming out,
because obviously the Bidens knew they were coming out, they
went and did some carefully choreographed press appearances. They went
on a daytime show, Jill and Joe Show's not Jill
(12:43):
and Joe. Jill and Joe went on the daytime show
and it didn't really help them very much. But apparently
the Biden camp are absolutely furious about these books and
this reporting and feel furious about it. So is the
conspiracy going as far as to say that maybe the
cancer diagnosis has been known for a long time, but
(13:04):
it's been pulled out to hopefully dull the impact of
these books. Is anyone saying that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, of course, yes, of course, and we don't know.
The truth is we don't know, and there has been
You're right, an aggressive campaign by the Biden family. They're
fighting for his legacy. Now, Yeah, will he go down
as the president who beat Trump or the president who
allowed Trump to come back into office because he's stubbornly
(13:29):
held on and shouldn't have even been running for reelection
because he was too old.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It feels really cruel in a way that this is
all happening at once, Right.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It's difficult when you've got a reckoning happening in the
Democrats within the Democratic Party, which needed to happen and
which there was. Remember the open letter that George Clooney
wrote saying Joe Biden is a friend of mine, but
he needs to step down as reclined was a part
of that reckoning and that is justified, and it's also
(13:59):
about making the Democrats better and stronger. But that is
being weaponized, as often happens when you know, you try
and do legitimate analysis actors who are coming in and
sort of suggesting that it's more of a conspiracy theory
and actually Jill Biden is responsible for elder abuse, which
(14:22):
is what someone in Trump's camp has actually said. Donald
Trump Junior has said that it's yet another cover up,
and he shared an old video. I must say that
this old video feels somewhat relevant in this moment. It's
from twenty twenty two, and Biden is talking about environmental
pollution and he concludes, that's why I and so many
(14:43):
other people I grew up with have cancer. And at
the time some people said, oh, has he misspoken. Biden's
camp came out and said he was talking about skin
cancers because he'd gotten skin cancers removed. There is a
world in which Biden knew he had prostate cancer. Then
I know lots of men with prostate cancer who are
not worried about it because it's something that you can
(15:05):
live with. Right, If he did have prostate cancer in
twenty twenty two and it was looking all right. He
was getting appropriate treatment. Do we think it was entirely
relevant or necessary for us to know about it? What
do you guys think?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah? I do, because they've got issues in America with
their whole political system. They have a flaw age limit.
You can't run for president unless you're thirty five or older,
because they acknowledge that cognitively and from a life experience
point of view, a certain amount of life experience and
maturity is required to be the president. But a huge
(15:44):
number of members of Congress are over eighty. Trump is
the oldest president that we have. The fact that Biden
he was really pushing it when he ran against Trump,
and it was great that he won, but he always
said at the time that he would just be a
bridge to a new generation. And then he decided that
he wasn't and that he could do it. And you know,
(16:05):
Jake Tappa, the author of this book, is not a hack.
He's not partisan. He's a proper reporter. And I think
that just because Trump is awful doesn't mean that the
Democrats were not doing some really bad things. Not all
of the Democrats, but the ones who covered up his declining.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Health prostate cancer doesn't impact your cognitive ability, and there's
this strange thing that happens.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
They're two different things.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
No, No, the whole argument is that he was not
fit to run, that he was not in physical and
mental health, that he was too old.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And in the US there's this bizarre thing that happens
that happened just last month with Trump, which is a
public medical examination where for some reason we get access
to how much they weigh to heart to liver. For
some reason, I know that Donald Trump has a benign
colon polyp and his doctor has come out and said, yep,
(16:58):
in great health, wonderful. And I think that this has
something to do with his frequent victories in golf events.
So in a way, this has been a joke. This
medical examination, which is your own doctor or whatever, has
kind of been sent up for a little while. Holly,
do you think it's relevant the prostate cancer thing or
is it the cover up?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think MEA's point is correct. I think it's relevant broadly.
It's really interesting. You know, the way that this is
all rolling out is in some ways it's like an
act of self harm for the Democrats, because they should
be looking forward, not back. Right, they should really be
doing that. Every single piece of energy in any anti
Trump campaign should be well, who is the next guy
(17:41):
or woman, who is the next person who is going
to do this? And where are we going to find them?
And how are we going to avoid all the mistakes
that were made last year with the rush on bringing
kum Alla through. But the other thing I keep thinking
because Biden and I can't help but feel I know
how flawed its whole process was, but very sorry for
them because, as Mia says, they're fighting for his legacy
(18:02):
now when he does die, not necessarily because of this,
but he will one day. His whole legacy of life's
work and public work has been massively tainted. But I
think there's something else at play, which is it's time
for the old guard of the Democratic Party to step aside. Right, Clinton's, Obama's, Biden's,
all of them. They are held up as royalty within
the party. They have an enormous amount of influence still
(18:24):
within the party, and they've got to go, and a
new guard's got to come in. And very often what
a new guard needs to do to set the tone
is to set everything on fire. Right, It's kind of
a little bit similar to what's happening here with the
Libs at the moment is a lot of the conversations
around the soul searching that the Liberal Party needs to
do is decouple from always talking about the golden era
of Howard and Costello Menzies, God knows what it's got
(18:48):
to be now and looking forward. And I kind of
feel like it's almost like part of the process to
tear down the idols of the past, and Biden through
all these personal stories is definitely being torn down at
the moment.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
And what's being lost in that, maybe I think lost
in a lot of the reporting is any cancer diagnosis
is really so and really scarin as you say me
out Jill and Joe Biden lost a son to a
brain tumor, and I wouldn't wish a cancer diagnosis on
my worst enemy. So it is really really sad and
(19:23):
regardless of timing or what they did and didn't say.
And maybe I come from an Australian sensibility of feeling
like medical information is private. It's funny thinking like when
do you need to announce it? When do people deserve
to know if our prime minister had a cancer diagnosis?
Do we need to know within ours do we need
to know within weeks? Like I think it's an interesting
thing to wrestle with because I'm not sure I'm really
(19:46):
decided on the answer, but I do see something a
little bit private about health diagnoses and dealing with it
in your own time.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
In a moment, we have some breaking genital news. We
finally have the origin story behind Gwyneth Paltrow's candle called
this Smells Like My Vagina.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
You know, that product is so fascinating because we were
messing around with different Sense one day and I smelled
something and I was like, oh, that smells like you know.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I was joking, and then he was like.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Oh, we should make that a candle and put it
on the site, and I thought he was kidding and
I was like, yeah, definitely, that's that sounds like a
winner right there. And then all of a sudden it
was literally on the website, and then we broke the
internet again, and then it took us a long time
(20:39):
to live that one down. But I kept it on
the site because there is an aspect to women's sexuality
that I think we're socialized to feel a lot of shame,
and I sort of loved this kind of punk rock
idea we are beautiful and we are awesome and go
fuck yourself.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That was my friend Gwyneth Paltrow at her best, talking
at the gloriously named Mind Valley manifesting summits at the
weekend about how it came to be that a candle
smelling like her who ha ended up on Goop next
to hambags that cost twenty three thousand dollars and four
hundred dollars hair brushes. Very sadly that candle no longer exists,
(21:25):
and the fact that I will go to my grave
not knowing what Gwyned's lady parts smell like is a
source of great sadness to me. Mia was this business genius.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
We'll never say never whole there's still tying it's true. Yeah,
it was so smart. It was so smart. I mean,
Gwyneth has been clever in that way that she just
knows how to poke at the culture and living in
an attention economy. That was a pretty out there thing
for her to do, especially since the candle was not
just called this smells like a vagina. It was called
(21:56):
this smells like my vagina.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Do you want to know what notes it had?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I do.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yeah, maybe you could go into your garden and we
couldn't make it. We could have a little crafty.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So tuna and salmon.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Stop it, may I think you should go to the doctor.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
The product had notes of geranium. Is that a flower?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Okay, citrusy burgher mootte yes, citrus okay, seda absolute cedar okay,
woody woody. That's not how I describe my vagina, mask
rose and mask dems.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Right, Jesse, I said words before.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
No, I haven't and something called ambrit seed.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh nice, No salt. I thought there might be a
little salt in there that might just be me and
my salt.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
And have you ever.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Heard words come out of your mouth that made you wonder?
Who the hell have I become? Jesse sent a link
in our group chat around this week to a story
called I Swore I'd never be that woman, and it
was by Victoria de la Fuente, and she wrote about
this exact thing. She said, I used to look at
couples bickering in grocery stores, Mum's hissing at dad's about
(23:09):
forgetting the wipes or picking the wrong yogurt, and think
to myself, God, I never want to become that woman,
you know, the one, the one with a sharp tone,
the dead eyes, the sigh that says I've explained this
four hundred times and you still don't get it. And
yet here I am, mouth tight, eyes twitching, whisper, screaming
across the kitchen island. How do you not know where
(23:32):
the baby's pajamas are? We've lived here for five years? Jesse,
what comes out of your mouth? Like? Why could you
relate to this?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I felt so seen. And I think when we all
accept that we're gonna all become the woman that we
swore we would never become.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Is this just code for our mothers?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I think it's code for our mothers. Yes, I think
it is a little bit code for our mothers. But
I think we've become more generous to other women when
we accept that we are evolving and a work in progress.
We in the live shows that we've been doing, there's
a segment where we talk about the trope of the
busy working mum, talking about how as a teenager I
(24:12):
remembered walking to school backpack on to the train station
and seeing women in like a two piece business suit
with socks and runners on, and I just thought, how
could you have such little pride that you would ruin
an outfit like that and wear your runners with your
heels in your bag or something. Have you no dignity?
(24:33):
Where must you be in the judgment that was forming
in my fourteen year old brain.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And now here you are flying around the country with
a cameltoe.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Exactly how long did it take me to become the
woman who needs to wear my comfortable shoes wherever I'm
going because we need arch support and we need, you know,
to make sure that our ankles are in a good way,
and wearing heels is never a good idea. I think
it happened so much throughout our lives. I also, you know,
I remember being younger and leaving the house was like,
(25:05):
you know, you'd do your hair a bit and you'd
put on a bit of makeup. Since become a a mom,
my threshold for leaving the house is, oh my god.
The out louders who see me in public must wonder
if I'm doing okay. It's dirty clothes. It's often it'll
get to four pm and I'll think I haven't looked
in the mirror today, Like I don't know if I
(25:26):
have food on my face. I have no idea who
would be staring back at me. I swore I would
not become the woman who had no pride in my appearance.
But it has happened very very quickly. How about you, Holly?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Oh my god. Yes, I was thinking about this. And
when I was young, young, like late teens, early twenties,
I was so judgmental when I think about it now. Well,
for a start, I was very unhealthy. So I remember
being about twenty, and I swore I would never be
a person who gave up smoking because I really liked
and valued people who prioritize pleasure overboring things like health. Yep, yeah,
that's something that doesn't last very long in relationships. I
(26:01):
swore I would never be a woman who'd say no
to morning sex because I was worried about being late
for work. Oh like, can you imagine I used to
be like a mud saying no because I've got a meeting.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You imagine Holly coming late to a morning meeting and
we're like, Holly, what have you been doing? What my
morning sets?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And I used to say I would never be the
kind of person who would get up and brush their
teeth before kissing the person in bed with them. I
used to be so judgmental about that. I'm like, you
should be so into each other and passionate and accepting
of all of yourselves. Like I was so judgmental about
those kind of things, and I definitely said I'd never
be a gardener, a morning exerciser, a bed before midnight person,
(26:41):
like just all the things that, of course I am,
because you evolve and you were an idiot when you
were young. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Well it's interesting. I mean they say that you get
more conservative as you get older and the things that
horrify me. So to me, it's not necessarily being like
my mother, but it's just becoming older, like an older woman.
Like when I used to be rushing my kids and
I'd say, quick sticks, quick.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Sticks, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And things like I'll be driving and I'll see schoolgirls
and I'll be like, oh that skirts too short?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, yeah, I reckon that parenting is an exercise in
becoming the woman you swore you never would, or becoming
the mother you swore you never would.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I just think it's getting older, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I mean, it's even just mothering.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Because no, no, no, it's not just mothering, that there
is something that happens, because I think you can be idealistic.
You are so naive in your early stages, and I
remember I would look around before I had lunar and think,
I will never be the mother who brings her child
out covered in snot food, all over the face into
tu tu Like, don't you realize that your child looks unhinged?
(27:49):
And now I'm like, honestly, maybe your threshold for giving
a shit what people think about you just gets lower
and lower until you, yeah, you just have no standards.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Well, that's true because as your estrogen drops. Estrogen is
the approval hormone, so you do care less what people think.
But then at the same time, I'm more judgment like
I care that's what people think about me, but I
care more about other people and what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I think it's just as your reality shifts, like you know,
of course you could have those opinions about moms with
their two tuos, and that's not when that wasn't your world,
but that is your world, and suddenly you understand you know, yeah,
I certainly thought I would never be kind of sellout
who promoted themselves on the internet. Oh that's all I do.
I never thought i'd get botox. Remember that I know
(28:37):
we change. Let's celebrate changing and growing friends.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
The out louders had some examples of the woman they
swore they'd never become. One said, I swore I would
never be a kitchen gadget girl. But me and my
air fryer are in a committed relationship. That's me and
my thermo mix. I swore I would never get obsessed
with cooking, but you do. I swore I would never
wear tracksuit pants or ug boots outside my own home.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Oh love.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I swore I'd never be the woman who complained about
her kids or husband. Why would you swear that? I
swore i'd never look through my partner's texts, and I do.
And the last one. I swore I'd never swear in
front of my kids. But my Toddley uses fuck in
the right context. So I don't know whether to be
mortified or.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Proud proud after the break, Tom and Nicole, Tom and Caty,
Tom and Us. Why is the biggest movie star in
the world completely uncancellable?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Do you want daily Outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
dropped episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, exclusively from Mum of MEA.
Subscribers follow the link in the show notes to get
us in your ears five days a week, and a
huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Last week, despite all I know about celebrity news and
media and clickbait, I almost broke my thumb clicking on
a story that declared Tom Cruise makes rare comments about
Nicole Kidman and I wasn't the only one, because that
story appeared in about a million places, And yet when
you clicked surprise, surprise, Cruise had said next to nothing.
(30:05):
He'd made a very oblique reference about the time he
and Kidman were in London filming Eyes Wide Shut, and
that was enough for the breathless headlines to travel around
the world. Because the whole Tom Nicole love story and
divorce story is still almost thirty years on one of
the enduring obsessions of gen X pop culture. It's also
(30:27):
twenty years this week since Tom Cruise jumped on a
couch on the Oprah Winfrey Show to profess his love
for his next wife, Katie Holmes, and then their wedding,
their baby. Their divorce story is another complete obsession. None
of the scandal attached to those stories, or his very
controversial religious affiliation with scientology, or the fact that he
(30:49):
can be narki, shall we say, with journalists who don't
follow his script have dented his appeal at the box office.
This week, Cruz opened probably the last massive movie of
his career, maybe one of the last massive movies in
a way, the final installment of Mission Impossible, and with
his trademark commitment, he's selling the shit out of it.
He is every screen you look at. He's being charming
(31:12):
in every format. He's everywhere. He's jumping on a plane,
he's jumping on a train, He's waving to all the journos.
He is the last great movie star getting bums on seats.
What is it with our obsession of Tom Cruise and
why despite all the scandals that have followed him, does
he appear to be teflon Mia.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Well, many people say he's the last great movie star
and he's the only thing that's saving Hollywood because he's
so passionate about movies and about getting people out to
movies and supporting the industry and making sure that the
craft of movie making is not lost in this digital era.
(31:55):
Even the people that he's really pissed off, like Steven Spielberg,
who he worked with in War of the Worlds, and
that was the press tool where he imploded and he
attacked Brookshields for having medication, for having postnatored depression. He
attacked Matt Lauer, he jumped on couches, He just started
proselytizing about scientology, and he became sort of came across
(32:17):
as quite unhinged, and apparently on the set of War
of the World he insists on having a scientology tent,
and he was really difficult on the set, and basically
his whole scientology jag in that press tour really tanked
the movie. So Steven Spielberg apparently hasn't really spoken to
him for the last twenty years. But when he bumped
into him in some awards ceremony things last year, he
(32:40):
reportedly said, you've saved us. You know, you've saved the movies.
Like grudgingly, perhaps, but everyone acknowledges that even amongst young people,
this guy who's in his sixties who insists on doing
all of his own stunts is still this sort of
icon of Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
There are a few things about Tom Cruise. The first
is that he is an outstanding actor. He is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
He's great at being Tom Cruise, isn't he Well yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, But I also think more of the world's Vanilla Sky,
Like there are these movies that you watch and he
is so arresting and mesmerizing as an actor. So he's
brilliant at what he does. That's the first thing. The
second thing is that he has had run ins with journalists.
That's a really good point, Holly. But some friends that
I have in media, I often ask them, friends who
(33:31):
interview a lot of celebrities, and I say, who's the
most likable, best celebrity interview you've ever done? And so
many of them say, Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
He understands the job right, he understands what's required.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
He is ridiculously charismatic and friendly, and he can turn
it on. I also wonder if Scientology it being powerful.
I suppose it's been subject to a lot of criticism,
but as an organization, it is worth an estimated two
billion dollars, right, It's incredibly wealthy and it has a
lot of resources, and I think that that has helped
(34:05):
in either covering up a few things that happened in
Tom Cruise's past, because the fact he hasn't been canceled,
like the Brookshields comment sucked. That wasn't a good comment.
He did apologize for it to Brookshields.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
She says it was part of a whole thing that
he had going on at the time. Toma's point about
this era when he was just all the time, instead
of talking about the movies, he was telling everyone how
to live their lives. Medication was bad. The only people
who could save anyone in a disaster, with scientologists at
a certain level, you know, psychiatrists are evil, all of
this stuff. I feel like he went through that and
(34:41):
he learned his lesson to shut the fuck up.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I wonder too, if the public has been able to
see scientology as something distinct from Tom Cruise. And by
that I mean I think there's a bit of feeling
sorry for him. I reckon that there's a sense that
scientology got its clause into Tom Cruise. He's now become
this poster boy he can't really leave. We know that
(35:04):
he doesn't really have a relationship with the child that
he had with Katie Holmes, So I wonder if that way,
it's like we don't see him as much as like
sort of a perpetrator, but more as a victim. Do
you think that's fair?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Oh my gosh, I don't think of him as a
victim at all. I really don't. I see him as
a king of the world type always what I wonder,
because I don't know if women love Tom Cruise, we
should prosecute this a bit because one of the reasons
why he can open movies massively is the appeal is
everybody right, it's mass it's men, it's women, it's girls,
(35:37):
it's but like you look at something like Top Grund,
Maverick or Mission Impossible. These are huge movies that are
just stuff that people like, you know what I mean.
He goes hard on populism. He's stopped telling everyone how
to live their lives. But women. When you think about
his history, it's definitely ickworthy. Right. There was the silent
birth with Katie Holmes, to remember that they were very
(35:59):
open about that at the time she spoke about it.
There was the divorce from Kidman, where she very much
appears to have been muzzled, which is why we'll never
really know. There's the questionable relationship with his children. There's
the Brookshields post aatal depressions, in a thing. These are
things that generally women will get an ick from, even
if they don't think you're like an abuser or a perpetrator,
they'll be like, not my guy. But he seems to
(36:23):
be able to ride that out. Do you have a
theory on it, Mia.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I don't. What he is is very well controlled. He
doesn't play the game in the same way that a
lot of celebrities do. Like the fact that no one
has really asked about Suri Cruz and his relationship with
the child he was so obsessed with. He hired an
ultrasound He bought an ultrasound machine so that when Katie
Holmes was pregnant he could look at Suri twenty four
(36:48):
seven if he wanted to. He's never asked about that
kind of stuff. It's like that there's a generation of
celebrities like Nicole Kidman ironically, who is called mother by
jen Z, who they just think she's iconic, and they
sort of don't hold them to the same I guess
woke or accountability standards as younger celebrities like maybe Timothy
(37:10):
Schallamet or Zendaya or you know, Jenna Otaga, And I
think that's kind of it like Tom Cruise is almost
like he's so cute, you know what I mean, Like
they almost think of him as cute, like a granddad.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Controlled is an interesting descriptor because Scientology, which is just
I think he's marriage to Katie Holmes or Nicole Kidman
or whoever it was. David Misscavige was his best man,
and David Misscavage is basically the head of Scientology. Now,
David's wife, Shelley has gone missing decades ago, has just
(37:43):
gone missing, and people in the scientology community say there
are allegations that she was killed, or that she's in hiding,
or that she's locked up, like lots and lots of conspiracy.
But there is something really unknowable about what happened there.
And I've watched a bunch of documentaries and stuff on
Scientology because I find it endlessly fascinating. But part of
(38:04):
what they do in their process is you sit there
and then there are allegations that, you know, you talk
about the worst things that you've ever done, which makes
you very vulnerable to leaving when public perception and your
image is so important to your career.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
But he's all in on Scientology, like he's essentially the
two ice to David MSUs Cabbage. Here's scientology royalty, and
so are his two children, his first two children with
Nicole Kidman, who she hasn't seen for many many years
reportedly and is estranged from because they've you know, sided
with Tom in that custody dispute when you know she
(38:42):
decided that she didn't want to be part of the church,
same with Katie Holmes. So I don't think he's trapped.
I think that he's all in.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I think you hit the nail on the head the
Miya when you said he's held to a different standard,
whether it's because of his generation or whether it's because
of his success, his phenomenal success and the kind of
movies he makes. Now we talk about all the time
on the show How on TikTok, a female celebrity just
has to look sideways funny at somebody and she's a
terrible person, you know, like, oh, we can see who
(39:13):
you really are. You must be a bad person. We
don't know if we want to see your movies anymore.
Whereas Tom Cruise has done some literally deeply questionable things
and admitted them and spoken openly about them. But it's
like crazy old dude, bit of a grandpa, but he's
very entertaining because he stopped making those serious movies that
he made for a while ages ago and just played
(39:34):
to his strength. Then he's nailing it. That's all we've
got time for today. A massive thank you to all
of you out louders for listening to today's show and
to our fabulous team for putting it together. Melbourne out Louders,
we will see you tomorrow and we will be back
in your ears tomorrow too.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Bye bye, out Louders. We have a quick exciting announcement.
Mom Mayer out Loud is celebrating a major milestone this year,
ten years as Australia's number one women's podcast, and right now,
as a bit of a gift to you all, we're
taking thirty percent off yearly. Mumma mea subscription with the
discount code ten years ten as in the numbers one
(40:14):
oh years. This gives you full access to all the
stories and shows that you love from us, including our
episode yesterday where we unpacked. Whether subscribing to OnlyFans is
considered cheating, we had lots of thoughts on that one.
Plus subscribing also means that you get unlimited access to
our exercise app Moves. This offer is for limited time only,
(40:37):
so head to the link in our show notes for
all the details asap.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Shout out to Emmie 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 Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on the.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Product had notes of geranium. Is that a flower? Yes,
yes it is citrusy Berger Mott Yes, Seda Absolute, Cedar, Ceda, Absolute,
Mask Rose and Mask Demid Right, Jesse, I know I
never said words before out loud.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
We know.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud what women are actually
talking about On Wednesday, the twenty first of May. I'm
Holly Wainwright, I'm Meya Friedman.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I'm Jesse Stevens and Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We are going to be seeing you tomorrow night for
the last show of our twenty twenty five tour and
we are excited. But on today's show, when compassion bumps
into cover up the reckoning over Joe Biden's health, Tom
and Nicole, Tom and Katie and the man often called
the last great movie star remains one of our Roman
(01:14):
Empire obsessions. Why and the woman with heels in her bag,
the couple not talking at the restaurant, and the woman
who can't shut up about her early morning polates class.
Who is the woman you always told yourself you wouldn't
become but first Mia Friedman.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In case you missed it, the new Liberal leader, Susan Lay,
has had the most intense week of her life. First
she got a new job as opposition leader, then her
mother died, and now her coalition partner of eighty years,
the National Party has broken up with her, saying it's
not us, it's you. Now. The Nationals focus on rural
(01:48):
and regional Australia, and Holly is our regional correspondence, so
please explain to us why did they break up.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
The Nationals do say that they are laser focused on
representing the nine million Aussies who do not live in
a capital city. Right, And this is a big problem
for the Libs because capital cities are who threw them
out this election. So the Liberals no longer have anyone
voting for them in the capital cities and they want
to win them back. So the Libs are kind of
like you. Nationals are like our country cousins who are
(02:17):
making us appear a little bit daggy in front of
all the cool city people.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So the Libs are saying, so can you change a bit,
like can you have a bit of a makeover so
that we could appeal to those city people, and the
Nationals are saying, but hold on, we won all our seats,
so why should we change when people like us like
we are. It's you guys who lost. It's not us,
it's you. That's kind of what has happened.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
What I want to know is what the impact of
this is going to be, because this is one of
the longest standing I think it is the longest standing
political coalition in the world. This isn't the first time
that they've split, although it's been very short term when
they've split in the past.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Nineteen eighty seven they had a little break like Ross
and Rachel, and they think they did got.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Back together, which is lovely. But does this mean that
the Liberal Party would be moving more sort of centrist
because the Nationals are often positioned as being a bit
more conservative than the Liberals.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Right, the Nationals have said that in this big reckoning
that the Libs are having, they want to hold on
to some of the things they took to the Parliament,
notably nuclear power, right, the commitment to nuclear power, and
the Libs have realized that that's on the nose. So yes,
the Libs have got to remake themselves to make themselves
look sexy and the nats they think are holding them
back a bit. But to MEA's point about Ross and Rachel,
(03:38):
a lot of people are saying this is just a break,
it is not a divorce, because neither of these parties
can ever get back into Parliament without each other, so
this might be a little bit. Let's pretend we've broken
up during the relaunch phase, but before the wedding, we
might just get back together.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I wonder if they might have a little rebound with
Clive Palmer's party or pull In Hanson's party in.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Case you missed it. The main streaming of medical weight loss,
including gpl on drugs like ozempic, we go vi, monduro
become more and more common, might also bring down the
price of airline tickets. Apparently, this is kind of interesting
to think about. The collective human weight of a plane
(04:21):
accounts for about twenty five percent of the costs for
the airline because obviously the heavier the plane, the more
fuel you need. That's why they weigh our bags, that's
why they have limits on what you can take on board,
et cetera, et cetera, and so generally the thinking is
if people weigh less because as a culture, as a
widespread phenomena, people are losing weight because of these drugs,
(04:44):
it could cost less to fly a plane. United Airlines
in the States estimate if the average passenger weight drops
by about five kilos, United Airlines could save twenty seven
million gallons of fuel per year and save about eighty
million dollars. Now, of course, we know that companies don't
(05:04):
always pass on save costs to consumers, so we might
be a bit suspicious of this idea. Suddenly everything's going
to get cheaper. But is this just a sign of
just how widespread the effects could be of these so
called miracle drugs.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You know, this is interesting. It's talking about the consequences
and the knock on effects that people might have not considered.
Some of the others is just a change in spending
and behavior. So, for example, one of the effects of
these golp one drugs for a lot of people is
that they've got less desire to drink alcohol and even
do things like bite their nails or shop compulsively, some
(05:40):
of the things that these drugs inhibit. And so already
they're seeing a reduction in the basket size in a
lot of grocery stores, particularly in America, that they're putting
down to this. Even things like gambling, all of those
kind of impulses are said to be reduced by golp one.
(06:00):
So we don't yet know what the knock on effects
of all of those things are going to be.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The question of how a society and culture changes. I
mean the predictions that half of say a UK or
a US or an Australian population could be on these drugs,
So the question of how that impacts how a society
arranges itself is fascinating. One I've read about is reduced
sick days, because we know that everything from blood pressure
(06:26):
to heart disease to obviously the diabetes impact. People are saying,
if health is improved, then you've got less sick days
for people. The other is how gyms are being rearranged.
So there is an enormous focus on building muscle, because
if you are on these drugs then it can have
(06:47):
an impact on your muscle. So rather than having we've
spoken about this on the show before ten years ago,
the cardio floor was full of women on treadmills. Now
it looks like a lot of gyms are going to
have to reorganize themselves so that their strength and weight
flaws are more of a focus. And there are personal
trainers and programs that focus on people who are on
(07:07):
these drugs and need to do particular exercises. And the
other thing is the impact on social and family lives.
There was an article in the Telegraph UK about you
know what happens when the dinner table? Isn't this focus
in family life because maybe some people aren't particularly interested
(07:30):
in food anymore. I did hear someone say, remember Yohn
Hari wrote a book he talked about how it changed
him some of these drugs, And I heard someone ask recently,
what is the impact if half a population has been
dealing with some emotional issues through food, which we know
(07:52):
that's not for everyone, but for some people that is
a crutch. Where does that go? Because for yo Han Hari,
he said that he was confronted with a lot of
psychological issues that he hadn't explored before because he was
able to cover them with emotional eating. So we just
find it fascinating to think what the world might look
(08:12):
like in five or ten years when a drug takes
over a population.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And obviously we are not recommending anyone takes these drugs
or doesn't take these drugs. That's a conversation for you
and your doctor.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Over the weekend, a spokesman for former President Joe Biden
announced that the eighty two year old had been diagnosed
with aggressive prostate cancer. In a statement, his office said
he had been having increasing urinary symptoms and was last
week seen by doctors there. He was diagnosed with prostate
cancer and the cancer cells have spread it to the bone. Now,
(08:48):
prostate cancer is something you might often hear men die
with rather than of. It is highly survivable, with about
one in six men being diagnosed in their lifetime. But
it is also the second leading cause of cancer death
in men. And there's a scale called the Gleason Scale
when it comes to prostate cancer, and it ranges from
six to ten in severity, and Biden's cancer sits at
(09:10):
a nine. That's why it's being described as aggressive. President
Donald Trump expressed his sympathy for Biden, but then went
on to cast doubt about the timing of his advanced
cancer diagnosis. Here are some of what he said.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I think it's very sad. Actually, I'm surprised that it
wasn't you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago,
because they get to stage nine. That's a long time.
So it's a look, it's a very very sad situation.
I feel very badly about it, and I think people
should try and find out what happened, because I'll tell
you the Walt I don't know if it had anything
to do with the hospital. Walter Reader is really good.
(09:47):
They're some of the best doctors I've ever seen. I
don't even know if they were involved, but a doctor
was involved in each case. Maybe it was the same doctor.
And somebody is not telling the facts. That's a big problem.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But Trump isn't the only one inviting speculation on Biden's health.
A book is about to be released called Original Sin.
It's all about the alleged cover up of Biden's physical
and mental deterioration by his inner circle. And there's a
story in there about him not recognizing George Clooney, who
was not only a very longtime friend decades and decades
their relationship had gone on major donor to the Democrats,
(10:23):
but he is also George Clooney. Maya, how much of
this is a conspiracy theory that serves the Republican Party,
and how much of it is about legitimate political reporting.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I think it's both, and I think it's so sad.
And I've been reading a few excerpts of this book
that's coming out, co authored by Jack Tapper, who's a
CNN reporter and who was actually one of the moderators
on that debate where Biden was so catastrophically revealed his
(10:56):
decline in that first debate against Trump, and he sort
of never recovered from that, held on for sort of
three weeks, but then had to leave. And when this
news broke, I thought, Oh, that's going to make that conversation,
which I think is a really legitimate conversation about whether
the Democratic Party and particularly those close to Biden covered
(11:17):
up his decline and kept it from the public. That
conversation won't be able to be had now because it's
incredibly awkward and the timing is awful, and it seems
really insensitive. That grab from Trump was really indicative of
the mood where it starts, everyone's like thoughts and prayers.
This is tragic to a man who's experienced so much tragedy.
You know, he lost his baby daughter and his first
(11:39):
wife in a car accident, and his eldest son to
a brain tumor a number of years ago. His surviving
two children spiraled into drug addiction. But it's very quickly
given way to this actually reinforcing the idea that there's
been a cover up, because you know Trump, you'll be
shocked to him he spoke when he said stage nine.
(12:00):
There's no stage nine, but he was talking about the
Gleason scale. And it's true. There are tests that can
pick up prostate cancer much much earlier blood tests and
more regular exams. And that suggests that either he's known
for a really long time, or he wasn't attending to
his physical health and perhaps not looking after himself in
the way that we would have been led to expect.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Is there any suggestion that the announcement is to do
with those books because this conversation about cover up, and
I listened to interviews with the authors of those books
just recently. In the lead up to those coming out,
because obviously the Bidens knew they were coming out, they
went and did some carefully choreographed press appearances. They went
on a daytime show, Jill and Joe Show's not Jill
(12:43):
and Joe. Jill and Joe went on the daytime show
and it didn't really help them very much. But apparently
the Biden camp are absolutely furious about these books and
this reporting and feel furious about it. So is the
conspiracy going as far as to say that maybe the
cancer diagnosis has been known for a long time, but
(13:04):
it's been pulled out to hopefully dull the impact of
these books. Is anyone saying that.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, of course, yes, of course, and we don't know.
The truth is we don't know, and there has been
You're right, an aggressive campaign by the Biden family. They're
fighting for his legacy. Now, Yeah, will he go down
as the president who beat Trump or the president who
allowed Trump to come back into office because he's stubbornly
(13:29):
held on and shouldn't have even been running for reelection
because he was too old.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It feels really cruel in a way that this is
all happening at once, Right.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It's difficult when you've got a reckoning happening in the
Democrats within the Democratic Party, which needed to happen and
which there was. Remember the open letter that George Clooney
wrote saying Joe Biden is a friend of mine, but
he needs to step down as reclined was a part
of that reckoning and that is justified, and it's also
(13:59):
about making the Democrats better and stronger. But that is
being weaponized, as often happens when you know, you try
and do legitimate analysis actors who are coming in and
sort of suggesting that it's more of a conspiracy theory
and actually Jill Biden is responsible for elder abuse, which
(14:22):
is what someone in Trump's camp has actually said. Donald
Trump Junior has said that it's yet another cover up,
and he shared an old video. I must say that
this old video feels somewhat relevant in this moment. It's
from twenty twenty two, and Biden is talking about environmental
pollution and he concludes, that's why I and so many
(14:43):
other people I grew up with have cancer. And at
the time some people said, oh, has he misspoken. Biden's
camp came out and said he was talking about skin
cancers because he'd gotten skin cancers removed. There is a
world in which Biden knew he had prostate cancer. Then
I know lots of men with prostate cancer who are
not worried about it because it's something that you can
(15:05):
live with. Right, If he did have prostate cancer in
twenty twenty two and it was looking all right. He
was getting appropriate treatment. Do we think it was entirely
relevant or necessary for us to know about it? What
do you guys think?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah? I do, because they've got issues in America with
their whole political system. They have a flaw age limit.
You can't run for president unless you're thirty five or older,
because they acknowledge that cognitively and from a life experience
point of view, a certain amount of life experience and
maturity is required to be the president. But a huge
(15:44):
number of members of Congress are over eighty. Trump is
the oldest president that we have. The fact that Biden
he was really pushing it when he ran against Trump,
and it was great that he won, but he always
said at the time that he would just be a
bridge to a new generation. And then he decided that
he wasn't and that he could do it. And you know,
(16:05):
Jake Tappa, the author of this book, is not a hack.
He's not partisan. He's a proper reporter. And I think
that just because Trump is awful doesn't mean that the
Democrats were not doing some really bad things. Not all
of the Democrats, but the ones who covered up his declining.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Health prostate cancer doesn't impact your cognitive ability, and there's
this strange thing that happens.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
They're two different things.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
No, No, the whole argument is that he was not
fit to run, that he was not in physical and
mental health, that he was too old.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And in the US there's this bizarre thing that happens
that happened just last month with Trump, which is a
public medical examination where for some reason we get access
to how much they weigh to heart to liver. For
some reason, I know that Donald Trump has a benign
colon polyp and his doctor has come out and said, yep,
(16:58):
in great health, wonderful. And I think that this has
something to do with his frequent victories in golf events.
So in a way, this has been a joke. This
medical examination, which is your own doctor or whatever, has
kind of been sent up for a little while. Holly,
do you think it's relevant the prostate cancer thing or
is it the cover up?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think MEA's point is correct. I think it's relevant broadly.
It's really interesting. You know, the way that this is
all rolling out is in some ways it's like an
act of self harm for the Democrats, because they should
be looking forward, not back. Right, they should really be
doing that. Every single piece of energy in any anti
Trump campaign should be well, who is the next guy
(17:41):
or woman, who is the next person who is going
to do this? And where are we going to find them?
And how are we going to avoid all the mistakes
that were made last year with the rush on bringing
kum Alla through. But the other thing I keep thinking
because Biden and I can't help but feel I know
how flawed its whole process was, but very sorry for
them because, as Mia says, they're fighting for his legacy
(18:02):
now when he does die, not necessarily because of this,
but he will one day. His whole legacy of life's
work and public work has been massively tainted. But I
think there's something else at play, which is it's time
for the old guard of the Democratic Party to step aside. Right, Clinton's, Obama's, Biden's,
all of them. They are held up as royalty within
the party. They have an enormous amount of influence still
(18:24):
within the party, and they've got to go, and a
new guard's got to come in. And very often what
a new guard needs to do to set the tone
is to set everything on fire. Right, It's kind of
a little bit similar to what's happening here with the
Libs at the moment is a lot of the conversations
around the soul searching that the Liberal Party needs to
do is decouple from always talking about the golden era
of Howard and Costello Menzies, God knows what it's got
(18:48):
to be now and looking forward. And I kind of
feel like it's almost like part of the process to
tear down the idols of the past, and Biden through
all these personal stories is definitely being torn down at
the moment.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
And what's being lost in that, maybe I think lost
in a lot of the reporting is any cancer diagnosis
is really so and really scarin as you say me
out Jill and Joe Biden lost a son to a
brain tumor, and I wouldn't wish a cancer diagnosis on
my worst enemy. So it is really really sad and
(19:23):
regardless of timing or what they did and didn't say.
And maybe I come from an Australian sensibility of feeling
like medical information is private. It's funny thinking like when
do you need to announce it? When do people deserve
to know if our prime minister had a cancer diagnosis?
Do we need to know within ours do we need
to know within weeks? Like I think it's an interesting
thing to wrestle with because I'm not sure I'm really
(19:46):
decided on the answer, but I do see something a
little bit private about health diagnoses and dealing with it
in your own time.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
In a moment, we have some breaking genital news. We
finally have the origin story behind Gwyneth Paltrow's candle called
this Smells Like My Vagina.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
You know, that product is so fascinating because we were
messing around with different Sense one day and I smelled
something and I was like, oh, that smells like you know.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I was joking, and then he was like.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Oh, we should make that a candle and put it
on the site, and I thought he was kidding and
I was like, yeah, definitely, that's that sounds like a
winner right there. And then all of a sudden it
was literally on the website, and then we broke the
internet again, and then it took us a long time
(20:39):
to live that one down. But I kept it on
the site because there is an aspect to women's sexuality
that I think we're socialized to feel a lot of shame,
and I sort of loved this kind of punk rock
idea we are beautiful and we are awesome and go
fuck yourself.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That was my friend Gwyneth Paltrow at her best, talking
at the gloriously named Mind Valley manifesting summits at the
weekend about how it came to be that a candle
smelling like her who ha ended up on Goop next
to hambags that cost twenty three thousand dollars and four
hundred dollars hair brushes. Very sadly that candle no longer exists,
(21:25):
and the fact that I will go to my grave
not knowing what Gwyned's lady parts smell like is a
source of great sadness to me. Mia was this business genius.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
We'll never say never whole there's still tying it's true. Yeah,
it was so smart. It was so smart. I mean,
Gwyneth has been clever in that way that she just
knows how to poke at the culture and living in
an attention economy. That was a pretty out there thing
for her to do, especially since the candle was not
just called this smells like a vagina. It was called
(21:56):
this smells like my vagina.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Do you want to know what notes it had?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I do.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yeah, maybe you could go into your garden and we
couldn't make it. We could have a little crafty.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So tuna and salmon.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Stop it, may I think you should go to the doctor.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
The product had notes of geranium. Is that a flower?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Okay, citrusy burgher mootte yes, citrus okay, seda absolute cedar okay,
woody woody. That's not how I describe my vagina, mask
rose and mask dems.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Right, Jesse, I said words before.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
No, I haven't and something called ambrit seed.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh nice, No salt. I thought there might be a
little salt in there that might just be me and
my salt.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
And have you ever.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Heard words come out of your mouth that made you wonder?
Who the hell have I become? Jesse sent a link
in our group chat around this week to a story
called I Swore I'd never be that woman, and it
was by Victoria de la Fuente, and she wrote about
this exact thing. She said, I used to look at
couples bickering in grocery stores, Mum's hissing at dad's about
(23:09):
forgetting the wipes or picking the wrong yogurt, and think
to myself, God, I never want to become that woman,
you know, the one, the one with a sharp tone,
the dead eyes, the sigh that says I've explained this
four hundred times and you still don't get it. And
yet here I am, mouth tight, eyes twitching, whisper, screaming
across the kitchen island. How do you not know where
(23:32):
the baby's pajamas are? We've lived here for five years? Jesse,
what comes out of your mouth? Like? Why could you
relate to this?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I felt so seen. And I think when we all
accept that we're gonna all become the woman that we
swore we would never become.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Is this just code for our mothers?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I think it's code for our mothers. Yes, I think
it is a little bit code for our mothers. But
I think we've become more generous to other women when
we accept that we are evolving and a work in progress.
We in the live shows that we've been doing, there's
a segment where we talk about the trope of the
busy working mum, talking about how as a teenager I
(24:12):
remembered walking to school backpack on to the train station
and seeing women in like a two piece business suit
with socks and runners on, and I just thought, how
could you have such little pride that you would ruin
an outfit like that and wear your runners with your
heels in your bag or something. Have you no dignity?
(24:33):
Where must you be in the judgment that was forming
in my fourteen year old brain.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And now here you are flying around the country with
a cameltoe.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Exactly how long did it take me to become the
woman who needs to wear my comfortable shoes wherever I'm
going because we need arch support and we need, you know,
to make sure that our ankles are in a good way,
and wearing heels is never a good idea. I think
it happened so much throughout our lives. I also, you know,
I remember being younger and leaving the house was like,
(25:05):
you know, you'd do your hair a bit and you'd
put on a bit of makeup. Since become a a mom,
my threshold for leaving the house is, oh my god.
The out louders who see me in public must wonder
if I'm doing okay. It's dirty clothes. It's often it'll
get to four pm and I'll think I haven't looked
in the mirror today, Like I don't know if I
(25:26):
have food on my face. I have no idea who
would be staring back at me. I swore I would
not become the woman who had no pride in my appearance.
But it has happened very very quickly. How about you, Holly?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Oh my god. Yes, I was thinking about this. And
when I was young, young, like late teens, early twenties,
I was so judgmental when I think about it now. Well,
for a start, I was very unhealthy. So I remember
being about twenty, and I swore I would never be
a person who gave up smoking because I really liked
and valued people who prioritize pleasure overboring things like health. Yep, yeah,
that's something that doesn't last very long in relationships. I
(26:01):
swore I would never be a woman who'd say no
to morning sex because I was worried about being late
for work. Oh like, can you imagine I used to
be like a mud saying no because I've got a meeting.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You imagine Holly coming late to a morning meeting and
we're like, Holly, what have you been doing? What my
morning sets?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And I used to say I would never be the
kind of person who would get up and brush their
teeth before kissing the person in bed with them. I
used to be so judgmental about that. I'm like, you
should be so into each other and passionate and accepting
of all of yourselves. Like I was so judgmental about
those kind of things, and I definitely said I'd never
be a gardener, a morning exerciser, a bed before midnight person,
(26:41):
like just all the things that, of course I am,
because you evolve and you were an idiot when you
were young. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Well it's interesting. I mean they say that you get
more conservative as you get older and the things that
horrify me. So to me, it's not necessarily being like
my mother, but it's just becoming older, like an older woman.
Like when I used to be rushing my kids and
I'd say, quick sticks, quick.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Sticks, what the fuck?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
And things like I'll be driving and I'll see schoolgirls
and I'll be like, oh that skirts too short?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, yeah, I reckon that parenting is an exercise in
becoming the woman you swore you never would, or becoming
the mother you swore you never would.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I just think it's getting older, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I mean, it's even just mothering.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Because no, no, no, it's not just mothering, that there
is something that happens, because I think you can be idealistic.
You are so naive in your early stages, and I
remember I would look around before I had lunar and think,
I will never be the mother who brings her child
out covered in snot food, all over the face into
tu tu Like, don't you realize that your child looks unhinged?
(27:49):
And now I'm like, honestly, maybe your threshold for giving
a shit what people think about you just gets lower
and lower until you, yeah, you just have no standards.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Well, that's true because as your estrogen drops. Estrogen is
the approval hormone, so you do care less what people think.
But then at the same time, I'm more judgment like
I care that's what people think about me, but I
care more about other people and what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I think it's just as your reality shifts, like you know,
of course you could have those opinions about moms with
their two tuos, and that's not when that wasn't your world,
but that is your world, and suddenly you understand you know, yeah,
I certainly thought I would never be kind of sellout
who promoted themselves on the internet. Oh that's all I do.
I never thought i'd get botox. Remember that I know
(28:37):
we change. Let's celebrate changing and growing friends.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
The out louders had some examples of the woman they
swore they'd never become. One said, I swore I would
never be a kitchen gadget girl. But me and my
air fryer are in a committed relationship. That's me and
my thermo mix. I swore I would never get obsessed
with cooking, but you do. I swore I would never
wear tracksuit pants or ug boots outside my own home.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Oh love.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I swore I'd never be the woman who complained about
her kids or husband. Why would you swear that? I
swore i'd never look through my partner's texts, and I do.
And the last one. I swore I'd never swear in
front of my kids. But my Toddley uses fuck in
the right context. So I don't know whether to be
mortified or.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Proud proud after the break, Tom and Nicole, Tom and Caty,
Tom and Us. Why is the biggest movie star in
the world completely uncancellable?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Do you want daily Outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
dropped episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, exclusively from Mum of MEA.
Subscribers follow the link in the show notes to get
us in your ears five days a week, and a
huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Last week, despite all I know about celebrity news and
media and clickbait, I almost broke my thumb clicking on
a story that declared Tom Cruise makes rare comments about
Nicole Kidman and I wasn't the only one, because that
story appeared in about a million places, And yet when
you clicked surprise, surprise, Cruise had said next to nothing.
(30:05):
He'd made a very oblique reference about the time he
and Kidman were in London filming Eyes Wide Shut, and
that was enough for the breathless headlines to travel around
the world. Because the whole Tom Nicole love story and
divorce story is still almost thirty years on one of
the enduring obsessions of gen X pop culture. It's also
(30:27):
twenty years this week since Tom Cruise jumped on a
couch on the Oprah Winfrey Show to profess his love
for his next wife, Katie Holmes, and then their wedding,
their baby. Their divorce story is another complete obsession. None
of the scandal attached to those stories, or his very
controversial religious affiliation with scientology, or the fact that he
(30:49):
can be narki, shall we say, with journalists who don't
follow his script have dented his appeal at the box office.
This week, Cruz opened probably the last massive movie of
his career, maybe one of the last massive movies in
a way, the final installment of Mission Impossible, and with
his trademark commitment, he's selling the shit out of it.
He is every screen you look at. He's being charming
(31:12):
in every format. He's everywhere. He's jumping on a plane,
he's jumping on a train, He's waving to all the journos.
He is the last great movie star getting bums on seats.
What is it with our obsession of Tom Cruise and
why despite all the scandals that have followed him, does
he appear to be teflon Mia.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Well, many people say he's the last great movie star
and he's the only thing that's saving Hollywood because he's
so passionate about movies and about getting people out to
movies and supporting the industry and making sure that the
craft of movie making is not lost in this digital era.
(31:55):
Even the people that he's really pissed off, like Steven Spielberg,
who he worked with in War of the Worlds, and
that was the press tool where he imploded and he
attacked Brookshields for having medication, for having postnatored depression. He
attacked Matt Lauer, he jumped on couches, He just started
proselytizing about scientology, and he became sort of came across
(32:17):
as quite unhinged, and apparently on the set of War
of the World he insists on having a scientology tent,
and he was really difficult on the set, and basically
his whole scientology jag in that press tour really tanked
the movie. So Steven Spielberg apparently hasn't really spoken to
him for the last twenty years. But when he bumped
into him in some awards ceremony things last year, he
(32:40):
reportedly said, you've saved us. You know, you've saved the movies.
Like grudgingly, perhaps, but everyone acknowledges that even amongst young people,
this guy who's in his sixties who insists on doing
all of his own stunts is still this sort of
icon of Hollywood.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
There are a few things about Tom Cruise. The first
is that he is an outstanding actor. He is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
He's great at being Tom Cruise, isn't he Well yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, But I also think more of the world's Vanilla Sky,
Like there are these movies that you watch and he
is so arresting and mesmerizing as an actor. So he's
brilliant at what he does. That's the first thing. The
second thing is that he has had run ins with journalists.
That's a really good point, Holly. But some friends that
I have in media, I often ask them, friends who
(33:31):
interview a lot of celebrities, and I say, who's the
most likable, best celebrity interview you've ever done? And so
many of them say, Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
He understands the job right, he understands what's required.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
He is ridiculously charismatic and friendly, and he can turn
it on. I also wonder if Scientology it being powerful.
I suppose it's been subject to a lot of criticism,
but as an organization, it is worth an estimated two
billion dollars, right, It's incredibly wealthy and it has a
lot of resources, and I think that that has helped
(34:05):
in either covering up a few things that happened in
Tom Cruise's past, because the fact he hasn't been canceled,
like the Brookshields comment sucked. That wasn't a good comment.
He did apologize for it to Brookshields.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
She says it was part of a whole thing that
he had going on at the time. Toma's point about
this era when he was just all the time, instead
of talking about the movies, he was telling everyone how
to live their lives. Medication was bad. The only people
who could save anyone in a disaster, with scientologists at
a certain level, you know, psychiatrists are evil, all of
this stuff. I feel like he went through that and
(34:41):
he learned his lesson to shut the fuck up.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I wonder too, if the public has been able to
see scientology as something distinct from Tom Cruise. And by
that I mean I think there's a bit of feeling
sorry for him. I reckon that there's a sense that
scientology got its clause into Tom Cruise. He's now become
this poster boy he can't really leave. We know that
(35:04):
he doesn't really have a relationship with the child that
he had with Katie Holmes, So I wonder if that way,
it's like we don't see him as much as like
sort of a perpetrator, but more as a victim. Do
you think that's fair?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Oh my gosh, I don't think of him as a
victim at all. I really don't. I see him as
a king of the world type always what I wonder,
because I don't know if women love Tom Cruise, we
should prosecute this a bit because one of the reasons
why he can open movies massively is the appeal is
everybody right, it's mass it's men, it's women, it's girls,
(35:37):
it's but like you look at something like Top Grund,
Maverick or Mission Impossible. These are huge movies that are
just stuff that people like, you know what I mean.
He goes hard on populism. He's stopped telling everyone how
to live their lives. But women. When you think about
his history, it's definitely ickworthy. Right. There was the silent
birth with Katie Holmes, to remember that they were very
(35:59):
open about that at the time she spoke about it.
There was the divorce from Kidman, where she very much
appears to have been muzzled, which is why we'll never
really know. There's the questionable relationship with his children. There's
the Brookshields post aatal depressions, in a thing. These are
things that generally women will get an ick from, even
if they don't think you're like an abuser or a perpetrator,
they'll be like, not my guy. But he seems to
(36:23):
be able to ride that out. Do you have a
theory on it, Mia.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I don't. What he is is very well controlled. He
doesn't play the game in the same way that a
lot of celebrities do. Like the fact that no one
has really asked about Suri Cruz and his relationship with
the child he was so obsessed with. He hired an
ultrasound He bought an ultrasound machine so that when Katie
Holmes was pregnant he could look at Suri twenty four
(36:48):
seven if he wanted to. He's never asked about that
kind of stuff. It's like that there's a generation of
celebrities like Nicole Kidman ironically, who is called mother by
jen Z, who they just think she's iconic, and they
sort of don't hold them to the same I guess
woke or accountability standards as younger celebrities like maybe Timothy
(37:10):
Schallamet or Zendaya or you know, Jenna Otaga, And I
think that's kind of it like Tom Cruise is almost
like he's so cute, you know what I mean, Like
they almost think of him as cute, like a granddad.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Controlled is an interesting descriptor because Scientology, which is just
I think he's marriage to Katie Holmes or Nicole Kidman
or whoever it was. David Misscavige was his best man,
and David Misscavage is basically the head of Scientology. Now,
David's wife, Shelley has gone missing decades ago, has just
(37:43):
gone missing, and people in the scientology community say there
are allegations that she was killed, or that she's in hiding,
or that she's locked up, like lots and lots of conspiracy.
But there is something really unknowable about what happened there.
And I've watched a bunch of documentaries and stuff on
Scientology because I find it endlessly fascinating. But part of
(38:04):
what they do in their process is you sit there
and then there are allegations that, you know, you talk
about the worst things that you've ever done, which makes
you very vulnerable to leaving when public perception and your
image is so important to your career.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
But he's all in on Scientology, like he's essentially the
two ice to David MSUs Cabbage. Here's scientology royalty, and
so are his two children, his first two children with
Nicole Kidman, who she hasn't seen for many many years
reportedly and is estranged from because they've you know, sided
with Tom in that custody dispute when you know she
(38:42):
decided that she didn't want to be part of the church,
same with Katie Holmes. So I don't think he's trapped.
I think that he's all in.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I think you hit the nail on the head the
Miya when you said he's held to a different standard,
whether it's because of his generation or whether it's because
of his success, his phenomenal success and the kind of
movies he makes. Now we talk about all the time
on the show How on TikTok, a female celebrity just
has to look sideways funny at somebody and she's a
terrible person, you know, like, oh, we can see who
(39:13):
you really are. You must be a bad person. We
don't know if we want to see your movies anymore.
Whereas Tom Cruise has done some literally deeply questionable things
and admitted them and spoken openly about them. But it's
like crazy old dude, bit of a grandpa, but he's
very entertaining because he stopped making those serious movies that
he made for a while ages ago and just played
(39:34):
to his strength. Then he's nailing it. That's all we've
got time for today. A massive thank you to all
of you out louders for listening to today's show and
to our fabulous team for putting it together. Melbourne out Louders,
we will see you tomorrow and we will be back
in your ears tomorrow too.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Bye bye, out Louders. We have a quick exciting announcement.
Mom Mayer out Loud is celebrating a major milestone this year,
ten years as Australia's number one women's podcast, and right now,
as a bit of a gift to you all, we're
taking thirty percent off yearly. Mumma mea subscription with the
discount code ten years ten as in the numbers one
(40:14):
oh years. This gives you full access to all the
stories and shows that you love from us, including our
episode yesterday where we unpacked. Whether subscribing to OnlyFans is
considered cheating, we had lots of thoughts on that one.
Plus subscribing also means that you get unlimited access to
our exercise app Moves. This offer is for limited time only,
(40:37):
so head to the link in our show notes for
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