January 5, 2019 • 41 mins
In this classic episode, we offer a friendly reminder that celebrities are people.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff I've
never told you. A lot has happened since we released
this episode, looking at the Yoko Ono effect and how
it played out with folks blaming Ariana Grande about Mac
(00:29):
Miller's death. Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande broke up and
she released to Thank You Next, which was a huge
hit and it inspired all of these parodies. It was
a really big deal, and Pete Davidson was being her
ass online by her fans for nine months. He even
addressed it an Instagram post in Arianna Grande erstra fans
(00:52):
to be gentler. Things escalated on December when Pete Davidson
posted a note on Instagram that had some suicidal id
shin and while some were supportive and voice concern, other
people were terrible, encouraging Davidson to self harm. As of
recording this, He's fine, Please did do wellness check and
(01:12):
he briefly appeared on Saturday Night Live. That night, he
deleted all of his social media accounts. And this is
just a friendly reminder that celebrities are people to words matter.
Mental health matters. If you or someone you know is
struggling with this, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is to
seven three eight to five five, or you can contact
(01:35):
the crisis text line by texting talk to seven one one.
Please take care of each other. Everybody, Hey, this is
Bridget and this is Annie and you're listening to stuff
Mom never told you. Today we have to start with
(02:04):
a trigger warning. UM, today's episode is going to be
about addiction and substance abuse and how they pertained to
romantic relationships. So if that is a issue that is
tough for you, just know that is what today's episode
is all about. You may have seen that musician Mac
Miller real name Malcolm McCormick died last week at the
(02:25):
age of on September seven of cardiac arrest related to
a suspected drug overdose. UM. I was a pretty casual
fan of Mac Miller's music. When he died, I sort
of was a bit sad because I was one of
those people that it took him dying for me to
go back and revisit some of his earlier work and say,
oh wow, he actually Um was a really talented musician,
(02:49):
and I wish I had listened to more of this stuff.
It was also pretty sad that there was this really interesting, fascinating,
glowing profile of him in Vulture magazine that came out, like,
I think, just two days before he died, And in
that piece, it really illustrates what an interesting kind of
guy he was. Um. He sort of had this this
(03:09):
kind of fun loving quality to him that made him
seem like a genuinely interesting person. When he died, all
of these different musicians were talking about all of these
good memories that they shared with him, and he just
seemed like someone who was genuinely very beloved. Um. One
of my favorite vines is him singing TLCS no scrubs. Um.
(03:31):
I mean, he just seemed like a like a really
a really good guy, and I think he's one of
those musicians. And it seems like he died before he
really got a chance to sort of show the world
what he could do. Right like he was, he was,
he was pretty young. He was in his twenties um,
which of course is very tragic, but he also didn't
really seem to have his one breakout album. He seemed
(03:55):
like he was poised for that moment where he was
going to become a megastar and sort of died right
before what happened yeah, I didn't know much about him, um,
because I kind of somehow miss a lot of Really
I miss a lot in this pop culture world, Bridget,
and I depend a lot on you, and I have
(04:16):
a group of friends who like keep me in the know,
and I honestly had never heard of him until this happened,
which makes me really sad. And it also makes me
really sad that when you just see this public persona
of people and you don't see I don't know. It's
just strange when you hear how beloved someone is or
(04:39):
how much fun they have, and then you see the
success and to have something like this happened, it feels
really jarring, and it just makes you kind of reconsider
maybe people that you in your life, or that you
whose entertainment you consume and enjoy. It's pretty sobering. It
is sobering. I also think it from finds us that
(05:00):
these are real people. Um, it's really really easy to
forget that you know, the people whose content you enjoy
their humans just like us. And it's I think it
can be jarring to be confronted with who they actually
are and what they're actually dealing with and what you
know who they are inside versus the music that they
(05:21):
make and all of that. And again, I was really
surprised to see how many Guy wasn't the biggest Mac
Miller fan, but I was surprised to see how many
of the musicians and I really love like Flying Lotus
and Thundercat were like, no, no, we were very close.
He was the best, Like he seemed like someone who
had far reaching um connections in the music industry. And
(05:41):
I think that's what makes this story so sad. So
mac Miller was someone who was very open in both
his interviews and in his music about his struggles with
mental issues and addiction. In a complex interview in Miller
admitted to using Lean, which is sort of that that
coding laced cough syrup that that musicians sometimes abuse um,
(06:02):
and he said that he used it to deal with depression.
He explained that criticism from an album that he had
that was a little bit of a flop in led
him to rely on this very addictive drug. In this article,
he said, I love Lean, it's great. I was not
happy and I was on Lean very heavy during the tour.
I was so left up all the time. It was bad.
My friends couldn't even look at me the same I
(06:23):
was lost. In May, the rapper released his tenth solo mixtape, Faces,
which by the way, is really great. On it, he
discussed his battle with depression, explaining how, quote a drug
habit like Philip Hoffman will probably put me in a coffin,
which is a reference to the actor of Philip Seymour Hoffman,
who I really loved, who also died a drug related death.
Um mac Miller also admitted to having suicidal thoughts before
(06:45):
releasing this album, on which he claimed, quote every single
song is about coke in drugs. He said that was
the plan with Grand Finale, the closing song on Faces.
It was supposed to be the last song I made
on Earth, But in that interview he said, I don't
feel that way anymore. So if you don't know mac Miller,
you probably know him through his ex girlfriend Ariana Grande Uh.
(07:06):
They dated for a while, and Ariana was very very
open that their relationship ended because of his issues with
mental health and drug abuse. UM, and I think what
really kind of shocks me about that is that they're
very young, but their relationships seemed to be very amicable,
Like even when they broke up, she was you know, like, oh, I,
(07:26):
I wish him the best and I love him. He's
one of my best friends, and I hope he gets better.
I'm so excited to see what he does in his life. Um,
she wrote on Instagram. This is one of my best
friends in the world and one of my favorite people
on the planet. I respect and adore him endlessly, and
I'm grateful to have him in my life in any
form at all times, regardless of how our relationship changes
or what the universe holds for each of us. And
(07:48):
you know, I was not having breakups and where this
mature what happens in my twenties, You know, I just
I found there. I found this to be a very
for young celebrities. I found this to be kind of
surpris rising ly transparent and mature. Oh, I agree. When
I was fifteen, I broke up with this dude in
Barnes and Noble because he didn't like tigers enough. That
(08:10):
was it good reason I would break up with someone
over that tigers are awesome. He I. Yeah, I don't
think he appreciated fully how awesome tigers were. And that
was it. That was the last room. Um. When I
found out about Mac Miller's death. I was with a
(08:31):
group of friends, like five friends, and we were all
in the same space, and they knew his music and
they knew he was and they were fans, and so
when they said his name, like I didn't, I wasn't
sure who it was. But from context clues I could
ascertain it was a musician. And they were, you know,
silently scrolling their phones and sad, and one of my
(08:51):
friends like shouted out, don't bring ari on a Grande
and it is, yes, And I didn't. I didn't know
they were dating. Um, which is really funny because my
phone thinks I'm obsessed with ari Ariana Grande. It gives
me updates about her and Pete Davidson all the time.
I don't know why. Um. Yes, they were very angry
(09:16):
at how how quickly this turned into a blame game
with Ariana Grande. Absolutely. I sort of couldn't imagine anything worse.
Ariana Grande, she went through it, She survived the terror
attack in the UK. Um she pretty recently, she's gone
(09:36):
through kind of a lot. Seeing how eager people were
to bring up her name in his death, was really surprised.
Per guess I shouldn't be surprised. It was. It was disappointing,
I'll put it that way. And you know, their relationship
seemed to be rocky. You know, when you're in a
relationship with someone that has these kinds of issues, of
course it's going to be, you know, rocky. But Mac
(09:58):
Miller's friends his end. Shane Powers praised Ariana Grande's role
in aiding his struggle with addiction on an episode of
the podcast The Shane Show. He said, there was no
one more ready to go to the wall with for
him when it came to being sober, and she was
an unbelievably stabilizing force in his life. She was deeply
helpful and effective in keeping Max sober and helping him
get sober. And she was all about him being healthy
(10:20):
period in this area of his life. And he went
on to say that she, you know, even after the
fact of them breaking up, was always checking in on
him and making sure that he was okay. And I
guess that's what I'm saying, is that him being sober,
she was a big part of him getting sober. But
you wouldn't have known Matt from the headlines, like the
headlines that I saw after his death. Basically blamed her
(10:43):
breaking up with him for him his spiral into addiction issues.
And after they broke up, Mac Miller, you know, he
was arrested for a d u y, he had a
hit and run, who trashed his car while drunk. He
clearly seemed to be going through some kind of issue.
But that is not Ariana g and Day's fault. Like
how eager people at major publications were to link his
(11:06):
behavior to her, like, oh, she shouldn't have broke up
with him then, like see what happens when you britten
up girl breaks up with you? You know, if only
she had stayed with them. I found that to be
not only just just just unhelpful and hurtful, but also
it completely is not how addiction works. Someone else cannot
make someone who is an addict to get sober. I've
learned that the hard way. If someone is struggling with addiction,
(11:27):
they only they can make themselves get better. Yeah, you,
it's just it's it's sad and it's difficult. And just
seeing how how people blamed her breaking up with them
for his death is that's really disheartening. Yeah, and again
(11:50):
we forget that Ariana Grande as a person, she's she's
not just a celebrity. And I think I think this
really does reveal um part of the toxicity sort of
We talked about it a lot on the show, part
of the toxicity that can stem from fan culture where
you feel so like mac Miller's fans probably felt so
into him that when he died, she you know, and
(12:13):
they had to be like, oh, you know, it's her fault.
After they broke up, she got into a relationship where
she became engaged to SNL's Pete Davidson and they had
They went on to have a very kind of publicly
cute see lovey dovey relationship. But again, that doesn't have
anything to do with with what happened with mac Miller.
On Twitter, after mac Miller crashed his car, one Twitter
(12:35):
user wrote, mac Miller totaling his g wagon and getting
a d u I after Ariana Grande dumped him for
another dude after he poured his heart out on a
ten song album to her called The Divine Feminine is
just the most heartbreaking thing that has ever happened in Hollywood.
Arianta Grande was not here for that, she replied. You know,
she took to the She took to the notes app.
Which is when you know like a celebrity is really
(12:57):
not having it is when they reply on the notes app.
He writes, how absurd that you minimize female self respect
and self worth by saying someone should stay in a
toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them, which,
by the way, isn't even the case. Justinderella is about me.
I am not a babysitter or a mother, and no
woman should feel they need to be. I have cared
for him and tried to support his sobriety and prayed
(13:18):
for his balance for years and always will, of course,
but shaming blaming women for a man's inability to keep
together is a very major problem. Let's please stop doing that.
Of course, I didn't share about how scary or our
heart it was when it was happening, but it was.
I will continue to pray from the bottom of my
heart that he figures it all out, and that any
other woman in this position does as well. And she's exactly, exactly,
(13:42):
exactly right. I applaud her for standing up and saying
this because she clearly loves mac Miller. It's clearly hard
for her to watch him go through this, but it
is not her responsibility to stay manicold to him for
the rest of her life, to keep him sober. This
is not her job. She's not she's not a so
we're living coach, he thought his mother, and to put
(14:02):
this on her to say, oh, well, he made an
album about you. That kind of thinking just really minimizes
a woman's agency. So because because a man writes an
album about you, you're obligated to stay with him forever. Yeah,
it's just another example of kind of like a bigger
example of um, well I bought you dinner, so you
owe me sex. It's like the same thing that it's
(14:24):
it's entitlement saying well, I I did this incredibly kind
thing for you, so you owe me this. And she doesn't.
She doesn't. You know. Robin Thick tried that same thing
with Paul Patton after they got divorced. He made a
whole album that was basically paula, come back to me,
and you know what, she didn't go back to him,
and she went on with her life as she should. Yes,
(14:46):
absolutely absolutely, So let's talk more about the situation after
a quick break and we're back. As we said earlier
in the episode, several news outlets kind of could not
wait to bring up Ariana Grande when discussing what happened
(15:10):
with mac Miller. I saw articles that were like Ariana
Grande x Comma rapper mac Miller Comma dead from apparent
drug overdose. And you know when when he died, her
name immediately almost almost at the same time, started trending
on Twitter. And so it just goes to show how
quick people are too attach. I'm not even dating anymore,
(15:32):
but to attach a woman to a man's behavior when
something like this happens. It's like I was listening to
the podcast to Keep It, which if you don't listen
to Keep It, it's really good you should. But they
were saying, you know, it's a woman's responsibility to have
a conscious for men, because if women don't have conscious
is no one will have a conscience. It's like it's
like just assumed that, oh, if something happens with a man,
(15:55):
it's going to be a woman who you know, who
is at fault or to blame in some capacity. Yeah,
and that kind of reminds me of like if successes
and then men can take take responsibility for that, but failures, um,
then it's the woman. Well, the woman that should have
(16:17):
been behind like supporting. And it reminds me of our
poor performing males video game. Yeah, hashtag pre performing males.
It's true. And again, part of it, I think is
is a I can sort of forgive a nineteen year
old Mac Miller fan for this because you're young, and
(16:37):
Lord knows, I had, you know, dumb misconceptions when I
was young. But I really, when I look at media,
I want to say, what are you doing? Adults who
work at media companies should know better. The TMZ article
following his death basically blamed their breakup for his spiral
into addiction. They even included a line that they edited
He quote had trouble recently with substance abuse in the
(16:57):
wake of his breakup with Ariana Grande And that's so
gross and I would expect adults who run media companies
to know better. After his death, Arianna actually had to
disable the comments on her Instagram because her Instagram and
Twitter were flooded with gross sexist comments like this is
your fault, you flag you cheated on him with Pete Davidson.
(17:19):
You know, I hope you're happy. And the saddest thing
like she posted this really really sad Instagram picture of
him where she had to have the comments disabled, and
it just made me so sad. You know, this is
someone that she clearly loved. When they split, they had
a very amicable split where and she kept saying, this
is my best friend. I love him, I love him,
you know, I hope he gets better. I wanted to
(17:40):
get better, and praying him to get better, and not
even being able to grieve in peace because people are
too busy blooding her social media with really disgusting comments
about how she's a whore who cheated on him. Yeah,
that's awful. That's to deal with that on top of
on top of your grief, I can't imagine. And to
(18:01):
have people I've always found people are kind of judgmental
about how you grieve and like how you perform grief.
And to have so many people on that largest scale
judging you for what you're doing or not doing, or
what is your fault what's not your fault is that's awful.
(18:24):
It is awful. And again, this is someone who is young.
This is someone who would survive. I keep keep going
back to this, but who survived a very traumatic event
not that long ago, you know, a mass shooting at
one of her concerts while she was on stage like,
I don't know, I just I feel like we expect
celebrities to be these larger than life figures and we
(18:45):
forget that they're human, And nothing would have illustrates that
more than when they're grieving. I think that you're exactly right,
and Ariana Grande is not the first celebrity to be
treated this way at all. Rolling Stone calls it the
Yoko effect. Quote. Fan claims such as the stem from
the most dangerous branch of pop cultures, continuous fascination with
(19:07):
the so called Yoko effect, and it's desire to connect
female partners to actions they may not comprehend. These claims
and conspiracies, often solely perpetrated by the most toxically masculine
factions of fandoms, sometimes never disappear. Even Courtney Love is
still fielding social media comments and blog conspiracy theories that
(19:27):
she not only was the reason Kurt Cobain became addicted
to heroine she was not, but also that she had
actually murdered him and faked his suicide also one true.
Cobain died two decades before these social media platforms even existed.
Yet the fact that Love's comments can still attract a
rogue claim like this speaks volumes to the way society
(19:48):
continues to expect women to be caretakers for the men
in their lives and reacts with fury when they apparently
cannot absorb their partner's pain. It's so upsetting. The Courtney
Love thing, I think an especially upsetting thing, and when
I have a lot of personal connection to is someone
who is a big fan of them. Both Courtney Love
and Francis Bean Cobain actually had to go to court
(20:11):
with one of these conspiracy theorists. In a Seattle court
ruled that pictures from the scene of Kurt Cobain's death
would remain sealed from the public. Conspiracy theorist Richard Lee
sued the city over the release of the images. Court
documents states that the images depict quote Kurt's body as
it lay in the family residents after he was shot
in the head. Cobain's next of kid had previously testified
(20:33):
in the case. In April sixteen, Love gave a statement
accusingly of trying to exploit Cobain's death, which he claims
to have been investigating for more than twenty three years.
Love said that he stopped and harassed her, her family,
and her friends for many, many many years. On more
than one particular occasion, Mr Lee even filmed himself chasing
a limo for several miles that he thought she was
a passenger. In. Mr Lee's actions make me fear for
(20:55):
my safety, she said. Um, yes, Courtney Love was probably
one of my biggest problematic faiths. Um, I'm a pretty
big fan. I was also a big fan of Nirvana,
and I remember I think I was in sixth grade
when Kurt Cobain died, and I definitely mean I was
eleven or twelve, so I was very young. But I
(21:16):
definitely did blame her for his death, Like I was
that person who was like, oh, Kurt, Courtney killed Kurt,
and Kurt would still be alive if Courtney, if Courtney
hadn't gotten involved with him. And this was because I
was young, you know, I didn't I didn't have any understanding.
What was going on. The narrative at the time with
(21:36):
with super fans of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain was that
Kurt Cobain was this sort of delicate genius who was
sort of too pure for this world and Courtney was
this awful person who was really troubled and sort of
got him into all this, all these bad situations, and
that I think that myth persists today and it's very gendered.
(21:59):
Never mind the fact that both Kurt and Courtney were
you know, had issues with addiction. They're both were living
very similar lifestyles, and so it's interesting that one of
them gets to be this you know, fallen angel even
in death, and the other is just sort of stuck
to pick up the pieces. And when I got it
wasn't until I got older than I realized. Wait a minute,
(22:19):
Kurt Cobain after his suicide, his wife, now a widow,
had to raise their kid alone and had to do
it while a lot of people were publicly and loudly
speculating that she murdered him. And that's really horrible, and
you know, we like it was one of those is
one of those things that I really it kind of
(22:40):
forced me to grow up because it's a very immature attitude.
That's like, oh, Courtney is so awful and even though
she was doing the same things as Kurt, she's terrible
and he's awesome, And you know, that's such an immature attitude.
It wasn't until I got older than I saw actually
she is a grieving widow who now has to raise
a child alone, and it's a bad situation. And people
(23:03):
who discount that are like living in a fantasy world.
They're not living in reality. It goes back to seeing
celebrities as people, as something more than this one dimensional thing.
Really this image that you you consume and then you
put all of your own stuff onto. I was. I
(23:23):
liked Nirvana when I was younger, Um a lot too,
but I didn't know much about their personal lives because
I didn't have like TV that the first time I
heard of Courtney Love, it was with the implication that
she had killed him. That was like my first exposure
to her. There's an entire documentary about that. The premises
(23:46):
is that he that she had him murdered for money,
you know, like like it's such a common thing. I
have to tell a quick story. I have a lot
of Courtney Love personal anecdotes. I will try to pare
it down because feel a long podcast. But the one
that is most relevant is that I was once at
a bar and basically were like play cole and the
(24:07):
bar tender was like no Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain.
So my friends have a drink in his space. Good
for your friends. Yeah, shout out to Anne and wasn't
having it. Um No, But I think you're right. I
think it's about an inability to see celebrities as real
(24:28):
people and they're just this thing that we consume and
we don't see their pain, we don't see their trauma,
we don't see their you know. And also, I think
it's about addiction. It doesn't surprise me that all the
people that we're talking about today dealt with things like
addiction and depression. You know, we don't live in a
country where we're having thoughtful conversations about addiction, and it
(24:51):
is a problem. And I think that because of that,
we're gonna get we're getting nowhere on the issue. You know.
I think I'm happy to see that we're having a
more nuanced conversation about the opioid crisis. But frankly, the
only reason that we're doing that is because it's now
impacting White America, and that I think that's the only
reason why we're finally saying, hey, this is a problem.
(25:12):
We need to figure out how we're going to deal
with this. Because it's becoming a big issue. I'm happy
that we've that we've gotten there, but I have to
be clear on why I think it is. I think
that when opioids were impacting communities of color for so long,
we just did nothing and it was just you know,
we were writing off entire generations of black and brown
folks and thinking nothing of it. And even with that
being the case, I'm still so happy that we're getting
(25:32):
to a point where we're saying, hey, we need a
more compassionate solution other than just lacking people up and
letting them die. You know. Yes, Um, I think we've
fundamentally misunderstood addiction probably, I mean still do, but for
a long time. UM, And I'm hoping that we're moving
away from that and that we can start to change
(25:55):
people's perceptions around it, because I just think they're there's
so much that we get wrong about addiction, and um,
of course, unfortunately, of course, there we have another example
of Elliott Smith where it's similar. UM. Fans or people
believe that his suicide was not actually a suicide, but
(26:17):
that he was murdered by his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba following
an argument. In a statement, she gave to MTV. She said,
although she hasn't been charged with a crime or questioned
recently by police, she feels like a suspect in the
court of public opinion. Quote. Up until now, I've chosen
to remain silent because I want to maintain some sense
(26:37):
of privacy for Elliott and his family and myself and
this really difficult time, and I want people to know
that I'm not keeping quiet because I have anything to hide.
If I was a suspect, I would have heard from
the investigators for one thing. Another is that his sister
and his parents and everyone close to him knows the truth,
So I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I loved Eliot
(26:59):
Smith and still you um that one was interesting to
me because Elliott Smith's entire uvra is about struggling with depression.
So this idea, you know, people conspiracy theorists are like, oh,
he spells his name wrong in the suicide letter, and
they have all of these reasons why they believe he
couldn't have done it. And I also think that that
plays into this idea that we have around people who
(27:20):
are struggling, is that like he couldn't have done it.
He wouldn't have done this. There has to be some
other reason. It has to be that he was murdered,
or it was the government or this or that. And
I think sometimes we just don't want to accept that
someone could do this because it's so upsetting. But you know,
people do, people do. And I think that we I
(27:42):
understand the rush to say so and so would never
take the throw in life. They couldn't have done it again.
It just it just highlights to me that we're not
having the right conversation when it comes to addiction and
substance abuse and mental health because you don't know what
people are dealing with. And I think that Eliot Smiths
situation really highlighted people's willingness to not confront that someone
(28:08):
is struggling, Like his entire musical career is basically about
his struggles. I was introduced to Elliott Smith via The
Royal Tin and Bombs when a song of his is
used when one of the characters is trying to kill himself. Yeah,
needle in the hay. I mean he wasn't. I don't
think it should come as a massive surprise that he
(28:30):
would make that choice, as horrible as it is, you know,
I think that people are willing to confront that, and
who are you know, say that there must be some
other explanation. Are sort of again not understanding that this
person that you in, whose music you enjoyed, is a
flawed human being. And that's okay. Yeah, um, we we
(28:54):
have a little bit more for you, but we're going
to pause for one more quick break for word from
our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So this
(29:14):
is an issue that's that's personal for me. I have
been in relationships with people who are struggling with both
addiction issues, substance abuse issues, and kind of overall mental
health issues. And in the conversations that people were having
around Ariana Grande, I just really really identified with what
they said about her and how she probably felt. I
(29:37):
think it happens for people of all genders, right. I
think that when you are in a relationship or a
friendship or a family relationship with someone who was struggling,
there is it can be any gender who was sort
of unfairly given this burden of carrying the weight of
that person's recovery, and that's not fair. So I don't
I don't think it's necessarily a gender issue. But I
(29:57):
do think that as women, we are more likely to
be unfairly saddled with, you know, someone else's overall well being.
And I felt that very acutely in these relationships. You know,
I would have friends that would say things like, oh, well,
you know, aren't you afraid if you leave them that
they'll that they'll spiral out of control? Or it's so
(30:18):
it's so lucky they have you to keep them on track.
I mean, it really made me feel like my entire
role in our relationship was to help them get sober
or help them get better. That I was only in
this relationship to be, you know, a cheerleader for that
person's recovery. And of course, when you're with someone who
has who has issues, you want them to get better.
(30:38):
But unless you've been in a situation, it's very hard
to describe. You basically kind of lose part of your
identity after a while, or at least I did, where
my our entire relationship functioned as a structure to help
the other person get better, and that like the only
conversations that we had were about them getting better and recovery,
and that like we weren't the kind of things that
(30:59):
kind of reasons that you get into a romantic relationship
for you know, feeling comfort and feeling happy, and feeling
stable and feeling loved and feeling you know safe, all
of that, all of that was gone. The only thing
that the only reason that our relationship function was to
help them get better, and any other thing that you
might have wanted was completely secondary to that first thing.
(31:22):
And I think that's really admirable when someone supports their
partner through something tough. But if if that is, you know,
not something that you can do, and if you are
losing yourself of the process, and if you are not happy,
and if you are being unfairly burdened, and if you're
like just if it's if it's just not something you
can do with at a certain point you're like, listen,
(31:43):
I'm not a professional. I can do I can only
do so much as your partner. It's okay to say
I love you, but this is my boundary. And I
want to see you get better, and I hope that
you get better, and I'm praying for you. But I
can't go on like this, like I can't manacle myself
to your struggles anymore. Yeah, it's a lot of work
and it sucks because you do feel at least when
(32:07):
I've been in these situations, I felt um a pressure
to stay and almost like I was failing or I
wasn't doing enough. Um. But yeah, you're not a professional,
and relationships shouldn't be one, at least in my opinion,
it shouldn't be one of permanently caretaking. Like if that's
what the relationship is, if that's what it becomes, then
(32:33):
that is a lot to ask of one person, and
it is for your own health. It is pretty essential
that you draw that boundary and that you are able
to say I can't be this for you, like we
have to find another solution or this isn't gonna work exactly.
(32:56):
And I think that is what this situation and shows
us is that you know, Ariana Grande is not a
mental health professional. She's got a drug counselor she could
nothing that she could do was going to help mac
Miller get better. You know, addiction is an illness, Like
you can't get someone sober for them, they have to
(33:18):
get themselves over. You can support them, you can do
an intervention, you can do all of these things that
might help, but at the end of the day, they
have to get somewhere for them. They can't get clean
for you. Yeah, we need to shift the conversation so
that we're talking about addiction and um no one is
(33:39):
responsible for the behavior of someone else, and it isn't
anyone's job to fix anyone else's problems. So we need
to we need to have a paradigm shift around this
whole thing exactly. UM Promises Treatment Center had this page
on their website called three things you can and can't
do to help an addicted loved one. They make it
very clear if your loved one has an addiction, you
(34:00):
can't make them get better. You can stage their invention
and you may be successful, but you cannot force someone
with a substance of these problem to quit. Even in
states that allowed in voluntary treatment, you can't make someone
gets sober. You also can't do the work of recovery
for them. Even if a loved one goes to drug rehab,
you can't do the work of recovery for them. And
you can't prevent our relapse. And lastly, you can't accept
(34:21):
behavior that violates your boundaries. To avoid enabling loved ones,
you have to set boundaries, and once you've laid out
your boundaries. Allowing them to be violated destroys your credibility
and perpetuates your loved ones addiction. And that's really what
I have found. I had to learn it the hard way,
where when you know someone I was close to continue
(34:42):
to relapse, I would I would feel like, oh God,
I have messed up, like I let them down to
the point where we were no longer assigning agency to
the person. It was. It was just me and you know,
friends and family, but we all were doing this dance
where that person was absolved of all of their actions,
and it just fell on all of us when they
(35:04):
slipped up. And of course, if you are struggling with addiction,
you might slip up, even if even after you get sober. Um,
it just wasn't a healthy situation. And understanding that boundary
it was really important. And I'm glad that Ariana Grande,
even at such a young age, established that boundary because
she deserves to be happy. You know, you don't deserve
to have your entire life become about taking care of
(35:25):
somebody else that's not yourself. Yeah, um, I feel like
Ariana Grande, keep on keep on rocking. If you ever
want to be on the show. You know you know
where to find is if this is something that you're
dealing with listeners, Um, we do have a number that
(35:46):
you can call. It's s A M H s a
S National Helpline and the number is one eight hundred
six six to help, and help is four three five seven.
So that's one eight hundred six six to four three seven. Yeah.
So please if you're if this sounds like you, if
you're struggling and you're trying to support somebody who needs
(36:07):
serious help, kudos. Remember that you're doing something admirable, but
there is only so much you can do and be
gentle with yourself. And that was something else that I
found is that when someone when I was with someone
who was struggling, a lot of people were very quick
to be like, oh, how how are you? How is he?
How is he? And I don't I don't think I
got that. I don't think anyone ever talked to me
(36:28):
and said you're doing good, like how are you doing?
It was always how are they doing? Like it was
always just so focused on the other person, and to
the point where I felt like my needs were just
like nothing. And so I'm here to tell you if
you are in a position where you are providing this
kind of support for somebody. Your needs are important. Don't
ignore them. Bridgets pretty wise listeners. I would heed her words. Okay,
(36:53):
so this is the end of this this episode, but
we still have of listener. Maile Kaylor wrote, I've thought
about writing in after several semi recent episodes, but the
episode on women's pleasure pushed me over the edge because
I wrote an essay on that topic for reproductive health
class I took last fall. Sexual health and pleasure are
(37:16):
probably the feminist issues that I am most passionate about.
I do sexual health research, and I am starting a
PhD program this year so I can keep doing sexual
health research forever. It's unfair that society at large only
discusses the negatives of sexual activity. For young females, st
I is pregnancy, that your first time is supposed to hurt,
that if you have sex too soon, too much, you're
(37:38):
a slat, on and on and on and on. But
for young males it's the complete opposite. You need to
have sex and a lot of it to be masculine.
Having sex is fun, Your pleasure matters. Masturbation is normal
and okay, on and on, and on and on. This
just leads to pretty much everyone having unrealistic and unhealthy
ideas about sex, and lots of women having unfun, unhealthy,
and unsafe sexual experiences. Even further, these unhealthy ideas are
(38:01):
forced fed to us for so long that they become
this insidious thing lurking in our subconscious so that even
if we get woke about the gender pleasure disparity, they
can still negatively impact our sexual experiences. Multiple times I've
hooked up with a new guy, I found myself settling
for a fun but unsatisfying experience because I'm uncomfortable asking
for what I want and or telling the guy that
(38:23):
I didn't orgasm. And in response to something that, if
I remember correctly, bridgets in the episode, I totally agree
that mutual orgasm shouldn't be the singular ultimate goal of
having sex. As long as it's between consenting adults, sex
can be whatever people wanted to be. Unfortunately, there's a
lot more women out there than men wanting an orgasm
and not getting one, which really sucks. I guess I'll
(38:44):
end my rent there and try to coherently sum up
my thoughts into something resembling a thesis there's a long
way to go before we'll reach true gender parity, but
I firmly believe that once women everywhere can appreciate and
take charge of their own sexuality and pleasure, we will
be one huge step closer. Agreed Kayla, and um she
(39:04):
attached her essay and it was great and I loved it.
I love that you're devoting like your PhD to this
is so fantastic. Yeah, kudos, thank you for writing in.
Julie writes, I have been going through the archive, and
about a year ago I listened to the episode Surfer Girls.
I was inspired by this episode to use surfing as
(39:25):
another way to dismantle the patriarchy by entering into another
arena where it often feels like a boys club. I
did not really know how to swim, but this spring
I signed up for an all women's surfing camp, and
I spent two months learning how to swim and becoming
proficient at it. I am happy to report that I've
spent the last two months surfing in Portugal and Hawaii,
feeling somewhat comfortable in the water and in the lineup.
(39:46):
When asked at surf camp why I came, I explained
that I listened to a podcast about how surfing was
originally a supportive equality and I am trying to contribute
to the movement to bring it back to that place.
Every time a freezing wave Portugal is not that warm,
but hit me in the thing ace and pushed me
back to the shore, I would shout you patriarchy and
dive back in, Julie, this makes me so happy. This
(40:07):
is speaking to my soul. Um. I also did a
surf camp. It was amazing. I wasn't the best at it,
and I'm I like to swim, but I'm not the
strongest swimmer, and it does I mean learning about the
history of surfing. It was a sport of equality and
if you are all interested in sort of thing, you
should do it. I will say it is a frustrating sport.
And then at least for me, I spent hours and
(40:31):
hours and hours surfing to have five glorious minutes standing
up on the board, and when I finally did it,
it was beautiful and wonderful. But it is so fun
and it's very freeing. And I'm so glad, Julie that
you wrote in I hope I see you out on
the beach sometime and I hope that we can the
patriarchy via surfing together. I love it. I love it.
(40:51):
Thanks to both of them for writing in. If you'd
like to write to as you can. Our email is
mom Stuff at Housta works dot com, and you can
find us on the social media is. We're on Instagram
stuff mon Never Told You and on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcast. And thanks as always for our producer Andrew
Howard h
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff I've
never told you. A lot has happened since we released
this episode, looking at the Yoko Ono effect and how
it played out with folks blaming Ariana Grande about Mac
(00:29):
Miller's death. Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande broke up and
she released to Thank You Next, which was a huge
hit and it inspired all of these parodies. It was
a really big deal, and Pete Davidson was being her
ass online by her fans for nine months. He even
addressed it an Instagram post in Arianna Grande erstra fans
(00:52):
to be gentler. Things escalated on December when Pete Davidson
posted a note on Instagram that had some suicidal id
shin and while some were supportive and voice concern, other
people were terrible, encouraging Davidson to self harm. As of
recording this, He's fine, Please did do wellness check and
(01:12):
he briefly appeared on Saturday Night Live. That night, he
deleted all of his social media accounts. And this is
just a friendly reminder that celebrities are people to words matter.
Mental health matters. If you or someone you know is
struggling with this, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is to
seven three eight to five five, or you can contact
(01:35):
the crisis text line by texting talk to seven one one.
Please take care of each other. Everybody, Hey, this is
Bridget and this is Annie and you're listening to stuff
Mom never told you. Today we have to start with
(02:04):
a trigger warning. UM, today's episode is going to be
about addiction and substance abuse and how they pertained to
romantic relationships. So if that is a issue that is
tough for you, just know that is what today's episode
is all about. You may have seen that musician Mac
Miller real name Malcolm McCormick died last week at the
(02:25):
age of on September seven of cardiac arrest related to
a suspected drug overdose. UM. I was a pretty casual
fan of Mac Miller's music. When he died, I sort
of was a bit sad because I was one of
those people that it took him dying for me to
go back and revisit some of his earlier work and say,
oh wow, he actually Um was a really talented musician,
(02:49):
and I wish I had listened to more of this stuff.
It was also pretty sad that there was this really interesting, fascinating,
glowing profile of him in Vulture magazine that came out, like,
I think, just two days before he died, And in
that piece, it really illustrates what an interesting kind of
guy he was. Um. He sort of had this this
(03:09):
kind of fun loving quality to him that made him
seem like a genuinely interesting person. When he died, all
of these different musicians were talking about all of these
good memories that they shared with him, and he just
seemed like someone who was genuinely very beloved. Um. One
of my favorite vines is him singing TLCS no scrubs. Um.
(03:31):
I mean, he just seemed like a like a really
a really good guy, and I think he's one of
those musicians. And it seems like he died before he
really got a chance to sort of show the world
what he could do. Right like he was, he was,
he was pretty young. He was in his twenties um,
which of course is very tragic, but he also didn't
really seem to have his one breakout album. He seemed
(03:55):
like he was poised for that moment where he was
going to become a megastar and sort of died right
before what happened yeah, I didn't know much about him, um,
because I kind of somehow miss a lot of Really
I miss a lot in this pop culture world, Bridget,
and I depend a lot on you, and I have
(04:16):
a group of friends who like keep me in the know,
and I honestly had never heard of him until this happened,
which makes me really sad. And it also makes me
really sad that when you just see this public persona
of people and you don't see I don't know. It's
just strange when you hear how beloved someone is or
(04:39):
how much fun they have, and then you see the
success and to have something like this happened, it feels
really jarring, and it just makes you kind of reconsider
maybe people that you in your life, or that you
whose entertainment you consume and enjoy. It's pretty sobering. It
is sobering. I also think it from finds us that
(05:00):
these are real people. Um, it's really really easy to
forget that you know, the people whose content you enjoy
their humans just like us. And it's I think it
can be jarring to be confronted with who they actually
are and what they're actually dealing with and what you
know who they are inside versus the music that they
(05:21):
make and all of that. And again, I was really
surprised to see how many Guy wasn't the biggest Mac
Miller fan, but I was surprised to see how many
of the musicians and I really love like Flying Lotus
and Thundercat were like, no, no, we were very close.
He was the best, Like he seemed like someone who
had far reaching um connections in the music industry. And
(05:41):
I think that's what makes this story so sad. So
mac Miller was someone who was very open in both
his interviews and in his music about his struggles with
mental issues and addiction. In a complex interview in Miller
admitted to using Lean, which is sort of that that
coding laced cough syrup that that musicians sometimes abuse um,
(06:02):
and he said that he used it to deal with depression.
He explained that criticism from an album that he had
that was a little bit of a flop in led
him to rely on this very addictive drug. In this article,
he said, I love Lean, it's great. I was not
happy and I was on Lean very heavy during the tour.
I was so left up all the time. It was bad.
My friends couldn't even look at me the same I
(06:23):
was lost. In May, the rapper released his tenth solo mixtape, Faces,
which by the way, is really great. On it, he
discussed his battle with depression, explaining how, quote a drug
habit like Philip Hoffman will probably put me in a coffin,
which is a reference to the actor of Philip Seymour Hoffman,
who I really loved, who also died a drug related death.
Um mac Miller also admitted to having suicidal thoughts before
(06:45):
releasing this album, on which he claimed, quote every single
song is about coke in drugs. He said that was
the plan with Grand Finale, the closing song on Faces.
It was supposed to be the last song I made
on Earth, But in that interview he said, I don't
feel that way anymore. So if you don't know mac Miller,
you probably know him through his ex girlfriend Ariana Grande Uh.
(07:06):
They dated for a while, and Ariana was very very
open that their relationship ended because of his issues with
mental health and drug abuse. UM, and I think what
really kind of shocks me about that is that they're
very young, but their relationships seemed to be very amicable,
Like even when they broke up, she was you know, like, oh, I,
(07:26):
I wish him the best and I love him. He's
one of my best friends, and I hope he gets better.
I'm so excited to see what he does in his life. Um,
she wrote on Instagram. This is one of my best
friends in the world and one of my favorite people
on the planet. I respect and adore him endlessly, and
I'm grateful to have him in my life in any
form at all times, regardless of how our relationship changes
or what the universe holds for each of us. And
(07:48):
you know, I was not having breakups and where this
mature what happens in my twenties, You know, I just
I found there. I found this to be a very
for young celebrities. I found this to be kind of
surpris rising ly transparent and mature. Oh, I agree. When
I was fifteen, I broke up with this dude in
Barnes and Noble because he didn't like tigers enough. That
(08:10):
was it good reason I would break up with someone
over that tigers are awesome. He I. Yeah, I don't
think he appreciated fully how awesome tigers were. And that
was it. That was the last room. Um. When I
found out about Mac Miller's death. I was with a
(08:31):
group of friends, like five friends, and we were all
in the same space, and they knew his music and
they knew he was and they were fans, and so
when they said his name, like I didn't, I wasn't
sure who it was. But from context clues I could
ascertain it was a musician. And they were, you know,
silently scrolling their phones and sad, and one of my
(08:51):
friends like shouted out, don't bring ari on a Grande
and it is, yes, And I didn't. I didn't know
they were dating. Um, which is really funny because my
phone thinks I'm obsessed with ari Ariana Grande. It gives
me updates about her and Pete Davidson all the time.
I don't know why. Um. Yes, they were very angry
(09:16):
at how how quickly this turned into a blame game
with Ariana Grande. Absolutely. I sort of couldn't imagine anything worse.
Ariana Grande, she went through it, She survived the terror
attack in the UK. Um she pretty recently, she's gone
(09:36):
through kind of a lot. Seeing how eager people were
to bring up her name in his death, was really surprised.
Per guess I shouldn't be surprised. It was. It was disappointing,
I'll put it that way. And you know, their relationship
seemed to be rocky. You know, when you're in a
relationship with someone that has these kinds of issues, of
course it's going to be, you know, rocky. But Mac
(09:58):
Miller's friends his end. Shane Powers praised Ariana Grande's role
in aiding his struggle with addiction on an episode of
the podcast The Shane Show. He said, there was no
one more ready to go to the wall with for
him when it came to being sober, and she was
an unbelievably stabilizing force in his life. She was deeply
helpful and effective in keeping Max sober and helping him
get sober. And she was all about him being healthy
(10:20):
period in this area of his life. And he went
on to say that she, you know, even after the
fact of them breaking up, was always checking in on
him and making sure that he was okay. And I
guess that's what I'm saying, is that him being sober,
she was a big part of him getting sober. But
you wouldn't have known Matt from the headlines, like the
headlines that I saw after his death. Basically blamed her
(10:43):
breaking up with him for him his spiral into addiction issues.
And after they broke up, Mac Miller, you know, he
was arrested for a d u y, he had a
hit and run, who trashed his car while drunk. He
clearly seemed to be going through some kind of issue.
But that is not Ariana g and Day's fault. Like
how eager people at major publications were to link his
(11:06):
behavior to her, like, oh, she shouldn't have broke up
with him then, like see what happens when you britten
up girl breaks up with you? You know, if only
she had stayed with them. I found that to be
not only just just just unhelpful and hurtful, but also
it completely is not how addiction works. Someone else cannot
make someone who is an addict to get sober. I've
learned that the hard way. If someone is struggling with addiction,
(11:27):
they only they can make themselves get better. Yeah, you,
it's just it's it's sad and it's difficult. And just
seeing how how people blamed her breaking up with them
for his death is that's really disheartening. Yeah, and again
(11:50):
we forget that Ariana Grande as a person, she's she's
not just a celebrity. And I think I think this
really does reveal um part of the toxicity sort of
We talked about it a lot on the show, part
of the toxicity that can stem from fan culture where
you feel so like mac Miller's fans probably felt so
into him that when he died, she you know, and
(12:13):
they had to be like, oh, you know, it's her fault.
After they broke up, she got into a relationship where
she became engaged to SNL's Pete Davidson and they had
They went on to have a very kind of publicly
cute see lovey dovey relationship. But again, that doesn't have
anything to do with with what happened with mac Miller.
On Twitter, after mac Miller crashed his car, one Twitter
(12:35):
user wrote, mac Miller totaling his g wagon and getting
a d u I after Ariana Grande dumped him for
another dude after he poured his heart out on a
ten song album to her called The Divine Feminine is
just the most heartbreaking thing that has ever happened in Hollywood.
Arianta Grande was not here for that, she replied. You know,
she took to the She took to the notes app.
Which is when you know like a celebrity is really
(12:57):
not having it is when they reply on the notes app.
He writes, how absurd that you minimize female self respect
and self worth by saying someone should stay in a
toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them, which,
by the way, isn't even the case. Justinderella is about me.
I am not a babysitter or a mother, and no
woman should feel they need to be. I have cared
for him and tried to support his sobriety and prayed
(13:18):
for his balance for years and always will, of course,
but shaming blaming women for a man's inability to keep
together is a very major problem. Let's please stop doing that.
Of course, I didn't share about how scary or our
heart it was when it was happening, but it was.
I will continue to pray from the bottom of my
heart that he figures it all out, and that any
other woman in this position does as well. And she's exactly, exactly,
(13:42):
exactly right. I applaud her for standing up and saying
this because she clearly loves mac Miller. It's clearly hard
for her to watch him go through this, but it
is not her responsibility to stay manicold to him for
the rest of her life, to keep him sober. This
is not her job. She's not she's not a so
we're living coach, he thought his mother, and to put
(14:02):
this on her to say, oh, well, he made an
album about you. That kind of thinking just really minimizes
a woman's agency. So because because a man writes an
album about you, you're obligated to stay with him forever. Yeah,
it's just another example of kind of like a bigger
example of um, well I bought you dinner, so you
owe me sex. It's like the same thing that it's
(14:24):
it's entitlement saying well, I I did this incredibly kind
thing for you, so you owe me this. And she doesn't.
She doesn't. You know. Robin Thick tried that same thing
with Paul Patton after they got divorced. He made a
whole album that was basically paula, come back to me,
and you know what, she didn't go back to him,
and she went on with her life as she should. Yes,
(14:46):
absolutely absolutely, So let's talk more about the situation after
a quick break and we're back. As we said earlier
in the episode, several news outlets kind of could not
wait to bring up Ariana Grande when discussing what happened
(15:10):
with mac Miller. I saw articles that were like Ariana
Grande x Comma rapper mac Miller Comma dead from apparent
drug overdose. And you know when when he died, her
name immediately almost almost at the same time, started trending
on Twitter. And so it just goes to show how
quick people are too attach. I'm not even dating anymore,
(15:32):
but to attach a woman to a man's behavior when
something like this happens. It's like I was listening to
the podcast to Keep It, which if you don't listen
to Keep It, it's really good you should. But they
were saying, you know, it's a woman's responsibility to have
a conscious for men, because if women don't have conscious
is no one will have a conscience. It's like it's
like just assumed that, oh, if something happens with a man,
(15:55):
it's going to be a woman who you know, who
is at fault or to blame in some capacity. Yeah,
and that kind of reminds me of like if successes
and then men can take take responsibility for that, but failures, um,
then it's the woman. Well, the woman that should have
(16:17):
been behind like supporting. And it reminds me of our
poor performing males video game. Yeah, hashtag pre performing males.
It's true. And again, part of it, I think is
is a I can sort of forgive a nineteen year
old Mac Miller fan for this because you're young, and
(16:37):
Lord knows, I had, you know, dumb misconceptions when I
was young. But I really, when I look at media,
I want to say, what are you doing? Adults who
work at media companies should know better. The TMZ article
following his death basically blamed their breakup for his spiral
into addiction. They even included a line that they edited
He quote had trouble recently with substance abuse in the
(16:57):
wake of his breakup with Ariana Grande And that's so
gross and I would expect adults who run media companies
to know better. After his death, Arianna actually had to
disable the comments on her Instagram because her Instagram and
Twitter were flooded with gross sexist comments like this is
your fault, you flag you cheated on him with Pete Davidson.
(17:19):
You know, I hope you're happy. And the saddest thing
like she posted this really really sad Instagram picture of
him where she had to have the comments disabled, and
it just made me so sad. You know, this is
someone that she clearly loved. When they split, they had
a very amicable split where and she kept saying, this
is my best friend. I love him, I love him,
you know, I hope he gets better. I wanted to
(17:40):
get better, and praying him to get better, and not
even being able to grieve in peace because people are
too busy blooding her social media with really disgusting comments
about how she's a whore who cheated on him. Yeah,
that's awful. That's to deal with that on top of
on top of your grief, I can't imagine. And to
(18:01):
have people I've always found people are kind of judgmental
about how you grieve and like how you perform grief.
And to have so many people on that largest scale
judging you for what you're doing or not doing, or
what is your fault what's not your fault is that's awful.
(18:24):
It is awful. And again, this is someone who is young.
This is someone who would survive. I keep keep going
back to this, but who survived a very traumatic event
not that long ago, you know, a mass shooting at
one of her concerts while she was on stage like,
I don't know, I just I feel like we expect
celebrities to be these larger than life figures and we
(18:45):
forget that they're human, And nothing would have illustrates that
more than when they're grieving. I think that you're exactly right,
and Ariana Grande is not the first celebrity to be
treated this way at all. Rolling Stone calls it the
Yoko effect. Quote. Fan claims such as the stem from
the most dangerous branch of pop cultures, continuous fascination with
(19:07):
the so called Yoko effect, and it's desire to connect
female partners to actions they may not comprehend. These claims
and conspiracies, often solely perpetrated by the most toxically masculine
factions of fandoms, sometimes never disappear. Even Courtney Love is
still fielding social media comments and blog conspiracy theories that
(19:27):
she not only was the reason Kurt Cobain became addicted
to heroine she was not, but also that she had
actually murdered him and faked his suicide also one true.
Cobain died two decades before these social media platforms even existed.
Yet the fact that Love's comments can still attract a
rogue claim like this speaks volumes to the way society
(19:48):
continues to expect women to be caretakers for the men
in their lives and reacts with fury when they apparently
cannot absorb their partner's pain. It's so upsetting. The Courtney
Love thing, I think an especially upsetting thing, and when
I have a lot of personal connection to is someone
who is a big fan of them. Both Courtney Love
and Francis Bean Cobain actually had to go to court
(20:11):
with one of these conspiracy theorists. In a Seattle court
ruled that pictures from the scene of Kurt Cobain's death
would remain sealed from the public. Conspiracy theorist Richard Lee
sued the city over the release of the images. Court
documents states that the images depict quote Kurt's body as
it lay in the family residents after he was shot
in the head. Cobain's next of kid had previously testified
(20:33):
in the case. In April sixteen, Love gave a statement
accusingly of trying to exploit Cobain's death, which he claims
to have been investigating for more than twenty three years.
Love said that he stopped and harassed her, her family,
and her friends for many, many many years. On more
than one particular occasion, Mr Lee even filmed himself chasing
a limo for several miles that he thought she was
a passenger. In. Mr Lee's actions make me fear for
(20:55):
my safety, she said. Um, yes, Courtney Love was probably
one of my biggest problematic faiths. Um, I'm a pretty
big fan. I was also a big fan of Nirvana,
and I remember I think I was in sixth grade
when Kurt Cobain died, and I definitely mean I was
eleven or twelve, so I was very young. But I
(21:16):
definitely did blame her for his death, Like I was
that person who was like, oh, Kurt, Courtney killed Kurt,
and Kurt would still be alive if Courtney, if Courtney
hadn't gotten involved with him. And this was because I
was young, you know, I didn't I didn't have any understanding.
What was going on. The narrative at the time with
(21:36):
with super fans of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain was that
Kurt Cobain was this sort of delicate genius who was
sort of too pure for this world and Courtney was
this awful person who was really troubled and sort of
got him into all this, all these bad situations, and
that I think that myth persists today and it's very gendered.
(21:59):
Never mind the fact that both Kurt and Courtney were
you know, had issues with addiction. They're both were living
very similar lifestyles, and so it's interesting that one of
them gets to be this you know, fallen angel even
in death, and the other is just sort of stuck
to pick up the pieces. And when I got it
wasn't until I got older than I realized. Wait a minute,
(22:19):
Kurt Cobain after his suicide, his wife, now a widow,
had to raise their kid alone and had to do
it while a lot of people were publicly and loudly
speculating that she murdered him. And that's really horrible, and
you know, we like it was one of those is
one of those things that I really it kind of
(22:40):
forced me to grow up because it's a very immature attitude.
That's like, oh, Courtney is so awful and even though
she was doing the same things as Kurt, she's terrible
and he's awesome, And you know, that's such an immature attitude.
It wasn't until I got older than I saw actually
she is a grieving widow who now has to raise
a child alone, and it's a bad situation. And people
(23:03):
who discount that are like living in a fantasy world.
They're not living in reality. It goes back to seeing
celebrities as people, as something more than this one dimensional thing.
Really this image that you you consume and then you
put all of your own stuff onto. I was. I
(23:23):
liked Nirvana when I was younger, Um a lot too,
but I didn't know much about their personal lives because
I didn't have like TV that the first time I
heard of Courtney Love, it was with the implication that
she had killed him. That was like my first exposure
to her. There's an entire documentary about that. The premises
(23:46):
is that he that she had him murdered for money,
you know, like like it's such a common thing. I
have to tell a quick story. I have a lot
of Courtney Love personal anecdotes. I will try to pare
it down because feel a long podcast. But the one
that is most relevant is that I was once at
a bar and basically were like play cole and the
(24:07):
bar tender was like no Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain.
So my friends have a drink in his space. Good
for your friends. Yeah, shout out to Anne and wasn't
having it. Um No, But I think you're right. I
think it's about an inability to see celebrities as real
(24:28):
people and they're just this thing that we consume and
we don't see their pain, we don't see their trauma,
we don't see their you know. And also, I think
it's about addiction. It doesn't surprise me that all the
people that we're talking about today dealt with things like
addiction and depression. You know, we don't live in a
country where we're having thoughtful conversations about addiction, and it
(24:51):
is a problem. And I think that because of that,
we're gonna get we're getting nowhere on the issue. You know.
I think I'm happy to see that we're having a
more nuanced conversation about the opioid crisis. But frankly, the
only reason that we're doing that is because it's now
impacting White America, and that I think that's the only
reason why we're finally saying, hey, this is a problem.
(25:12):
We need to figure out how we're going to deal
with this. Because it's becoming a big issue. I'm happy
that we've that we've gotten there, but I have to
be clear on why I think it is. I think
that when opioids were impacting communities of color for so long,
we just did nothing and it was just you know,
we were writing off entire generations of black and brown
folks and thinking nothing of it. And even with that
being the case, I'm still so happy that we're getting
(25:32):
to a point where we're saying, hey, we need a
more compassionate solution other than just lacking people up and
letting them die. You know. Yes, Um, I think we've
fundamentally misunderstood addiction probably, I mean still do, but for
a long time. UM, And I'm hoping that we're moving
away from that and that we can start to change
(25:55):
people's perceptions around it, because I just think they're there's
so much that we get wrong about addiction, and um,
of course, unfortunately, of course, there we have another example
of Elliott Smith where it's similar. UM. Fans or people
believe that his suicide was not actually a suicide, but
(26:17):
that he was murdered by his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba following
an argument. In a statement, she gave to MTV. She said,
although she hasn't been charged with a crime or questioned
recently by police, she feels like a suspect in the
court of public opinion. Quote. Up until now, I've chosen
to remain silent because I want to maintain some sense
(26:37):
of privacy for Elliott and his family and myself and
this really difficult time, and I want people to know
that I'm not keeping quiet because I have anything to hide.
If I was a suspect, I would have heard from
the investigators for one thing. Another is that his sister
and his parents and everyone close to him knows the truth,
So I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I loved Eliot
(26:59):
Smith and still you um that one was interesting to
me because Elliott Smith's entire uvra is about struggling with depression.
So this idea, you know, people conspiracy theorists are like, oh,
he spells his name wrong in the suicide letter, and
they have all of these reasons why they believe he
couldn't have done it. And I also think that that
plays into this idea that we have around people who
(27:20):
are struggling, is that like he couldn't have done it.
He wouldn't have done this. There has to be some
other reason. It has to be that he was murdered,
or it was the government or this or that. And
I think sometimes we just don't want to accept that
someone could do this because it's so upsetting. But you know,
people do, people do. And I think that we I
(27:42):
understand the rush to say so and so would never
take the throw in life. They couldn't have done it again.
It just it just highlights to me that we're not
having the right conversation when it comes to addiction and
substance abuse and mental health because you don't know what
people are dealing with. And I think that Eliot Smiths
situation really highlighted people's willingness to not confront that someone
(28:08):
is struggling, Like his entire musical career is basically about
his struggles. I was introduced to Elliott Smith via The
Royal Tin and Bombs when a song of his is
used when one of the characters is trying to kill himself. Yeah,
needle in the hay. I mean he wasn't. I don't
think it should come as a massive surprise that he
(28:30):
would make that choice, as horrible as it is, you know,
I think that people are willing to confront that, and
who are you know, say that there must be some
other explanation. Are sort of again not understanding that this
person that you in, whose music you enjoyed, is a
flawed human being. And that's okay. Yeah, um, we we
(28:54):
have a little bit more for you, but we're going
to pause for one more quick break for word from
our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So this
(29:14):
is an issue that's that's personal for me. I have
been in relationships with people who are struggling with both
addiction issues, substance abuse issues, and kind of overall mental
health issues. And in the conversations that people were having
around Ariana Grande, I just really really identified with what
they said about her and how she probably felt. I
(29:37):
think it happens for people of all genders, right. I
think that when you are in a relationship or a
friendship or a family relationship with someone who was struggling,
there is it can be any gender who was sort
of unfairly given this burden of carrying the weight of
that person's recovery, and that's not fair. So I don't
I don't think it's necessarily a gender issue. But I
(29:57):
do think that as women, we are more likely to
be unfairly saddled with, you know, someone else's overall well being.
And I felt that very acutely in these relationships. You know,
I would have friends that would say things like, oh, well,
you know, aren't you afraid if you leave them that
they'll that they'll spiral out of control? Or it's so
(30:18):
it's so lucky they have you to keep them on track.
I mean, it really made me feel like my entire
role in our relationship was to help them get sober
or help them get better. That I was only in
this relationship to be, you know, a cheerleader for that
person's recovery. And of course, when you're with someone who
has who has issues, you want them to get better.
(30:38):
But unless you've been in a situation, it's very hard
to describe. You basically kind of lose part of your
identity after a while, or at least I did, where
my our entire relationship functioned as a structure to help
the other person get better, and that like the only
conversations that we had were about them getting better and recovery,
and that like we weren't the kind of things that
(30:59):
kind of reasons that you get into a romantic relationship
for you know, feeling comfort and feeling happy, and feeling
stable and feeling loved and feeling you know safe, all
of that, all of that was gone. The only thing
that the only reason that our relationship function was to
help them get better, and any other thing that you
might have wanted was completely secondary to that first thing.
(31:22):
And I think that's really admirable when someone supports their
partner through something tough. But if if that is, you know,
not something that you can do, and if you are
losing yourself of the process, and if you are not happy,
and if you are being unfairly burdened, and if you're
like just if it's if it's just not something you
can do with at a certain point you're like, listen,
(31:43):
I'm not a professional. I can do I can only
do so much as your partner. It's okay to say
I love you, but this is my boundary. And I
want to see you get better, and I hope that
you get better, and I'm praying for you. But I
can't go on like this, like I can't manacle myself
to your struggles anymore. Yeah, it's a lot of work
and it sucks because you do feel at least when
(32:07):
I've been in these situations, I felt um a pressure
to stay and almost like I was failing or I
wasn't doing enough. Um. But yeah, you're not a professional,
and relationships shouldn't be one, at least in my opinion,
it shouldn't be one of permanently caretaking. Like if that's
what the relationship is, if that's what it becomes, then
(32:33):
that is a lot to ask of one person, and
it is for your own health. It is pretty essential
that you draw that boundary and that you are able
to say I can't be this for you, like we
have to find another solution or this isn't gonna work exactly.
(32:56):
And I think that is what this situation and shows
us is that you know, Ariana Grande is not a
mental health professional. She's got a drug counselor she could
nothing that she could do was going to help mac
Miller get better. You know, addiction is an illness, Like
you can't get someone sober for them, they have to
(33:18):
get themselves over. You can support them, you can do
an intervention, you can do all of these things that
might help, but at the end of the day, they
have to get somewhere for them. They can't get clean
for you. Yeah, we need to shift the conversation so
that we're talking about addiction and um no one is
(33:39):
responsible for the behavior of someone else, and it isn't
anyone's job to fix anyone else's problems. So we need
to we need to have a paradigm shift around this
whole thing exactly. UM Promises Treatment Center had this page
on their website called three things you can and can't
do to help an addicted loved one. They make it
very clear if your loved one has an addiction, you
(34:00):
can't make them get better. You can stage their invention
and you may be successful, but you cannot force someone
with a substance of these problem to quit. Even in
states that allowed in voluntary treatment, you can't make someone
gets sober. You also can't do the work of recovery
for them. Even if a loved one goes to drug rehab,
you can't do the work of recovery for them. And
you can't prevent our relapse. And lastly, you can't accept
(34:21):
behavior that violates your boundaries. To avoid enabling loved ones,
you have to set boundaries, and once you've laid out
your boundaries. Allowing them to be violated destroys your credibility
and perpetuates your loved ones addiction. And that's really what
I have found. I had to learn it the hard way,
where when you know someone I was close to continue
(34:42):
to relapse, I would I would feel like, oh God,
I have messed up, like I let them down to
the point where we were no longer assigning agency to
the person. It was. It was just me and you know,
friends and family, but we all were doing this dance
where that person was absolved of all of their actions,
and it just fell on all of us when they
(35:04):
slipped up. And of course, if you are struggling with addiction,
you might slip up, even if even after you get sober. Um,
it just wasn't a healthy situation. And understanding that boundary
it was really important. And I'm glad that Ariana Grande,
even at such a young age, established that boundary because
she deserves to be happy. You know, you don't deserve
to have your entire life become about taking care of
(35:25):
somebody else that's not yourself. Yeah, um, I feel like
Ariana Grande, keep on keep on rocking. If you ever
want to be on the show. You know you know
where to find is if this is something that you're
dealing with listeners, Um, we do have a number that
(35:46):
you can call. It's s A M H s a
S National Helpline and the number is one eight hundred
six six to help, and help is four three five seven.
So that's one eight hundred six six to four three seven. Yeah.
So please if you're if this sounds like you, if
you're struggling and you're trying to support somebody who needs
(36:07):
serious help, kudos. Remember that you're doing something admirable, but
there is only so much you can do and be
gentle with yourself. And that was something else that I
found is that when someone when I was with someone
who was struggling, a lot of people were very quick
to be like, oh, how how are you? How is he?
How is he? And I don't I don't think I
got that. I don't think anyone ever talked to me
(36:28):
and said you're doing good, like how are you doing?
It was always how are they doing? Like it was
always just so focused on the other person, and to
the point where I felt like my needs were just
like nothing. And so I'm here to tell you if
you are in a position where you are providing this
kind of support for somebody. Your needs are important. Don't
ignore them. Bridgets pretty wise listeners. I would heed her words. Okay,
(36:53):
so this is the end of this this episode, but
we still have of listener. Maile Kaylor wrote, I've thought
about writing in after several semi recent episodes, but the
episode on women's pleasure pushed me over the edge because
I wrote an essay on that topic for reproductive health
class I took last fall. Sexual health and pleasure are
(37:16):
probably the feminist issues that I am most passionate about.
I do sexual health research, and I am starting a
PhD program this year so I can keep doing sexual
health research forever. It's unfair that society at large only
discusses the negatives of sexual activity. For young females, st
I is pregnancy, that your first time is supposed to hurt,
that if you have sex too soon, too much, you're
(37:38):
a slat, on and on and on and on. But
for young males it's the complete opposite. You need to
have sex and a lot of it to be masculine.
Having sex is fun, Your pleasure matters. Masturbation is normal
and okay, on and on, and on and on. This
just leads to pretty much everyone having unrealistic and unhealthy
ideas about sex, and lots of women having unfun, unhealthy,
and unsafe sexual experiences. Even further, these unhealthy ideas are
(38:01):
forced fed to us for so long that they become
this insidious thing lurking in our subconscious so that even
if we get woke about the gender pleasure disparity, they
can still negatively impact our sexual experiences. Multiple times I've
hooked up with a new guy, I found myself settling
for a fun but unsatisfying experience because I'm uncomfortable asking
for what I want and or telling the guy that
(38:23):
I didn't orgasm. And in response to something that, if
I remember correctly, bridgets in the episode, I totally agree
that mutual orgasm shouldn't be the singular ultimate goal of
having sex. As long as it's between consenting adults, sex
can be whatever people wanted to be. Unfortunately, there's a
lot more women out there than men wanting an orgasm
and not getting one, which really sucks. I guess I'll
(38:44):
end my rent there and try to coherently sum up
my thoughts into something resembling a thesis there's a long
way to go before we'll reach true gender parity, but
I firmly believe that once women everywhere can appreciate and
take charge of their own sexuality and pleasure, we will
be one huge step closer. Agreed Kayla, and um she
(39:04):
attached her essay and it was great and I loved it.
I love that you're devoting like your PhD to this
is so fantastic. Yeah, kudos, thank you for writing in.
Julie writes, I have been going through the archive, and
about a year ago I listened to the episode Surfer Girls.
I was inspired by this episode to use surfing as
(39:25):
another way to dismantle the patriarchy by entering into another
arena where it often feels like a boys club. I
did not really know how to swim, but this spring
I signed up for an all women's surfing camp, and
I spent two months learning how to swim and becoming
proficient at it. I am happy to report that I've
spent the last two months surfing in Portugal and Hawaii,
feeling somewhat comfortable in the water and in the lineup.
(39:46):
When asked at surf camp why I came, I explained
that I listened to a podcast about how surfing was
originally a supportive equality and I am trying to contribute
to the movement to bring it back to that place.
Every time a freezing wave Portugal is not that warm,
but hit me in the thing ace and pushed me
back to the shore, I would shout you patriarchy and
dive back in, Julie, this makes me so happy. This
(40:07):
is speaking to my soul. Um. I also did a
surf camp. It was amazing. I wasn't the best at it,
and I'm I like to swim, but I'm not the
strongest swimmer, and it does I mean learning about the
history of surfing. It was a sport of equality and
if you are all interested in sort of thing, you
should do it. I will say it is a frustrating sport.
And then at least for me, I spent hours and
(40:31):
hours and hours surfing to have five glorious minutes standing
up on the board, and when I finally did it,
it was beautiful and wonderful. But it is so fun
and it's very freeing. And I'm so glad, Julie that
you wrote in I hope I see you out on
the beach sometime and I hope that we can the
patriarchy via surfing together. I love it. I love it.
(40:51):
Thanks to both of them for writing in. If you'd
like to write to as you can. Our email is
mom Stuff at Housta works dot com, and you can
find us on the social media is. We're on Instagram
stuff mon Never Told You and on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcast. And thanks as always for our producer Andrew
Howard h
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