Griffin Dunne’s Memoir The Friday Afternoon Club (with Maria Randazzo)

Summary

Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast - Episode Summary

Title: Griffin Dunne’s Memoir The Friday Afternoon Club (with Maria Randazzo)
Host: Chelsea Devantés
Guest: Maria Randazzo
Original Release Date: June 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this special subscriber-only episode of Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast, host Chelsea Devantés welcomes writer, comedian, and actress Maria Randazzo to delve deep into Griffin Dunne’s memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir. Released in 2024, this memoir intricately weaves Griffin Dunne’s personal experiences with his illustrious Hollywood family history, offering listeners a blend of glamour, tragedy, and candid reflections.

Guest Introduction

Chelsea introduces Maria Randazzo, highlighting her impressive resume as a writer for The Problem with Jon Stewart, her live performances in New York City, and her contributions to Behind the Bangs. Maria shares her initial hesitation to read a men's memoir but was ultimately inspired by challenging aspects of Dunne's personal connections, especially his role in directing the beloved film Practical Magic.

Book Overview

Griffin Dunne’s memoir provides an unfiltered look into his life, surrounded by Hollywood elites and marked by significant personal tragedies. As Maria recounts, Dunne is connected to iconic figures like Joan Didion and his father, Dominic Dunn, a renowned producer and Vanity Fair writer. The memoir is rich with celebrity anecdotes, but it doesn't shy away from darker themes such as domestic violence, particularly the tragic murder of Dunne’s sister, Dominique.

Notable Quote:
Maria Randazzo: “The celebrity name drops in this book are good. The tally is going to be like 175.” ([00:38])

Key Stories and Themes

Celebrity Connections and Family Dynamics

Griffin Dunne’s memoir is peppered with stories involving over a hundred celebrities, detailing his upbringing in one of Hollywood’s most talked-about families. Maria emphasizes how these connections provide a rich backdrop to Dunne’s personal narrative.

Notable Quote:
Chelsea Devantés: “If you like it, join our Patreon or become an Apple subscriber. … Like Kelly Bishop, the third Gilmore Girl, Viola Davis. So many more episodes are there.” ([00:41])

Domestic Violence and Tragedy

A significant portion of the memoir addresses the violent relationship between Dunne’s sister, Dominique, and her abusive boyfriend, culminating in her tragic murder. Both Chelsea and Maria express the emotional weight of these stories, highlighting how Dunne portrays the complexities of domestic violence and its impact on victims and their families.

Notable Quote:
Chelsea Devantés: “I wanted to hear that woman's side of the story, actually.” ([21:38])

Psychic Moments and Grief

Griffin’s experiences with grief are interspersed with supernatural elements, such as visions of his deceased sister appearing to him and his brother Alex. These moments serve to illustrate the ongoing emotional struggles faced by the Dunn family.

Notable Quote:
Maria Randazzo: “It was a beautiful way that I have been able to enrich the… relationship with my sister and learn more about her.” ([89:24])

Career Struggles and Redemption

Dunne discusses his tumultuous career in Hollywood, including the failure of his film Me and Him and his subsequent directorial success with Practical Magic. The memoir portrays his journey through professional setbacks and personal growth, underscoring themes of resilience and redemption.

Notable Quote:
Chelsea Devantés: “To be fair, the book ends before he ever gets to that part of his timeline.” ([15:25])

Personal Reflections and Emotional Impact

Both hosts reflect on how the memoir resonated with their own experiences and emotions. Maria shares her connection to stories of domestic violence, drawing parallels to her sister's survival, while Chelsea opens up about her journey with trauma and the therapeutic role of storytelling.

Notable Quote:
Maria Randazzo: “I was nine years old when this happened to her. … She was living her life, moving her life forward.” ([75:29])

Booktal Test

To encapsulate their thoughts, Chelsea and Maria conduct a "Booktal Test," evaluating the memoir based on three criteria:

1. Vulnerability in Sharing Truth: Both agree that Dunne is exceptionally vulnerable, offering honest insights into his flaws and family dynamics without aggrandizing his persona.

   Notable Quote:
   Maria Randazzo: “He shared parts of himself that were major flaws that would maybe embarrass other people to say out loud.” ([98:07])

2. Entertainment Value: Despite the heavy themes, the memoir is described as wildly entertaining, filled with unexpected celebrity stories and dramatic family sagas.

   Notable Quote:
   Maria Randazzo: “Wildly entertaining.” ([98:56])

3. Life Elevation: The memoir profoundly impacted both hosts, fostering deeper empathy and encouraging personal conversations about trauma and healing.

   Notable Quote:
   Maria Randazzo: “It absolutely did something very special… It has enriched my relationship with my sister and learned more about her.” ([99:36])

Conclusion

Griffin Dunne’s The Friday Afternoon Club is a compelling memoir that intertwines Hollywood glamour with poignant family tragedy. Through candid storytelling and rich character development, Dunne offers a nuanced exploration of fame, family, and the enduring pain of loss. Both Chelsea Devantés and Maria Randazzo commend the memoir for its emotional depth and engaging narrative, recommending it as a must-read for those interested in the complexities of celebrity memoirs.

Final Thoughts:
Chelsea Devantés: “Thank you for sharing that and thank you to your sister because, like, if I can help one person with my story, I think is so resonant for so many people." ([105:24])

Guest’s Social Media:

• Instagram: @mariafreakingrandazzo
• TikTok: @mariafreakingrandazzo

Recommended To:
Listeners are encouraged to watch Practical Magic and follow Maria Randazzo for more of her comedic and insightful content.

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Note: This summary focuses on the core discussions and key moments of the episode, excluding advertisements and non-content sections to maintain focus on the meaningful dialogue between Chelsea Devantés and Maria Randazzo.

Transcript

[Chelsea Devontes]

Get into your body's vitals with the Vitals app on Apple Watch. The Vitals app tracks key overnight metrics so you can spot changes in your health before you feel them. The Vitals app ON Apple Watch iPhone XS are later required. The Vitals app is for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past.

[Maria Randazzo]

Discover is accepted at 99% of places.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That take credit cards nationwide, and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn [e-mail] credit card based on the February 2024 Nielsen report, what you are about to hear is a previously paywall only episode. So if you like it, and I think you will, this is one of my favorites of the year so far, which is why we are releasing it this week. If you enjoy it, join our Patreon or become an Apple subscriber. You would have heard this episode months ago. Plus there are dozens and dozens of other episodes in our back catal just waiting for you right now. Like Kelly Bishop, the third Gilmore Girl, Viola Davis. So many more episodes are there. Just subscribe and get these hot episodes all the time and ad free. All right, let's dive in. Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a celebrity memoir podcast where we dig into all of the glamour and all of the trash. If you've ever referenced Mariah Carey in therapy, then this is probably the podcast for you. I'm your host Chelsea Devontes. I'm a TV writer, comedian, filmmaker, author and sometimes I'm in stuff too. And today we are book clubbing a men's More and this is a subscriber only episode to say thank you so much for your patronage. You are the reason this podcast can exist and these episodes are made special just for our subscribers and our Patreon members. And I made a Minsmore exception to because I wanted to talk about this book so bad and I think it's going to be an extra special episode which is why I made it just for y' all. It is Griffin Dunn's memoir titled the Friday Afternoon Club, A Family Memoir. It came out last year, 2024. So many people told me to read this memoir and I said no, no thank you, I'm not reading a men's More. And then months and months and months after it came out, a cookie messaged Me and said did you know that Griffin Dunn directed Practical Magic? And I've never bought a book so fast. I had no idea. I was like what? Because that is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies of all time. And this memoir helped explain why. Now if you do not know Griffin Dunn as I didn't because I didn't know he directed that movie. He is also the nephew to Joan Didion, famous, famous author. His dad is Dominic Dunn who is a hugely famous well for many things. He's a famous producer but he's also a famous Vanity Fair writer and crime reporter. You probably know him if you give him a Google and we will post his pictures some of his articles. Griffin Dunn's family is the most of Hollywood family I read about the the celeb name drops in this book are good. The tally is going to be like 175. His best friend is Carrie Fisher. Harrison Ford was his family carpenter. There are just so many celeb stories and this book also delves into what happened when his sister Dominique Dunn was murdered by her boyfriend. So please take care when listening. We are going to get into that story quite a bit because I really loved how domestic violence was covered and talked about in this book. It also explains why Practical Magic was able to be a witchy fun rom com that also covered domestic violence in such a beautiful way back in the 90s. And so take care when listening. We are going to talk about all of it. I also want to issue issue a trigger warning for suicidal ideation. And another thing, at the very top of the episode we're going to talk about the memoir that me and my guest almost read and then bailed to do this one. Let's dive in.

[Maria Randazzo]

I didn't even know what the title was going to be but I knew the subtitle was always going to be a family memoir. And it wasn't going to be my personal career kind of celebrity kind of thing. There are a lot of celebrities in it but it was impossible to tell my parents and are growing up without all these drive bys with just famous people all my life. And you know when I was writing it I was stunned by the amount of names our lives intersected with of all these extraordinary people. And my parents gave these elaborate parties and there would be filmmakers like Billy Wilder and George Stevens, John Huston that I didn't know who the heck they were. By the time I became an actor and wanted to be a director, I thought oh God, all those people right there. I could have talked to him about some like it Hot.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Our guest today is Maria Randazzo, a writer, comedian, actress. Most recently, she was a writer on the Problem with Jon Stewart. You can see her performing live sketch, improv all around New York City. Maria is also one of the writing mods of behind the Bangs and a very, very, very dear friend of mine. You may know her from my book as Woman who Found Me Under My Desk Crying. It's Maria Randazzo.

[Maria Randazzo]

Hello. I'm so happy to be here.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I am so happy you're here. I cannot believe you have not been on the podcast before as I think about you and talk about you and talk to you often. Okay, Maria, I have not gotten to do one of these in a really long time, but I have tried to introduce all the guests on my podcast with the story of how we first met. And you told me you remembered this story, and I was like, don't say anything. Save it for the podcast. So do you remember how we first met?

[Maria Randazzo]

I do. I have a very vivid memory of how we first met.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That's amazing.

[Maria Randazzo]

We were standing outside of Donnie's skybox, which, for listeners at home is, like, used to be the second floor theater of the Second City.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, it was like a student. A student theater.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was tables and chairs outside of there, and I was hanging out. You could hang out there between classes, you know, stuff like that. And I associate, like, a whoosh with you. Like, you appeared in, like, a whoosh. There was such an energy. I mean, there really was. It was, like, amazing. It left such a. You left such an impression on me.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That is so crazy. Okay, okay.

[Maria Randazzo]

Because you, like, appeared like a witch. Yes, Chelsea, you know I think you're a witch.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I believe I am a witch.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, you are. I have proof of it.

[Chelsea Devontes]

You are also a witch.

[Maria Randazzo]

And thank you. I just remember you. You were so energetic and sweet, and I remember you were very interested in a lot about me. Like, I remember you had a lot of questions.

[Chelsea Devontes]

So this. This will make sense when I tell you how I remember first meeting you, but go ahead. Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Okay. And you were like, what's your name? Where are you from? What are you doing? What class are you in? And I remember being like. And I answered all of it. And I. And then you're like, okay, well, like, I'll see you around. And I was like, yeah, definitely. And then I remember kind of like after you left, I was like, whoa, I don't think I'll ever forget the introduction.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That sounds like someone intensely interrogated you with small talk.

[Maria Randazzo]

But it was really sweet. I didn't feel like interrogated. I just felt like I was like this person. It was on a mission to know more about me. And I loved it in a great way, though. You wanted to be my friend. I felt like that.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I really did. Okay. I'm really happy I saved this so now I could re listen to it. I was really digging to, like, find my first memory of you. And for me, it's at the Playground Theater, another beautiful theater in Chicago. It was, I don't know, an old storage facility that seated 20 people. Like, that's what it felt like inside. And yes, it was the era of skinny jeans and ballet flats.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, my God.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And I just remember you bounding onto stage. You have this like, little, like, wide stance you'll do when you like, come in as, like. And it was like, as like a little like a scroungy orphan character.

[Maria Randazzo]

I played 99 orphans in my first 10 years of comedy and crushed it.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Because this is my memory of you. And it was like 10 men and you. And I was like, who is that? How'd she get so funny? What? What? What do you mean? How is she so funny? How is she so good? I gotta go talk to her. And so then I think I must have seen you as like, sitting and I was like, finds out everything because you're a little comedy phenom. Like, you were just so also filled with energy and. Okay, so, yes, I initially asked you to do Didion and Babbitts, which is a book about Joan Didion and Eve Babbitts. And it's a biography of these women's friendship slash nemesis using letters they had written to each other throughout their career that was discovered after Eve Babbitts's death. And Joan Didion so famous. I mean, just so much movies articles. Probably most famous for the year of magical thinking. And then like I said earlier, she is the aunt to Griffin Dunn, whose book we're about to read or about to recap. And then Eve Babbitts, lesser known. And I was enamored by the premise of this book. Eve Babbitts is like the curvy, messy, doesn't take shit. Never soaring to the heights of Joan Didion. She's like a chaotic, like, mess. And then Joan Didion was the extremely, like, thin, small, kind of put together, elitist New York City author. And I was like, I love this. And the book let me down so intensely so quickly. Tell me, did you end up opening it and reading it? Because I ended up Texting you. I was like, have you read it? Don't read it. Did you. Do you ever look at it?

[Maria Randazzo]

I. I saw, like, a few, like, Instagram videos on it, and I had. I just, like, did a tiny bit of research, but I didn't get to opening it yet and starting it before you texted me. Okay. So I have not. I never cracked it open. I have it, but I'm dying to know why you didn't like it so much.

[Chelsea Devontes]

The book was really advertised with this letter that Eve Babbitts wrote to Joan. And I will just read a tiny excerpt of this letter Eve had written. Could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny? Joan, would the balance of power between you and John have collapsed long ago if it weren't that he regards you a lot of the time as a child? So, yeah. I mean, the entire letter is. Is incredible and shocking and jarring, and so you immediately think, you know, what did say back? What is this relationship? Where did this. This, like, deep passion come from to say that? And how astute was it? But the writer of this book himself, a main character of the book, and that, like, how much they were obsessed with Eve Babbitts. And then they were like, okay, so I'm, like, gonna make this, like, really clear and easy. I. First, I'm just gonna tell you two things about Eve, Bab. Even though I'm obsessed with her. And then she would start the paragraph, and she'd be like, but first, I must take this other tangent. And then she would do another tangent, and then she would have a footnote, and. And then she'd be like. And before I get back to the first thing, I need to take another tangent. For me, I feel like clarity is everything. What is the point of an amazing story if you can't follow it? So I bailed on it, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna pitch you a mins more.

[Maria Randazzo]

As far as Griffin Dunn, when you had reached out to me about it, I was like, griffin Dunn. Griffin Dunn. Like, I know this name. And then I googled his face, and I was like, oh, this is the Practical Magic director. When I saw Practical Magic, if you can believe it, I saw Practical Magic for the first time maybe like, two years ago last year.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh, my.

[Maria Randazzo]

You had talked about it so much at work.

[Chelsea Devontes]

What did you think?

[Maria Randazzo]

And I was like, I love this movie.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I'm so happy.

[Maria Randazzo]

I love this movie.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I mean, it's really 90s. Like, if you see it for the first time in this Year. Like there's a chance you're like, what Chelsea?

[Maria Randazzo]

It is really 90s. But that's also like part of the reason why I love it so much. Yeah, It's. It's so beautifully 90s it like. And I have like a. There's. I get really nostalgic for 90s content.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes, same.

[Maria Randazzo]

And it was like, it's just like a part of my life that I kind of look back on very fondly. And I mean I'll just like go. I know we're like really early on in the podcast, but I'll just say so like my, you know, I lost my mom like six years ago and I think about the 90s so dearly because that was a decade I had with her. And so like 90s content and just like fills up my heart. But anyways, love Practical Magic.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Who is your guys like romcom queen. Like me and my mom, we were Sandra Bullock, like, who was you? And your mom's like, was it Julia Roberts?

[Maria Randazzo]

That's a really good question. I think me and my sisters maybe more so shared like rom com queens. But I think at that time it was Meg gry. And I'm a Harry Met Sally.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Huge fan, but loved Practical Magic. Loved the places that it went, love the design, love the music, love the quirky witch. I mean the quote at the beginning of your memoir is from that movie.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, yes, yes. So just absolutely loved it. And I looked up the director. I don't, honestly, I don't always look up directors. So I don't know what drove me to Google who directed this. And I'm like, oh, Griffin Dunn. Interesting. Kind of stuck with me. And then I was like, oh my God, I have. I'm so glad you brought him up. Cause I wanted to know more about him. Also a man directing that kind of a movie. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Which I have to say, like Anna man wrote it. Obviously Alice Hoffman wrote the original text. But I have always been in awe of how like even today, to accurately bring a domestic violence story into a commercial mass marketed funny in any way or romantic comedy in any way is impossible. Not because it's impossible to do, but because like executives and people like that will always be like, no. And so we never get domestic violence stories. And to have it in the middle of this witchy rom com handled beautifully. I have always been like, how did they pull it off? And also proof, like I always to other people, I'm like, this can be done because watch Practical Magic. But now, knowing how deeply Griffin had to deal with Domestic violence when his sister was murdered in that trial that we're gonna talk about. Now, I realize, of course, this was in the right hands, which, unfortunately, it usually is the hands of someone who has experienced it themselves, if that makes sense. Like, it's rarely someone from the outside who's like, I understand this. Like, I don't want it to be this way, but it's like, you have to have the empathy of having lived it or lived next to it in order to understand how to talk about it in a way that's a hundred % shitty.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, 100%.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Now, that said, were you waiting for him to talk about it in the book and then he never did?

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, I was. I did want him to talk more about practical magic. I did. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

To be fair, the book ends before he ever gets to that part of his timeline. So it's not like he's just going to say, yeah, it's not like he skipped it. And I actually really love how he arced this story and arcs the end of this book.

[Maria Randazzo]

My God, yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I would love for him to, like, I don't know, do an essay for the cut or something, bro.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like, yes, yes, I agree. I found a few articles where he talks about it a little bit. Talks about why and how he was able to tell the story of practical magic and how his own life experience informed and affected how he directed it.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Wow.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Okay, so there's a little. There's a little bit out there on that, but I would like more from him on it, for sure.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Okay, so let's dive more into the book now. Sometimes I felt like I was reading the nonfiction Catcher in the Rye.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he is Holden Caulfield. And I do say that as an insult. I did not enjoy that part of the book. There were a handful of times where I was like, this is exactly why I hate Men's Wars. I hate this so much. But then overall, I loved it because the amazing parts were so amazing. So this book has lived really conflicted in my soul. How did you feel about it?

[Maria Randazzo]

I feel that there were some parts where I was kind of like, okay. And then other parts that just, like, absolutely ripped my heart out, tears pouring down my face. I simultaneously didn't like the way he talked about masculinity sometimes and being a man. And also absolutely loved how he tackled masculinity.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That is the exact reaction I had where reading it. I was like, I hate everything you stand for. And at the same time, I was like, I'm so glad you wrote about this. And you were honest and vulnerable about your truth because it's good to know this stuff. And also, I hate you.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. He discusses, you know, masculinity and his father sexuality and everything. And I'm sure he'll get to that in such nuanced, beautiful ways. And then also there was an entire chapter about beating off.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh my God. Okay, let's do the really shitty men's more parts first so that we can get to this book. Because overall, I love this book, which is crazy given the parts I'm about to tell everyone about. Okay, so the mensmar parts that killed me. I'll just give a handful of highlights and please jump in. Which are there's a story about a two foot turd. He's like, I went to the bathroom and my turd was two feet long. Which I feel like, again, that was tough, tough. And there's like a whole saga with it. And I was just like, I also just immediately thought of the eight dudes I know who also have a two foot turd story. I was like, how is this happening to all of you? Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, that was. I was like, oh, this is such a boy story. But at the same time, and I don't mean to jump ahead, that the root of that story in that relationship is beautiful pays off in such a.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Beautiful way later where like, his friend has a really abusive stepdad and is getting abused and Griffin spends the night with him and witnesses it. And his friends like, will you help me kill him? And he's like, you fucking bet I will. And they like play fantasy all night long of like, getting rid of this abusive stepdad. Then we like take a two foot turd story and then it comes back and then his friend's like, okay, let's do it. Time to kill him. He's like, wait, I thought we were just like cathartically working out your emotions, like we really have to do it. They do not. But yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, the other one that killed me. I. It killed me not necessarily in content because clearly someone made him put in all the words of like, I know I'm a horrible person for this and this isn't right and what I did was wrong, but I could just tell it had been told at dinner parties and was like, yoink, yoink. Like, this is hilarious. And I was like, this is so dusty. Which is. Him and his friend are having a summer. They go down to the lobby of a hotel and this rich man is like, I'll pay you boys. I don't know, a hundred dollars to take my daughter and her friend around to town or to Disneyland or something. And they look at one girl and they're like, she is gorgeous.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And they look at the other girl and she is gorgeous, but she's in a wheelchair. Blah. And then they're like, no, sir. Like, we need a dame that walks. Haha. Jokes on them. She stands up and was never in a wheelchair at all. And she's the hottest woman they've ever seen. And she was just sitting in it for fun. And he's like, we've got egg on our face.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It's like, I hate this.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. I. I felt similarly about that one. Definitely. There was several stories in this book that I felt like, oh, this has been told a billion times.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And it was like a hit, like, 25 years ago. It crushed.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. Can I just say, I think this is the same section of the book. I think in the same hotel they would, like, see escorts and.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, we gotta read that quote. We have to read that quote.

[Maria Randazzo]

Can I just shout out the one hooker? I feel, like, terrible saying that word, hooker. Is that, like, okay to say?

[Chelsea Devontes]

No. I mean, no, we definitely say sex worker now. But that being said, you have to say that word for this. Because he writes it in his book.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. A lot.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And the quote he wrote about it is insane. I just want to tell everyone in the book, he literally writes, I'm the Jane Goodall of hookers. And you're like, what? And immediately after that says, not that I've ever been with one, of course. And I'm like, you're disgusting.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And you could tell. He was like, I just loved the word. I worked it into every sentence. I just thought, like, you know, sex workers were so cool. Never would be with one.

[Maria Randazzo]

Gross.

[Chelsea Devontes]

But like, I was like, their protector.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

What were you gonna say?

[Maria Randazzo]

I was gonna say that I wanted to shout out the one sex worker in the book who wanted to charge for high fives. And I said, yes. You charge for high fives? Yeah, for high fives. These losers who are coming to observe.

[Chelsea Devontes]

You and getting a high five.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. God.

[Maria Randazzo]

But yes, the Jane Goodall observation. Yeah. Hated that. Hated that.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. Oh, God. And then I guess just a couple other. This is what is so crazy about the book. It's like, woven throughout and, like, the. The way he loses his virginity. I was like, I'd like to hear that woman's side of the story, actually.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, my God.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes. It's like this hot teenager who's like, I need You, Griffin, like, let me teach you, like, in the pool house. And he's like, me, I'm just a dorky Hollywood boy. And I was like, that is the DNA. This town. Men who. Oh, yeah, get the hottest girl in high school, who. That's who they lose their Virginia with, but have the perception of, like, I'm.

[Maria Randazzo]

Just a regular boy.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Like, I'm a nerd. It's like, you're not. And also, how did that go down for Nadine or whatever her name was?

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly. Exactly. She looked you in the eyes and she was like, I want you. I want to take your flower, or whatever. I'm like, I. Did she really say that?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Come on. And then other times in the book, especially with women, he'd be like, oh, well, she was petite enough. I could carry her. And. And it's like, that's the stuff I hate where I'm like, why? This is everything that's wrong with the world. You didn't say, I am capable enough to carry this woman. You said, she was small enough. And you're like, bro. Okay. Right. All right, let's now, shockingly, get into all the amazing stuff in the book.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah. There's so much.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Okay. So the tagline is called a family memoir, and I think it is a stunning master class of how to talk about your grandfather and your grandfather's grandfather, your grandmother and your, you know, the other side of the family, which normally is done in what I call is memory mush. Well, they'll just be like, oh, this and then this and then the food and then whatever. And then one time you're just like, I hate this. Like, why am I reading this? He told. It really is a family memoir. They have the most incredible family history of all time. Believable. Everything had a beginning, middle, and end. There were callbacks, there were twists, there were turns, there were zingers. Like. And it goes through how his family ends up with so much money and so much privilege, including, like, Griffin Co. Does, like, the train wheels of trains. And it would be like the train carrying his, you know, his grandma to her husband's funeral with her lover as her date. Who did you love that? I loved it. And then the other side of the family, because they own the train wheels, they diverted the train so she couldn't make it to the funeral with her lover and embarrass the family. And then that made it in the newspaper, and I was just like, oh, whoa. Like, it was great.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. Yes. That is. I totally agree that the stories, the arcs, the characters of his past that he truly brought to life.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

And also, I feel like his whole life really, like, touches on these huge parts of American history. Like he the train.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh, yeah. He is the Forrest Gump of Hollywood. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back. You may recall that early in my marriage, my husband banned me from the kitchen from cooking so horribly. Listen, I did take this as a vict within my marriage, but I do want to learn to cook. Mostly because I just want to eat good food. Every time I look up a recipe, I have to like, read a whole story about like, someone's trip to Paris and I don't want it. And that is why every plate has been life changing. When you use every plate, you get restaurant level deliciousness week after week. But for a super affordable cost, I chose the vegetarian option. And I'm so excited to try the southwest queso stuffed peppers with pico de gallo and garlic bread. I love good food, but if I'm making it home, it has to be easy, it has to taste good, and it has to be affordable. And everyplate is all of those things. What are you waiting for? Dig into these flavor packed meals your household will love. New customers can enjoy this very special offer of only $1.99ameal. Go to everyplate.com podcast and use code glamorous199 to get started. Applied as a discount on the first box. Limited time only. And enjoy learning through play starts with Lego Duplo.

[Maria Randazzo]

With Lego Duplo, toddlers can develop real life skills while having fun with colorful bricks made just for them. Large, easy to grip and safe to explore. When children express themselves with Lego Duplo, they build patience, problem solving and empathy. See your child learn perseverance and self expression. Expression with everything they imagine and create. Visit lego.com preschool to learn more.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Okay, let's dive back into the episode. Okay, so on page eight, I was like, what the hell is this book? Because there was already so many celeb names. And then he'd be like, oh, well, you know, Stephen Sondheim was like my dad's best friend randomly. And then he was like Elizabeth Montgomery who later played Samantha. And Bewitched was my first babysitter. Oh yeah. You're like, whoa. And then that story was amazing. Elizabeth once told my mom while changing my diaper that I had a bigger dick than her husband. That marriage was, needless to say, short lived. I said, how in the hell is gossip about this poor man's dick? In your book because she was babysitting you.

[Maria Randazzo]

I know. I read that and I, I stopped and I read that out loud to my boyfriend. I was like, you have to. And that was so many parts of this book.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes, yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

I would be like, holy, you have to hear this 100.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he'd be like, oh, and then Humphrey Bogart and then Harrison Ford was fixing our porch. And then on page 34 writes, My best friend's uncle had just been elected the President of the United States. Who was he talking about, y' all? Jfk. Jfk. And then he like has a relationship with JFK and the first lady as a child. And I, I just wrote like, what the hell am I reading?

[Maria Randazzo]

I know it was on every single page, had a hugely historic event or person on it that is intertwined in his life.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Also this self. I, I feel like he was a very. Is. Is and was a very self aware child and adult.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, I think that's right.

[Maria Randazzo]

The reflection of. I mean, are you going to talk about how he, what he wanted to mail Jackie O.

[Chelsea Devontes]

No, you do it please. Or what he did mail. He did mail it.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, yeah, he did do it. When Jon Jon. JFK and Jackie's oldest, I believe was born Griffin Dunn was also a little boy. And he wanted to mail the first lady a paddle to beat the tushy of John John with.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. He was like, oh, well, they'll need a paddle to beat their son with. I'd like to send a bespoke one. Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

I mean, so wild. And he was like, I think that I wanted to send that to the first lady because I was, I wanted to suck up to her. He was like enamored with her beauty and her status and all that. And like.

[Chelsea Devontes]

But also he's five.

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Or he's like in second grade or something.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just so young. To either that was imprinted on him so young when he was little, or to look back and remember that is kind of amazing to me. I don't remember why I did all the weird things I did as a kid.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, well, that's a good point. And I will say, you know, because he wrote her a letter and was like, here to punish John John with. And like they have that letter. They wrote him a thank you letter for the paddle. His mom helped him make it at home. Just a fun craft project, I gotta say.

[Maria Randazzo]

Why, why, why was she enabling that?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh, because she was like, well, we have your paddle over here. How adorable.

[Maria Randazzo]

Just crazy.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It does remind you of like, oh, yeah, what a. What a time. What a different time. Another thing I loved is. I'm not sure I have the words for it, but Joan Didion was married to John Dunn. John Dunn is Dominic Dunn's brother, and Dominic is Griffin's father, if that makes sense. So his uncle is John by blood and his aunt is Joan Didion by marriage. And I have learned so much about John Dunn and this family, which is like, at some points, it's like sycophants. And I think there's been very hushed writing about how, like, Joan Didion married him because she just needed an editor every morning, like, the shade of, like, she was the real writer and like, he was the suck up. Which, again, exists in, like, the crevices of things I've been exploring. And people listening may remember me and Paul Scheer talking about a book that John Donne wrote about working in the. The movie industry. But he just kind of never got a handle on fame or success the way Joan Didion did and the way his brother Dominic later did. And then there's this line in the book that I think Griffin is, like, very astutely including, because he loves John. But he goes to this party and runs into one of his Uncle John's friends who constantly feuds with him, and he says, where's John? I asked. Yelling over speakers blasting Sgt. Pepper, look for the most famous person in the room. And there you will find him, following him around like a drooling puppy. And that's also a little bit what his dad is like, or a lot of it of what his dad is like, where they're kind of like fame mongers, seekers, but also like, they're of Hollywood. And then Joan writes her book, the Year of Magical Thinking about John. And in the book, she's never to my taste. She's never like, this is why I love John. She's always like, this is how John loved me.

[Maria Randazzo]

Whoa. Yeah, Whoa. So the first time I read the quote you just read about, where's John? He's doing this at the party. I registered that as about Dominic, but I read it wrong.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh, because they're so similar.

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Wow. And they go at each other like they're gonna have a huge feud.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

I mean, epic. Like, so fascinating.

[Chelsea Devontes]

This book could be 19 movies. Yeah, okay. I said I was done yelling at the men's. More of it all, but I have something else to yell about. And it's not men's. More specific, but it's my pet peeve, and I've never Seen it written so egregiously. So I'm just gonna read. I'm just going to read a couple sentences to you. He's telling a story about, like, going down to Mexico. And he said, I flagged this car down and squeezed into the cab with three tipsy Navajo men who dropped me off at a diner miles down the road in Cimarron. My on the road fantasy had begun. Hitching out of Cimmer. And I got a ride from two kids about my age driving a stolen Chrysler New Yorker. And I was like, okay, back to back sentences. When they're Navajo men, you wrote their Navajos. And the next sentence, when you hitch a ride with two kids, no race. Why? Because they're white. I was just like, how did no one. Like your. Your own brain wasn't like, I wrote two back to back sentences about hitching rides and I only denoted.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right. Why wasn't that flagged? Why didn't someone catch that?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Annoying. I just have to note it. Okay.

[Maria Randazzo]

Definitely. Definitely.

[Chelsea Devontes]

You want to talk about Carrie Fisher?

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, wow. Wow. What a fascinating relationship.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. Speaking. Okay, so you brought up Harry Met Sally.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Did you read this relationship as the Harry Met Sally relationship? It was somewhat intended to be, which Carrie Fisher is in that movie, or did it come across to you differently than how he wrote it?

[Maria Randazzo]

I did think about it in the context of When Harry Met Sally. This book made me fall more in love with Carrie Fisher. Like, I think her sense of humor is so funny. And that game that they played with the prop, severed hand is just like, so funny also, I mean, this book, there's like a lot of blurred lines of, like, what's okay and what's not okay. But when he was in the shower and she took the severed hand and cupped his balls with the severed hand.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He thought, like, oh, Carrie's finally coming on to me. And then looked down to realize that, like, it was the game they play where they hide the severed hand. It's hilarious.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Yeah. I really was like, what is at play here? Like, does she really want him and love him and he's not computing that? Or is it vice versa? Or are they really, like he said, platonic friends? That's not so black and white.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. I. This was one where I loved reading about it, but I was like, I would like someone else's. No. But then he also. Okay, so let's tell everyone the story. So he has a little brother named Alex, who I loved Alex in this book, just. And he really struggles with mental health. Their dad is mean to him because Alex reminds their dad, Dominic, of him, so he's kind of ostracized.

[Maria Randazzo]

The irony of that, I mean, devastating.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And Alex comes home one day, and he's like, I have a best friend from the neighborhood. Her name's Carrie Fisher. Please don't steal her. Because Griffin is like. Alex is maybe what you would call an odd duck. And Griffin is like, the handsome everyman who, like, is charming and charismatic. And he's like, please don't take her. And then he's like, I mean, I really tried not to. And then he, you know, he takes her. And I was like, these are those moments. You're like, no. And he's like, you know, but Alex was fine. And he says they become best friends. And he's like, we're just best friends. We're. And we just really get each other and love each other. And then he's like, oh. And then she asked me to take her virginity. And he wrote everything we were doing to each other under those covers would not alter our friendship one iota. And I just wrote, what world is this? I know.

[Maria Randazzo]

I'm like, I don't think so.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I don't think so, my friend. But then Griffin gets married when he's very young, I want to say, 17 or 18. And it's to Carrie Fisher's friend Tanya, who she hooks him up with. And then she pays for the hotel room so they can have sex. And so it's like, yeah, it's like this weird friendship. And then. But that's not the part that bothered me. I'm like, okay, listen. Get it. Not to mention every single memoir that talks about Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher was their best friend. Everyone from, like, you know, Selma Blair talking about Carrie Fisher to Penny Marshall, who really was her best friend. Like, Carrie's just so beloved. And at one point, Debbie Reynolds, her mom, is like, I want to keep my daughter sober and get her an apartment. Griffin, you're her best friend. Please move into this apartment on the Upper west side. And Griffin's like, oh, but I'm a. I'm a Lower east side artiste. I cannot. And. And she's like, like, okay, but you're poor. And, like, you know, my mom will pay for this apartment. They become roommates, and then Carrie gets a job in a science fiction movie at 19 years old with Griffin's old carpenter, Harrison Ford. This is obviously Star Wars. And when she comes back, he can't handle that she is successful and he is not. And he's like, I have to go make something of myself because my ego is bruised. So, like, I'm moving out, and, like, I just, like, can't be as close to you, and I need to not be Carrie Fisher's friend. Like, I need to be successful. That was a moment where I was like, I fucking hate you. And also, I love you for being so honest in that, like, your best friend got successful, and so you, like, for me, the friendship changes after that. Like, it never really came back to what it was, I thought. What did you think?

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. Because she does kind of drop off there narratively. Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like, it's not a lot.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He'll see her again later, but it's not a lot.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. I would agree with that. I do think it changes and, you know, speaks to, like, what would that have been, like, if that was, like, a best friend who was a male who got really famous?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like, would he leave? Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And I kind of doubt it.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It's like, I feel like it's a Dringo. It's like a woman's success happens, and the man just, like, actually can't take it. Obviously, I don't want that to be, like, prescriptive, but reading it here, I was like, I'm not surprised.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he lost out on so much of their life together.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right. It just reminds me of, like, Beyonce and Kelly Rowland. Different situation, obviously. But Kelly has talked about Shine theory.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

And she's like, beyonce's shine helps me shine.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

And that seems like such an ironclad friendship, and, like, they have each other's back so hard, and, like, yes. Obviously, Beyonce is the most famous person in the world. Yeah. But Kelly didn't leave, and I feel like they do a great job of being there for each other, and Beyonce lifts her up and all that. And I know that's, like, maybe the most extreme example I could give right now, but I do think that there is. I'm not gonna say it's easy to, like, swallow maybe your ego or what you want to happen for yourself, but, like, if you can hang in there and support your friend and let them bring you into what's going on around them, like, that will ultimately, that shine will help you.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. And I. Yeah, you're so right. And there are many, like, female friendships that also, like, take this hit, too, of, like, oh, you're successful, and I'm not. Now I somehow can't be your friend, but you're. I love the Beyonce theory. However, Maria, what would you Say about Michelle.

[Maria Randazzo]

Michelle's on Broadway. She's killing it right now. She's shining in her own way. Beyonce did go see her and be posted about it. Yes. And she wore a baseball hat. Can I just say baseball hat in the theater? My God, what are we doing?

[Chelsea Devontes]

I have to tell you, Beyonce posted that. And I was around New York and I talked to my producer, and I was like, I gotta go see Michelle in this show, which is death becomes her. And I went, like, a few days later. And she wasn't in the fucking show. No. And I was like, she just. Beyonce was here two days ago.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, my God.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It was truly devastating. Okay, so back to Griffin being married to Tanya. It's a very brief marriage.

[Maria Randazzo]

This story is nuts.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It's crazy. But let's also.

[Maria Randazzo]

Can I just say, like, in high school, next to Griffin Dunn, I'm, like, the biggest loser there ever was in high school. He's, like, getting laid left and right, chased down by women, hanging out with people who are older than him, smoking cigarettes, doing all this stuff. I'm like, okay. I was singing Jules Hands at prayer services at my high school with an acoustic guitar, and I was like, I am amazing.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And Griffin's point of view is like.

[Maria Randazzo]

I'm just a hapless nerd.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And it's like, you're not. I know, but, Maria, I would have. Would love to hear your rendition of Jewel.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, well, it was something else.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I will say maybe. Maybe in a bonus episode later. So we drop it. We drop your hit. So there. Now, this is a story that I loved in the book, which is Dominic Dunn marries Griffin's mom, and she's the one who ends up leaving him, and he's bereft over it. However, Dominic is gay. His dad is horrible to him as a child because he can tell or is treating him, you know, like he knows it about his son. The day of his dad's funeral, Dominic returns home from war and goes and has an affair with a man for the first time. Oh, yeah. After that, he marries Griffin's mom, has this family who knows what is happening. But when Griffin's mom divorces his dad, Dominic is so sad about that. But then he is able to live as a gay man, and it's still 90% in the closet. So he is still, like, hiding it, especially to his son. And one day he's like, like, this is my driver, Tori. But it's, like, very clear that, like, the driver lives with him and is his partner. And Tanya, being a homophobic hoe is like, if your dad sucks cock, maybe you do too. This is the quote she gives him. And she's like, are you sure you're not gay? Because, you know, that's how it works. Obviously. It's genetically passed down from father to son. And he being the year they're in and being like so confused, and his father's not super open about it, is also like, oh, my God, because my dad is gay, maybe I am gay too. And this story, okay, so I'm gonna read it. His dad goes out of town and he shows up and is like, hi, Tori. Like, can we hang? Sort of like, I am acknowledging that you are my father's lover and you are not his driver. And they drink and do shrooms. They stay up all night. At the very end of it, Tori stood at the bottom of the stairs, the stairs where I'd first seen him, and said, I know you are curious who you are, Griffin, and though I might be able to answer that, I doubt you will believe me until you find out for yourself. So I'm going to go upstairs. You want to join? That's great. If not, tonight was really fun. And have a safe drive home. I stayed seated in my chair for a good five minutes, though I already knew what I was going to do. With the solemn dignity of Sydney Carton ascending the guillotine in A Tale of Two Cities, I climbed the staircase with purpose, step by step, to sleep with a guy for the first time. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. Tori kicked me out of bed, not unkindly, after I'd let him do stuff to me and I'd done stuff to him, all to no great effect. I hate to break this to you, Griffin, Tori said as I put on my pants. I don't think you've got what it takes to be a homo. Well, nobody's perfect. I said, quoting the last line of Some Like It Hot, a reference Tori actually got. Okay, so I think it's, like breathtakingly beautiful that he was like, let me just explore and see. I think the fact that it was his dad's boyfriend is the craziest thing I've ever encountered. What did you. Yeah. What do you think of this story?

[Maria Randazzo]

That is exactly what I thought. This is another moment where I fully stopped down reading the book and I said, holy Henrik, you have to hear this. And I just recounted one of the many, many stories that are so mind blowing in this book. And yes, the fact that it is his dad's boyfriend. I couldn't I couldn't possibly believe that.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And it's like, it's not really talked about, but you kind of get the impression that Tori never tells his dad. He never tells his dad. He and Tori stay together for a good long time. But it's like if you were to find out that your boyfriend had your son, it's horrifying.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

But your son is there in pursuit of his sexual identity, and then you're like, well, that's nice.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like, it was just like such a twist of, like, truly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. I still don't have words for it. So then it gets into another. There's so much in the book. Let's get to another story. The next story I want to talk about is Dominic Dunn's fall from grace from Hollywood. So they are, you know, they're a Hollywood family, but his dad's still kind of a climber and throws these huge parties and tries to have lots of famous friends and da, da, da, da. And he's a movie producer. And there's this story about this, like, amazing dance party that he throws. And Truman Capote comes and, like, loves it. And the next year, Truman Capote repeats the exact same party because it was such a good time. And Dominic Dunn is not invited. And so it's like this push and pull. And then he writes, In 1972, dad, who was Dominic Dunn, was shooting Ash Wednesday starring Elizabeth Taylor, not knowing it would be the last movie he would ever produce. Toward the end of production, he brought Dominique, his sister, and his daughter, then 13, to the Italian Alps, where the film was on location in the little village of Cortina. She was witness to Elizabeth Taylor's chronic tardiness, so severe it drove the budget to astronomical sums and took our father's career down with. Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now and we'll be right back. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult.

[Maria Randazzo]

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[Chelsea Devontes]

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[Maria Randazzo]

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

[Chelsea Devontes]

With the price of just about everything.

[Maria Randazzo]

Going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in.

[Chelsea Devontes]

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[Maria Randazzo]

Upfront payment.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to 15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra c mint mobile.com. okay, let's dive back into the episode.

[Maria Randazzo]

Jaw on the floor.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, and this is also where I'm like, is. I think these are the years when Carrie Fisher's dad, Todd oh, was at Elizabeth Taylor's side being paid by the studio to get her to sets on time. I can't fully do the math off the top of my head, but I was like another wild connection. Then he said, though he took the fall for overruns, dad made Paramount's decision to fire him an easy one. Dominique was Dad's date on his last night in the movie business. Our father was on a drunken roll, sharing inside gossip with a long table of cast and crew, sending everyone into fits of hysterics. He did an impeccably mean impression of Sue Mangers, then the most powerful agent in Hollywood. I'm going to pause right here and say, if you listen to our Tatum o' Neill episode when her dad drops her off with her agent who bare minimum, takes care of her. And I was like, who the hell is this agent who, like, is caring for Tatum but is also, like, off kid and like, profiting off her? That's Sue Mangers. And, oh, the next sentence is Sue Mangers, whose hefty weight was well known but never discussed in public again. I'm like, you, I hate this book. Yeah, you. Mangers was also best friends with Bob Evans, head of Paramount and my father's boss. The joke my dad told that night in Cortina was that if they ever made a musical of Sue Manger's life, it should be called when the Fat Lady Sings. I guess you had to be there. And also very drunk. What slipped Dad's mind was that a reporter from Variety invited by the studio to publicize the movie, was seated at the end of the table. Dominic Dunn's fat lady joke was quoted in Variety the next morning, Pacific Standard Time. And the vice president of Paramount called Dad's room at the Majestic Hotel to say, nick, pack your bags and come home. You're over. And I wrote, good. I was just. I was just like, you all disgust me. And then he Wrote. It was terrifying to me that Dad's career should collapse just as mine was beginning. I watched what people with power could do to a man who loved movies all his life, who had to pinch himself that he was actually making them. Knowing that a dream could be realized and then so casually destroyed. Scared the hell out of me. Oh, that's like. It's the. It's this entire book for me. I'm like, oh, that's so stunning to like, have your dream snatched. And also, your dad was being, like, a fucking prick about a powerful woman's weight to make fun of to men. Like, right.

[Maria Randazzo]

You know, I mean, I wondering where that's coming from in Dominic Dunn, like, that behavior. Like, just. Is it coming from a place of being so insecure and so wanting to hold on to what you have so badly that you have to feel like you have to constantly, like, make people laugh and dazzle and be gossipy and say these shitty things about people when it's just like, you don't have to stoop. You don't have to go to these lengths to get people to latch onto you or to want to keep working with you. It's like, you're like, I think people will go to really shitty places with, like, talking shit or making jokes so that people find them interesting or find them edgy or find them, like, they have power and they're comfortable, whatever. And it's like, fudge you. There's way more interesting things to talk about.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I completely agree. And it's. It feels like a phase that almost everyone goes through, but by the time this man was a grown man, he should have been out of it. And also, it's a. Yeah, it's a story of the downfall of his career blamed on two women. Elizabeth Taylor ruined the movie, but he took the fall and then Sue Mangers, like, ruined his career by, like, not wanting to be made fun of and having the power to do something about it. And he really does lose everything. Like, all of his money, all of his possessions. Like, he loses his entire career and. And moves to, like, it's. It's like cabin number five on this, like, little lot where he just, like, lives in a cabin and is. Is basically ostracized from Hollywood and in.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like, Oregon or something.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Right? Oregon. That's right. Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And then he writes. It was in Cabin five that he began a novel. He'd been miraculously hired by Michael Korda, editor in chief of Simon and Schuster. Corda threw him a lifeline and a modest advance. When it became Clear that this other person who was writing this book couldn't finish it. And he could. And I was like, miraculously, you guys are the most privileged, embedded family right in the country. Miraculously means, like, still knowing people with money who, like, you know. But whatever.

[Maria Randazzo]

A lot of breaks. Caught a lot of breaks.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And then, okay, so we're going to come back to that story with his dad. But then Griffin is still in this place where it's like, my friend Carrie is famous and my career hasn't started. And he again, miraculously gets to produce a movie with two other friends when they convince this author to give them the book rights and they get $3 million to do it.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He gets a part in it. The studio has no oversight.

[Maria Randazzo]

I think I wrote, like, Like.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, yeah, please.

[Maria Randazzo]

I was shocked. I was, like, shocked at that.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. I wrote. I just. Dot, dot, dot. I cannot.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So what page are you on?

[Chelsea Devontes]

I'm on page 223. It's okay.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

United Artists, you know, our studio executive stuck to tradition, believing in us enough to let three unknown actors without any production experience oversee a movie with $3.5 million. I was like, yeah, we come from different places in life.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, I just wrote one huge exclamation point.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. Yes. But then they premiered the movie. It originally was titled Chilly Scenes of Winter. United Artists forced them to change it to Head over Heels, which they hated. And then he said, we were celebrating the opening night of the movie, but many actors were there that night, like William Hertz and Sigourney Weaver, who were also celebrating us making our own work instead of relying on others for employment. I want to do what you do, a wobbly Bill Hurt mumbled into my ear, holding on to my collar for balance. And then he said, carrie Fisher was also so proud of me. That night. She pulled me into the men's room for a makeout for old times sake. She was by then a movie star. And my success aroused us enough to think we were at last, if only for a moment, on equal footing. So. So I'm like, whoa, it's so cool that these other very successful actors are there being, like, making your own work. Is it? This is, like, so cool what you've done, which I feel like is something we talk about all the time.

[Maria Randazzo]

Like.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Like, making your own work is just so powerful. And then the next sentence is like, yay, I'm successful enough to make out with my platonic friend, who I swear I'm platonic with.

[Maria Randazzo]

I just don't think it's Platonic, Like, I just don't. I'm not yanking my platonic male friends around to just make out with when they do something good.

[Chelsea Devontes]

When my ego is at a level enough that my dick can get hard again.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I just was like, okay, whatever. So then there starts the fallout with John Donne and Joan Didion, who had become highly paid screenwriters and novelists, which made it worse when they lent dad $10,000 he had no way of repaying. And, like, they have this, like, huge family fallout that we're going to be tracking, like, through this later court case. And Dominic Dunn is, like, so down on his luck, and he lives outside of Hollywood, and he's, like, trying to finish this novel. And he promises Griffin that he's going to write his way out of this. This I said Hamilton lyric before it's time.

[Maria Randazzo]

All right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

My way out, Lynn.

[Maria Randazzo]

Are you listening, Lin Manuel?

[Chelsea Devontes]

And so he's out in Oregon, and he gets this letter. An unexpected letter arrived from Truman Capote that seemed to read his mind. This is not where you belong. Truman wrote, when you get out of it, what you went there to get, you have to come back. He hadn't seen Truman since the Black and White Ball and had no idea how he had gotten his address, but knew if anyone understood what it was like to be banished, it was the man who wrote Lacote Basque, 1965, which is the basis for the Ryan Murphy show of, like, how he fell out with, like, the Swans, I don't know.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, the Swans. I actually wanted to watch it, but I didn't. Did you see it? I heard it wasn't good.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Really tried. I really tried. I don't know why you would call a show the Seven Swans and then focus on Truman Capote the whole time.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Anyways, whatever. But Sherman had, like, fallen out of graces and come back. Sherman had also snubbed Dominic as a writer. They're now in the same genre, competed with him, cut him out of his party invites, and when Dominic was shunned, sent him the letter to be like, you belong. You're an artist. Like, come back here. Why did I find that so moving? You know what I mean?

[Maria Randazzo]

Interesting.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. And, please, if you had a different opinion, I was just like, like, oh, they're competitors who are mean and scathing and both are these gossip fame mongers. And he threw a lifeline out to this man who he didn't like because it just wasn't right that he wasn't a writer in his eyes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right. And this Was after Truman got kind of shunned as well. So maybe he had.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He was back in good graces at this point. Yeah, so we had the empathy.

[Maria Randazzo]

So maybe he had that empathy to reach back out. I mean, I will also just say I don't think Dominic Dunn could have survived the age of social media. No, like, way. I mean, my God, like, it broke my heart when he was, like, tuming through the exact same party and, like, didn't invite my dad. And I was like, whoa. That's like. You're, like, on your socials and you see that and you're like, I didn't get invited to the same party that I threw. Even better. Like, like. I mean, this poor guy.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Oh, yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

I'm glad he wasn't around for it.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That's such a good point. So at this point in the book, we are going to get into what happened with Dominique and her murder and the trial. So take care as we go into this section. But the book is called the Friday Afternoon Club because his sister Dominique started it in their pool house. And she would have, like, up and coming actors over on Friday afternoons, and they'd hang out and drink, and she had all these stray animals she would take in. And two of the actors who would go to the Friday afternoon club were George Clooney and Tim Hutton. Isn't that wild?

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. Yes. Again, just like every so many pages of this book, like, you're like, what? Just to jump back really fast. Do you remember when he talks about his dad being at the baseball game? He was playing with his classmates and he was like, I looked into the outfield and my dad was just eating a hot dog that Natalie Wood brought him.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I was like, and Natalie Wood, of course, dies as well, and her sister has come forward and said that it was murder. I know there's gray area to that, but.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, my God. I know. Like, wasn't it like, oh, who was best friends with the mom?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Who was best friends with Griffin Dunn's mom? Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

So the way Dominique meets. What am I gonna call him? I'm not giving him a name. This piece of shit. When she meets her piece of shit boyfriend, she is eating at Maison, a restaurant. And this piece of comes out and is like, do you like the fish I made? I am a chef. When the real chef was Wolfgang Puck and he worked in the kitchen, but, like, took all this crowd and was like, this is my restaurant. And she was lied right from the jump. From the jump. Of course. Now I'm gonna hit. I don't Even know if it's officially on our Dringo. But it really should be at this point because the notes on this page he wrote. There is a non fiction book called the Gift of Fear written by a security specialist named Gavin de Becker, who also happens to be one of my oldest friends. I screamed, Gavin de Becker is in. I'm emotionally doing the math here. I'm pretty sure it's 14 celebrity memoirs, including Brooke Shield's best friend, including Geena Davis's boyfriend. He's everywhere. And he wrote the Gift of Fear, which has been on my shelf for years and I've never picked it up. Oh, by the way, Gavin de Becker did all the security for the Jon Stewart shows. The opposition shows. Oh yeah, we both went through the Gavin Demeker security again.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh my God. I kind of was like, oh, actually, Griffin Dunn's life has touched and involved so many different people. This is where our Venn diagram touches. Jesus Christ.

[Chelsea Devontes]

We learned that security training at our job.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Security firm.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, I mean, I just do like six degrees of. Griffin Dunn.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes. Oh my God. So he talks about the gift of fear and how when you are afraid, it is for good reason. There's a difference between fear and anxiety. And fear is something very real and powerful that is protective and not something to be afraid of. Of and something to take as a gift. And that Dominique went forward dating this man and he hated him. His dad hated him. And she had lunch with her brothers and her dad. And Alex was the only brother who was like, he's a monster. Like something is wrong with him. Please leave him. Meanwhile, Griffin and Dominic were like, you have our blessing if you really like him. Like not wanting to make waves. Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

That Alex is so often the truth.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Speaker in this book, which I feel like is so beautiful in that Alex also really dealt with extreme mental health issues.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

But often when you look at mental health problems and diagnoses, they have this beautiful superpower to them. Like there's such a superpower to trauma in the way of. Like he was the truth seeker. He was, he was willing to speak out. Like he could see outside of these societal norms in order to say the right thing. Even though he also struggled in other ways. Yeah. And Alex, I mean, Alex is dealing with suicidal ideation and attempts throughout all of this. Griffin's acting career is somewhat taking off when Dominique had broken up with this man a couple of times and she was 22 years old, almost 23, and she'd finally kicked him out of her life for good. And her acting Career is starting to take off, and all her friends at the Friday afternoon club, they're starting to get big careers. Which also made her piece of shit boyfriend feel like a failure because he was a sous chef, and so he would try and isolate her and make her feel bad. And he wrote this, he said. Feelings of shame and blame familiar to every victim of domestic violence began their hateful work on my sister's sense of self. Even though she had taken decisive action by breaking up with him, doubt still plagued her. Dominique called me a month after their breakup, and the second guessing in her tone annoyed me. She also caught me as I was halfway out the door to catch a new Woody Allen film. I'm like, oh, my God, there's just no awareness. Dominique didn't exactly say she wanted to get back together with him, but questioned if she had been too harsh and. And confessed that she felt sorry for him. Her boyfriend had attacked her. Or twice. They're gonna find out. It was twice. Her mom kept the first one a secret, and the second one got out. And she cracks this joke that tomorrow was the first day of her shooting an episode of Hill Street Blues, and she was playing a battered housewife. And so she was like, oh, well, they won't have to do makeup on me. Hahaha. And finally breaks up with him again. And he's so desperate to get her back that he calls Griffin and is like, please help me get back together with your sister. And he said, touch my sister again and I'll kill you. Like, stay away from her. He now knows, like, what he did. And then Dominique calls him and he says, I'm so sorry, but can I call you tomorrow? I'm running late for a movie. I meant to call the next day, but I didn't. Nor did I the day after that, which is the day that this dude showed up at Dominique's house holding a bag of Halloween cookies he just baked. Ten minutes later, his hands were around her throat. And this story is like, I mean, all. Okay, I'm just gonna read it. She was inside her house with one of her fellow actors from an acting class who gets a full name, David Packer. And they were running lines for a scene and a television show they were both in. They were running lines for a scene to film the next morning when this piece of showed up demanding to be let in. Not wanting to cause a scene in front of a colleague, Dominica excused herself to go outside. And once alone, the actor locked the door behind her. So David Packer watches Dominique go out to talk to her abusive boyfriend, who she's broken up with. He locks the door behind her. As Dominique was being strangled. Johnson said the actor hid in the bathroom and left a message on his roommate's answering machine that said, if I get murdered tonight, Dominique's boyfriend did it before we could absorb his act of cowardice. Okay. Then it goes on. And basically, he showed up with Halloween cookies and was like, get back together with me. And she said, no. And then he killed her as an actor, locked her out of the house and watched. I don't even know what to say after this.

[Maria Randazzo]

I know. It is so, so beyond tragic. I don't even have words.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

The fact that she was locked out of her own house and this man hid and did nothing, and there was.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Someone there who could have run out, even screamed and, like, help.

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Called 91 1. Not his roommates answering.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. Yes. He could have called 91 1.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He could have said, I'm witnessing this. Stop. Like, what? What? Like, I. It follows the pattern of so. Of so much domestic violence in that there was initial violence, there's getting back together, there's, you know, confessing to her mom, but saying, keep it a secret. I don't want everyone to dislike him. And then her mom doing it, being like, yes, okay, we keep these secrets, you know, to him and his dad not wanting to speak out against him. But then she. You know, he hurts her, and then there's no actual action taken when he shows up outside her house still trying to be polite and nice, she thinks she can talk it through with him. We've, like, missed all the signs of how violent this could be and how easy it is to miss those signs. He has. He has warm Halloween cookies in his hand. Like, yeah, it is. You can see how someone's brain is like, I just need to talk him down.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And not knowing that he had previous violence with multiple girlfriends that wasn't reported, wasn't talked about. And then. Yeah. And then having a witness right there who does nothing. It just. Yeah, it was really hard to read. And she is put in the hospital. She's in a coma, and they eventually have to take her off life support. You know, after a while, it's like, Alex, dad, and I hugged mom goodbye as they're, like, getting ready to go back to their lives, and she assured us that she would be fine. As we were about to leave, she added, well, I guess I will see you all at the trial, because now they have two more years of their life as they go to try and get justice. For Dominique's murder, which should be easy in that, like, there's a witness. There's, like, so much evidence, and they are, like, a really wealthy, prominent family family. And of course, it's not going to be easy. And right before she dies and they take her off life support, they all have a moment with her. And her dad, Dominic Dunn, whispers in her ear, give me your talent.

[Maria Randazzo]

There's so much to wrap your mind around with all of this. And, you know, like, Griffin did prepare the reader for, like, this is gonna get worse. Like, and reading the pages of Dominique's story and this piece of shit that she was with and her in the hospital, and this is this. It was extremely emotional. It was extremely difficult to read. I'm getting emotional talking about it because, Chelsea, I know you have shared your story of surviving domestic violence. And also my sister is a survivor of domestic violence as well. And, like, when you read about these things, you cannot help but feel so much anger and sadness and grief and fear that is directly attached to the people who you love so much, who have experienced this as well. And I am grateful to Griffin Dunn for writing so detailed about what this was like. And it is just an absolute tragedy, to say the least. And, like, yeah, I mean, I just kept thinking, like, I just kept thinking about my sister and my family and, like, how, you know, my sister is. Is doing amazing and she's very happy. And this was over. I mean, this was a very long time ago. This was, like, 26 years ago or something that this happened to her. But I just had a way of putting myself in Griffin's shoes in a way. And it was absolutely heart wrenching. Yeah, it was absolutely heart wrenching.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Thank you for sharing that.

[Maria Randazzo]

What was it like for you?

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that about your sister. And, like, it was interesting, right, when you said, like, oh, it was like, 26 years ago. Like, mine was 23 years ago now, and it's still, like, reverberates, like, daily. And it's gotten so, so much better for me, weirdly, since. Since my book came out. Like, it really did. Even though that also was, like, a tragedy because I couldn't, like, fully write about it.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right, right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

What I really liked about reading this book is that. Is that I could. Because there's times where, like, I'm like, I cannot look at this or be. I just like, I don't have the capacity to, like, do this right now. Yeah. And this book, I really could take it in because he 1. He had some distance to it as he went through it, and he really was like. Especially as, like, a family member in this trial, but also the. The care he took to talk about, like, shame had set in, you know, and, like, she was thinking how she went just the way he described it. Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm gonna cry too. Oh, I'll read. I'll read this part where I was, like, sobbing. So. And this is. This is our first psychic moment. So dreamboat. So their brother Alex takes to living in the pool house where she had lived with all of these like, animals she had taken in. And he said one night in the pool house, Alex had more than just soundtracked images to keep her memory alive. He awoke to see Dominique sitting on the foot of the bed. Alex described her as not ghostly, but three dimensional. And though the bedroom was dark, the moon illuminated her face, hands, and even the buttons on the cotton shirt that she wore. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but didn't for fear she would go away. Alex, she said to him, I'm okay. Everything is fine with me. But I'm worried about you. I need you to hold it together. I can't move on if you start flipping out and worrying. Mom, she needs you to be strong, and so do I. Alex had told me the next morning that he had promised her he would. How? They had continued talking well into the night. I knew he'd gone to bed sober and never doubted for a moment that his visitation was real. It was so like Dominique to only appear to Alex because even though he had been surprisingly strong, she worried he might not hold on for much longer and that the only person he'd listen to would be his little sister. And she was right. Alex was far from saddened or disturbed by their conversation. In fact, her visit seemed to bring me peace. I don't know why that got me so much. I'm just, like.

[Maria Randazzo]

It got me too. I thought it was so, so beautiful.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And, like, the brother who, like, knew how to do the right thing, you know?

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It's just, like, so rare someone has the foresight to shout to the level of danger that, like, no one else will. And then Griffin goes on to have another psychic moment where he goes and visits. He's basically, like, jealous that Dominique came to Alex and not to him.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Which is such a real thing. Like, I have experienced that with loss and other family members sharing dreams. She came to me in a dream, and this is what happened. And so. And I appreciate people are honest about it, but people in my family have been like, God, I'M jealous. Like, yeah, I want them to come to me. Like so I, I, I, I totally get that. Of course.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was like, okay, I'm gonna go to a medium who speaks on the other side and like, I'll call her. And he's like talking to this psychic or medium and he said, you're in the creative arts, maybe an actor in addition to other prospects, and you will do quite well. That much is clear. But there's something else. What is it? I asked. Something dark. You went further into a trance and muttered, oh no. Oh no, this is bad. This is evil. What are you talking about? He babbled a bunch of mumbo jumbo chants before finally saying, there's a young girl, alone and frightened. Dom. Dom. Dom is something. She doesn't know where she is and wants to get out. She is terrified. Do you know who it is I'm seeing? I think so, yes, I said, tightening my grip on his hands. Before I could add anything else, he launched to a cascade of words without punctuation. There were once two families, the Hatfields and the McCoys, and they hated each other. One act of violence spawned their hate, which spawned more violence. On and on it went on for generations. You possess that hate and this girl is very angry at you. You have thoughts of revenge and she wants you to stop whatever it is you are planning. I'm not planning anything. She is in limbo and cannot leave until you rid yourself of hate and vengeance. She is very upset with you. You upset me as well, and I will not have your hate in my home a moment longer. Go immediately. Why are you doing this? I didn't mean to upset or tell her I'm sorry. She doesn't want to hear your apology. Out. Out you go. Please don't do this. Get her back. He shoved me into the hallway and locked the door behind me. I collapsed my knees and begged to be let in. I'm sorry. Dominique Teller. I'm sorry. Yelled, banging on his door. I carried on like that for some time, drawing a keep it down from his neighbors. But the heartless bastard was unmoved. I did have hate in my heart, but I hadn't been plotting to seek vengeance. That would come later, but even if I had, that piece of shit was in jail at the time. Yeah, I had no doubt that the anger Dominique felt for me was as real as her visitation to Alex. The psychic either was a sadist or it actually predicted a plot that I was a year from contemplating. And what happens is that a year later during the trial, he's nice to some extras on a movie he is shooting who are like, real gang members playing gang member extras. And at one point, they're like, hey, we heard who you are, and we'll have him killed. And he was like, oh, yeah, do it. And then he realizes, back to the psychic moment, that this is, like, what Dominique had told him not to do.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Unbelievable.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Unbelievable.

[Maria Randazzo]

Unbelievable. Also, I did really laugh at that one part where he thinks it over with Alex.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Right? Yeah. And they're like, should we do it? Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Alex is like, yes, but here's what we should do. We should make it more specific, and we should have them go in with a vise and crush his hands and inflict all sorts of other types of pain on our sister's killer.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

And then Griffin's like, yes, I like the specifics. I'm gonna go back to this guy with the specifics. And then the guy was like, my guy, you are not ordering a pizza. I am going to administer a death for you. And that is where it stops.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he was like, yeah, but the hands are symbolic because he strangled my sister. So we want to get rid of his hands. And he's like, right.

[Maria Randazzo]

So, yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I can't tell you these hands are going to do it. Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

It does not work this way. I cannot customize this.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

This is so dark. This is so dark. But I will say another great part of this book is there were several times where I did laugh out loud, and this is an example of, like, levity and humor that is strung into these extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult and dark and very scary circumstances.

[Chelsea Devontes]

You're so right. You're so right. That's probably why I could read it. I can't just do. I just can't. It's too hard. But then, like, it's important to talk about these stories, and I'm just, like, so grateful when you do go weave in this other weird psychic story or you're like, gangster, extra story. It's the way you actually process grief and devastation. And because of that, it's also the thing, at least for me, that has made me question a lot of my story and. And what made me take so long before I could share. I mean, like, you and I knew each other on the comedy scene for years and years and years, and I had, like, not ever told anyone this. And part of that is because, like, and I. And I listen, I wrote this in the book. Domestic violence happens in the mundane. It is woven in between the Moments you are eating skittles and laug with a friend and because of that it feels so hard for your brain to it. It is fresh baked Halloween cookies minutes away from your death. Life is just so complex and violence is portrayed and talked about as so singular that we actually do it a disservice because we don't allow it to exist in its actual form. And then we cannot spot the red flags because we have only seen and talked about violence in this, this singular, very dark way. Like there would never be someone laughing moments before violence.

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Well, and then your brain is like, well, maybe it wasn't that bad because I have all these signals of like, well, I was just doing this or this person was nice or like he smiled. Like, was it really as bad as I thought? And then your brain in protecting yourself, like kind of collapses.

[Maria Randazzo]

Exactly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Which is to say this part of the book, it was just wild. They, they start to go into this trial and they have to stand witness to see if they can get justice. And Dominic, his dad had had lunch with a woman at Vanity Fair and was talking about his life and his daughter and his writing and how everything was gone and his divorce. And she told him, why don't you write about the trial out and I will publish it in Vanity Fair. And he calls up Griffin and tells him, and Griffin wrote. His enthusiasm and excitement also unnerved me. He seemed all too ready and willing to use Dominique's trial as a springboard for his own midlife metamorphosis. I congratulated him, but only half heartedly, though I'm not sure he registered my ambivalence. And they go into this trial. His dad is going to write about it in Vanity Fair. It is going to springboard a massive career where Dominic Dunn becomes the crime writer for Vanity Fair. I read that magazine at the library like it was my bible. I remember this white haired man in photos. I read all of his articles.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

He becomes a really well respected writer and like semi celeb after this. He had whispered, give me your talent. It. And she did.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And it's.

[Maria Randazzo]

I've just got chills.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. It's like. But it's also, I was so happy. Again, this is where I love the book, where he was like, this is. I hate this. Like, he's like, I can't believe this is what my dad did. But also it's like, it's what's happening.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he is shooting a movie called Johnny Dangerously and he is attending the trial by day and shooting the movie at night.

[Maria Randazzo]

I can't imagine. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Driving back and forth across the city, attending his sister's murder trial, shooting this movie. And this is another piece of this massive feud between Joan Didion and John Dunn and their family and Griffin's family, and that they had a daughter, Quintana. There's so much. There's so much we could say about Quintana, but Quintana definitely had alcohol abuse from a very, very, very young age. And she and Dominique did things together where they. That could be called partying, even though Quintana was younger. And I think Dominique was like, her babysitter. And they take Quintana out of the country. They flee for this trial. And for them, they were like, we don't want Quintana to get called onto the stand and for horrible things to happen to her. We're protecting our daughter. But for Griffin and Dominic's family, they were like, how could you abandon us after our sister's been murdered?

[Maria Randazzo]

I know.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And then also there's the third thing where it's like, yeah, Quintana, like, if they brought up her history and all the trouble she had gotten into, it would be used to show that, like, Dominique was, like, a partying slut who, like, deserved to be murdered. But, like, it. It starts this feud that it's so intense. There's so much in the book. But I just want to pull a couple highlights from this trial. Some dark, some weird. I'll say weird. There's one. I. This is. I actually, this is. Was a part of the book where I was like, this is the most LA book I've ever read in my life.

[Maria Randazzo]

Life.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Have you ever been to the Ivy?

[Maria Randazzo]

No. What is the Ivy?

[Chelsea Devontes]

So I'm not sure why, but I knew about probably from reading Vanity Fair as a kid. The Ivy is this Los Angeles restaurant that was just, like, one of the to do's of the town. It's like, where agents and managers take their celebs. Okay, I've eaten there once. We went there once. And everyone wears white jackets. There's, like, beautiful roses, like, everywhere. It's also, like, so tiny and cramped, but it's, like, weird for la.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, I feel. Yeah, totally.

[Chelsea Devontes]

So tiny. Crap. Like, when you walk in, you get, like, a glass of champagne, and they serve, like, squid spaghetti, but also onion rings. And it was this weird place where I was like. I had always pictured, like, the Ivy, and there's fresh roses and it's LA and the blah, blah, blah. And I was there and I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, it's like a. A diner gone wrong for a million dollars.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Anyways, that was my experience to the Ivy. Ivy. So all of a sudden, in this book, he's like, every day on lunch from the trial, we would go eat lunch at the Ivy.

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, that's where they would have lunch.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Okay, Yeah, I wrote every day, whatever. But what's weird, especially, is that the jury also went and ate lunch as a group at the Ivy. And again, I'm like, what? Only an LA court case. We're all going to the Ivy for lunch. But yes, it was really painful for me because all I could think is, like, pick a different restaurant if the jury is there because they can see you.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he wrote about it beautifully. But it's like, if you are ever having a nice moment or a laugh, they are going to look over at this family and be like, they don't care about her in a trial that is somehow, like, not easily won. And they just keep going there and eating lunch across the room from the jury that's going to decide their sister's fate. Right. And. And then. Yet he wrote really beautifully where he was like, one day in all this misery, someone tells this story that somehow gets them all to laugh in the worst year of their life. And they are finally laughing uproariously, like at lunch. And he sees the jury look over at them and judge them as the rich, privileged family laughing in a way where it's like, not how you're supposed to experience grief. And giving into the narrative that Dominique was some rich girl who deserved it and that she came from this, like, shitty Hollywood family that doesn't even care that she's dead. Cause they're laughing. And I loved how he wrote about grief. There's different ways to experience it. Or like, how, again, she deserves to be a victim because, like, she had money or something. And then at the same time, I was like, like, eat somewhere else.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Bizarre that they're all going to the same restaurant.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I don't.

[Maria Randazzo]

I also, like, why does the jury keeping on going there? Does the jury. I don't know. Does the jury have to eat, like, in a certain place every day?

[Chelsea Devontes]

I guess for some reason I thought lunch would be, like, ordered in and you all have to stay at the courthouse. Courthouse or something.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

But I get. I guess, what the do. I know.

[Maria Randazzo]

I agree with you. It's bizarre that they all kept going there. But I think the bigger point for me is what you said about grief, which is like, it is not all sadness and Tears and agony and pain.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It is.

[Maria Randazzo]

It absolutely is that. But my experience with grief is that grief is everything. It is every emotion. I laughed at my mother's wake because really funny shit happened.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

A cousin who I haven't seen in a million years came through the line when you're, like, greeting everyone, and she was like, hi, we're all crying. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. And she was, this is my boyfri, Ignatius. And I was like, what? Your boyfriend's first name is Ignatius?

[Chelsea Devontes]

And he was like, hey, that's where we meet him.

[Maria Randazzo]

Hey, that's where we meet him. He was like, yes. I swear to God, like, funny happens. We also had, like, there was another, like, wild relative who was like, he was like a boomer with a phone, and he was, like, taking pictures and video, and everyone was sad and crying, but he was like, like, well, I guess I'll record this.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Like, you're at Disneyland. Like, I better get. Yes.

[Maria Randazzo]

My brain is like, this is funny. Like, out of context. This is fun. So anyways, your bigger point is, like, you also don't get to, like, dictate what somebody's grief looks like, their loss, their experience. It's like, all of these things. So. And that had to be really hard to go through a trial and feel like you weren't allowed those moments of levity because. Because without them, you can't really survive.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes. Yes. And, like, a huge point for me about all domestic violence and all harassment cases is that you have to be the perfect, most likable woman in order for people to think you maybe deserve justice. And that this, like, dimmed that. And I just want to thank you for sharing that story about grief.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, I, I, I think it's a really weird, difficult part of, and, like, for people who are helping other people cope with things, like knowing that, like, there are those cracks and in the sadness and, like, you have to have them for sure.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Absolutely.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And all of this goes into somehow, some way, even though it is impossible, they fight for people to believe that he didn't mean to and is a good guy. And Dominique is a terrible woman who, you know, I mean, when you read it, you're like, none of this makes sense. And yet it happens. And that's just like, always what happens. He had previous girlfriends he had put into the hospital. Like, the judge wouldn't allow the jury to hear it. And he gets two and a half years for killing a woman. Two and a half years for murdering his sister.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. This trial was so infuriating I mean.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, infuriating and common, which is why again. And then. Then you're so grateful. So grateful that his dad is printing it in Vanity Fair. And it's like. It's the thing I said earlier. Like, no one will have empathy or understanding for it unless you've experienced it or stood right next to it. And it's like this gift that his dad wanted to be a writer and stood right next to it so he could show the world what happens in domestic violence cases. And yet that shouldn't have to be the set of circumstances for people to accurately portray injustice. And when this piece of shit murderer gets out of jail, he changes his name and he moves away and he just starts his life over. And because Dominic Dunn had written about him in Vanity Fair, his picture had been published. And so even though this piece of shit has changed his name, started his life over, and started dating a new woman, the father of that woman recognizes him from Vanity Fair and confronts his daughter and says, like, he looks like that guy. And I think he just changed his name. And his daughter's like, no, no, no, He's a totally different guy. But the dad knows it's him. And so he gets a hold of the family of Dominic Dunne.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And is it his dad or him that gets on the phone with a girlfriend to be like, you need to get out of there?

[Maria Randazzo]

Both. Dominic Dunn talks to this girl who's now dating Dominique's killer and tries to talk to her, and he's not really getting through. And then he was like, maybe my son could get through. Maybe somebody her age. And Griffin talks to her, and it's a very, very, very moving, very moving process.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Incredibly moving. And she admits, I know it's the same guy I've known the whole time. I've just been lying to my dad because he would understand because it wasn't his fault and he didn't mean to. And he's a good guy and feels really bad about it. And Griffin helps her see that that's all lies and manipulation and she gets free. It's like the one small part.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Of the book. There's like a little bit of justice.

[Maria Randazzo]

Little bit of justice. Also. A little bit of justice. A little bit. When the judge. The judge in this trial is the worst. In Dominique's trial.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Detestable.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Heinous.

[Maria Randazzo]

Heinous. A horrible. I mean, I was. I was on fire. Enraged. During the reading about the trial was absolutely beyond infuriating. But I think Dominic Dunn's writing demoted the judge Down. He got demoted to lower courts, and he also was prevented from the California Supreme Court. He was prevented from rising to that position.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes. Because when the verdict comes down, Dominic Dunn screams at him, kind of finds his voice. Yeah. Like, after all these years and then. Yeah. In Vanity Fair, it's like, it. It's so incredible that he was able to, like, find justice in different ways. And.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I want to read this about the piece that his dad publishes. I must admit that when the article was published, I wasn't thrilled. It felt like an invasion of our family's memory of a terrible time. And I thought his sharing our sorrow with the world was distasteful. I was both happy for him and troubled that our tragedy made him a celebrity. Over time, the piece became a bible I'd share with anyone I thought might become a part of my life. You won't know anything about me until you've read this, I say, before handing over the article. I now regard what my father wrote to be a powerful indoctrination of what a family, privileged or not, might experience when thrust into the justice system. For the first time at great cost, my father found his voice as a writer. And I believe my sister did just what was asked of her in her final moments when he whispered in her ear, give me your talent. I don't know why. This really makes me emotional, too.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I don't know why I'm laughing at myself, but it's just like. Like, why does this make me emotional? Because of how, like, gross and icky it is next to being, like, the most powerful, beautiful thing. And I think, like, we'll see if I keep this in. But when I was writing the. When I was. When I had my memoir put together, there's this really odd thing where. And I now know I'm, like, wildly. Not, like, this is just so common, but when you're in it, you still think it's just you. Where. Even though my family has been next to me and have known me my entire life, I knew some of the stuff in the book they would be finding out about, stuff they were, like, next to me for. Do you know what I mean? Like, you were next to me, like, that day I went to court. And yet. Why do I feel like you don't know any of this? Because.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I think everyone, like, shuts down in trauma and, like, silos off. And. And when I gave the book to my little brother, he was the only one who, like, didn't request a name change. And I had also changed his. His dad's name. And he was like, put him back. I want an account of our family's history. Wow. And I want to be able to, like, show my kids, like, this is what we lived through. And, like, you wrote it all down. I'd kept some things out because I didn't want to hurt him because it was his dad and he was like, put it all in. Because, like, the most beautiful gift is an account of, like, what we all lived through. And the fact that his D article, like, it is like, yeah, it's self indulging, you're publishing your blah, blah, blah, blah. But then it ends up being, like, a gift of a story. Did any of that make sense?

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes, it absolutely makes sense. Actually, I want to share something. Basically, it's like a very articulate, beautiful way of saying everything is everything. And I know that might sound really broad, but this has just been, like, hitting me over the head lately. I took a screenshot of. There was a very famous Broadway actor who died last year. It was Gavin Creel. He was in Thoroughly Modern Millie. And I mean, that was, like, one of the many shows he was in. And a friend who I follow on social media went to his funeral, and there was a show or a memorial. I'm not quite sure what the event was, but I screenshotted this from Gray Henson's social media. He was just on. He was Buddy the Elf, and he has, like, an amazing resume of work. But I just thought this was so beautiful. So he said tonight's show was both wonderful and terrible, celebratory and melancholy, light and dark. I miss this man with my whole heart. And then I don't know who wrote this. It says from the wall in Gavin's apartment. It says, everything is both wonderful and terrible, boring and exciting. It's okay that it's both obvious and hidden, simple and complicated. What a relief that everything can be both light and dark, celebratory and melancholy. And that has just been helping me process a lot of things lately. I don't know if that is relevant.

[Chelsea Devontes]

What a relief that everything can be both. Yeah, that's so. I think it's so stunningly accurate, especially to the emotions. We have the hardest time processing and the hardest time making art and explaining, which are grief.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And violence and trauma.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Ah, Maria, thank you for sharing that.

[Maria Randazzo]

It really stuck with me. And, like, I've been thinking about it so much, but, like, to Griffin, Griffin being so vulnerable about how. How he felt about his father writing about this and the family having to relive the pain and be in the spotlight again about all this. Like, it's both.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah, yeah, it's both.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah. Being able to hold opposing truths at the same time is so. So difficult, but I think critical to, like, being able to rise above it or exist above it and just, like, be there with both of those things.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yes, Church. Yes. Yes. And it's where the nuances. The nuances in both. The nuances existing in the space between both and. And being able to sit there with it. I mean, the book, you know, after that, it's. It's on its run out and. And there's still so much in it, but it's like Dominic and his. His brother John, they have this huge feud. There's so much about the trial and. And so much happens. And they don't speak to each other for years and years and years until one day they're sitting in the waiting room for a doctor's appointment, and they come out and they say, Mr. Dunn, and they both look up, up, and they realize they're both there. And they're both there because they've had heart attacks, and they mend their friendship and our friends until John dies from a heart attack. And, like, oh, they had always wished that they had, like, mended their brotherly relationship years before, earlier.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah. And, like, I don't mean to gender these things so hard, but if there's any men out there listening who have strained relationships with their brother, it just happens. In my experience, it happens more with men than women and sisters. Just, like, try your best. Like, try your best to fix it. Because I think that pain is just so hard and so difficult. But, like, you don't want to be in the waiting room of a cardiologist's office to wait to fix that.

[Chelsea Devontes]

That is so well said. Yeah, yeah. And after you. You read it and you're like, oh, my God, they both have reasons to never speak to each other again.

[Maria Randazzo]

Right, right, right.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And yet the moment they can be friends again, it, like, helps.

[Maria Randazzo]

Helps.

[Chelsea Devontes]

It helps their lives immensely. And what's interesting is that Griffin's mom is a huge character in this book, but she didn't. She's almost a passive character. I'm not sure, but she didn't come up a lot in this, even though, like, she is a big part of the book. But, like, as we're running out of the book, Griffin starts to become a hugely famous actor, and then he writes this. With stardom in my sight, I worked like a mad scientist concocting formulas for how to best Fuck it up. Quote, self destructive choices was how my high octane agent describes my decisions before leaving his powerful agency to follow a fledgling agent to his tiny firm parentheses. That agent later abandoned me to become a real estate agent. I screamed because I there's no way it's the same person. I also know an agent who via other people ruined my life and eight months later was a real estate agent. Just because there's like some loser who doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah. So I screamed, laughing. I was like, amazing. Amazing. And his career through a series of choices completely evaporates to the point where you realize like when he gets to direct Practical Magic, it's like a big comeback for him, which is crushing because that film is destroyed by critics even though it makes a shit ton of money and is actually beloved in hindsight. But the actual huge downfall of his career is that he does a film called Me and Him. Him and the hymn. Oh my God, is his penis. And the penis talks. Penis has a fun little voice and he talks to his penis the whole film. And I said, this is the Catcher in the Rye of the book. It's back.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yep, yep, we're back.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And it, the film tanks, like really doesn't work and he, he becomes untouchable. And he said, while the film was a near fatal blow to my career, it indirectly led to the single greatest decision of my life. Life. The career killing movie I perversely signed on to is about a man who talks to his penis. Called Me and him. Rebecca Miller, the daughter of Arthur Miller and later a gifted writer and director in her own right, was hired as my love interest. The author of Death of a Salesman read his daughter's talking penis project and forbade her to be in the movie for her own good. The actress who replaced Rebecca would play a far bigger part in my life than just being my co star. When Carrie Lowell was cast, our off screen affair began the first week of shooting. And this is the woman he goes on to marry and writes beautifully about, which I loved because they later get divorced and that is not mentioned. He like really honors this relationship, which I thought was, yeah. And they get pregnant and she gives birth. And he said the room was dark, save for a nightlight in the corner that was just bright enough to illuminate every feature of Hannah's face. Face, which is his daughter. She lay content in my arms as if she'd finally arrived at the place she was meant to be. We looked at each other for the longest time until her gaze wandered up towards Something unseen that had entered the room. I felt it, too. A presence had joined us. And at once, I knew it was Dominique. A rush of warmth washed over me, and maybe over Hannah, too, because she made a tiny sound that might have been her first giggle or could have been her way of saying hello to her aunt. Oh, Dominique, I whispered. Look at what I have. Isn't she beautiful? And then the book ends.

[Maria Randazzo]

Beautiful ending.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Stunning.

[Maria Randazzo]

Beautiful. Beautiful ending.

[Chelsea Devontes]

And, I mean, this man has, like. I'm not doing. I don't know if I'm doing the math right. 20 or 30 more years of his life after this book ends on that timeline.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Which I think is, like, stunning. And I looked him up, and he got married again. Maria.

[Maria Randazzo]

I saw that, too.

[Chelsea Devontes]

For one year.

[Maria Randazzo]

To, like, an Australian stylist or something. Yeah. She's, like, kind of seemed like a socialite wannabe. Yeah. I was like, okay.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. But I was like, yeah. Oh, I'm, like, crying again. Okay, let's do the booktal test. You ready?

[Maria Randazzo]

Okay. Yes.

[Chelsea Devontes]

First question. Was the author vulnerable in sharing his truth?

[Maria Randazzo]

Yes. I thought very much so.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

I thought he was very vulnerable. I thought that he. He shared parts of himself that were major flaws that would maybe embarrass other people to say out loud or that they wouldn't want to share at all. I thought he was really vulnerable. And I thought he wrote about himself and his family members with such nuance and such compassion. And I also didn't find him to be overly, like, petty. He has some beautiful moments of very strong character in this book, the way he stands up for his brother and his classmates and many other people. But I never found it overtly so or like, look, what a great person I am.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Aggrandizing. Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I could not agree more. Exactly. That's exactly how I feel. Okay, second question. Was it entertaining to read?

[Maria Randazzo]

Wildly.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Couldn't put it down.

[Maria Randazzo]

Wildly entertaining.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Even when I was mad at it, couldn't put it down.

[Maria Randazzo]

Same.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Every single page. A new extremely famous person. Sean Connery saving him from drowning. Natalie Wood showing up at his random game. Like, I mean, so. So, so many things. I mean, like, I just, like, have a crazy amount of. Whoa. This was like, Whoa. Holy. Oh, my God. Like, crazy. Yeah. And wildly entertaining.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

Wildly entertaining.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah. The book has stuck with me every day since reading it. Okay, final question. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way?

[Maria Randazzo]

It absolutely did. It actually did something very special, if I may share.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Yeah.

[Maria Randazzo]

So the domestic violence part of this book is you know, that's such a. Such a huge part of his story. And I will. I'll just say another thing. I really appreciated how he broke the book up into part one and part two, because I think, like a lot of people who experience loss or a traumatic event in their lives, it is sort of like a delineator. Like, before I lost my mother, it's like part one, after I lost my.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Mother, feels like part two, a hundred percent.

[Maria Randazzo]

And I was like, oh, that makes sense. 100%. And, like, there might be other parts to come. Of course there will be. But I. I really like that he did that. And as far as elevating my life, reading about his sister's death and the violent relationship that she was in, and I. I told you I was able to put myself in his shoes and his family's shoes there. And I was. I thought, you know, this might come up on the podcast, and I wanted to be prepared to talk about it. And a part of being prepared to talk was me reaching out to my sister to talk about what happened to her, because when it happened to her, I was like, nine years old. So she's 10 years older than me. I have three sisters, and they're all 10 to 15 years older than me. I was an oops baby. My parents were like, oh, we thought we were done having kids. Oh, okay, here's one more. But because I was so young when this happened to her, we had never talked about it. So I was nine years old. It happened, it unfolded. A lot was happening. And then I was like, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12. I was in. I was. I was in high school. I was like, you know, you're. You're also simultaneously a teenager. Well, like, all this, you know, you know exactly what I'm doing.

[Chelsea Devontes]

You're holding prom in one hand and violence in the other.

[Maria Randazzo]

Yeah, yeah. So it makes. It makes complete sense to me that I never talked to her about it. She was living her life, moving her life forward. I was living my life, etc. But I was like, you know what? If I'm going to talk about this on the podcast, I need to talk to her about it for what is probably the first time for me I've ever talked to her about it. So I called her, like, a week ago, and I brought this up, and I shared the story, and I was like. And I was very nervous to make this phone call because I had not talked to her about this before. I really didn't know what kind of a place she was in with it. Yes, it happened a long time ago. But I. I didn't want to ruin her night. I didn't want to ruin her week. I didn't want to overwhelm her with horrible memories. I didn't want to send her into any kind of a spiral. But I knew I needed to talk to her about it and I brought it up. I was very nervous, but she was wonderful and she sounded so strong and confident and yes, you can absolutely talk about it. Yes, you can. She said, if my story can help one person, I want to talk about it. And she shared with me things that I didn't know, and it was extremely emotional. But, like, she also. I want to share something else she did. Last year. She gave a speech at a retreat where there was a lot of young girls. And she talked about her experience and warning signs and the type of relationship that she wants people to know is a healthy relationship and what is unhealthy. And she's just, like, in such a wonderful place and is telling her story and has been so brave. But this is a bridge. I've never, like, walked with her before. This is like a hand extension we've never had. So it was this beautiful way that I have been able to enrich the. My relationship with my sister and learn more about her. And so I'm really grateful for that opportunity for you, for bringing this book into my life, for you having this conversation with me today, for the way that you've talked about your experiences, because it has equipped me and given me knowledge and more empathy in talking to her. So it's been beautiful and tragic. It's been both.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Maria, thank you so much for sharing that and thank you to your sister because, like, if I can help one person with my story, I think is so resonant for so many people who've been through hard things because there's no other silver lining. Like, people like, oh, it made you stronger. No, it made you better. No, like, literally nothing good comes from it unless you can, like, help someone else by getting to the place where you can share it. And I think it's, like, clear in the ways we discussed for two hours how this book elevated my life. So instead, I just want to call back to, like, you know, I made a joke at the beginning that, like, you're in the book is like, woman who finds me crying under my desk. But, like, like, that was because of the gun violence episode we were doing. And you were such a beautiful light in my life. That helped me. Like, I remember I used to be like, hey, just like, hold everyone off. I'm gonna, like, stare the other way and, like, cry in this office that has, like, a full window, so, like, I can't hide it. And you would, like, run cover for me so that I could just survive it. And I just wanna thank you so much. I just wanna thank you so much. You've done so much for me. I just love you so much. And I love you too.

[Maria Randazzo]

That means a lot. And I would. I would do anything for you.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I'd do anything for you. And it's funny that Immens More brought us together on these themes, but I know.

[Maria Randazzo]

Thank you. Griffin Dunn.

[Chelsea Devontes]

Griffin Dunn. Everyone go watch Practical Magic. And most importantly, go follow Maria, because I'm. Yes, I'm biased, but my husband, Yasser, who has only met Maria in passing, constantly walks into the kitchen holding up your reels or your stories. Mean, like, Maria is the funniest person alive. And I'm like, I know, and everyone should experience it. So will you please, like, plug Your Instagram and TikTok and all the things?

[Maria Randazzo]

Oh, sure. Thank you. Oh, that's very kind. You guys are the funniest. My Instagram is Maria freaking Randazzo. TikTok's dead or something. But it's the same. It's the same thing at TikTok. And thank you so much for this one beautiful conversation.

[Chelsea Devontes]

I adore you and I'm gonna make you come back on the podcast a lot this year, so watch out. And everyone in behind the Bangs, you know Maria, she's in all of our stuff. Thank you for doing that with me. And, yeah, everyone go follow Maria.

[Maria Randazzo]

Thank you for this conversation. It's been an honor and a privilege and so much fun.

[Chelsea Devontes]

A huge thank you to our podcast producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer, Jordan Moncada, our sound engineer, Marcus Hamm, and our amazing, amazing associate producer, Jaron Padre. I also want to let you know that if you love audiobooks, but you want to support independent bookstores, go to Libro fm, where it is easy to download audiobooks and support local bookshops. And right now, you get two Libro FM audiobooks for the price of one with your first month of membership using code TRASH. That's right, TRASH. T R A S H. Two audiobooks for the price of 1 at Libro Fit FM. And if you have questions, go to the Patreon Chat Lounge and I will see you there.