← Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
Michigan Football’s PR Nightmare and Britney Spears’ Arrest
00:38:50
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. Today we will talk about the collapse of Sharon Moore, the Michigan head coach and the fact that his mistress is no longer going to be at the University of Michigan. After we will talk about Britney Spears arrest last night. Pretty ironic after our conversation regarding her ex flame from many years ago, Justin Timberlake in the same situation regarding driving under the influence of. So thank you so much for joining me today. First I want to bring in Jackson Thompson. Jackson Thompson is a Fox Sports reporter and Jackson's going to talk to us a little bit about what's been going on in the Sharon Moore University of Michigan scandal.
- [00:46]
B
Thanks for having me. Now we know tomorrow Sharon Moore is going to have an evidentiary case in Michigan. He was granted this case after his lawyers argued that certain evidence was withheld from the detective at the time of his arrest. Now we know earlier this week his mistress, Paige Shiver, her contract was not renewed by the university. So she will not be back with this new regime here at Michigan. And we don't really know what's next for her. We know she came from a very well connected family when it came to sports. Her dad was a Chicago Bear scout for many decades. Her uncle was an assistant basketball coach at Butler University. And yet still she found herself wrapped up in this scandal with Sharon Moore. A years long affair while Moore was married. We know while she was at University of Michigan under Moore's leadership she saw a pretty big pay raise. She was given over a 50% pay raise over the course of one year up to $99,000, which really, you know, he gave her $1,000 short of a higher tax bracket, a higher federal tax bracket. So it was very calculated. On top of that she had a gluten free pizza named after her at a local pizzeria. We don't know if Moore directly had any involvement in that. But Moore did have a dish named after himself at that same restaurant. So it was a high rise and a low fall when it came to Paige Shiver. And now we know she won't be back with Michigan and she can only await what happens next with Moore's fate because obviously he caused some issues for her. He allegedly broke into her house and he faces charges of a felony breaking and entering and home invasion. And Moore, what we know from the court documents, allegedly blamed her for ruining his life when he broke into the house and even allegedly threatened to kill himself. So it's been a lot, she's been through a lot. And now we know she'll be unemployed as she looks for the next steps in her life. And for Moore and his family. They'll get this evidentiary hearing tomorrow as we track that situation.
- [02:45]
A
Jackson will definitely track that situation. I find this whole thing extremely intriguing. Not only the fall from grace, I mean Michigan is one of the most storied football programs in college sports history. As a full disclosure, Michigan fan, myself and Chicago Bears fan, as I live in Chicago. This story has a lot of interest to me for a lot of reasons and it always bothers me when the Notre Dame fans have cheering to do when it's at our own peril. So I'm definitely going to follow this. I thank you. I want to ask you a little bit about what's going to happen in court tomorrow. I know that the main point of that hearing tomorrow has to do with Sharon Moore's arrest and how the police were able to make the arrest and the information given to the courts prior to signing the charges on on his behalf, the documents that were that allowed him to be arrested. So talk to me a little bit about what Sharon Moore is challenging and what the potential outcomes of that could be for Sharon Moore, because I'm looking at it thinking he' probably in some pretty decent legal waters given the way that this whole thing went down and given what was omitted.
- [03:56]
B
Well, he's challenging that the police and detectives that were sent to arrest him were never even told that he had a years long relationship, an intimate relationship with the woman whose apartment he was breaking into. So as far as they knew, this was possibly the first time that he was ever in her home. And it was a home invasion of breaking and entering and there was no previous history of him being there, of her letting him into the property or possibly him even having an extra key. Either way, the home invasion and breaking and entering charges stand for now, but we'll see if it matters. We'll see what the court decides in terms of whether the fact that he had this previous relationship matters at all to the fact that he allegedly broke and entered and invaded her home.
- [04:42]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think the letter of the law is going to be interesting here because I don't think that the legislature was really thinking about situations like this when they talked about breaking and entering, talking about home invasion. When you have a prior relationship with someone, especially a relationship that seemed to end fairly soon in terms of this whole thing going down, it would seem to me that this is really more of a domestic dispute than it is the letter of the law in terms of what was truly intended when we talk about breaking and entering and home invasion. So I think that will be interesting and the information given to the police will be interesting. But at the same time, I also think it's incumbent upon those police officers to figure some of those things out prior to or at least once they're at the house. And on top of that, charges come from the DA's office or the prosecution's office in that county. So they would have had to figure out the fact that there was a relationship there too, before he was formally charged.
- [05:37]
B
Absolutely. Another aspect of this is that she also suffers from a disease, pompa disease, and it causes, you know, chronic pain, which makes the whole concept of a home invasion much more strenuous for someone like that, whether he had been in the house before or not. So her well being was at risk one way or the other, whether he had been there before or not. So we'll see what the prosecution decides and whether the detectives or police really made a miscalculation in terms of not knowing that information, considering everything that was already going on by the time they got there.
- [06:15]
A
And you know, her disease and you know, her maybe propensity for feeling the way she did or being predisposed, that may be more of an issue for civil court than criminal court. So we will definitely see how this plays out. We're definitely going to be following this story. I cannot thank you enough, Jackson, and thanks for all your information on this matter.
- [06:34]
B
Thank you. Have a good one.
- [06:37]
A
Now I'm going to bring in Doug Eldridge. Doug, thank you for joining me.
- [06:42]
C
Hey Donna, great to see you.
- [06:45]
A
And Doug, you are the founder and managing partner at Achilles pr. Tell me what you do over at Achilles PR and what your expertise is so our listeners and viewers know what we're going to talk about today.
- [06:58]
C
Well, I throughout high school, I was a high school all American, ran 4 meter hurdles in college. I'm going somewhere with this very quickly. Hit my ceiling in terms of being the small fish in the big Ocean of Division 1 athletics. Then I went to law school, but I always had a mind of if I had been good enough to go pro, what would I have wanted in my agent? And so I cut my teeth on Capitol Hill. I worked for Orrin Hatch when he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, both during undergrad and then I doubled back during law school. Then I went to DOJ after law school, during and after law school. And eventually it's double Dutch on the playground, right? It's rhythm when you jump on in, rhythm when you jump out and the timing, you know, everybody was leaving. That brought me in and I left. And to be honest, Donna, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to represent professional athletes. And I always say this with the utmost of humility and transparency. If you gave me 99 more tries, I would have failed 99 times. But the one time I pushed all my chips in the middle, it succeeded. My first client was a European cyclist. And then more, and then more, and then summer athletes and winter Olympians and then NFL athletes and NBA. And we've, we've had everything from first round draft picks to undrafted to Olympic medalists to world record holders, etc. And then about 13 years ago, because I was so steroidal, no pun intended, on the public relations side, on building their story, right, because we all know that nobody's going to get behind something or someone that they've never heard of. But if you can build that personal connection to them, right, then they're really going to be invested. And that's what brands are looking for. And so I was so steroidal, I was doing USA Today, US Weekly, Sports Illustrated, when that was still a thing. I can't believe I'm even saying that. Fox News, CNN, etc. So I spun off the comms, you know, a decade plus ago and created Achilles PR with the underlying notion that the inherent weakness or the proverbial Achilles heel of athletes, personalities, brands, campaigns, politicians, is the ability to tell your story. Because if you can't, you won't stand up or stand out within your competition. So I've been in this space in one form or another for a long time and been privileged to not only do just about a thousand TV appearances, but to place my clients there and to really navigate the often choppy waters that we're discussing with the lead in here.
- [09:26]
A
Well, I'm really happy to talk to you because I think what we both do is very similar. I mean, you have to tell a story in terms of what is told to, about your clients to the media, to the world. And I have to tell a story in a courtroom or to a jury. And very often I'm representing athletes, I'm representing NFL owners, I'm representing, you know, people in all different aspect of sports and either media or the entertainment world. So the two of us often in our fields will work hand in hand because you have to worry about the fallout on the media side and I have to worry about the fallout when it comes to freedom and the, the court side. So I know people like you and people like me often work hand in hand. So I think this will be a really great conversation given what we know about what's going on in Michigan.
- [10:16]
C
But I think you would also agree that it's almost the, the yin yang symbol, right? Because the overlap between the court of law and the proverbial court of public opinion is inextricable. One informs the other. And so when you talk about leaks to the media or things that are deliberately put out there to potentially taint a jury pool, that's not accidental. That's dynamic and strategic by design. And so you're absolutely right. But I should also ask one more thing, really. Two, number one, lifelong Michigan fan. Number two, hate the Chicago Bears. So while I admire you, I also simultaneously resent you. So we're going to have to work through that, Donna, if we can.
- [10:54]
A
Let's chat about Sharon Moore. So as a PR guy, my guess, and because as a lawyer, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking Sharon Moore has made the wrong decision at every turn here. And what are you telling Sharon Moore to do if you get the phone call from him tomorrow about the way he has handled this in the court of public opinion?
- [11:19]
C
And again, that's what we talk about, right? Because those are, it is a Venn diagram. It is two overlapping concepts. The court of law and the court of public opinion. Especially we're talking about empanelling a jury of your peers, right. What you say and the impression thereof is critically important moving forward, right? So you've got a home invasion, you got a break in entering, you've got a stalking charge. What you have to do, you know, in the age of cancel culture, right. And this isn't connected to cancel culture. But the same principle extrapolates, right. If you can't debate discredit, right. If he doesn't have the facts on his side, the best thing that his legal team can do is discredit either the allegations of his purported paramour or discredit the the actual bits and pieces of the law enforcement investigation. And I say that as somebody that that never throws eggs or throw shade at law enforcement. But what they said a couple weeks ago in trial was really telling. And I think that was missed kind of on the intro. And that was that at least as it relates, I believe, to the stalking charge, that it was a little bit of cherry picking, if you will, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. 12 missed calls. But what was never relayed to the magistrate in that context was that it was a boss employee relationship and especially leading into a bowl game or soon thereafter. And so the context of 12 missed calls, at least in that context, would not be inappropos, for lack of a better word. And so I'm really interested to see the salsa dancing of opposing counsel insofar as how they try and to not debate, but disqualify and preemptively toss this out, because I don't know, at least, again, purported, or as we like to joke and say, hashtag alleged. I don't know that he has the argument on his side. So it's going to be a lot of finagling and maneuvering moving forward.
- [13:18]
A
You know, what's interesting about it for me is looking at it from the legal side. And I think you're right. I think the problem for him is really more the optics. I mean, he has his wife standing by him. So from the PR side, that's. That's a plus. Obviously, she's there, she's supportive of him. That that's a good move. But in terms of the way he has acted, obviously he's kind of laughing in the courtroom, maybe making it look like he's not taking this very seriously. And from the legal side of it, I do actually think that these charges probably don't really fit. Maybe the stalking, but the charges don't really fit what kind of happened here. I mean, these people knew each other. They had a relationship. Okay? If you show up at somebody's house and you're not wanted there, maybe it's a trespass at. Maybe it's, you know, grounds to go get an order of protection. But does it really rise to the level of, you know, these home invasion, breaking and entering charges when someone has had not only the authority to be somewhere in the past, but they have been there in the past. So I think that that may be it. And especially given the fact that the police did not have that information when they went to that house. So I do think the way this hearing shakes out will be interesting. And I do think that, you know, maybe using that narrative to say, look, I was in a place, obviously my life is falling apart and I lose this dream job and I acted inappropriately, and I didn't mean to scare anybody, and I didn't like. I just think that there's a better way to go about this than, you know, sort of laughing in the courtroom. Like, this is something that shouldn't be taken seriously.
- [14:53]
C
Well, you and I both know that in high profile jury trials, law firms will often impanel an expert just for wadir selection. Right? People, readers, somebody that can preemptively eliminate based on body language, based on what have you. Because the jury ultimately determines the verdict. It's not always the fact. Right. What most people miss is that while this is a trial by facts, it's a verdict by feelings. And so when you look at the composition of the jury pool, that's inexplicably important. So to your point, you're spot on, Doug. To your point, if, if he's in there smirking or laughing or trying to ill advisedly downplay the severity of some of the things that are being discussed. If you're going to bring in a new team member just for Wadir, you have to bring in somebody that's going to counsel and consult him beforehand on what we call the non verbals. Right. For TV people, we always talk about rbf. Be mindful of your nonverbal expressions. Right. Because you don't want rbf. Well, that's increasingly important. So I think you're absolutely. That's nail on the head. You hit it well.
- [16:01]
A
And when you look at, you know, obviously there haven't been jurors in the courtroom at this point. These are status hearings. However, it's being videoed, it's being recorded, every news outlet is writing about it and the jurors are seeing the news coverage and they're seeing it on TikTok and they're seeing it on Instagram and they're seeing it in the local papers. And so every time they scan through their social media, you're seeing a picture
- [16:23]
C
of this guy you're talking about potentially positively or negatively tainting the prospective jury pool. And this is what we talk about, the confluence of the court of law and the court of public opinion. If this is going to be a jury trial and not a bench trial, because thus far at least the judge that heard the preliminary hearings is very, very, you know, sympathetic to the measures of his defense counsel. But if you're, if we're going to take this to trial, which inevitably it's going to happen, you have to be considerate and mindful and, and strategically and tactically deliberate. Insofar as the mindset and impression of the potential jury pool, that's critically important, you're spot on.
- [17:05]
A
And you see the lawyer, you know, and again, it's tough because we see this one photo, right? It's one image. It's taken. It's maybe it's a little out of context. You have no idea if they just caught him while he's kind of smiling and laughing. So you have to remember as the client and as, as counsel and as his lawyer, you have to remember those eyes are watching you the entire time you're in there. And like you said, it matters. And they just, I think, have to think about the fact that this is what all of us are talking about instead of the fact that maybe, you know, the charges don't seem to be that strong against him, which would be a much better narrative to put out there for potential jurors to be listening to. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. You can't solve every case for your kids, but with Greenlight, they'll have the instincts and money skills to stay out of trouble. With a Greenlight debit card and money app, parents can monitor spending and teach financial responsibility. Educate your kids as they grow from earning allowance and tracking chores to learning how to save and invest. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@greenlight.com Spotify let's talk about the mistress. So today we saw in the news, or maybe yesterday came out that the Paige Shriver, I think is her name, she was let go from Michigan. Now, she wasn't fired. Her contract period was up and they did not renew her contract. So obviously there's a lot of scandals surrounding the whole situation. She seems to be more like a victim in, in this, I mean, I'm, it's clear that they had some type of consensual relationship leading up to all of this. And then sort of the downfall happens of him. She goes to the school, she tells the school we had this relationship, she gives them all the information, he's ultimately fired, and then we know what happens after that. So now her contract is up, she's not renewed. So they didn't fire her, they didn't let her go. They just didn't re up or renew her contract. So let's talk about that in terms of how that's handled. And does that look like Michigan is trying to save itself from either a retaliation lawsuit? Is Michigan trying to sort of change the narrative on this? You know, what do you think the real motive was for handling it this way at the University of Michigan?
- [19:21]
C
Don, I have to tell you, I already know that you and I were probably thinking the same thing. And at the risk of minimizing or simplifying the severity of this situation. In sports, we talk about running out the clock, which is to say if you're ahead, you don't want to risk something that would give your opponent an opportunity to even the score, let alone jump ahead and win the game. And again, I say that respectfully, but what Michigan did was the back of the napkin math. And I know that's what you were already thinking. Donna, this happened in early December. We're now in early March. A for cause or no cause, or not for cause, rather termination. You know as well as I do that if she filed a wrongful termination suit for cause, they have to provide the ample evidence justifying it, not for cause. It's even worse in either case. It's fighting for a knife in the mud. And the discovery process is brutal. And we're talking about the University of Michigan. Not only am I a lifelong fan, my cousin played football there. Not a lot of white running backs with Eldridge on the back of the jersey. I'm proud to claim that, but I have a lifelong connection to it. So I say this, I say it objectively. But as somebody that is very clear about my lifelong fandom, you have to remember there's been a litany of class action suits against this university, not the least of which was a $490 million settlement for sexual assault by one of the physicians on campus. So the idea of combating a termination, be it for cause or not for cause, would be horrific in the court of public opinion and costly on the balance sheet. And so what they did, point being to land the plane here, what they did was they did the back of the napkin math and said, we have three months, our contract's going to expire. If it's a baseline expiration, we do not need to justify either the expiration that's self explanatory on the four corners of the contract or justify why we didn't rehire and extend. So that was from the University of Michigan standpoint, just, again, being binary ones and zeros. That was the smartest move possible.
- [21:29]
A
Yeah, I agree. Now, it doesn't mean she's not going to sue anyway. And she may be suing given the fact that it was a relationship with somebody that was her senior and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Now, granted, she was paid more money than she should have for that job, given the fact that the salary was much less when she first started than it was after she started the relationship with him and she received a raise. But it'll be interesting to see what happens in terms of whether or not she goes after the school.
- [21:56]
C
Well, what did we both hear on the first year of law school? You can sue a ham sandwich, right? It's the old trope that we've all heard for generations, right? It doesn't preclude or otherwise prevent her ability to file civil suit. But they did not give her the ammunition or otherwise bait the hook to, to, to, to catch that allegation, if that makes sense. That probably sounded clunky, but I think you know what I mean.
- [22:23]
A
No, I do. And if you're hired to represent her, because I think she has a little bit of a PR disaster here in terms of, if you want to stay working in the sports world, especially at the collegiate level or professional level, this is obviously a scandal that will follow and plague her. So how do you handle the way she goes forward in terms of dealing with the media fallout of this?
- [22:48]
C
You know, that's a great question, Donna. And, and I have to say, because I want to be very careful and very thoughtful insofar as both parties, because they're both dealing with a lot, some of it self inflicted. Well, if we're being, if we're being honest, both of it's self inflicted if the proportion, if the purported story is true and it's a willful relationship, an extramarital relationship. And, and I gotta say it just as an aside, credit to Sharon Moore's wife for showing up in court. Because if you've ever been cheated on, let alone in a marriage, the idea of supporting your spouse, especially clearly in the court of law, but in this context, most assuredly in the court of public opinion, to pull your shoulders back, walk in, have a smile and have that dignity and sense of grace that give her, give her a lot of credit, you know, if you've been there, you know how hard that is. So in terms of, in terms of Paige and the allegations, I don't know what, who's going to be tougher in terms of hiring moving forward. Right. And I, and I say this respectfully, I think she's going to be tougher because at least he has a winning pedigree. Even when they didn't have a Big Ten winning season, he found a way to beat Ohio State, right. In the words of the immortal Raiders owner, Al Davis, just win, baby. Right? He found a way to win big games. He didn't do it consistently. Obviously, Harbaugh left impossibly large shoes to fill, but I think it's even harder for a woman working in a man's landscape if there are these types of Lazarus allegations against her. And I don't hope that for her. I'm just calling balls and strikes in the context of how to message this from her standpoint. Obviously, again, it benefits to have the dual role, the dual cap of lawyer And PR advisor, because those two crossover very quickly. And the last thing that you want is to run afoul of a defamation claim. Right. And so what I would be very leery of is we can lean on the facts and we can put our toe in the murky water. What we can't do is, is deliberately say something that we know is not true in the hopes of harming the other person, which at its base, is the core elements of defamation. Right. I think she has to. Well, let me pause and work backwards from the end of the equation. It depends on what the objective is. Right. What do you want on the other side of the equal sign? And work backwards to address the attendant variables thereof. I would think, for her purposes, and I'm just being objective here, it's minimizing reputational damage. Because if you get your proverbial pound of flesh, no pun intended, what value is it? It's short term, it's micro. This isn't macro. If you're trying to build a career, be it in sports or otherwise, what value do you have going to the mat and fighting this like it's about reputational preservation? And so I think everything needs to be built not only towards that, but more accurately, that is your ending point. Build backwards from that and take every subsequent step in that direction. If that makes sense.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah, I think it absolutely makes sense. And let's remember back to Sharon Moore's wife. She's the one who called the police the day that he got arrested and said, he called me, he got fired from his job. I'm worried about him. I mean, this was a clear spouse who was worried and caring and really was concerned about her husband. And so I think that she's really, out of everyone involved here, she's the one who has played this the right way. She has children. And I think she's doing what she needs to do to keep her family together as best as she can. So just as a side note there, I think that she. That fact, I think, is important when thinking about, you know, how lucky he is and how. How he falls on this and, you know, for. From two Michigan fans, Doug, we can talk about the fact that Michigan, yes. Had a great run with. With Harbaugh and J.J. mcCarthy, who was a local for a while here and. And played at Nazareth Academy. But they had a good. Yeah, they had a good run, but there was a scandal, too. There. Too. Right. There was the sign stealing scandal. So the fact that Michigan has had to come back from that, which I think they did a really good job. Right. Because winning cures all. And so they did a good job. But then for this to happen, I, I think that the new hire was probably the best that they could do in terms of trying to move away from this narrative that's kind of been plaguing Michigan for the last several seasons.
- [27:29]
C
Oh, I think you're spot on. But, but let me unpack why that's correct, right? We're not talking about the sport of college football, right. We're talking about the business of college football. Right. If you've ever gone fishing, you know that if you throw a rock in the pond, the ripples will go from the middle to the shoreline. So let's, let's actually unpack what those ripples indicate in the multi billion dollar college universe. Okay? So you lose your coach, as soon as you lose your head coach, your five star recruits immediately decommit all of the brands that you brought on in this new nil name image and likeness collective, which is the free agency, the marketing billion dollar machine to lure college athletes. They decommit. Your boosters decommit network television that had you as primetime games, which is a nine figure influx for most of these universities. They deprioritize you. And it's not just that. It's a year over year fix, Donna. We're talking about a three to five year window to do a comprehensive rehab, image rehab. You are right to say just win baby. That's the whole Al Davis thing that I was referencing. But this wind baby is not a light switch, it's a dimmer switch. And if you lose your head coach, if you lose your not only current star paid players who are now eligible for is effectively free agency at the collegiate level, which never existed. But you lose your pipeline of Korea of recruits, Donna, you are up against it. And so this becomes a situation like this. And I'm not being hyperbolic or overly dramatic, I know that the zeros and commas behind the impact of this because I've been brought in to discuss these situations. It is nine figures and best case, three to five years to right the ship. So from a university standpoint, and it pains me to say it, even though you're inexplicably a Chicago fan, we're both Michigan fans, you had the spygate, you had the sexual assault claims against the doctor and a near half billion dollar settlement. Now you have this. This is a series of self inflicted PR wounds the likes of which could be fatal if they don't. If they don't utilize battlefield triage to stop the bleeding. I think the new head coach is a brilliant hire. He is a. He is a. He's a no nonsense guy. He's a high and tight shirt tucked in, we follow the rules type guy. I think he's the one to put the oar in the water and right the ship. But again, think about what I just ran through. This is not just a coach purportedly allegedly making a bad decision. This has ripples that go from the middle of the pond to the shore. And so the turnaround, the rebuild is going to be years in the making, if that makes sense.
- [30:33]
A
Yeah, I agree with that. I also have one last question on this, and then I want to move on to Britney Spears. But on a scale of 1 to 10, likelihood of Sharon Moore ever getting hired in college or NFL as a coach,
- [30:48]
C
I'll say this. The reason that Rocky as a franchise was so successful is that everybody loves the underdog and everybody loves a comeback story. We didn't cheer for Rocky because he was a champion. He didn't become a champion until the third or fourth movie. We cheered because he got knocked down over and over and continued to get back up. And while I don't know that that's the. That's the stage play for Sharon, the reality is we love redemption and we love a comeback story. And if he plays it right, insofar as the mea culpa and the ownership of what he did or didn't do, wrong, again, allegedly, he has a path to redemption. It's gonna be a long, rocky road, not an escalator. But if you're looking for a number, I can't put one on it. But American fans love a redemption story. They love somebody that in this day and age, Donna, come on. Somebody to actually stand up and say, you know what, I did wrong, but let me actually enumerate the things I did wrong. 1, 2, 3, and 4. And more importantly, so I did 1, 2, 3 and 4 wrong. But more importantly, 5, 6, 7, 8, here's what I'm going to do, right? Moving forward and track my accountability. Americans love that. And so there's a place and a space for that, if you will.
- [32:08]
A
We'll see. There better not be any more text messages or Snapchats coming out from other women, because those are ugly. Okay, we're moving on. We could talk about this forever. And I'm sure we'll. We'll continue this at another time. But let's talk about Brittany. So if you listened yesterday, you knew that I talked about Justin Timberlake and his arrest And Shia labeoufs and his arrests. And Brittany got arrested for a DUI early this morning, and she's playing it a little bit differently right away. She's apologizing for her behavior. What do you tell Brittany? Because poor Brittany has had just train wreck circumstances here for the last several years. So what are you going to tell Brittany to do and how to handle this?
- [32:47]
C
First of all, of course I caught your podcast. I always catch it. And when I miss it, I hear it after the fact. I thought it was an insightful conversation, but I do think there's a little bit of compare and contrast here, right, because you have three different crayons in the Crayola box. They're all crayons, but they're very different colors. They're very different personalities, right? Like, Justin has built his career from Mickey Mouse to now as button up, polished, etc. And when I. When I saw that, because I actually talked to some of our colleagues at Fox and did some digital work about his arrest and the DUI and managing the optics, and I said then, like, anytime you have body cam footage, especially if it's a purported or suspected dui, you have no idea the substance of that police recording. And I use as a reference point Mel Gibson, who I'm a huge fan of, but he purportedly said some things on a body cam, and he was essentially, you know, on the island with Hannibal Barca and Napoleon Bonaparte.
- [33:44]
A
He. He said him. We heard him. We heard those body cameras.
- [33:48]
C
I was trying to tiptoe through that, but thank you for saying it. But. But you got it. We both know it. But I'm being silly. But here's the. Here's the difference, and here's kind of the pivot point, right? Like, I think there's more of a parallel between Shia and Brittany because there's always been rumored mental health issues. And I don't say mental illness. I say mental health. And I, again, I use that, that term cautiously because of the erratic behavior and the consequences that stem therefrom. What I would say for Brittany that I think was so brilliant, right, is that you and I both know she's gonna have to go before the same court, right, for her subsequent hearing and potential punishment moving forward. And the thing they always consider or the things is repeat offender, contrition, accountability, path forward. These are all factors that actually, it's not as binary as, you did it, and here's your punishment. It's you did it. But here are the other circumstances that will actually. The other variables that will actually Factor into the. Into the equation when deciding how we should deal with this. And so for that purpose, I think Brittany and her team were very smart to issue a very direct mea culpa. No wordsmithing. I mean, obviously it was wordsmith, but you know what I mean? You weren't dancing between raindrops or Neo dodging bullets in the matrix. She came out and said, hey, I messed up. This was my fault. This is what I did. I apologize. I think that was very smart moving forward, and I think that will certainly be entered by her legal team when she goes back for her hearing.
- [35:26]
A
Brittany has a very endearing personality. She has a fan base of people who have supported her. They've watched her, and she has been very outward on social media. She's always, you know, dancing half naked. I mean, she's not someone who shies away from the struggles that she is dealing with. And so I think that you're right. That's going to help her. I also think that, you know, in looking at the juxtaposition between the Timberlake arrest and her arrest and Justin trying to keep these body cameras out of the public world, I don't think Britney is going to care that much about that because Britney is somebody who has put her life out in front of the public for years. I think that in some ways, a lot of this is a cry for help, and I'm hoping that she gets it.
- [36:15]
C
I think you're spot on. And let me just pull one thread that you just identified. She has been out there and she has created an absolute touch point with her fans beyond fandom. And by that, I mean she's created empathy, not sympathy. The underlying difference being sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody. Empathy is seeing yourself in that other person. It's a direct connection. And I think you're spot on by saying that. I think there's that empathetic connection that supersedes and surpasses the sympathetic connection. And I think that will play well moving forward, whether by design or by accident. In either case, here we are.
- [37:01]
A
Well, go blue, and we wish Brittany the best. Doug, thank you so much. I hope you come back and do this with me again sometime. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in for another episode of Crime and Justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. Don't forget to send us in your thoughts and questions, and we'll talk about them right here. Have a great evening.