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- [00:00]
Margo Gray
Liberty Lost is a new podcast about.
- [00:02]
Eric Rosen
Who gets to be a mother and the control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith when Roe vs Wade was overturned, host TJ Raphael set.
- [00:12]
Margo Gray
Out to do a story about maternity.
- [00:14]
Eric Rosen
Homes and adoption narrative pillars for anti abortion advocates.
- [00:18]
Margo Gray
This started a three year reporting journey.
- [00:21]
Eric Rosen
Full of shock, frustration and revealed a story that's never been told. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families.
- [00:30]
Margo Gray
Shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place.
- [00:35]
Eric Rosen
Their babies for adoption. And in hidden corners across America, it's still happening. At Liberty University, there's a secretive facility called the Liberty Godparent Home. The home says it will support unwed mothers, but in reality, many of the.
- [00:50]
Margo Gray
Young women feel trapped inside a system.
- [00:52]
Eric Rosen
That'S forcing them to give up their children. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:58]
Margo Gray
You can binge all episodes of Liberty.
- [01:01]
Eric Rosen
Lost early and ad free right now by joining Wonderly plus hi, I'm Kristen.
- [01:06]
Margo Gray
Bell and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car.
- [01:10]
Eric Rosen
Selling a car, not so much. We're really doing this, huh?
- [01:13]
Margo Gray
Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your VIN or license and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning.
- [01:20]
Eric Rosen
And they'll come pick it up and.
- [01:22]
Margo Gray
Pay us this afternoon.
- [01:24]
Eric Rosen
Bye bye Truckee.
- [01:26]
Margo Gray
Of course, we kept the favorite.
- [01:29]
Eric Rosen
Hello other Truckee.
- [01:31]
Margo Gray
Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply. It's being called the largest college admissions fraud in US history. 50 people are being charged in a case the feds have nicknamed Operation Varsity Blues. As part of his guilty plea, Singer admitted to facilitating bribing those coaches and university administrators to guarantee his clients children would be admitted as recruited athletes.
- [01:58]
Eric Rosen
It was a massive sting, exposing an.
- [02:00]
Margo Gray
Ugly truth that admission to college can be bought, bartered, and stolen for some. If you listen to season one of our podcast, Gangster Capitalism, you already know the broad strokes of Operation Varsity Blues, the largest college admission scandal in American history. Mastermind Rick Singer helped some of the country's wealthiest and most powerful families bribe their children's way into elite universities. When we produced that podcast, we interviewed people caught up in the scheme and experts who had studied it. But one crucial voice was missing. We tried to speak with someone from the prosecution team. Unsuccessfully. The investigation was still active and no one on the law enforcement side would talk. Now that's changed. In this episode, we bring you the story behind the story from the prosecutor who uncovered it all.
- [02:57]
Eric Rosen
Foreign.
- [03:00]
Margo Gray
I'm Margo Gray. This Week on Campus Files, the inside story of Operation Varsity Blues. Through the eyes of prosecutor Eric Rosett. The investigation we now know as Operation Varsity Blues didn't begin the way you might expect. There were no tips from suspicious admissions officers or federal agents staking out college campuses. It started by chance, thanks to a completely unrelated investigation. At the time, Eric Rosen was working in the Economic Crimes unit of the U.S. attorney's office in Boston, handling cases like securities fraud, money laundering, and bribery. He was working on a typical white collar case, a pump and dump scheme. Basically, someone talks up a company, they hype it, promote it, get people excited about its potential. The stock price climbs. Then at just the right moment, they cash out, selling their shares for a profit while everyone else watches their investment crumble. Here's Eric.
- [04:11]
Eric Rosen
There's a famous case where a New Jersey deli, a single deli, was valued at like, $100 million because it went public. But effectively, what happens is that once the sort of the music stops, once the sort of promotion ends, once the sort of, like, manipulative trading ends, there's no real value.
- [04:28]
Margo Gray
Back in 2018, Eric was making headway on a classic pump and dump scheme. One of the players had scammed investors out of $15 million. His name was Maury Tobin.
- [04:40]
Eric Rosen
Maury lived in this huge mansion. He had made it in life running these schemes. He was a Canadian guy, probably in his mid-50s, looked about 40, very fit, active. A guy that people wanted to be friends with, and he could convince people to buy his shares.
- [04:57]
Margo Gray
Eric and his team had enough on Maury to bring him in. So on Valentine's Day 2018, the FBI raided his home. Facing serious prison time, Maury was offered an enticing cooperate, tell us everything you know, and we'll consider recommending a lighter sentence. Two weeks later, in the middle of a massive snowstorm, Maury flew to Boston. He was ready to talk.
- [05:25]
Eric Rosen
Maury is a guy that you can talk to for an hour and learn nothing. He literally talks around and around to the point where you're like, what just happened to me? I have no idea. He can't answer the simple question, what's your name? And you get a 30 minute response, and he doesn't even tell you his name.
- [05:42]
Margo Gray
On the first day of questioning, investigators were focused on the basics. What stocks were involved, who else was part of the scheme, and who could Maury help them build cases against?
- [05:53]
Eric Rosen
Then the next day, his lawyers sort of pull me aside and say, hey, Eric, there's something else he has going on that you may be interested in not really a big deal, but with the spirit of cooperation is you tell everything. And so we said, oh, what is it?
- [06:10]
Margo Gray
At first, Moore was very reluctant to discuss it, but eventually they got it out of him.
- [06:16]
Eric Rosen
Morey told us that he had worked out a deal with the Yale soccer coach to effectively recruit his daughter, who was an okay soccer player, but certainly not a Ivy League recruit, as a soccer player, onto the Yale soccer team in exchange for money. And so this was the first time I had ever heard that people would actually do that.
- [06:39]
Margo Gray
Eric was puzzled. How did a college coach end up at the center of an admission scheme? It didn't add up, but this was uncharted territory for him. His background in white collar crime hadn't exactly prepared him for the world of college admissions.
- [06:55]
Eric Rosen
The last time I had paid attention to the world of College admissions was 1996, when I was applying to college. And that was sort of it. You sort of do it. It sucks, and then you move on with your life.
- [07:08]
Margo Gray
So Eric dove, and eventually the coach's role clicked into place. Athletic recruitment, he discovered, was one of the most reliable pathways into elite universities. Coaches wield enormous power over admissions decisions.
- [07:23]
Eric Rosen
If you have two people that are equal standing and academically, and one's a recruit and one's not, the chance of admission, probably for someone that's not into a place like Yale, is 3 or 4%. But if you're recruit, it gets up to 85, 90%.
- [07:38]
Margo Gray
That's why Maury was bribing the Yale soccer coach, which begged the question, if he could buy a roster spot, how many others had done the same?
- [07:48]
Eric Rosen
So at this point, the investigation sort of split. One side was the stock stuff, and the other side was the Yale soccer coach. And so being from Boston, there's nothing we like better than taking down Yale. So we put our, you know, the agents to work.
- [08:03]
Margo Gray
Eric gave the case a name. Operation Freekick, a playful nod to soccer. He figured it would be straightforward. A simple open shut case. One bad actor in Yale's soccer department. The plan was simple. They just needed the coach to admit to taking bribes. So Eric's team had Mowry set up a meeting. There was nothing suspicious about it. After all, Mowry and the coach had already shaken hands on a deal. They were just negotiating over the final price. The meeting would take place at the longmoorf Marriott in Boston.
- [08:40]
Eric Rosen
Sort of a fun fact. I had my senior prom there, but that wasn't why it was chosen. So they wired up the room. They had a video camera recording everything. And Maury was a terrific cooperator. And they actually wrote out a bribe contract, which is not typical in the bribery industry.
- [08:58]
Margo Gray
In other words, the coach didn't just verbally admit to the scheme, he spelled it out in writing. Then he accepted $2,000 in cash from Maury and gave instructions for where to send the rest of the money. It was everything investigators needed. Case closed. Until the coach said one more thing.
- [09:19]
Eric Rosen
And he mentioned, hey Maury, there's a guy out in LA who this is his job. He like flies around the country, meets with coaches, recruits people who aren't real athletes onto their teams, pays coaches, pays athletic programs. That's what he as a for a living.
- [09:36]
Margo Gray
The man's name Rick Singer. You know that feeling when the weather finally warms up and nothing in your closet feels right? Personally, I was there last month and I didn't want to splurge on pieces I'd only wear once. So I decided to give Quint a try and it was a game changer. Their clothing is high quality and made to last at a way better price than comparable brands. I added their 100% European linen dress to my closet. It's already a go to and I know it's not just going to be my staple for this summer, but for next summer too. Quints makes luxury affordable by working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen. Everything is ethically made, responsibly sourced and beautifully crafted. So give your summer wardrobe a serious upgrade with quince go to quince.com campus for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's Quincus for free shipping and 365 day returns.quince.com campus hey what's up flies?
- [10:43]
Eric Rosen
This is David Spade Dana Carvey. Okay, I know we never actually left.
- [10:48]
Margo Gray
But I'll just say it. We are back with another season of.
- [10:51]
Eric Rosen
Fly on the Wall. Every episode, including ones with guests will.
- [10:55]
Margo Gray
Now be on Vimeo.
- [10:57]
Eric Rosen
Every Thursday you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities. And every Monday you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall everywhere you get your podcasts.
- [11:12]
Margo Gray
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- [12:31]
Eric Rosen
The Yale soccer coach had taken about $850,000 from something called the Key Worldwide Foundation. And every check was signed by Rick Singer. At that point, we knew we were onto something bigger than just one coach. No one could come up with that type of money just for one off deals. And so we launched a much bigger investigation.
- [12:56]
Margo Gray
They started digging into the Key Worldwide foundation, the organization that had paid the Yale soccer coach. On paper, it was a charity meant to help disadvantaged high school students. Eventually, Eric and his team discovered that keyworldwide was less of a charity and more of a front. A way for wealthy parents to funnel bribes disguised as charitable donations. And for Rick Singer to quietly pass that money along to coaches. But even after they figured that out, the numbers didn't make sense. For starters, the donation amounts were all over the place.
- [13:32]
Eric Rosen
Donations from 15,000 on up to a million dollars. Or I think there was actually a $6 million one at one point.
- [13:40]
Margo Gray
Investigators hoped that Rick's emails obtained through a search warrant would give them some answers. But if they were expecting anything straightforward, they were out of luck.
- [13:51]
Eric Rosen
You get this massive tranche of stuff. Hundreds of thousands of emails. The people conducting the review of the emails are humans. People like me. And your job is not just to go through them, but you have to put together the pieces. So you have to create chronologies of what happened when.
- [14:08]
Margo Gray
Amid the thousands of emails, investigators spotted things that caught their attention. Celebrity names scattered throughout the correspondences. And something even more bizarre. Photoshopped pictures. By now, you've probably seen them yourself. Teenagers. Faces pasted onto the bodies of real athletes. Water polo players, sailors, tennis stars. Suspicious, sure, but not a smoking gun. Because proving those students weren't actual athletes was tricky. Just because A Google search came up empty. Didn't mean much.
- [14:44]
Eric Rosen
You Google yourself, like, stuff you did is not on there. Doesn't mean you're a liar. It just means that things get washed out throughout the years.
- [14:53]
Margo Gray
The obvious next step would have been to subpoena records from the students high school, find out if they played varsity or if they were really Division 1 material. But that wasn't an option in this investigation.
- [15:05]
Eric Rosen
There's a federal law called ferpa, which prevents people, you know, school administrators from telling a student about grand jury subpoenas and the like. But the problem there is that doesn't apply to a lot of these private schools.
- [15:20]
Margo Gray
As a result, reaching out to the schools risked blowing the entire investigation. That left investigators at a dead end. To Eric, the next step was clear. They needed a wiretap, which is a surveillance tool where neither party knows or consents to being recorded. Because it's such a serious invasion of privacy, getting it approved is challenging.
- [15:43]
Eric Rosen
The procedure for getting a wiretap is extremely complicated. You have to get internal approvals from people in your unit that read these affidavits that are sometimes 100 pages long that you've drafted. You then present it to a higher level DOJ official, and then you have to take it to a federal judge who then reads the entire packet and either signs it or doesn't sign it. But you have to do that every month. They last for 30 days. And so by two weeks, you're sitting there at your computer writing the next affidavit because it takes that long.
- [16:17]
Margo Gray
But Eric knew it was worth pursuing. He'd handled plenty of wiretaps before, back when he was prosecuting drug cases. And he knew better than most. Few things are more powerful in court than a defendant admitting to a crime in their own voice. Eventually, his team secured the wiretap, and fortunately for them, Rick Singer was a guy who liked to talk.
- [16:40]
Eric Rosen
One of the interesting things about Rick Singer is like part of his pitch was that he would make house calls at students houses. People loved that you live in these communities out in California, you know, they don't want to drive down the hills and get into the town to go to a center. So Rick would motor around all day, driving from house to house in LA traffic. And the only thing that he could do while sitting in traffic was talk on the phone. So you have someone talking on the phone 11, 12 hours a day.
- [17:07]
Margo Gray
Through those wiretapped calls, investigators began to understand the discrepancy in payments. Singer was offering a range of services for different amounts this included illicit test taking services. To run that part of the scheme, Singer enlisted Mark Riddell, a brilliant Harvard graduate. In the early days of the scheme, Riddell would take the exams himself, pretending to be the student.
- [17:32]
Eric Rosen
Eventually you age out of that when the 30 year old guy shows up trying to take the SAT for the 12th time. So he switched. And the easiest way to do it going forward was to corrupt testing centers themselves.
- [17:45]
Margo Gray
Singer had paid off two testing centers, one in Houston, the other in la, to sneak Mark in as a proctor.
- [17:53]
Eric Rosen
Mark Graddell would sort of fly around a couple times a year, five, six times a year, and administer the test.
- [18:02]
Margo Gray
In some cases, that meant Mark gave students the answers during the test. In others, he corrected their answer sheets afterwards. It just depended on whether the students were looped in on the scheme.
- [18:14]
Eric Rosen
Mark would be paid about $10,000 per test. The testing center would be paid $10,000. That's $20,000. And so sometimes you have parents paying 50,000 or $100,000, and that would be Rick's cut of the test. The price varied based on Rick thinking your ability to pay.
- [18:35]
Margo Gray
In other words, there was no set price. Rick adjusted his fees based on what he thought each family could afford. Investigators only piece this together after listening to hours of recorded calls. These wiretapped conversations also revealed the full scope of Rick's so called side door into elite colleges. What you're about to hear is a reenactment of Rick describing that to a parent. It's based on real wiretap transcripts and originally aired in our podcast, Gangster Capitalism.
- [19:06]
Eric Rosen
So who we are, what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the US get their kids into school. They want guarantees, they want this thing done. So I did 761 what I would call side doors. There's a front door, which means you get in on your own. The back door is through institutional advancement, which is 10 times as much money. And I've created this side door in.
- [19:32]
Margo Gray
After four months of listening to calls like this, Eric and his team had what they needed. They were ready to confront Rick Singer. To do it, they enlisted the help of the Yale soccer coach, who is now cooperating. The soccer coach reached out to Singer, saying he had a business opportunity.
- [19:50]
Eric Rosen
And he says, listen, there's a guy at Harvard and this Harvard guy wants to meet you, and he doesn't want to meet over the phone, which is, you know, understandable. He wants to meet in person, sort of suss you out. But for someone like Rick, the Holy Grail was getting someone into Harvard. And so that was a really big opportunity for him.
- [20:12]
Margo Gray
Singer was told the meeting would take place at the Long Wharf Marriott in Boston, the same hotel where, not long before, the coach himself had landed in the FBI's crosshairs. On September 21, Singer boarded a flight from Los Angeles to Boston, unaware that he was stepping directly into Eric's carefully laid trap.
- [20:38]
Eric Rosen
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- [21:40]
Margo Gray
Rick Singer had landed exactly where investigators wanted him. Shortly after entering the hotel room in Boston, he was met by three FBI agents and an IRS investigator. From the start, it was clear he was in serious trouble. Investigators had a firm handle on the scheme. The bogus athlete profiles, the fraudulent test scores, the millions of dollars funneled through his so called charity. But their work wasn't done to seal the case. They still needed Singer to cooperate.
- [22:11]
Eric Rosen
We had all the paperwork. We had figured out what happened, but we wanted someone to admit what they had done in a telephone call or.
- [22:19]
Margo Gray
Something like that recorded in white collar cases like this. It's not enough to show that someone gave money to Singer. Prosecutors had to prove that parents knew they were doing something shady, that they were paying bribes and not just donating to the Key Worldwide Foundation. That's where Singer came in. By cooperating, he could get parents and coaches on the phone and lead them to incriminate themselves. And ultimately, that's exactly what he did. Helping prosecutors build cases against more than 50 people.
- [22:50]
Eric Rosen
It's huge. There are 50 plus people. We had spent an enormous amount of time trying to make sure we got everything right. We vetted. You know, it's not like you just lump people in. You vet each one. The evidence or people we took out.
- [23:04]
Margo Gray
Because of the sheer number of charges and the high standard of evidence. Eric says the weeks leading up to the takedown were among the most intense of his life, both personally and professionally.
- [23:16]
Eric Rosen
Just working around the clock, I think the weekend before getting it signed by the judge, I stayed up effectively two nights in a row.
- [23:25]
Margo Gray
The takedown was scheduled for March 12, 2019. That morning, around 4:00am, Eric and his team arrived at FBI offices in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where they gathered around a giant screen to watch the arrests on the unfold in real time. By 6am, FBI agents were fanned out across the country, barging into the homes of some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in America. In some cases, agents entered the homes with guns drawn. After the arrests, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston alerted the media that there would be a press conference. Dozens of individuals were being charged in a sweeping college admissions scheme. But at this point, Eric still wasn't sure anyone would care.
- [24:19]
Eric Rosen
At that point, you still don't really know what people are going to think. The biggest concern was that no one would take the case seriously and think it was sort of government overreach.
- [24:30]
Margo Gray
In retrospect, that sounds silly, considering the absolute media frenzy that followed. But during the investigation, Eric saw no signs that this would become a national story. If anything, the signs pointed the other way.
- [24:44]
Eric Rosen
I was working with a prosecutor in la, a friend of mine, actually, because we needed someone to, like, take the warrant down, get it signed for the arresting process. And so we sent them that paperwork a couple days before. And he was laughing at me, saying, this is the dumbest case. No one's gonna care about it. Good morning. We're here today to announce charges in the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of justice. We've charged 50 people nationwide with participating. I had been to press conferences before in the U.S. attorney's office, and, like, mainly you get three or four reporters, local news and, like, that type of thing. When we walked in, it was unreal. It was cnn. It was everybody that was anyone was there or their local correspondent, because, remember, they didn't have a lot of notice. Anybody who had, like, a Boston correspondent was there. It was packed. But you don't know if, like, is this live? Are people gonna do it in the evening news? And so you don't really know. But then all I heard was, like, the phone in my pocket vibrating. And then at that point, you know, I sort of obviously knew that people were watching this live and that it was a big deal. This case is about the widening corruption of elite college admissions through the steady application of wealth combined with fraud. I didn't do any of the talking. I was sitting there behind the U.S. attorney. And then the head of the FBI gives his talk. And that's where he said that this was Operation Varsity Blues, a name that I thought was completely stupid. I refused to use it, but then it just sort of stuck. No one used Operation Freekick. That was quickly discarded.
- [26:23]
Margo Gray
After the press conference, Eric returned to his office to find his phone ringing.
- [26:27]
Eric Rosen
Off the hook, literally. The torrent of press that followed was just so shocking and unbelievable. I still sort of can't imagine it to this day. Just walls of reporters at the entrance to the courthouse. Cause cameras aren't allowed in. People having to sneak in the back door. Defendants getting completely mobbed by the press and by bystanders. People signing autographs. I mean, it was absolutely insane.
- [26:54]
Margo Gray
This story is a bombshell.
- [26:56]
Eric Rosen
Dozens of rich parents, including Hollywood actors.
- [27:00]
Margo Gray
Acc of straight up bribing their kids way into college.
- [27:04]
Eric Rosen
The schools named in this indictment include.
- [27:06]
Margo Gray
Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, the university. Prosecutors say Singer took in more than $25 million from his clients. In many ways, the attention the case received far outweighed its actual scale or the number of people charged.
- [27:22]
Eric Rosen
We're talking about 50 plus over the course of five or six, seven years, like a drop in the bucket. But obviously people thought this was like the tip of the iceberg. This just sort of confirmed everyone's sort of worst fears as to the game is rigged, and it's sort of rigged against me.
- [27:43]
Margo Gray
While the heated debates over privilege and the broader media storm have mostly receded from the headlines, the case's impact on college admissions has endured.
- [27:53]
Eric Rosen
The schools became a lot more compliance focused. So they didn't just take the word of the various coaches, but they would screen student athletes, follow up, and have, like, a real vetting process to make sure that they were real.
- [28:09]
Margo Gray
Another significant shift in college admissions has been standardized testing, which was first hit by the scandal and then by the COVID pandemic.
- [28:17]
Eric Rosen
The testing agencies took a massive hit. California, for example, eliminated requirements for the state schools and of taking these tests. And that's like a million people a year, and that's a massive revenue hit. I remember talking with the head of one a year later, and they're like, we liked working with you, but you destroyed us.
- [28:39]
Margo Gray
On the flip side, a lot has not changed when it comes to college admissions. The playing field is still very uneven. Take standardized testing again, for example. While some aspects of the testing system have come under tighter control, wealthy students still have a much easier time securing accommodations.
- [28:59]
Eric Rosen
The extra time that people get, it starts in high school. Generally, you have to pay for a psychologist or psychiatrist report, and then you have to work with your school to implement it and develop a plan. The private schools are a lot better about that. They care that people are happy there, and so they let the kid get extra time in the classroom and then on the college admissions test as well. So huge income disparities in terms of who gets this extra time and the disabilities and who doesn't.
- [29:31]
Margo Gray
A common criticism of the case is that it actually perpetuated these existing wealth disparities. Most of the perpetrators served minimal prison time. For example, actress Felicity Huffman spent just 11 days behind bars. It is a minimum security facility and is said to be fairly cushy with no bars, and some prisoners refer to it as Chateau Dublin. But Eric Rosen insists the goal was never to put defendants behind bars for extended periods of time. He instead described this as what's called an impact case, a case designed not just to punish a few individuals, but to send a broader message and deter future misconduct.
- [30:11]
Eric Rosen
There are cases that you do as a prosecutor where you're trying to get a lengthy sentence for people because you need to be punished. You need to be like child pornography. You need to be removed. This was not that. This was not about, like, the sentence that people got. Everybody was always like, are you disappointed in the sentencing and how it turned out? And no. The answer is no. The defendants, they were on national tv. They were publicly shamed. It cost them a lot of money. The impact was that I don't think people are running this type of scam again. And that was sort of the point.
- [30:46]
Margo Gray
Hopefully nobody understands that lesson better than Rick Singer himself. Fresh out of federal prison, Singer has launched a new college counseling service. In the who We Are section of the company's website, Singer says, I am not afraid to tell people who I am and that I made a mistake. And he goes on to say, we will continue to utilize our deep relationships with the respected decision makers at colleges and universities, but will not stray from staying and living in good standing. Campus Files is an Odyssey Original podcast. This episode was written and reported by Margo Gray. Campus Files is produced by by Ian Mont Eliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddy Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davey Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to us@campusfilespodmail.com.
- [32:24]
Eric Rosen
Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. And I'm Adam Scott and we host a podcast called the Severance Podcast, where we used to break down every episode of the TV show Severance. Severance isn't back just yet, but the podcast is. Each week, we'll discuss the movies, TV shows and ideas that influence the making of Severance. We're going to talk to the incredible artists who inspire us to do what we do. The Severance podcast returns Thursday, June 26th. Follow and listen everywhere you get your podcasts.