#371 - “DESTROYED ME!” - Psychonaut on his Abuse, Epstein & Ayahuasca | Kendis Gibson • 371

Summary

Julian Dorey Podcast – Episode #371

“DESTROYED ME!” - Psychonaut on his Abuse, Epstein & Ayahuasca | Kendis Gibson
Release Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Julian Dorey
Guest: Kendis Gibson

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Episode Overview

In this raw, candid episode, journalist Kendis Gibson joins Julian Dorey to open up about his long journey through trauma, depression, and ultimately, healing—primarily through psychedelic therapy. The conversation travels from harrowing personal experiences to national scandals and mind-expanding shamanic rituals. Along the way, the pair discuss conspiracy theories around 9/11 and Epstein, the nature of media coverups, and the potential of psychedelic medicine. The episode is both a deep personal testimonial and a no-holds-barred cultural critique—engaging, darkly funny, and ultimately life-affirming.

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Detailed Breakdown of Key Discussion Points

1. Early Life & Childhood Trauma

[00:18], [56:54]

• Kendis shares he was born in Belize, one of six brothers in cramped poverty.
• At age six, after his first birthday party, he was sexually abused by his 13-year-old brother.
  Kendis: “That night was the first night that my older brother… abused me. And it would continue for, I’d say, eight to nine more months.” [00:47]
• The abuse ended when his brother got a girlfriend; young Kendis was left feeling confused and, painfully, jealous—a response he later recognizes as normal, given the trauma and age.

Notable Moment

• Kendis also relates a formative experience at age 9: his first “romantic” feelings for a neighbor named Manny, who disappeared after a blackout. Kendis later discovered Manny’s drowned body in the river.
  Kendis: “I see like this porcelain white arm that looks like a doll… But it still didn’t compute what my brain was realizing… They found his body. They think he drowned somehow.” [61:45]
• These early traumas deeply shaped his ability to form later relationships, dating, and self-identity.

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2. Climbing out of Poverty & Media Career

[01:41], [03:26]

• Kendis discusses his determination to escape his upbringing: cold-calling local newscasters, skipping two grades, and scoring major internships (The Today Show with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel).
• Early 20s: working in New York reporting national stories.
• 9/11 Experience: Kendis was among the first reporters at Ground Zero, living in the thick of tragedy with vivid sensory memories (“We were smelling the dead bodies. You couldn’t get away from the stress...”) [08:08]

Notable Exchange

• The discussion touches on Building 7’s mysterious collapse, with both questioning the “official” story and its subsequent suppression.
  Julian: “It fell in perfect unison, right? …Don’t ask any questions about that.” [09:27]
  Kendis: “Nobody thought that it was just this magical implosion by osmosis or something.” [10:04]
• Leads into broader media manipulation/censorship themes.

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3. Conspiracy, Media, and Epstein

[14:20], [24:44]

• Kendis and Julian compare notes on government secrecy around 9/11, specifically Saudi involvement and redacted documents.
• Both express confusion and outrage about the Epstein files being suppressed:
  Kendis: “I don’t know why there’s such a fight to keep the Epstein files hidden. It doesn’t make any sense to me. No. Even if the president’s implicated, it doesn’t matter.” [15:43]
• The media “perfectly” times coverage (and narrative burial) of major scandals (Epstein, Jean Luc Brunel, McAfee) during low news cycles, a sign of coordinated institutional protection.

Notable Story

• Kendis accesses a network of insiders—including Epstein’s chefs (in Miami), who believe Epstein is actually alive and paid off. They describe ironclad NDAs, implied threats, and having observed “very young” girls on the island.
  Kendis: “They didn’t want to get into the details about who they saw on the island... But what they learned after the fact was probably all going on behind the scenes.” [28:14]
• Discussion turns to the psychology of bystanders and why people in systems—be it Epstein’s staff or the media—“bury” what they know.

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4. Psychedelics, Therapy, & The Journey to Healing

[41:41] – End

• Book “Five Trips”: Kendis details his path through five psychedelic experiences (psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, LSD) as an alternative to traditional therapy.
• Initial exposure to psilocybin (magic mushrooms) in Belize during a visit to Mayan ruins—a transformative, if accidental, “mega-dose” which, in hindsight, lifted his years-long depression.
  • Kendis: “When I got back, I looked at my job as an opportunity. I looked at Covid as a wonderful way for us to connect with our friends and to slow down. I wasn’t as depressed... My brain had completely been rewired by that one experience.” [52:00]

MDMA Session—Breakthrough Experience

• First time truly processing and forgiving his brother’s abuse, following a therapist-guided MDMA session.
  Kendis: “I had this immense force of forgiveness where...I needed to forgive myself for feeling the way... and I needed to forgive my brother because I’d been living with that trauma...It was just like one of those, aha moments.” [72:46]
• The “observer regret” is revisited—he learns later that his brother went on to abuse others in the family.

Suicidality & Mental Health Struggles

• Recurring suicidal ideation peaks in 2018 after years on the overnight newsroom grind.
  • Nearly takes his own life, ultimately passing out dangerously on a balcony ledge.
  • Psychedelics became a “reset” after SSRIs (antidepressants) failed to bring self-love or healing.

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5. Ayahuasca in the Amazon – Ego Death and Self-Love

[104:05] – [140:11]

• Connecting with Julian over an identical venue/shaman (Paul Rosolie, “Mario”) in Peru, they trade stories about the ritual (and pitfalls, literal and existential).
  • Kendis: “It’s the only thing that I’ve experienced that tasted the same going down as it does coming back up. I’ve never tasted taint before until that.” [115:10]
• First ceremony: Disappointing. Second: profound out-of-body “soul conversation,” in which the voice (his soul) forces him to affirm self-love:
  Kendis: “It’s like, I could be in any other body, but I choose to be here with you. And yet you don’t love me.” [135:23]
• The experience ends with weeping, catharsis; he finally learns: “self-love has to be something that comes from within.” [138:31]

Integration: Lasting Impact

• Both Julian and Kendis agree: the key to psychedelics is not tripping, but integrating the lessons—letting go of invented anxieties, focusing on core issues, and building gratitude in the “after death” (post-ego death) phase.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Forgiveness:
  “Forgiving means not to hold on. You just have to let it go because it only hurts you. And not forgiving, you suffer because you think about it over and over and over again.” (Kendis, quoting Tina Turner) [83:00]

• On Psychedelics vs. Traditional Pharmaceuticals:
  “When you take a dose of plant medicine...what you get out of it is exactly what is unique to you, is what your mind and body feels that you need out of it.” [93:02]

• On Media and Conspiracy:
  “You realize that there was so much dirt that was happening all in front of our eyes...people do a lot to bury stories and bury things.” [25:14]

• On Self-Love:
  “I never knew the importance of self-love. I never knew how important it is to just feel secure in who you are and to go about the day and just appreciate everything that you have...Therapy didn’t help me with that.” [138:02]

• On Surviving Suicidal Depression:
  “I would cry myself to sleep at 6 o’clock in the morning and started thinking about suicide at that point...I made sure the apartment was clean. And I went to the ledge of our 12th story apartment...and I fell back, passed out from the Ambien and the alcohol.” [91:51]

• On Ayahuasca Ceremony:
  “My soul and it’s like, I’m a beautiful, beautiful soul...and yet you don’t love me.” [135:23]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:18]—Kendis details his childhood abuse
• [08:08]—Reporting at Ground Zero during 9/11
• [14:20]—Why the Epstein files remain suppressed
• [28:14]—Chefs who cooked for Epstein: “they think he’s alive”
• [41:41]—Introduction to psychedelic therapy and “Five Trips”
• [52:00]—Psychedelic experience lifts depression
• [72:46]—MDMA session and first forgiveness of his brother
• [91:51]—2018 suicide attempt, rescued by friends
• [104:05]—Preparation for ayahuasca in the Amazon
• [115:10]—The taste (and effects) of ayahuasca
• [135:23]—Soul dialogue: the affirmation of self-love
• [148:59]—Importance of integrating psychedelic lessons
• [151:05]—Kendis receives texts from readers: “your book saved my life”

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Tone & Vibe

• Humor in the darkness: candid, irreverent back-and-forth, even when the subject matter is harrowing.
• Deeply honest and vulnerable, at times raw and visceral, but always threaded with dark wit and hope.
• The sincerity of Kendis’ reflections juxtaposed with Julian’s playful, sometimes incredulous takes creates a compelling, infectious energy.

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Final Thoughts

This episode stands out as a remarkable fusion of personal testimony, frank mental health advocacy, and broader social commentary. Kendis’s willingness to share his journey—with all its pain, regret, psychedelic insight, and joy—is moving and instructive for anyone grappling with old wounds or seeking meaning. The “Five Trips” are part cautionary tale, part beacon of hope, and Julian’s deft, inquisitive approach ensures the episode is both accessible and profound.

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Check out Kendis Gibson’s book “Five Trips” for more.

Transcript

[A]

You had struggled with some, some serious trauma from childhood. And then it kind of like, I guess bubbled up all to the surface at once in what, maybe 2017, 2018, something like that?

[B]

2018, yeah.

[A]

Okay, so what was. Don't go into anything you don't want to go into, but what was the nature of that?

[B]

So childhood, as I mentioned, I was born in Belize. There was six brothers and we had like three bedrooms. So I was on the lower bunk. Older brother was in the bunk above, and then another brother that would have his own bed. And I remember it distinctly because I had had my first birthday party ever at 6 years old.

[A]

And.

[B]

That night was the first night that my older brother, me, he just crawled down into the lower bunk and pull down my PJs and, and abuse me. And it would continue for, I'd say eight to nine more months that it would take place.

[A]

How old was he? Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. But back, back in the day, you guys had seven in one one bedroom apartment?

[B]

Yeah, we had seven. One bedroom apartment. It was pretty rough.

[A]

Was there a part of you, like, as a kid because you don't fully understand everything that's going on. Like, is there a party that's like, shit, I want to go back to Belize, or were you excited to be here?

[B]

You know, I was excited to be here, but I thought, I didn't know what was it about this place that I, that I wanted. You know, we had all these dreams. I wanted to play baseball because I thought that still from my Gary Matth. That was my ticket out of this poverty. And then I realized there's something about baseball that you really need to do in order to play it and it's to be good at it. And I wasn't that at all. And then so, you know, we'd go home and I'd watch the news on TV every day and I was like, maybe I should do that. Like, you know, we learned about Gary Matthews through television, so that could be my ticket out of poverty still. And so as like a 12, 13 year old, I decided, okay, that's what I'm going to get into. And I would call like some of the newscasters up at Channel 7 here in the city and like cold call them and they'd answer their phones like, you call me now I'm not answering.

[A]

My phone call I.D.

[B]

Exactly. They'd answer the phones and they'd talk to me and give me advice. And so I started learning about the business through that way. But poverty was rough.

[A]

And then you went. You ended up going to school for that and everything. Yeah. And you did that. I mean, especially like in the. In the news media track. You know, a lot of people will start out in, like, wichita, like channel 13 or whatever, and they work their way all around. So I know you've been, like, all over the country at this point with what you did, but you were able, I guess, like, when you were still pretty young, like, to. I would say, almost fresh out of school, you were able to work in New York, right, Like for one of the networks?

[B]

Yeah, pretty early on. So I did. The thing is, I. I skipped two grades when I was younger. It was pretty smart.

[A]

Oh, you're smart.

[B]

I was pretty smart. I got. I caught up by skipping those two grades. I'm like, oh, wow, I'm the dumbest person in this room now. Thanks. So I did a lot of internships when I was a kid. My first internship was at the. The Today show. I met Katie Couric. I was there with Brian Gumbel at the time. And I met a lot of people who helped mentor me. I did a number of different internships. And so early. Early on in my career, in my 20s, I did come here to New York, where I was sort of like a local reporter, but for national news. So where you would do. You would report national stories, but just for all the hundreds of local TV stations across the country.

[A]

Gotcha. Now, you were also one of the first guys on the scene for 9 11, right?

[B]

As far as I could tell. It's kind of hard to tell. I know I was down there minutes after the second plane went down, because I lived just down the block from it. I remembered trying to figure out, okay, where are we going to get to? At that point, we didn't have. We didn't have cell phones, or at least not. Not the standard cell phones that we have now. We had the bricks and such, and we had pagers. So I went use a payphone. Had to pay $20 to use a payphone. Because homeboy was like, nah, we're price gouging. Like, I called our folks to say, like, all right, what. What do you guys want me to do? And it's when I'm in that building that the first tower goes down.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

But I was several blocks away from the scene by this point. And then what was real fast.

[A]

Just back up for one second. If you don't Mind when you first look up and you're like, holy shit, something just hit the first tower. And obviously, like, you live down there, so you're close to it. You're seeing it like, what's going through your head before the second plane even comes?

[B]

So I. The second plane already hit before.

[A]

That's when you knew. You didn't know when the first one.

[B]

Exactly. So the first plane hit, my beeper goes off. And they say they're, you know, playing into. Into World Trade Center. I don't remember what codes we were using for playing into World Trade center at the time. Remember, beepers had codes for I love you?

[A]

I don't remember that.

[B]

You don't. You don't remember that?

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Fuck you. And so I had some friends who had just gotten in from the UK the night before. And if you have any British friends, you know that your first night in New York is a party night.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

So I don't think I was hungover yet. I was still drunk when the first plane went into the building. Cause we had partied all night long. And I want a Monday. I'm not gonna be judged.

[A]

No judgment. Say he never sleeps.

[B]

Because with that job in particular, you're. You're on when there's something that breaks for the most part. And so I didn't anticipate 911 gonna.

[A]

Be a slow Tuesday.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. It's gonna be. Yeah, it's gonna be easy. And then they said, we're gonna need you. And then I'm in the shower when the second one goes down and air goes in. And then I start walking, which is like 15 or so blocks street blocks or so towards. And I go into the phone booth to kind of figure out, okay, where do you guys want me to go with our cruise? And first building goes down, and I'm on the phone and they're telling me the first tower went down. And it just did not compute. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what?

[A]

How?

[B]

It didn't. It didn't make any sense to me. And then as I'm coming out, they said, come back towards 30 Rockerville Center. As I'm walking up 6th Avenue at this point is when the second one comes down and everybody had stopped and they're starting looking this way, and I'm like, what? It was. It took a while to hit, to understand what was going on. You know, it was just really, really just such a weird, surreal time. The. And the thing about journalism, we have made a career of being there on people's worst day of their Life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then we leave. The thing about 911 is you're there and you're covering the story. You're living in it, you're breathing in it. I mean, we were smelling the dead bodies. You couldn't get away from the stress of that one particular story. It was the first time that I realized, oh, wow, you know, I'm feeling the impact of an actual story. I mean, I empathize with people whenever I'm hearing their stories, but this one was the first time that it really was hitting me to the core because it was impacting my life as well.

[A]

Yeah. You can't ever get away from it.

[B]

It's right there.

[A]

You're literally living in the middle of it, you know? Yeah, I. I don't. I've talked to many people on the show who were there that day in different capacities, different places, different angles. It's almost like you kind of get a new perspective on it every time someone talks about it. Because there's no way that when. When you have something so crazy like that happen that, you know, the processing happens the same for any two people.

[B]

You know, you're just like, what the.

[A]

I mean, your story is unique in that. You're like, wait, I was just partying like two hours. The is happening here. But, you know, when my friends went.

[B]

Down and they saw Building seven collapse? Magically collapse.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was quite magical.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It fell in perfect unison, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Don't ask any questions about that.

[B]

No, no, do not. We can't go there.

[A]

Did anyone say that at that time? Like, no, we can't talk about that.

[B]

No. But my friends. Okay, so when they came back and they saw it collapse, they were like, we don't understand why it did. There was no fire. There was no. There was no nothing. And they ran away from it when it came down. Yeah, they. But at the time, like, nobody. Nobody thought that it was just this magical implosion by osmosis or something.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, it wasn't until years later.

[A]

Yeah. And then when you find out, like, what offices were in there, all these different government departments in there, you're like, yeah, fuck.

[B]

And. And the files that were all there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Gone to smithereens.

[A]

Smithereens.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Never to be seen again.

[B]

It's really strange.

[A]

It is very strange.

[B]

And who knows if we will ever get to the bottom of it. I doubt it.

[A]

Unfortunately. I doubt it too. You know, but it's also, like, when you think of. This isn't the perfect term for it. It's a Term for other things. But I think I can kind of blanket use it here a little bit like censorship through noise. You have so many other things going on. You just had the two big ones that everyone knows and can see that went down. And then, you know. Yeah, 25 story one that can just kind of.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

30 story one that. That could fall.

[B]

Don't worry about it. I mean, that's exactly. That's in essence what happened. Because we're so concentrated on, you know, the big towers that. That took place. It was a perfect opportunity perhaps for somebody to say, all right, let's. Let's somehow trigger whatever it is that took place to Building 7.

[A]

Yeah. And that's where I. If this is. Without me knowing anything, it's just like guessing from the outside. But if I were just looking at the list of offices that were there that include, like, CIA and everything, I'm like, I could totally see how they have something like that, like, ready, like doomsday scenario.

[B]

Like, Exactly.

[A]

Take it down.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You know, so.

[B]

But that gets into the greater conspiracy of like.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's nasty what took down the first two towers. Yep. As well. It's. It's tough.

[A]

I just have my friend David Ferrugio here, who lost his father in the tower and does a really amazing podcast that sounds morbid, but he does an amazing job with. It's called Dead Talks, where he talks to people about the afterlife, all the different history of it, how different people deal with it, how they deal with grief, and he makes it funny. It's highly recommended. It's good stuff. But, Joe, you know what time of year it is? What time is it? It's a new year, which means new year. New me, new you. Right? Yeah, it does. And that's why we're gonna leave all the bad things behind in last year and bring the good things with. You know what one of the best parts of 2025 was? Mando whole Body Deodorant. Yeah, that was the best part of my year, too. See, with Mando's Whole Body Deodorant, you're going to block odor all day and control it for up to 72 hours. And it's safe to use anywhere on your body. Pits, Balls, thigh folds, belly buttons, butt cracks, and feet. And you're going to have some different product options, too. You can use Mando's solid deodorant stick, which is formulated and powered by mandelic acid, to stop odor before it starts. Or you can even use their spray deodorant, which Is aluminum free. We love that. And ideal for hard to reach places. Oh, and did I mention all products are baking soda and paraben free. You know, RFK loves that one right there. And Mando's fresh scents are also second to none. You're going to be able to choose from options like Bourbon Leather, Clover woods, Mount Fuji or Pro Sport. And Mando is clinically proven to control odor. Way better than a shower with soap alone. Some men mask their BO with scents. Mando men get the job done right. So don't mask it. Mando it. You can head to shopmando.com right now. That link is in my description below because for a limited time new customers are going to get 20 off site wide using our exclusive code Julian. So use code [e-mail] link in my description below for 20% off site wide and free shipping. That's S-H-O-P-M a N-O dot com. Please support our show and tell them I sent you. Mando's got you covered with deodorant plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat stains and hello to long lasting freshness. You know, like even it talking with him on camera and off camera, you know, is it, it's of course a very sensitive, righteously so sensitive subject for the victim's families to this day with 9 11. But many of them for years now have been like, all right guys, you know, we can't change what happened, but can you please give us some sort of answer?

[B]

So what does David think?

[A]

Well, he says Building 7's insane. That doesn't make any sense. And that seems to be a real. It's hard for me to talk to almost anyone these days who doesn't say, yeah, something's wrong there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But then with the buildings, I mean there's, there's a lot of different possibilities. That's the problem. And it's like, you know, they basically shut this down with the 911 Commission by 0304 when they finished that, you know.

[B]

And aren't there some missing pages?

[A]

Oh, it's more than missing pages.

[B]

Like 70 or so.

[A]

You know your stuff. Yeah, I, I don't have thief in here right now, but I, I think, I believe from the actual report there was a bunch redacted. But what I can remember offhand is that they had, in the, in the actual report they completely ignored a ton of different pieces of evidence that, you know, could have like implicated Saudi Arabia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And stuff like that. And I know that was a huge sticking point for a lot of nine, 11 families for. They're like, they were suing the Saudi Arabian government, which, you know, good for them.

[B]

Y.

[A]

They should do that, you know?

[B]

But they still can't get that. That info.

[A]

No, no. Some things, I guess, are bigger than 3,000 lives, but.

[B]

Interesting. I, I. Are we on?

[A]

Yeah, we have.

[B]

Yeah. I don't, I don't. I, I don't know why that is being held. I don't know why there's such a fight to keep the Epstein files. Oh, it's insane. Hidden.

[A]

It's insane.

[B]

It doesn't make any sense to me. No. Even if the president's implicated, it doesn't matter.

[A]

It doesn't matter. I completely agree. You have to. And that's the thing. Trump ran on this, too. That they're going to be released. And to me, it's just like, okay, the guy knew everyone in New York. Yeah, I do. While. While it's. It's, of course, righteously so. A very sensitive subject to the entire general public because of the nature of the heinousness of these crimes. I think people are smart enough to be able to look at things and be like, okay, that's fucked up. That person seems to just have been at a restaurant. Right. And maybe it's not that way for everything, but, like, if you have nothing to hide, don't hide it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know why this is hard. And by the way, this is something that, if you want to get into, like, your elite politics games, it implicates everybody.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So, like, what? You know, and half these people aren't even in power anymore. Some of them, so.

[B]

And half of them, we expect. We. That's right. We know the dirt on them.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

So it makes you think that something deeper is at play.

[A]

It definitely is files. It definitely is, man. I had my friend Mike Yagley was sitting here a few weeks ago, and he. Long story short, he's like a data hacker. So he takes publicly available data that anyone can buy. It's expensive, but you buy it. And then you learn how to, like, sift through it, which is his expertise. And he ended up doing a lot of work for the government over a decade ago because he bought data on cell phones in Fort Bragg and was able to track their Special Forces guys down to the name doing undercover missions in Syria.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And he went to the government and said, you guys got a problem? I. I did this from my bedroom. What do you think China can do to see your little mission here at LA Farc Cement in In Syria. So he started doing a lot of work for the government. And then when the Epstein thing really went mainstream in 2019, he went back to, like, 2015, 2016, 2017, mind you, nine years after the guy was convicted, and he was tracking phones down to the bartender to the island, and not one person in the government took his information on it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And he's like, that's. That seems a little odd to me. I'm like, yeah.

[B]

He had so much money and power. I remember meeting his personal chef in Miami. I was living in Miami for, like, two years.

[A]

Adam Perry. Language.

[B]

No, I forget. It's a couple. Okay. I forget their names. Or maybe they were part of the cooking team.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And they're like, no. What they have seen, what they know of him, they think he's alive. They say there's no way he is still dead. They think he's alive somewhere. Paid. Paid to get out.

[A]

It's not out of the realm of possibility.

[B]

Which makes me look at that one minute of missing videotape in the jail and think, huh, that they just so happened to have rebooted the camera every night at midnight, but no other night had that blackout.

[A]

Yeah. It's just like.

[B]

And there was a New York Post photographer that was across the street. Ready?

[A]

What is this?

[B]

I don't know the exact detail, but there was a. There was a photographer. We'll look it up. But there was a photographer who had been posted close to the. To the. To the jail to be able to get a shot of the body at some point. And he would have had to have gotten the alert that something was up within minutes to get from his apartment to be able to get there. Because you're not randomly there on a Saturday morning.

[A]

It was August, too. Yes. News cycle time.

[B]

Yeah. I was. I was at MSNBC at the time. I was. We were having our show meeting around 8 o', clock, and they were like, epstein's dead. I'm like, okay, cool, we have a lead. Who are we booking? Oh, yeah.

[A]

There's a lot of bodies that seem to drop in that case that drop at optimal times. Right. So as we just said, you know, the news cycle is better than anyone. A Saturday morning in August. We know the news cycle once Friday night comes around the Friday night into Saturday morning. Any time of the year is the deadest part of the cycle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he dies early wee hour mornings of a Saturday morning in August, the vacation month of the year.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Jean Luc Brunel suicides himself in a French prison on a Saturday morning. Of President's Day weekend in America, which is a three day weekend here. Right. You know, and Ghislaine Maxwell is found guilty. I think it was like Wednesday, December 29, Christmas week in between. Right. They made the jurors stay in there and not go home to come to a conclusion. So, you know, during the deadest media week of the year, she's found guilty. And then literally New Year's Eve fell on a Friday, I think that year, New Year's on a Saturday, the 2nd's on Sunday. You're already January 3rd.

[B]

By Monday you're done talking about it. It's a very convenient news cycle. It's very convenient, Very convenient news cycle and not related to that. But McAfee, I think also died on a day, I think you're right, he unalived himself on a day that was a, where there was a distraction of news.

[A]

Yeah, I, I believe you're right. I can't remember the detail my friend Danny Jones just had in like his wife or the, the woman he was living with at the time.

[B]

What day did he die?

[A]

He died in June 2021. Let's see here. So on June 23, 2021, McAfee was found dead in his prison cell hours after the Spanish National Court ordered to United States on criminal charges filed by Tennessee and the Tax Division. The Catalan Justice Department said everything indicates, quote unquote, he killed himself by hanging. An official autopsy confirmed it. His death has led to all kinds of theories. And he had said in 2019 on Twitter, if I suicide myself, I didn't, I was whacked. So it was right around. That was definitely one of the details. It was right around when he was going to be extradited.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So he would have his quote, unquote day in court in America, which, huh.

[B]

I'm trying to see what else happened that day.

[A]

The 23rd, what happened?

[B]

Or maybe it was the 24th.

[A]

What happened on June 23rd, 2021? All news. Britney Spears is powerful testimony seeking an end to conservatorship. The inaugural World Test Championship.

[B]

Oh, you know what it was. And, and this is like conspiracies that, that have gone nowhere. The towers fell in Miami the next day within hours.

[A]

Oh, the ones that had the sinkhole or whatever.

[B]

Yes, yes. Within hours of McAfee passing away.

[A]

And that was a big story.

[B]

That was huge.

[A]

That was a national story.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the early morning hours. So McAfee who gone from the news when those towers fell Surfside, it was around 2am I think.

[A]

And you were living in Miami.

[B]

I wasn't living in Miami. You weren't. A few months. I was living here. I was at MSNBC at the time and I was a few months away from moving to Miami for two months. For two years. Yeah.

[A]

That was a wild story. Apparently they're like changing all the laws now with. Yeah, you know how they build down there and everything. Yep.

[B]

I still have a condo down there. Their prices have gone up insanely. HOAs are insanely high because of that. But understandably, like, we need to have those things be sturdy.

[A]

And you, you've spent obviously a lot of your adult life in New York doing national reporting, local reporting, the whole bit you've in the course you're reporting obviously come on a ton of wild stories and then also come into contact with all different people who you call power players and things like that, you know, to the rest of Main Street. When we look in on something like the Epstein thing and it's a guy who just seemed to know everyone does it. As someone who's at least seen some of that world, like, does it surprise you at all that he gets so much, I guess, cover up of the tracks behind him to this day when he's been dead for the last six years?

[B]

I mean, we just saw the Diddy documentary.

[A]

I haven't seen it yet.

[B]

It's very good. 50 cents is messy. She's messy. Yes. Fitty is messy. Do you know he did his first interview about the, the, about the documentary with abc because do you know the only network that's allowed in the lockup? Abc.

[A]

No shit.

[B]

So that's why he decided to pick abc. It's just really, really shady. But you realize that there was so much dirt that was happening all in front of our eyes. And you really, really realize, like even in the music world where you think, oh, you know what these are, These people are just doing fun songs. You know, that we enjoy that. There's such a dirty side to every, every, every industry that it doesn't surprise me all that's happening with the Epstein files and that story. Because people do a lot to bury stories and bury and bury things. I remember at ABC they would bury stories with the New York Post all the time. They would give them story and then call in a favor and say, hey, we know you're working on this. We know this particular anchor is having an affair. Can you not put it in the news? Can you and do this story?

[A]

See, I care a little less about like people's personal lives with regular. But when it's happening. And I'm sure, based on what you're saying, you're referring to other types of stories, too. When it's happening to things where people are protected in power who are legitimately doing bad things or are involved in things that I would even say, you know, qualify in any way as criminal or something like that.

[B]

Child sex.

[A]

Oh. I mean, that's. That's the worst kind. But I'm saying, like, even lighter.

[B]

Like.

[A]

Like lighter stuff, it's like, how do you even have a fourth estate if. If the fourth estate's, like, kind of playing this game where they're like, we're actually the fourth and a half.

[B]

Well, the fourth estate deals with money, so it's still. You know, we still got to make money somehow. So while we're doing the news and it's as impartial as possible, you know, we're still trying to entertain and still trying to make some money. For sure.

[A]

Def. When you walked out for a second, Kendice was saying that he came into contact with a couple of the. The chefs who cooked for Epstein, and they think he's still alive based on everything they know. How did you come into contact with them again?

[B]

At a condo in Miami. Some friends had a fancy condo, and so we're at the pool. We met up with them, and I think there was a swinger vibe to them. So they. They invited my boyfriend back to their place. They cooked dinner, and then we kept in touch with them. They've gone over to their place a few times. Nothing swinger has happened. Good with us. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. That's for the best, based on their previous work history, for sure. You know, but what's the. You know, did they. Did they. You don't have to say anything that you think would be, like, private between friends, but did they have second thoughts about stuff that they now realized they knew what they were seeing, or did they know what they were seeing and they felt pressured to not be able to say anything?

[B]

You know, they. They assumed what was going on because a lot of the girls were very, very young.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That were coming onto the island, and they didn't want to get into the details about who they saw on the island. But back then, this was 2022 when I met them, there wasn't such an emphasis on who was in the files, even though that was fairly recent. Like, we knew about Prince Andrew a little bit. We heard rumors about Bill Clinton, but, you know, there wasn't this built up to where we are right now to try to figure out who was in the files or why it's being kept hidden. So what they said, though, what they learned after the fact was probably all going on behind the scenes in like, different compartments. It was a fairly decent sized island and there's like, it's a. It's a compound and there are many, many buildings and places. And so they didn't necessarily see anything nefarious except that the girls were very young and that there were many.

[A]

Did they express. You know, it's reminding me that there was another guy, I believe his name was Juana Lessi, who was like the manager, the house manager for Epstein. And he's one of those guys that's like, hard, you know, there's a part of what he later did that I appreciate. And I'm also like, damn, dude. Like, did you know. But Tara, pal, Mary went and did an amazing podcast back in 2020. You know her?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So she did two amazing podcasts. One was the Maxwells, it's called something like that. The other one was called Epstein. She goes around with Virginia Roberts Shuffrey, who was alive at the time, and she was friends with her. And they would go to knock on the doors and they're recording the whole thing, like a documentary of all different people that could have witnessed stuff. And so they go. A lot of people would turn them away, but they go to Juana Lessi's community and he lets them in. He says, virginia, I remember you. Oh my God, come on in. And then to his credit, Gotta give him credit for this. He said, absolutely, you can record our conversation. So you're listening to this man struggle with like the weight of holy. Like, I knew. Did I turned a blind eye. Oh my God. Now he's sitting here with a, with a girl who actually likes him, by the way. Like, Virginia had good memories of him, but, you know, that kind of fear that people felt to stay quiet, fighting back against the like, oh my God, am I seeing like the worst thing ever here and not saying anything? I don't even know what to do.

[B]

With that, you know, so they had a little bit of. Or they expressed that they had some guilt working there. They were getting paid a lot of money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like a year's salary within or like a six figure salary within three months at a time. And so do they think it's blood money? I don't know. Like right now they're personal chefs to other people that they feel are. Are bad people as well. And so it. That's. That's for them to grapple with it, you know, It's a, It's a, It's a tough. It's a tough, tough, tough thing for them to figure out on their own.

[A]

You know, some weird psychology though, too, because, like, a lot of people will say things like, if I were blank, then I would. Blank, right. Like, Meaning if I were in this type of situation, I know I would do this or whatever. And you don't always know that. Right?

[B]

Yeah. What would you have done if you were, if you were living there?

[A]

I.

[B]

Working there.

[A]

I would very much like to think that I would have left there, not work there, and done my best to expose that. And if I had done that, look at knowing what we know now, perhaps I wouldn't have known this working there. Totally. But maybe I would have been naive to it, but I'd have probably ended up dead if I did that.

[B]

Okay. Because also, they have an insane NDA.

[A]

They also told you about this?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know if the manager fellow mentioned that, but they had an insane NDA that, like, even Beyonce co workers would be jealous of this, this NDA. It's not that they were just going to bankrupt you, but it. The sense that I got. It was almost a threatening type tone to the NDA that they had.

[A]

Now they. I don't know, like what? Can you talk about the NDA? That's the NDA. If you sign the NDA. You know what I mean?

[B]

Well, you can say there's an NDA, but I think that's. That's.

[A]

That.

[B]

That was the case. So they're saying there's an NDA? They didn't say exactly. They said it was threatening because most NDAs, like, even Beyonce's NDAs, it's not the word threatening. Seems weird, maybe threatening a lawsuit. Okay. But beyond that, it, it was more than financial is what they said.

[A]

Sounds like some governments are involved.

[B]

That's what sounds like to me. Yep.

[A]

There you go, folks. That's all you need. Yeah, it's.

[B]

A lot of things are connected.

[A]

It's. It's one of those where like, like you said, we're. We're probably never gonna know, but it's just, it's strange to see it when you have so many obvious things out there. And then to this day, like in the era of social media, everyone in the government, like the past three governments, I guess it's just like. No, no, don't worry about it.

[B]

Yeah, it's okay.

[A]

You didn't see anything?

[B]

Yeah. What, what files? Yeah, they don't exist.

[A]

The best was when. When Cash Patel Went to go sit with Joe Rogan.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's like a. We watched it on a Patreon Deep. Remember that? There's like a 13 minute segment in there where Joe just calmly asked him about Epstein. And it's like watching a. In church sweat. And Joe just let him sizzle. Like, he didn't go at him. He just let him sizzle there on. On the. On the. On the grill. And everyone listening to it is like, oh, who got to this guy? You know?

[B]

Yeah. What happened to him? And the thing is, like, his eyes weren't as bugged out as before. Before he became FBI director until after. Like, he saw some serious. Once he became FBI director. Because, man, not even people on coke look like that.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

It's just. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I call it One Eye Hunt and One Eye Fishing.

[B]

For cash only or for anybody?

[A]

For cash.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I mean, you ever seen that? Stare straight.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I don't know where to look, man.

[B]

I don't. I don't even know either. But he's smart.

[A]

So there's this weird trend happening right now. Gas stations and smoke shops are selling mushroom gummies, amanita gummies, psychedelic gummies, all kinds of labels. But independent testing keeps finding that many of them aren't mushrooms at all. Some of them contain synthetic tryptamines, others contain benzodiazepines, and some even contain synthetic cannabinoids. All sold under the disguise of a natural mushroom product. It's honestly dangerous and extremely common across the United States right now. But what if I told you that there is a legal and safe psychoactive mushroom gummy that you can buy and have shipped straight to your doorstep? The company I'm talking about is my friends over at Amantara. They're the. The real deal. The largest amanita muscaria supplier in the entire United States. They're totally transparent, totally natural, and deeply committed to the tradition behind this mushroom. Joe and I personally like the amanita muscaria capsules. These are good stuff, right? Oh, yeah, that's my daily at 500 milligrams. It's not too much, but it's just right to get you feeling that smoothness that you're looking for when you're doing a microdose? Amantara has helped over 45,000 customers and counting connect with this ancient mushroom again. And they would love to help you connect with it as well. So go to www.amantara.go. julian, that link is in my description below and use code JD22 for 22% off your first order. Once again, that's www.amentara.com. go Julian. Link in my description below. Promo code JD22. You might be able to say that based on what maybe he's been shown and told about what happens if, you know, the guy that. That it's like, I actually feel a little bad for, though, is the Bongino guy, because he was this, you know, loud, fire brand conservative commentator, wanted to expose everything. And when you watch him go do some of these interviews, the vein in his forehead really is like. And he. And you can just see, like, the weight of the world is on him. And he's like, I want to tell you guys everything, but I can't. And you're like, damn. They even told him.

[B]

He can't say they got to him.

[A]

It's like, oof. Like, I actually. He seems. That dude seems like he's going through it. Whereas the other ones, it's like, I don't know, sometimes it just feels a little bit like company men, you know, it's like, all right, now I'm on the end. All right, I know what happened. Okay.

[B]

All right. I can't.

[A]

I know I said I was gonna say something, but I can't do that, you know?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, and. And maybe it came from that Joe Rogan podcast where Cash was like, yeah, they're just. I. There are parts of it I just can't talk about. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kennedy assassination. Yeah. You know, there are parts of it that I can't talk about.

[A]

We didn't do that.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. So at least he was upfront about that part.

[A]

Yeah. But even, like, Kennedy was, what, 62 years ago, something like that. Yeah. You know, all the people involved are pretty much dead, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But the concept of if a. If several people in our government, which I think is pretty clear, were involved in killing a sitting US President, even all these years later, socially speaking, if we were given the stone cold proof of that, the social uprising that would happen would probably destroy everything that they've built in the government. Because people would be like, we don't care. If that was like, four generations ago, the letters on your agencies had people involved with killing the President, you're gone. You know, and so it's one of those that I'm like, damn, I really want to know.

[B]

But with a lot of these conspiracies, what a lot of people say is several people had to have been in on these conspiracies. So why is it that there aren't More leaks for many of these things. If the government was involved in Kennedy's assassination, or a government was involved in Kennedy's assassination, that's a vast network that was involved. If there's. If the moon landing was faked, or at least my thought the broadcast of it was faked, there are a lot of people who would have been involved in that lie. I was doing an interview recently with some astronauts from. Who are going to the moon, and one of them is a friend of mine. And we spent two hours trying to set up a zoom from Houston to our studio in New York. And then once we did get it, the audio didn't work, the video didn't work. That was two months ago, 2025. But yet we had a live recording from the moon in the 1960s.

[A]

Okay, I see what you're saying.

[B]

We can figure out the zoom. Modern times, but. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, it's.

[B]

Anyway, but with all of these conspiracies, there are a lot of. My point being, there are a lot of people who are involved in. In hiding these conspiracies.

[A]

That's a great point you make there. When people think, like, oh, it could only be three, three or four, because they couldn't possibly keep a secret beyond that. That's not true. I think when it gets into, like, the thousands, that's where it gets really difficult. Yeah, but I could see it where you have. I'll just throw out a round number to make it easy. I could see it where you have 100 people legit in on something, like, something big. Yeah. And they're able to keep that secret. I could see that.

[B]

And if the secret is dangerous enough, like the government involved in Kennedy's assassination, if they're willing to kill them, what are they willing to do to you to keep it a secret and beyond.

[A]

They'll kill you, too.

[B]

Exactly. Your family.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. We've seen it again and again sometimes right in our face. It's crazy, man. But, you know, hey, people gotta. They're gonna have to answer for themselves at some point. I control what I can control. Hopefully. I see some Epstein files. My hopes aren't very high, though. So it is what it is. But back to your story a little bit. So you. You and I talked on the phone a little bit about this. You wrote a book last year called Five Trips where you detailed basically five different psychedelic experiences that you did. I believe it was two psilocybin, one mdma, one ayahuasca, and then one lsd.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And this was as a result of some of the, in some cases, lifelong personal struggles you had gone through, and then some things that really burge into the surface. So I'd love to talk about that today because ironically, when you and I were on the phone and we were talking about your ayahuasca, I was like, yeah, I actually did ayahuasca too. And you were like, where? And I said, south America. And you're like, where in South America? I'm like, peru. And you're like, me too. And where'd you do it? In Peru, out near the Brazilian border. Oh, me too.

[B]

Who'd you do it with?

[A]

I was like, paul, Rosalie. And you're like, me too. That was funny.

[B]

Is it a while?

[A]

That was funny as hell. But what you know were psychedelics. And we'll get into your story. Like, I'd love for you to expand upon that for people, but, you know, before you even went to do all this, as a result of some of the things that went on with you that you'll talk about were psychedelic, something you were always fascinated with and maybe never did or.

[B]

No, I. I mean, I'm black. Like, we're not really into. We're not into that stuff. It was crazy. Like, hippie for the most part. And even to this day, as I talk about it and try to convince people to look, explore it. It might not be for them, but to explore it. Like, even to my own relatives, like, they're like, nah, we good.

[A]

Even from Belize.

[B]

Even from Belize.

[A]

They're not that far from Peru.

[B]

I know, relatively, we're big into to weed. We're getting in more into the plant medicine now, increasingly in Belize. So I didn't know much about it. One of my college roommates used to do lsd and he would sit there and watch like some crazy movies and like, wow, that looks really, really fucked up. Yeah, that's how I look at Dave. I look at you with hearts in my eyes. So I didn't know much about it. I. This journey with psychedelics really started in 2020, for the most part for me. When I went to Belize, I was still suffering from depression. I would go back into that at some point, but I was still suffering from depression. And I was at MSNBC at the time. And I went to Belize in February to. I would go down there and speak with journalists and such and, you know, tell them best ways to. Or best practices to do journalism. And they'd be like, yeah, you ignore me completely. And so one of our. One of our friends who was a Rastafarian was like, hey, let's go to the Mayan ruins. You know, Okay, I haven't been to these Mayan ruins. And he mentioned in the country before. I'm like, yeah, sure, I have a couple days. Let's just go out there. And we're talking about my depression and all the things that I was dealing with and some of the root causes stemming from Belize. And, you know, halfway on the way to one of the ruins, he's like, oh, I have something for you. And then he had, like, a bag of mushrooms and. And I had some orange juice that I'd brought for. For the hike at the ruins. And he's like, let me put that in here. I'm like, okay, whatever. I didn't know what it was. He's like, this will be good for you. Just go ahead and drink it. So I end up drinking the whole freaking thing because I thought that was for me. And it was supposed to be half, and it was maybe like four or like a mega dose almost, Especially since I had not done mushrooms at all.

[A]

Yeah, you don't look like you weigh, like, 275 either.

[B]

So he was like, yo, that was for both of us.

[A]

And.

[B]

I was never able to throw up. I always had, like, body dysmorphia issues, but I always considered myself a miserably failing bulimic because I could never force myself to throw up. And so I couldn't do it. I tried to do it, but couldn't do it. Then he ended up taking some as well. And also on top of this, he didn't drive. So we're like, all right, we'll continue. The GPS says we only have a half hour. He's like, take longer than that for it to kick in. The thing is about when you add citrus to. To any chemicals and magic mushrooms or such, it's. It's a hard entry into your body, into the system, because what activates the mushrooms or the acids in your. In your stomach? So you're beginning that activation already once you put it in citrus, like orange juice, so it speeds up the process. So what was supposed to be a half hour drive also turned into an hour drive because the GPS didn't calculate that these were dirt roads. It just said, like, okay, this is the distance you're going. Exactly. The potholes. And so 15 minutes into the drive, the trees start leaning in. Those potholes look like fucking craters on the moon. I was equal parts scared, but also, like, enthralled. Like, I could hear every. Every synthesis in the song. Like, I became, like, superhuman at this point, and he's over there. And with a lot of plant medicine, there are different ways of purging. We can get into the ayahuasca purging, but, but you'll either like cry, sweat, puke, which is what I do a lot on it, or need to take a dump. And so that was mine. And so my Rasta friend is like, yo, we need to pull over. So for me, I'm sweating. That's how I'm purging, with this thing in me. Because partly I'm scared. And I'm like, I'm in unchartered territory. And these potholes, I'm just trying to get to the end of this fricking road and not drive us off. And he's like, I need to just go to nature. And, and, and that's how he purges him. Anyway, after, like, this insane drive where I'm just kind of like, holding on to dear life, I finally make it to, to the spot and we get up there. The ruin in Belize is, I forget the name of the actual ruin, but it is the tallest structure in Belize to this day. And it's like hundreds and hundreds of years old. Like, it's like a 20 story building.

[A]

You said it's Mayan, yeah?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People find it starts with a C.

[A]

Sky Pals, Connor. Sky Palace. Yes. That sounds familiar.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that like, inland? Pretty far inland.

[B]

It's very far inland. It's near. Like, you can see Guatemala.

[A]

Oh, you know what? I think, I think we pulled this up maybe with Luke Caverns or Michael Button. That looks very familiar.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. So I climbed to the top of it.

[A]

You climbed to the top of that? Tripping balls.

[B]

Tripping, boss, I'm trying to.

[A]

What do you think you were on a stairway to heaven?

[B]

Yo, this photo? Yeah, completely. I get up there and I'm like looking out over the land and I feel like I'm so connected to, like, the ancestors. And I'm like, I'm Thanos right now. Yeah, it's on top of this mountain. And then I took this photo, like, after I got back. I'm looking at it. I am high.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, you're, you're, you're in the room, but you're not here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow. That's called a thousand yard. That's a 10,000 yard stare.

[B]

I am not there at all. Like, what did I do? Oh, man. So I think nothing of it, really. So we go back. I was like, all right. I, I, I just felt high. I didn't See any, like, weird visuals? Yes, I can, you know, see the sounds and hear the sights, you know, but it just kind of intensified everything. Like, I can. I could see, like, a little ant crawling, and I was like, oh, okay, you know, have a little conversation with it. But it wasn't. Things weren't, like, bending right all over the place. Yes, the trees were coming down on me, but I still feel like they were coming down on me. And those potholes did seem like they were craters, but that was the case. So I came back to New York, and Covid was starting to rear its head.

[A]

Oh, shit.

[B]

It was a month later, and I was working weekends at MSNBC at the time. I work, like, two hours a day on air, and they wouldn't use me during the week. And I used to think, man, this is the most wasted job of my life. They don't want me on air at all during the week. I tried to do stories. They didn't really want to use me at all and just have me working on the weekends. And when I got back, I go into the. To work, and I was like, you know what? I'm the highest paid anchor here by hour, and I get all week to be able to just do whatever I want. And I didn't understand why that had changed or why my perspective had changed. But then, you know, we were on lockdown with COVID and me and my partner went for a walk in April, early April on a Saturday. And I. We came back, and as we were walking into our lobby, I was within earshot of hearing one of our neighbors jump from the 16th floor into the courtyard. And that was something a couple years prior that I wanted to do to myself from the building, and I thought it would trigger me back to those days. And it didn't.

[A]

It didn't.

[B]

It did not. And we lived next to a hospital up there, and every day since I'm at home, I'd hear, one day I recorded all of them for an hour. Keep hearing the ambulances with people going to the hospital from COVID I would also think, like, that atmosphere would trigger me. And it didn't. And I was like, I feel like my depression is gone. And I didn't understand why at all. I started talking to some friends who did psychedelics and such, and I'm like, I don't. Could the mushrooms have had an impact on my life to this degree? Like, yeah, of course. Did it make you happier? I'm like, no, it just made me nervous in some ways. But once I came back, I looked at My job as an opportunity. I looked at Covid as a wonderful way for us to connect with our friends and to slow down. I wasn't as depressed about all that was taking place. And when that neighbor fell to his death, I was like, you know, having. Having severe depression, I was like, I'm happy he's out of his pain. And I didn't take it upon myself to say, wow, I'm really depressed by all of this. My brain had completely been rewired by that one experience sitting there with that. With that dose of magic mushroom. And so I started looking into it.

[A]

That's. But before we get into that, though, that's a. That's, like, wild that it was that much of a whip of morale for you. Because I think even for anyone, whether someone's had severe post trauma or not, you know, hearing someone fall to their death is like, I.

[B]

It's a horrible sound to do that. It's a horrible, horrible sound. My partner went to look. I didn't go. But the neighbors knew exactly what it was. In fact, our doormen were heading up the elevator at the time because he had just called his girlfriend. And I learned this after the fact. He had just called his girlfriend to say that he was gonna unalive himself. And so they were on the way up at the time. So paramedics got there very, very quickly. But.

[A]

But it didn't. It didn't trigger.

[B]

It didn't trigger me, huh? I don't feel like it traumatized me either. I slept okay that night.

[A]

Did you. Did you wonder to yourself? Because, like, obviously the takeaway now with. With time and everything is like, wow, maybe I. I did really get something rewired, and I looked at. I looked at things with a little bit of a different perspective. But did you also wonder yourself if you were, like, a little. Almost turned off to the world to not feel something as much like that visible?

[B]

So when I was on SSRIs and antidepressants, I would say the answer to that would have been yes, because they just kind of put me in a mood where I couldn't feel any highs, I couldn't feel any lows. But if the baseline. Post. Post that one magic mushroom trip, if the baseline was just a normal life, it didn't allow me to go low, but it also allowed me to enjoy the highs in life. Interesting. So it wasn't that I was numb to the situation. It was empathetic, but. But it didn't make me take in the trauma.

[A]

So you start looking into this because you're like, maybe a little correlation here. And would you mind, maybe we could take a step back for a second just so that people are aware of some of the things you had gone through shortly before all this. You had struggled with some. Some serious trauma from childhood, and then it kind of like, I guess, bubbled up all to the surface at once. And what, maybe 2017, 2018, something like that?

[B]

2018?

[A]

Yep. Okay, so what was. So don't go into anything you don't want to go into, but what was the nature of that?

[B]

So childhood, as I mentioned, I was born in Belize. There was that six brothers, and we had, like, three bedrooms. So I was on the lower bunk. Older brother was in the bunk above, and then another brother that would have his own bed. And I remember it distinctly because I had had my first birthday party ever at 6 years old. And that night was the first night that my older brother, he just crawled down into the lower bunk and pull down my PJs and. And abused me. And it would continue for, I'd say, eight to nine more months that it would take place.

[A]

How old was he?

[B]

He was about 13. So he was young as well, but he was about 13.

[A]

More than double your age.

[B]

Yeah. And so that continued for a little while, but I didn't, you know, I was six years old. I didn't know what this was like. Am I supposed to be used to this or what? And the strange thing that took place after is after it stopped and it was because he got a girlfriend. I was jealous. I was, and I'm still six at this point, and was strangely, like, wanted more of. In hindsight, thinking about it, it was just really weird. But I've come to learn that's a natural. That's a natural reaction for so many people.

[A]

You can't even. You can't even process.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Absolutely. So then that abuse stopped and continued along with normal life as a kid in Belize. And there was a kid across the street from us that. It was a neighbor boy, Manny. And I just, you know, thought, it's a cool kid, whatever. We'd have a lot of blackouts in Belize. One night that we had a blackout, we're all, you know, go over to a friend's place and hang out, and Manny's mom went to bed, and he and I kissed and was like, my first real interaction with anybody. Romantic interaction, you might say. How old are you with anybody? Nine years old. And I had, like, butterflies, all these feelings that I don't even know. I don't Understand what is going on. But I like to it I never saw him again after that night. I went back across the street to bed, went to school the next day, didn't see him. A couple days would go by, didn't see him. I went to an area that we used to go, in hindsight I call it like our little standby me area where you would go down this path, this dirt road path near our neighborhood and end up at the river and we just go there and chill all the time. There's a big river that runs through Belize. It's like this emerald green river with forests on both sides. So I would just go there and hang out and like, I'd say like maybe three days after I lost last time, I went there to hang out and like a lot of we had rained the night before, so there was a lot of debris in the river. And I see like this porcelain white arm that looks like a doll. Like just kind of the arm sticking out over, out of the water. And like I said, I was a bright kid at the time and I was like, I don't know of a doll that would have a fist. And it still didn't come. It still didn't compute what my brain was realizing. But I still went back to his mom and I'm like, I think he's in the river. And you know, parents aren't going to take the word of a nine year old kid at the time said it was him. Yeah, I looked at it, I realized that there are no dolls because he was Latino. And from being in the water possibly for several days, the color is basically gone. And so it's just the fist of this kid or this doll. I'm like, there are no dolls like that that I have ever seen. It has to be many. And so I told his mom, they didn't believe me. I went back a couple days later and it had moved down the river a little bit more. It was stuck in some tree branches that had come down from the storm. And I went back and I told him again and finally his mom was like, all right, let's just go search and see if that's where he is. And yeah, they, they found his body. They think he drowned somehow, but I.

[A]

Don'T know why you're nine when you find that.

[B]

So my first little romantic experience disappears after, after, after that kiss. I could laugh about it now, but people are like, there's. I told this to one of Terrence Howard's daughter the other day and she was like, wow, you literally got Ghosted.

[A]

That's dark. That's dark as fuck. Oh, wow. Yeah. I wouldn't have the balls to make.

[B]

That show, shout out to her, oh my God. And then like other people would be like, oh, it's a kiss of death. I could laugh about it now, but it was at the time.

[A]

It's not at the time.

[B]

It was traumatizing and it was a country where it's in, it's. It was in the constitution at the time that homosexuality was illegal, where they would abuse and in some cases kill people who were gay. I didn't know that I was gay or whatever and bi, but I know that it was, it was not the norm.

[A]

But you're again, you're still only nine. Like trying to think of when I was nine and what like even under having a concept of things like that, right? Like what's accepted and not sexually or orientation. Like you don't maybe today people have more awareness than I, I didn't, I'm.

[B]

Like, you know, yeah, I wasn't aware of much but. And I have no idea why. Maybe I read a lot when I was a kid, why I was. Was able to calculate and process so many different things at that time, but not process it in a positive way. But that traumatized me for several, several years. Like I wouldn't make out with anybody, wouldn't date anybody for years and because I feared that they would end up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Dead somehow.

[A]

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[B]

Kraft Mac and Cheese is better than 90s hip hop. We'll remind you of your childhood without making you feel incredibly old. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Best thing ever.

[A]

When were you. Do you remember? Was the first time where you were able to process what happened to you with your brother when you were six? And that A, that's not normal and B, it, it's, it's.

[B]

So here's what happened and I've come to learn that it happens with a lot of people who suffer trauma. You end up putting it away somewhere in your brain and while it is still there, like your body's still carrying those, those, that trauma, your brain as a way of coping puts these things away. I didn't realize why I wasn't dating anybody or want to have sex or relations with anybody was because of the trauma that I experienced with, with Manny when I was a kid. I just knew that I didn't want to date or have sex with anybody because I kind of put it away as I kind of forgot about it for the most part. And then decades, decades later, I. Ended up meeting this woman in Phoenix and I was telling her this was after my psilocybin trip. I was telling her the experiences I was having with psilocybin. And she was like. And she was the typical, like hippie woman that I imagined was doing plant medicine. And she was like, I feel the need to sit with you and do some mdma.

[A]

That is what a hippie would say on board.

[B]

And, and by this point, you know, I live in the gay community, so. Or any party community. There's, you know, MDMA is popular. I wasn't a fan of any drugs at all growing up for decades, or plant medicine or other chemicals like that. So I had not done MDMA by this point. And I was like, you know, we were drunk, and she just felt, like, connected with me. And I'm like, like, ah, yeah, sure, fine. And I was like, all right, cool.

[A]

We'll.

[B]

We'll. We'll do. We'll sit with mdma, thinking. I'm still thinking. It'll be a party thing. And she's like, I'm drawn to you. I feel a calling to have you sit with me. So I flew back to Phoenix the following weekend to sit with her. And she's like, just so you know, it's not like. It's not a. I was there for a birthday party. We met at a birthday party. I flew back to the States.

[A]

All right, so you're doing this responsible way. You didn't do it that night when you.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no.

[A]

Like, we're gonna plan this out.

[B]

But you're like.

[A]

You agreed to it when you're hammered.

[B]

Cause you're like, okay, exactly.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

Exactly. But in my brain, I agreed to a party, and her husband put her.

[A]

On the red eye. Like, wait, what the fuck?

[B]

Exactly. So we go back out there. I fly back out there, and she. Before we meet up because I invited somebody else to it. And she's like, well, it's not a. It's not a fun experience. You'll get out of it what you need, but it's not necessarily a fun experience. I'm like, okay. Like, all right. I just felt a calling. And she felt a calling anyway to have this experience. So I sat. Went into her house. It was an empty house for the most part. She had, like, all these yoga mats laid out. I mean, hippie, the candles, like, the nice music. It was really, really warm. And she's, like, dressed in, like, white and all this, and, like, okay, this is interesting. And. And I'm just, like, in my sweats. And I'm, like, sitting down in the yoga position up against the wall, and she gives me. I believe the first dose was 100. 100 milligrams of MDMA.

[A]

Is that a lot?

[B]

Thief standard.

[A]

Yeah. He's like, yeah, I took that last.

[B]

Night asking for a friend. 100 milligrams. And, like, I know it's like pure MDMA, which deep. If you've tasted it, it's like. It's. It's nasty, as I assume you've not.

[A]

I haven't done mdma.

[B]

Okay. And so, like, I chased it down, and then I just sat there, and she's like, let's talk. And I'm like, well, there's nothing really to talk about. You know, this is cool. Like, it's not what I thought would happen. This is great. She's like, oh, yeah, yeah. And then she started talking about her life and how she. She and her doctor. Sorry. She started talking about her life and how she and her doctor boyfriend were buying property in North Phoenix, north Arizona, because she believed she had a calling that told her that she needed to build a landing strip for aliens. And she's telling me this as, you know, the MD is starting to kick in, and I'm like, the fuck did I get into it? Like, yo. So my brain starts like, I'm gonna die here. Like, what is going on? And then she kept talking, and I really just wanted her shut up and. Because when you're in. When you're doing MDMA as therapy or party, like. Like, you're. You're. You're. You're either the type that's going to talk a lot or the type that's just like, let me just vibe. Yeah, exactly. She was a. Talk a lot because she did it as well. And then she comes back over, gives me another, like, 65, 80 milligrams. Yeah. Top me off about an hour later to really get to. To my brain and don't try this at home, folks. And she.

[A]

Educational purposes only.

[B]

And she keeps talking and she's like, yeah, I believe in manifesting things. And, you know, I lost a molar in my teeth, and I'm. I'm telling myself that I will grow it back, and I know they'll come back. And I'm like, wow, you all up. And I just was like, all right, I'm just gonna lay down and lay down. And I laid down with my eyes closed as much as I could, and I felt the energy of Manny, the guy that. The kid that died when he's a kid, and the energy of my brother and the abuse. And I felt like they came into the room and I had, for the most part, forgotten about it. And they came into the room and I started my purge for this was. I just started crying. I just started bawling. And she and Katya, the woman was like, what's going on? What's going on in your brain? I'm like, nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm fine, I'm fine. I just started crying. And what I realized from that experience and with both of them there, I was like, I had this immense force of forgiveness where I didn't need to forgive Manny, but I needed to forgive myself for feeling the way that I did about that experience. And I needed to forgive my brother because I'd been living with that trauma, and that trauma had been stopping me from being open to many, many experiences. And it was adding to my overlying depression. And it was just like one of those, aha. Moments of, like, ah, that's what I needed to get to address this and to move on with my life. And I was just, like. I told her as I was coming down from the nbma, I'm like, I just have this immense sense of forgiveness. My response, everybody who's wronged me. I never told my brother that I told my other brothers about the experience. And this is one of those things where it kind of almost goes back to, like, the Epstein regrets and such. If. If you were on Epstein island, would you say something? We learned that he abused his kids. He went on and abused his wife's sister, younger sister. One of my nieces called. One of my nieces called me in recent years or after the book came out, and she said, I didn't name him in the book. She said, you didn't have to name him. I know exactly who it was. And he abused me till I was 14.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And she still lives with that trauma to this day. So there's part of it where there's that guilt that if I had said something earlier, maybe it would have helped so many of the kids. But there's a huge difference.

[A]

You never know, Candace. There's a huge difference. You. You were a young child victim. Yep. There's a big difference between that and being an observer. And I hope you're right, because I'm sure with you now getting a chance to talk to other people that he abused sounds like within your family and everything as well. They're sitting in a similar boat. You know, it's a. First of all, you don't even know how to process it at that age. I don't think you ever know how to process it, to be honest. But that, you know, you especially don't understand at that age. And then secondly, you know, it makes you. It's almost like it's. It's been described like it's like a vampire kind of effect. You know what I mean? It makes. It makes you feel like when you. When I've talked to different people who have been, you know, abused, especially at a young age, it's almost like you don't realize it, but whatever innocence is. Is stripped from you completely against your will.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then you can't even process that it was what was stripped from you?

[B]

Yeah, because I never. I never really had a childhood. I feel. Exactly. And I feel as if maybe that's what gave me this adult type of mindset from the very, very early age. Because I was never a normal child. You know, I'm skipping grades and so I'm not with my people of my age.

[A]

Changing countries, changing countries.

[B]

I did some wild. To acclimate to. What kind of American life? Well, my English teacher in junior high school in Brooklyn because I had a really thick Caribbean accent and you did. Very thick.

[A]

How'd you get rid of that?

[B]

Well, she said, the Carpenters, the group from Southern California, have the purest American accent that there is. And she's like, I'd listen to the Carpenters and try to practice their. Try to practice their dialect, and I would study it.

[A]

It worked.

[B]

Yeah. And the thing about the Carpenters, I would listen to their music for years. And the thing about their Carpenter's music is it's fucking depressing. So over the years, I realized that it was the soundtrack of my sadness. And I didn't realize that it was getting worse and worse and worse. So I would listen to, you know.

[A]

Yeah, they're as white as it gets.

[B]

They are. I'd listen to We've Only Just Begun. When I'm just, like, you know, hanging out there and at home alone. And then over the years, I'd realized at my darkest moments, when I'm drinking a bottle of wine by myself and crying and bawling, I was listening to the Carpenters and Goodbye to Love. There are no tomorrows in this heart of mine Rainy days and Mondays always get me down Even their happiest song is depressing. I'm on top of the world Looking down on creation that means you're dead. So like that. It took me years to realize what the Carpenters were doing to me.

[A]

You're a psychiatrist dream. You are. Like, if they could. Could write a textbook and just say, we need one case study.

[B]

One case study for everything.

[A]

We're good.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Got it all covered. Wow.

[B]

God damn Carpenters.

[A]

Did you. Did you ever. You know, because you're coming of age during all this time, too, and you haven't at this point been made aware that, like, your brother was doing this to a lot of other people as well. But when you're in New York, is he still living with you guys?

[B]

Yeah, at that point.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Did. At any point, you know, during your teenage years and whatever, as you start to get older, did you, like, process that? That was what it was. And you didn't want to be around him?

[B]

I. I never processed it until I sat with mdma.

[A]

That was the first time.

[B]

That was the first time I processed. No, I knew that we didn't get along, but I didn't understand why we didn't get along. Wow. Like, he's the only brother I didn't get along with. Like, I wouldn't talk to him, you know, when we get together at Thanksgiving occasionally I would not hang out with him at all. Or he's the only brother that I was estranged from, but I didn't know why until I relived the abuse and was able to say, okay, you know what? Go on with yourself. Go on with your life. I forgive you.

[A]

Now, since you found out about all the other people he's hurt, though, do you still forgive him or.

[B]

I still forgive him. You still do, but it's up to them to process that on their own and forgive him. My mom learned about it only just before my book came out, and. And so she had a conversation with him and was like, I just hope you pray on it, and I hope you're better for it than you were. That's it. She's like, it's still my son, but I didn't realize he was a monster that was living in our house. And she's like, it's a good thing your dad is not alive because he. He would have killed him or that he didn't know.

[A]

Yeah. That's an impossible scenario to process because it involves both of her kids, you know, and then other extended family members. But like you said, it's still her son too.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[A]

Have you talked to him since the book came out?

[B]

Not all.

[A]

Will you ever talk to him again?

[B]

No.

[A]

I don't blame you.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. No plans. My life is fine. Wow. He doesn't live in the New York area.

[A]

That's helpful.

[B]

Yeah. Jesus.

[A]

So you don't. That's. That's. I didn't realize that when you were telling that. That that was the first time. So what is this? 2020? 2021.

[B]

2021 might have been two. Yeah.

[A]

So you're a full blown adult and that's the first time you really process it. And you're also able to be somehow, like a big enough magnanimous person to take that processing and forgive him, which. Good on you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's insane. That's.

[B]

Wow. You know, there was a. Years later, there was a documentary that came out with Tina Turner, and I didn't understand why I. Why the forgiveness kind of helped. But there was a quote from her that. That made me stand out. That stood out for me. There was a quote from Tina Turner that stood out for me where she says, forgiveness, forgiving means not to hold on. You just have to let it go because it only hurts you. And not forgiving, you suffer because you think about it over and over and over again. And she said she learned that in, and that helped her to forgive Ike. And then she was able to live her life again. And it just kind of hit me because I was like, huh? I think that's what I got out of it. Even though it wasn't conscious mind that I was thinking about the abuse, I was still kind of suffering from it over the years.

[A]

Tina Turner is 100% right. 100%. But taking what Tina Turner said and putting that into practice is a whole different world.

[B]

It is, and it requires a lot of work. And it's a conscious, like, with everything psychologically, it's a. It's constant work. Like, I'm constantly aware of my level of depression, and if there are things that might be setting me down a path to be depressed again, because I think once you suffer from it, you. You're always living with it. It's just a matter of how you handle it. But.

[A]

If you had never really processed those things until 2021, 2022, when you do MDMA. And again, that's even after you took that crazy trip down in Belize that you showed us earlier. What. What do you think it was that really brought on you having suicidal? All right, buddy, we got it. Christ. Serious in here, here. People outside honking on the horn. What. What do you think it is that brought on, you know, the sudden, like, suicidal ideations in. In 2018 that you had? What was that?

[B]

It had been a buildup of years doing this.

[A]

Yeah, you're good. You're good.

[B]

It had been a buildup of years of suicide ideation. In college. I wanted to jump off a cliff.

[A]

I.

[B]

But I felt depressed, but I didn't know why I was depressed. I had a career that was starting to be really, really good. In the early 2000s, I was at CNN on the 30th floor penthouse, and I had a great job at. Had a nice life, amazing apartment, and I wanted to jump off that balcony also. I was just depressed. A lot of it. Are these underlying causes of what happened at childhood. A lot of it was not realizing who I am and recognizing that, you know, you're good. You know, you don't need to be Have a Anglo nose. You, you, you're a good looking person. You don't need to have body dysmorphia issues. You're in shape. And it just kept going, going, going, going, going. Then in 2014 I joined ABC News and co occilly became their overnight anchor for their national show, World News Now. And the thing about that show, like you're, you're going into the office at 10pm, you're leaving around 5 o', clock, graveyard shift, graveyard shift. And there are three hours during that period where you're on, you're like, you're Mr. Personality. It was a fun, quirky show, like it was a newscast. But if you didn't know any better, you would think that we were drunk on air. And there were sometimes, there were some times when we were drunk on air, but it was a quirky, fun show. We dance and all that. So you were, you're really performing for three hours a day in the middle of the night. And I did that longer than anybody else has done or did to that point and since for about four years.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

But as the years went on, I was, I was, I was drinking to get to sleep. I was drinking, taking Ambien every day. I would then caffeinate to go high up. And when I was for the overnight hours and my, my body was just on this vicious cycle of alcohol, sleeping pills, pills to wake up, caffeine to wake up, and just on and on and on and on. And that just kept increasing my level of depression. And about a year before October 2018, I, I told the bosses at ABC that I needed to come off the shift because it was literally killing me. We sent them a letter, sent them an email, my agent, and they're like, oh no, we don't have anything for him. Like, okay, other people. Show goes on. Exactly. Other people who wanted to come off the ship shift came off the shift pretty quickly. It didn't happen. September 2018, you know, we're doing the show and I'm really, really starting to get depressed and thinking about. I would cry myself to sleep at 6 o' clock in the morning and started thinking about suicide at that point. And a funny thing actually happened. I, I made fun of bts. You remember the Korean pop group?

[A]

Oh yeah, like the, the Cape.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, the K pop. Because they were at the UN UN and they were speaking and I'm like, why?

[A]

Yeah, I never really got it right.

[B]

But why is BTS at the UN speaking? Their fucking army came after me and.

[A]

Like they said that publicly?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

On tv, you're like, who the fuck are these guys? Yeah, anime fucking.

[B]

You know, they're like, you should kill yourself. You should do all this stuff. They're calling me the N word. Like all this.

[A]

Oh, the Koreans were throwing. Wow. They go hard in the paint.

[B]

BTS army, even though they knew that word. Google Translate.

[A]

How's the accent on that one? That's what I need.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I feel like Quentin Tarantino somewhere. Like, we'll find out.

[B]

But it was just kind of funny at the time because I was at the level where I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking about it at that time. So then a couple weeks later, I just knew that it was time. I came home, called or I texted a friend in Atlanta and I said, said everything is said. Like, I've created Will. You know, I've done this. I've done this, done all this different stuff, and it's all set. I made sure the toilet was flush. I made sure the apartment was clean. And I went to the ledge of our 12th story apartment looking out over the city and just like, oh, this is what I have always wanted to achieve. To be here with this skyline view and live here in New York and at, in essence, the top of my form, I'm a network television anchor. Like, my mission here is done. There's not much more for me. And I had taken a couple Ambien prior and drank a bottle of wine, and I sat there on the ledge getting ready to jump. I was looking at the bus. There was a bus stop right below my apartment. And I'm like, it's like a honing pigeon. It's like. Like a target for me. And I fell back. I passed out from the Ambien and the alcohol. I hit my head.

[A]

Are your legs, like. Were you sitting with your legs dangling over?

[B]

So you just have like this. And I literally just passed out.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

It hit my head. And then woke up to Mike woods, who's a local New York longtime weatherman, going like, hey, buddy, are you okay? I'm like, no, I'm not. Clearly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. What happened at the time? My friend Robin in Atlanta texted my partner or called him, said something's wrong. Who then, like, texted every or called everybody who could get to the apartment quickly. And so Mike came over, my co anchor came over, my producer came over, and. And. And then they just all got together in the room while I slept off everything. And they're like, yeah, you're gonna need some help. Yeah, I'd say so. And at this Point. We renegotiating with abc, but they wanted again for me to stay for another year on the overnights. And my agent's like, nah, we're not doing that.

[A]

I mean, did he tell him that you were going through it at that point?

[B]

No, they just basically said, like, for his health, like, we can't do this. Okay, you guys need to find a spot for me. And I discovered it during a psychedelic trip in upstate New York. I went to this couple's house that they curate these mushroom journeys. They welcome you into their house, and they talk with you a little bit beforehand about your experiences with it and what you want to get out of it. And with a lot of these journeys, you do your intentions, but. But I don't know why we do intentions, because we don't necessarily get out of it what we think we want. I've come to realize it is the most unique medicine that there is out there. You and I can take an Ambien. We could be twins, and we'll have the same effect. We'll pass out. A painkiller will do the same effect. It'll get rid of the pain for both of us. When you take a dose of plant medicine, even if it's the same dose at the same time, same body weight, blah, blah, blah, what you get out of it is exactly what is unique to you, is what your mind and body feels that you need out of it. So I had my intention for that second psilocybin trip as gratitude. And we started on My Eyes Are Closed, and I'm starting on this journey and seeing a whole little psychedelic thing, like, the different images in my brain, rainbow colors and all this sort of stuff. And I'm thinking this will be a positive experience. I'm gonna see gratitude and all this experience soon. And I'm laying there, eyes are closed, and they're doing. The couple are doing different things, blowing different type of tobacco in the air and playing different music and doing different sounds that are trippy, and they're kind of pulling out all the visuals out of your brain and defeat all.

[A]

I actually know, too, from the ayahuasca. Similar vibes going on.

[B]

Yeah. And so I start feeling like this hand keeps just, like, banging up. I'm laying down, and this hand just keeps banging up against, like, the window, the wall, and, like, ouch. Like that.

[A]

Start hearing a little John a little bit.

[B]

Oh. So, like, like. And I feel the energy, though, of, like, my aunt who had just died two months prior that I did the eulogy for my mom's friend that died earlier in the year. I feel my dad and my grandmother, who are both passed away as well, they're just like their energy is there and I don't see them, but I just. And that's what this, like this banging. And I just keep just tossing and turning him like, like rubbing the top of my foot with my heel, and I'm just tossing and turning and I'm like, okay, what was it? What was it? What is it? And then it. I have like this little out of body experience where I see myself as like this Greek goddess and I see all my curves and I see my nose the way it is, and. And I have this appreciation for.

[A]

The.

[B]

Beauty that is blackness and the history that lives in me and that I've ran away from for so long. And it just made me emerge from that with that experience. But I'll tell you, it was the most physically abusive trip that I've ever, ever.

[A]

Physically abusive?

[B]

Yes. I was tossing, I was banging the top of my foot. Foot was rubbed raw by my heel. So it was bloody.

[A]

It wasn't pleasant.

[B]

No, it was not at all. And so I was speaking with the woman afterwards, and she was like, yeah, you went through it. Like, we could see that you went through it. And it was for several hours. And I was speaking with a. A psychiatrist the next day that I was working with for the book. And she was like, yeah, you, you suffered racial trauma at the network level and throughout your life, and you needed to get that out of you. And there was still work that you needed to do with yourself. So when the article had come out and yes, you were feeling better still from that one session with the mushrooms, you still had stuff that you need to work out. But it was all in due time. Like, it just. I felt a calling to go back to that house, upstate New York, and do a mushroom journey. But if I had done it prior, it wasn't time. It wasn't time at all. My journey, I feel.

[A]

So did you, like. Because the book comes later, after you've done these five trips and whatever. So what I'm getting from our conversation throughout today, where you're describing when these different things happen, obviously the first one was shotgun, completely unplanned. But it wasn't like, once you did that, you're like, all right, I'm gonna do this one, I'm gonna do this one, I'm gonna do. No, it was more like it happened naturally to where you. You got yourself into a situation. You laid out the MDMA one, and then you decide to do this one as well. And then at that point, was it clicking that you're like, like, okay, maybe, for example, I'd like to go do ayahuasca, or what happened?

[B]

So I have come to believe and convinced that we get a calling for these things. I don't know your journey, particularly for ayahuasca, but there was none.

[A]

I was like, one in Rome.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Huh.

[B]

Okay. No, I feel like there's a calling for it. So my journey, in particular with ayahuasca started years earlier when my producer for the overnight show at ABC was like, yo, I want to do ayahuasca. I want to experience my death. I'm like, what the fuck is ayahuasca? He's like, total stoner at the time. But it kept coming into the conversation of my life as I started down these. This journey with different mushrooms. I didn't say, like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna go and do another mushroom journey. I just felt, okay, you know what? If I feel a calling, I'm gonna microdose a little bit. But all of these were just me kind of trusting the universe. And that's where, like, the MDMA trip came up. Like, the universe is telling me something that I need to do this. And years later, I was interviewing Paul, Rosalie. I saw him on CBS Morning earlier, and I was like. And I was anchoring at MSNBC in the afternoon. He was talking about environmental fires that were taking place in Amazon. So we had him on a couple other times, and we became kind of friends. And then during COVID he came back to upstate New York, where he was living at the time or where his family is. And I was upstate as well, just on a weekend trip. And he was like, oh, let's go for a hike. I'm like, all right, cool. We'll go for a hike. But the thing about Paul, like, Paul is, like, a man of the jungle.

[A]

Like, he's.

[B]

He's jumping from a cliff into the water, and, like. And he's like, are you gonna do this?

[A]

That's a different. He's a different kind of hike. When he says, let's go for a hike, that's not what you think it is.

[B]

No, it's intense. And he was like, oh, man, I hope we find some snakes. I'm like, I hope we don't.

[A]

Did he have the machete with him?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

On brand.

[B]

Yeah. Like, he doesn't do the. There's no trails. Yeah, no, no, no. No trails. Chemtrails maybe, but. Yeah, but. So anyway, he starts talking about ayahuasca and because I had already done mushrooms, and he's like, oh, well, you might someday want to do ayahuasca.

[A]

They tell you about the big beetle?

[B]

No.

[A]

Oh, he didn't tell you about that?

[B]

No.

[A]

When he got, when he got OD'd with ayahuasca and he was talking to a fucking 40 foot beetle, he's like, please, no, don't eat me.

[B]

No Beatles. I'm not gonna eat you.

[A]

Yeah, now it's fucked.

[B]

Up. Up. Wow.

[A]

Yeah, but go ahead. What did he tell you?

[B]

So we're just. He's like, oh, it's going to be amazing. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's great. But I'll tell you, it's nothing like mushrooms. It's not a happy, necessarily a happy experience, but it's. And I'm like, are you doing it again? And it's like, no, I don't need to do that. I'm like, huh? So it's not a recreational thing? No, no, not at all. So that, again, continued the conversation that would bring back ayahuasca into my brain. I thought, so then in 2022, I go to Miami for what at the time was my 13th TV news job. I just kept doing jobs after jobs after jobs. And the first week that I was there, I was like, why did I do this? I. I don't really want to be here. And I just kept realizing I'm running from something, you know, Even though I had, like, fairly good control of my depression, I felt like I'm still, like, running from something or I don't know what exactly. That, that has me just, like, falling in love with these jobs and then leaving and then moving on. I don't, I don't understand what it is. Hated the job. Quit after, like, six months after having, like, an argument with one of my producers. Because at MSNBC and abc we would have parties and we'd bring in booze and all that kind of stuff. I decided we were having a producer who was pretty good, and it was her goodbye. And I decided to bring some champagne into the office. And our producer was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, can't do that. We don't do that here in Miami. And get your Andre out of here. It was Andre.

[A]

Come on.

[B]

I didn't say I was splurging.

[A]

I knew they're paying you better than Andre level.

[B]

We were doing mimosas, so what's the point? So we get into an argument. I'm like, fuck, this place. This place needs an enema.

[A]

Enema.

[B]

And they were like, maybe you should take a little break. And so I go home that weekend. I do some microdose of some mushrooms, and I wake up, and I was like, I think I want to do ayahuasca. Just like that. I call one of my best friends in California who's, like, down for anything. And I was like, hey, Prince, are you down to go to ayahuasca? He's like, yes. Hey, List. So then I called Paul, Rosalie. I was like, hey, Paul, can you arrange for us to do an ayahuasca trip? He's like, when? I'm like, in two weeks. And he's like, nah, that's impossible. For whatever reason, I needed for it to be soon. I decided I wasn't gonna go back to that job, and I needed this trip to happen soon. Somehow he was able to make it happen. And two weeks later, my buddy Prince and I are jumping on a plane in August 2022 and heading down to Peru in the middle of the jungle to try to do ayahuasca.

[A]

You get PTSD with the. With the drive out to the river there, where you're going through the bumps like you're old.

[B]

Oh, my God. So as you leave this town, which is in, like, southern Peru, I believe is what it was. I forget the name of it. Starts with an M. I believe you.

[A]

Stay at that hotel.

[B]

I stayed at the hotel right there, where there's a giant snake that crawls around in the rafters.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

A boa constrictor. And then you take this long drive, dirt roads, and you. Huh? Yep. It was rough.

[A]

Yeah. I wasn't ready for that.

[B]

No. And then you finally arrive at the mouth of a river and this tiny, tiny little town. Can you call it a town?

[A]

I mean, it's more of a shantyville, if you will.

[B]

People live there.

[A]

Great people.

[B]

Yeah. Amazing people.

[A]

Like, where you take a piss, they point to the tree. You got it. And it's like some old lady. It's like her backyard. I'm like, hello.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right.

[B]

And then you take this boat ride for hours. For me, it was hours. I think you went to a different location because the.

[A]

Oh, you went to the second. I know where you went.

[B]

The loggers burnt down the location that I went to.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So several hours during. On. On the river, and my shaman. I don't know if you had Mario hide Mario.

[A]

I had Mario.

[B]

Mario. Mario sat up front and he was just guiding, like, because the river was fairly low at the time when we went there, and he was just guiding us along and.

[A]

And he's JJ's oldest brother.

[B]

Oh, really? Huh. I didn't know that. I did not know that. And who was our cook? I think we had Marta. Did you have Martha?

[A]

You know, the cooks were. Gracias. Yeah, I would just like do that. Can't say we were on a first name basis, but.

[B]

But so we get there.

[A]

There's me and Mario. Old Mars.

[B]

Oh, yes, that's him.

[A]

That was like hours after right there.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Uhhuh.

[B]

That is awesome. Wow, your hair is grown.

[A]

Yeah, I had. Just before I went down there, I cut it all off, literally very short.

[B]

So I. We finally get to this location and it's up a hill and there's this guy that comes. He is like a humpback, and he's like the innkeeper. He lives out there for, like, I mean, like 28 days a month, all by himself for the most part.

[A]

Not Pico. Pico. Missing a leg. No, no, not Pico. Shout out Pico. De guy.

[B]

Shout out Pico.

[A]

He didn't know a word I was saying. I didn't know word he was saying, but we understood.

[B]

They didn't know either. Yeah, rip that leg. So we crawl up. We each go into our own little. Own little cabins and. And. And later. That night was going to be. No, the next day was going to be our ceremony. So we checked in, had a nice little dinner. We're on the river. We explore the area which isn't very tall, very big. There's a. There's a tree house that Paul had built.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Original one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is a baby version of the one that's right now.

[A]

That one's high. You've been on that one. The new one.

[B]

No, it's up there.

[A]

It's the tallest treehouse in the world. It's higher up than anything else. I'm not a heights guy, but I did go up there several times.

[B]

But one of Paul's straight stories, he's like, yeah, this treehouse right here. I was this girl one night.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Something is so hot about that. Like. And he's just. He just killed this animal that invaded his space while he was fucking. And blood goes all over the place.

[A]

He's like.

[B]

And he continued.

[A]

And he continued.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, Paul's a savage.

[B]

Yeah, he's.

[A]

Listen, there are a lot of people who go on podcasts, you know, in various ways, and you're like, are they really about that life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Paul. Rosalie is about that life.

[B]

He's about that.

[A]

Like, he's one of those guys that has to be even more about that life than he should be about that life. Strictly to be about the life.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Jane Goodall was impressed by Paul.

[A]

Yeah. Didn't she?

[B]

She.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

She wanted to him. Yeah. So you've heard that story, too.

[A]

Yeah. RIP Jane. She was. Yeah. That is a true story.

[B]

But to which I be like, Paul, like, how much do you want that endorsement in your book?

[A]

She's taking some strains, I'm sure.

[B]

We've done a lot worse.

[A]

For less. Resting in peace.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

RFP Jane.

[B]

So the next day, we're just chilling, and, you know, they. I didn't do a lot of research into what it was. I wanted to go into it blind, into ayahuasca. Blind. And. And so the only thing they had said, like, my friend Prince had been, like, fasting for days. He was from California, so he thought all these things. Fasting for days. He abstained from sex and jerking off. I did none of those. And so he wasn't drinking.

[A]

Oh, you didn't fast at all.

[B]

I didn't fast at all. Well, no, I fasted that day.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Mario told us fast from noon on.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But my friend Prince had been fasting for two days because he heard from his friends, that's what you have to do. And he heard you have to abstain from sex. I'm like, I hooked up in Puerto Maldonado.

[A]

That's it. There it is. I got some mean fried rice in Puerto Maldonado. Yeah. And, guys, good stuff.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Good to know.

[B]

So. So. So the day of the ceremony, we started fasting around noon. Could only drink water, and Prince decided that he was gonna go out into this particular lake with all everybody, and they wanted to go piranha fishing because there were piranhas in that particular lake. They get back after dark. We're freaking out. I'm there with the humpback innkeeper and Martha, or cook, who doesn't speak any bit of English. And I'm thinking, I've seen this movie. Like, the black guy's gonna die here in the middle nowhere. Like, I am so screwed.

[A]

The black guy does die in the movie first.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Pretty much every time. Time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Seriously. And Prince is brown, so he was not going to be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So they finally come back out of dark, and I'm nervous and. And not knowing what to expect. And. And Prince is, like, meditating, and I'm like on my phone, because there was only one hour where you got access to the Internet at night at this little location. And I'm on my phone like communicating with people and. And such. And I send a photo of the setup and it's just me and my friend Prince and there are two buckets. And again, I did not do any research, so I didn't know what the buckets are for.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You said it a few minutes ago. You did kind of do it plain. I mean, I did it like Ray Charles. I don't even know shit about any.

[B]

Of it, but, you know, so I send the photo to a friend and he's like, is that the puke or poop bucket? And I'm like, what do you. What, what do you. What do you mean?

[A]

Both.

[B]

I go, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, you're supposed to. Your pants like. Or puke like, get the out of here. Like I'm. I'm such a germaphobe. I'm not. My pants. I'm not in here.

[A]

You're not really supposed to pants. That's. That means you're. Yeah, it's supposed to happen after where you go, you need to go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know.

[B]

Well, as a good like gay bi person, I had enemas. So I ran, I ran to my hut, you know, made sure.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

I was clean.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

And we came back and then Mario gives us, comes over, gives us the. The thing. I didn't meditate or anything like this or do any breathing exercises. Like I'm, you know, Steve going in. Uh huh. And Mario starts doing all the different chants, the ICRA as it's called. And my eyes are wide open. I'm thinking that whatever I'm seeing, I will see come in from the jungle, jungle around me. I didn't realize that I have to close my eyes and, and experience it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so my eyes are wide open. I'm like, oh, this is boring. And, and, and you know it. Mario keeps going. He. About 45 minutes later, he gives us the. The tea, the drink as it is. It's the only thing that I've experienced that tasted the same going down as it does coming back up. I've never tasted taint before until that.

[A]

You have like a lot of left hooks. And I just feel like whoever. Like you're Mike Tyson and I'm waking up later like, oh my God, didn't see that one.

[B]

You're not used to it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it was nasty.

[A]

You didn't like the taste.

[B]

I didn't like the taste. It's very acidic. You liked the taste?

[A]

I did. Huh. I thought it was gonna suck. There's a lot about, you know, anything about this stuff, but I was like, that's not the worst thing. However, here's the thing. The way I explain it to people is it's like anything else in life, like, Coca Cola tastes pretty good to me. Right. If you give me a full liter of Coca Cola, though.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I drink, like, that whole fucking thing, I'm gonna hate it by the end and want to throw up. Yeah, this is way too much. And it's kind of the same thing eventually with ayahuasca as you go round by round by round, because you're taking a hero's dose each time you did it with Mario, and it's like, you know, by the sixth, seventh round, you're like, I don't like the taste as much now. I just. It's not. I shouldn't say that. Like, I loved it. I think I was just expecting it to be abhorrent. And then when it wasn't, like, horrible, I was like, oh, okay, that's fine. It's almost like when someone tells you about some mixed drink with some fucked up, crazy alcohol in it that you've never heard of in your life, and you're like, this is probably gonna suck. And then you drink it. You're like, all right. Yeah, that's kind of how I describe it.

[B]

So you conditioned your mind? You trained your mind?

[A]

I think so, yeah.

[B]

I didn't know what it would taste like. And I, I, I was like, this is freaking disgusting. And so he gives us, like, three doses, and at once, 45 minutes apart.

[A]

Right, right, right, exactly.

[B]

And my eyes are so wide open, and I get up and feel the, the, the urge to just puke. In the meantime, like, Prince is going back and forth to the bathroom. And the thing about ayahuasca, like many psychedelics, you're your enhanced vision and also enhanced sound. So I can hear everything dropping in that toilet next door. So every time he'd go there, so he'd come back and then sit down. That was his main way of purging. I puked twice and then finally closed my eyes and just saw some vigils, like a regular psychedelic trip. Nothing, like, too, too crazy. And then. And I was like, after, like, a few hours, I was like, I think. I think we're done here. I think I got out of it.

[A]

You ended it.

[B]

Yeah. It was like, I Think I got out of it. Whatever I'm gonna get, I wasn't done. And I tell, like, Mario and the other guys, like, I'm just gonna go to bed until you guys are ready for us to eat, because you eat afterwards. My friend Prince, in the meantime, before I left, it's like, laying down there, and he's just, like, deep breathing, and he's, like, grabbing into something in the air, and he's just, like. Is going through it, like, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy breathing. And then wakes up, and I was like, whoa, I met my soul. And it was like, wow. Really? Okay, that's great. He's like, man, it was amazing. It was like he was, like, the most positive experience I've ever had. He was a huge Laker fan. He was like, Kobe Bryant was there. There are unicorns and plenty of hookers. Like, wow, you've had a rock star experiences.

[A]

Can we talk about it?

[B]

No, he kept talking about it. Just kept going on and on and on. And he's like, what happened for you? Like, nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. And there was one point. His. His sister and his mom visited him. They're both alive. And he's like, do you see. Mario spoke with him in Spanish. He spoke some Spanish. And he's like, do you see your sister? Mario saw his sister and his mom there, and. And he was like, yeah, I see them. And so we go to bed. I go to bed kind of disappointed because I didn't experience what he experienced, But I did not plan to do that shit again the next day because it put my body through a lot the next day.

[A]

That would be nuts. Yeah.

[B]

And we wake up, and we're sitting with Mario the next day. And Prince wanted to know what he saw, what he experienced in the room at the time with us. And he's like, yes, I did see your. Your sister and your mom there. And he's like. Looks at me. He's like, there's just a dark matter that sits on top of me and would not leave me. And that's why I didn't experience the full aspect of it. And he said, but I also saw a very old man and a young man at your foot, and you did not see them. And I took that to be my dad and my nephew who had just been murdered. Just been murdered in a club here in New York a few months prior. And in our weird, rationalizing brain, we thought, okay, because they're not among us is why I did not see them. But they were there as I was, I guess. Supposed to experience my own death, I guess. My own ego death of sort. But Mario, who really is like, the G, could see it and feel those forces.

[A]

He's unreal, man.

[B]

He really is.

[A]

And there's one of the last real ones. There is.

[B]

There are many experiences that he's seen where he's these scene spirits just entering those rooms and just kind of sitting there while people are going through these experiences. It was amazing to me. First time ever meeting somebody and realizing that they're people who can see these energy or other souls see something.

[A]

I agree with you. There was the day after mine because, like I said, his brother's jj. So I was leaving the next day. I'd been down there for two weeks. And I'm taking the boat back with Mario and JJ, and JJ's translating and Mario's going through. We hadn't really fully talked about what had happened the night before. So now we had sat on the deck and talked a little bit like that morning, but nothing in crazy detail, more just about. About the broad parts of the experience. But then Mario. I had such clarity afterwards. But Mario knew round by rounds. We did seven rounds.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And, I mean, I. I don't. I can't speak to what. Again, I didn't know anything about this stuff, but, like, Lex Freedman was there a week and a half before he did nine rounds. Right. So I don't know if they're. I guess it's just like, what the experience is for people or whatever. At least I heard. And he and Paul did nine. But, you know, I had such clarity at that point. I was like, wow. And that's a separate story. But he knew round by round where my head was at. Not to say he knew every single thing I experienced or stuff like that, but, like, it's very hard for me to explain into words, but you're literally getting it translated from jj, who's just a third party here, who wasn't there with us that night. And he's saying stuff. And at first I'm like, all right, am I just trying to, like, match this up, you know, to make it fit, like the puzzle?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then it's like, three things, four things, five things, six. I'm like, holy fucking shit. Who. What is this sorcery? Get off this boat. You know, he's just, like, laughing at me. He don't know a word I'm saying. But I was like, I. I mean, I. I feel it sounds wild to people out there, and I fully understand why that might sound wild to you. But I had the same take away from him. He's a little different. He.

[B]

He's very. And the first indication for me was when he was able to guide the boat and knows exactly, like, where to turn and because the water was pretty low and, like, he can see things that we can't at all. And I had binoculars, but he made me believe in that there are people who have such a. Such magical and spiritual powers.

[A]

And so did you feel it, like, because you were saying Prince was getting this wild experience and explaining it that night, and you're going to bed, and you're like, ah, I feel like I got nothing. But then it felt different, like, when you woke up the next day, where you're like, wait a minute. Because he tells you about the young man and the. And the older man, and you're like, oh, is that my father?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

My nephew.

[B]

But I wasn't trying to hope it in together. I wasn't trying to meet them. No, he told us about it. But the next day, I was equal parts disappointed and exhausted from the experience. And, you know, Prince was still on this high. So he wants to know everything. Like, Mario, what did you see? What did we experience? You know? And I wasn't fascinated at all. And I told myself I was not going to do it again. And Prince is like, come on, come on, come on, come on. We have to do it again. We have to do it again. Yeah. The next day, he's like, come on, let's do it.

[A]

You didn't.

[B]

So we did. Oh, you did.

[A]

Two days in a row.

[B]

I did two days ago. He did two days in a row.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's wild.

[B]

But, like, with Mario.

[A]

All right, so round two.

[B]

Round two. I decided to do some. To take it a little bit more seriously, do some breathing exercises beforehand, calm myself a little bit, get off the phone. And because I'm like, I came all the way out here in the jungle, like, I spent thousands of dollars to be here.

[A]

I'm getting my experience, God damn it.

[B]

Exactly. Like, you know, I'm getting this out of it. So I finally got myself into it. Prince is like, it's okay, buddy. It's okay. I promise you. 1000% positive. Don't worry about it. I'm like, yes. I'm gonna get my harem of hookers, and Kobe Bryant is gonna visit me, and we're gonna ride off on a unicorn. So lay down, you know, cradle the little shot glass that he put in in a cola bottle. Did he have, like, the.

[A]

Yeah, he had the cola bottles. Right there.

[B]

Go. Like, I learned that from an Enrique Iglesia song.

[A]

Toma.

[B]

Toma. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, there's a lot of toma in Spanish language.

[A]

I'll bet.

[B]

Songs. Anyway, so drink it, I cradle it, pretend it's something deeper, and ask it for what Mario told us to ask for it to take us to another universe, I think is what he said.

[A]

Said right out of a plastic Coke bottle.

[B]

Yeah. With a label that says.

[A]

I'll admit my cynicism was setting in when I first saw that. And then, like, 10 minutes later, I was like, oh, no, this guy knows what he's doing.

[B]

I think it says, like, Inca Cola or something like that.

[A]

I was like, are we on Canal street in Peru?

[B]

Exactly. Where is it?

[A]

I knew. I knew it wasn't. Cuz it was.

[B]

Yeah, it is Inca Cola.

[A]

Yeah. There Y. There it is. I had the actual cola.

[B]

It doesn't open up that.

[A]

Yeah, I had that. I had the actual, like, it was a literal Coca Cola.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I didn't know they.

[B]

Had that out here.

[A]

Yeah. Must have gotten Puerto more nano.

[B]

Exactly. Imagine him, like, going into the woods, chopping off parts of the house. He does. Yeah. And then grinding it up and putting in a cola bottle.

[A]

You know, some optics don't matter.

[B]

Yeah. So much for Blood of Christ. So. So we. We get it and drink it. And I'm like, this time my eyes are closed and I'm breathing and paying attention to the breathing and doing box exercises.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Breathing box exercises and such.

[A]

Had you done that in the first experience at all? Yeah, that's.

[B]

That's why you probably missed. Yeah. And I also didn't take it seriously. And I realized in that. Earlier that day that I needed to close my eyes. I needed to. To calm my soul and open my mind to this experience. And because he said it was a positive experience, I'm like, great. So 45 minutes goes by. Mario comes back, gives me more. The first night that we're doing it, he was more vocal in those first 45 minutes. This night, for the first 45 minutes, didn't say a thing. All you'd get once in a while is just hear the click of that. Of his lighter as he lights up the tobacco. And that's it.

[A]

And this was my experience.

[B]

There was something trippy, really, about that. And so I start being able to hear intensely the jungle.

[A]

I can hear.

[B]

I can hear the jungle a little bit more. And with my eyes closed and breathing, I can see this, the. The stars. I Can see through the roof of this building, of this hut, and I could see the entire Milky Way above me. And my eyes are completely closed. And I trust that, yes, that's what I'm seeing for sure. And he told us that because we did the first round, we wouldn't puke as much or purge as much because we've already gotten it out of our system. What. What that purging is, is, in essence, taking out all the toxins out of your body, all of the. The things that you've built in to your soul and your body, and getting rid of it at that point. And so he comes over with round three. I happily drink it. And I laid back down. I could still see the stars. And. And I'm constantly waiting for it to. To kick in. And I feel my breathing getting heavier and heavier. And I'm telling myself from the very start, I'm like, okay, concentrate on breathing. Concentrating and breathing. Keep coming back to the breathing and keep telling myself that. And that voice starts to become louder. That same voice that I had at the start, like, maybe two hours earlier, that was just kind of mild and just saying, keep breathing, it becomes an actual voice that is saying, breathe, breathe, breathe. And so I get up. I have to go to a bathroom to pee. And instead of using the little lighter to. To navigate yourself in the dark that we would have the little headlamp or such, I realized I didn't need it. I. With my eyes closed still, I got up, navigated that entire place, got to the bathroom without opening my eyes. I can. But yet I could see through everything.

[A]

Oh, you went to the Bay. You didn't hit the trees?

[B]

No, I didn't get. I didn't hit the trees.

[A]

Kind of missed the experience. It's part of it.

[B]

Not an animal.

[A]

I'm from Jersey. But continue.

[B]

Why didn't I go to the trees? Huh?

[A]

It was trippy here in the stream.

[B]

Oh, God. Oh.

[A]

On the outside, like, hitting the bushes. And I. It was cool.

[B]

Like, it. It was still kind of trippy. Hitting. Hitting the toilet. Yeah. So I come back, and the voice is like, all right, keep breathing. Keep breathing, Keep breathing. I get up. I throw on up. Laid back down. And then I hear the voice breathing. And then all of a sudden, like, my upper torso, just as if there was a string attached to it, just pulls me up, like, towards the. The. The roof and.

[A]

Like The Exorcist.

[B]

Yeah, 100%, yeah. And flopped me back down. And then does it, like, in quick succession, right again. And then flops me back Down. And it's at that point that voice that had been getting louder and louder became an external voice. I was looking with my eyes closed, and I could feel the voice right there in front of me. And I've come to realize that it's that point when my soul left my body and it just, like, yanked itself out of me. And I was after, like, a couple of conversations where I was saying, keep breathing. Keep breathing. We can't do this if you're not going to breathe. And it became increasingly annoying, the voice. But then it said. I said, like, wait. Are you my soul? Are we, like soul brothers? He's like, no, we're more like soul sisters. And we started singing Lady Marmalade to each other. Hey, sister. Soul sister. Like, what? And I'm like, all right, this might end up being a positive experience after all. We're going to a drag brunch. So it just, like, it starts talking with me, and it's like, let's go on a journey. Let's fly out of this place for a little while, and we fly out of the jungle. And I could see myself flying out at the dark, and I could see the. The. The. The lights of Lima, and we kept flying above. We got to Bogota, and then we got to. We got to. To Miami, where I was living at the time. And I flew into the window, and I could see, like, my partner and my. My. My puppy sitting there on. On, like, on the couch. And dog, like. Like, looks up at me at the same time, and. And in, like, this puppy voice was like, you need to do this. Go back. You need to. You need to do this for you. And I didn't realize my dog had a voice.

[A]

You did now.

[B]

You did. Now.

[A]

Is it, like, Morgan Freeman's voice or, like, James Earl Jones?

[B]

No, it's just like. Like, Japanese anime.

[A]

Oh, no. Such a letdown.

[B]

I know. I know of, like, come on, Tito. Puerto Rican dog with the Japanese anime voice. So I flew back in the jungle, and the voice was still there. It was outside of me, and it was just saying, you know, the realism that you're just hopping from one city, the next. You can't keep a job. You. You've suffered from depression for so many years. You're doing all this stuff is that you don't love yourself. Have you ever said to yourself that you love yourself? Have you realized all the gifts that you have? It said, I could be in any other body, but I choose to be here with you.

[A]

You.

[B]

And yet you don't love me. Your soul and it's like, I. I'm a beautiful, beautiful soul. I'm like, yes, yeah, you are. You are sarcastic, but yes, you are. And.

[A]

But you recognize it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it was completely. It was me.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

It was completely me. And. And it just said, like, you know, you're. You're recounting all the times that I tried, that I had suicide ideation, all the anxiety attacks that I've had, and at some critical moments in my career as well, and the childhood abuse and such. And it's saying that you've done all this work to improve yourself, but you still don't love yourself. And it's like, I want you to say, I love you.

[A]

You.

[B]

That's more swear like, I love you. Like, oh, say it louder like, I love you. Like, louder, like I love you. And. And I'm just saying it over and over and over and over loudly in the halls. And Mario's like, it's working. Mario's like, the dark matter is gone.

[A]

Yeah. It's very strange having someone describe a trip with the same guy I did it with, like, down in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon. Like, I can picture this.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's kind of wild.

[B]

And also, I think, like, in. In the end of, like, this, our meeting and this. It. It's all had its genesis somewhere back then.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yep. And so all of a sudden, I had this. This. This need to yawn. And it was like the biggest yawn that I've ever, ever, ever experienced. So my eyes are closed and I just see, like, this white orb go into my body while I'm yawning. And at that point, the voice became internal again. My soul had re. Entered my body. It had done what it felt I needed to do. It had given me a daily affirmation of. Of looking in the mirror and telling myself that I love myself. And I had no idea. It sounds stupid to say, but I never knew the importance of self love. I never knew that it was how important it is to just feel secure in who you are and to go about the day and just appreciate everything that you have, have and. And your soul.

[A]

I don't think you ever got that chance.

[B]

No. No. My entire life has been just one giant, like, go, go, go, go. Running away from different things. Yep. And not addressing these different issues. Therapy didn't help me with that. You can't teach, like, self love has to be up. Yep.

[A]

Something that comes from within for sure.

[B]

And that what I was at the end of the day, what I got out of that experience. So that went back in, and I just started bawling. I just felt the guilt of 40 years of hating myself, not realizing that my body is quite fine, that I'm a good person, and. And just all the self hate that I had built up, I just kept bawling, and I just felt guilty, and I kept apologizing loudly to my soul. I'm like, I'm really, really, really sorry. And Mario walked over at that point and poured some witch hazel or some sort of oil on my head. And my friend Prince, who's still, like, deep breathing over there, he's like, I'm coming for you.

[A]

You can't find me.

[B]

He wanted to hug me. I bawled for quite a bit. And then.

[A]

Do you still feel that security today that you felt from that moment where you're like, oh, my God, like, yeah, that's awesome.

[B]

Yeah. But it's. One of the things about many of these experiences is, as you probably know, is the integration into your everyday life. And by continuing to reinforce, like, the daily affirmation, different things like that, and be conscious to triggers that might be a negative element into your life, it really helps to continue the medicine journey for you.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I haven't felt a calling for ayahuasca again, but I'm open to it if it. If it becomes something that my soul feels that it needs.

[A]

Yeah. I like that attitude with it because I think, unfortunately, like, in the pop culture of America attitude, people are like, oh, I'm just gonna go down and do five trips. Oh, and then I'll do five trips. It's not like that. Like, I had a long talk with JJ the next morning before we got on that boat. He's lived. He's 52. He's lived in the Amazon jungle since he was zero. And his brother's, like, the one of the last, like, true shamans left. Mario. He's done it nine times in his life. That's it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

You know, he's like, this is not a. He's very adamant about that. He's like, these people. He was, you know, obviously talking about, like, people from America.

[B]

Yeah. The west and whatever.

[A]

He's like, they come down here and they think this is, like, just something you just. You just do over and over again. It's like, it is not like that. This is a very specific thing. It's a very. It's a very special, sacred thing. Obviously, it was like. My family takes it very seriously because of our. Our ties to this land and, you know, the fact that my brother Is. Is the guy who does this. But, like, you have to really be able to hone in and get something out of it. And I will say it's. It's great to hear your second one really seemed to get you somewhere with yourself too. But like I said, I went into it completely blind, as in, I had never researched any of it at all, which I'm not recommending that, by the way. But I do think that ended up turning out for the best because, for example, I knew nothing about like the ego death thing or any of that whatsoever. So it was very strange afterwards when I described, you know, we were talking about different things, and I said, yeah, at some point in after round three, when we did that, Trevor, who was my friend there, who was. Who was doing ayahuasca with me. After round two, the two of us went out to the trees and we had to go to the bathroom at the same time. So we come back and we. And we didn't talk, but we knew we were like in an intense meditation. We're like, all right, great. Sit down. Wait for our instructions. And Mario's like, okay, round three. And in round three, when I laid back and he was. Mario was sitting on a. On like a cot in front of an open air window, no glass, obviously. And the entire jungle was illuminated. And I. I don't know if it was a full moon that night, probably wasn't. But there was some illumination of the moon going on and you could really see like the light coming in. So your eyes are open and you're very. You're in a complete meditative state just looking at that and being aware of the sounds. Because Mario wasn't saying anything like you described kind of in your second one. And I remember this voice that was my own voice, didn't feel like it was outside of me or like my soul. It was just my internal voice said, release your ego and submit. Wow. And it just said that, like, not like, release, you're going to submit. Really? It wasn't like that. It was just very calmly every few minutes. And I was just like, so, like, all right. It was so nonchalant. I was like, all right, that sounds great.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And you're just completely present. That was the number one thing. I was like, you're so present with this. I wasn't like tripping balls or anything. I saw some nice, beautiful visuals. Usually with my eyes open, by the way.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yes. Not with my eyes closed. I close my eyes sometimes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

But we had that morning. That's a whole nother Story I'm not going to tell right now. I told it on John Ronde's podcast when I got back in 2024 down below. But we had had a whole experience the night before, courtesy of Mr. Paul Rosalie, that left me quite traumatized. But that morning when we woke up, we all were on. A bunch of us, like, five of us were on a remote beach where we had camped out and disaster struck overnight. But when we woke up in the morning at the crack of dawn, Paul let Trevor and I go ahead of him because he was going to do some drone footage. Footage stuff back there and basically kayak up the Amazon as the sun was coming up, which was like. The little kid in me was like, this is.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And so when I was having ayahuasca, then, as it would turn out, that night, I got to replay exactly what I had seen, but it was just more illuminated, and it included, like, no one talked to me other than that voice that said that once in a while.

[B]

While.

[A]

But, like, my grandma who had died the year before, I saw her.

[B]

You did? Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Just very calmly. It was very peaceful. A friend of mine who had passed away about a month. A month before, I saw him as well, realistically. Yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And. And he was someone who was unexpectedly, like, very integral in me being able to succeed in what I do now. And, you know, that had been tough on me with when. When. When he died in the spring of 24. And I was. It gave me not closure or anything like that, but it gave me a sense of peace about it. It was just the calmest, most present thing I've ever been a part of. That's how I describe it.

[B]

So I think those things were part of the calling for why you ended up doing Ayahuasca, maybe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Those were some of the things where that took place. And the universe is like, sure, you needed to come here and be there and experience this so that you can come to peace with. Or try to get some sort of peace with those deaths.

[A]

Yes, I. I could definitely buy that. I. I don't. I don't know if I ever fully thought of it that way, but that would make sense to me, I think, what it. What it really did, because I've always. People are like. Like, really? Like, you didn't trip balls? I'm like, no. They're like, man, you must have not worked. I'm like, no, no. I was with the guy, and it. It worked. It was phenomenal. But it was. I have lived such a chaotic life, really. A lot of my Life, but especially in this career. And I had never taken a day off. And at that point, the over four years of doing it, of doing this, and I went down to the Amazon, I put my phone in my bag. It was off for the entire two weeks, which was fucking incredible. Oh, Paul couldn't believe that. He thought. He was sure I was going to take it out. I was like, no, dude, I got out when we got there. And he said, yeah, the WI fi passwords over there. I'm like, wi fi password. I'm like, no, I'm not touching my phone. He's like, yeah, okay.

[B]

What are we in a yoga studio in la?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then.

[A]

And then, you know, I was just. I was already present and then doing that at the culmination of it. What it really did for me is all. I don't want to say all, but many of the little micro things that I would just let affect everything every day and wear me down. I was like, you know what? I have this mountain. The way I described it is I could feel I have this mountain of problems. But the. The bottom, like three quarters of it, if you will, is an invention of stuff that really doesn't matter. Matter. You have to focus about the three to five actual things that are major. Not issues, but problems to be solved at the top of this mountain and let your energy be focused on that and not pulled away to all these things. And I swear to God, like, when I look back on it now and see, like, where my career is at this moment, like a year and a half later, I can like, almost draw the line and be like, that is kind of how it turned out. I let go of a lot of things that I previously couldn't let go of. And I never consciously, like, thought because I did ayahuasca. Now I need to listen to it. It just did it.

[B]

And again, that was one of those other things that was calling you there.

[A]

Yeah. Yep.

[B]

You hadn't had a day off in four years. Like, all of those forces contributed, contributed to you saying, you know what I need to do ayahuasca. Because it is a difference between after death and before. We're in that after death period right now and where it is bonus time. We become so grateful for everything we have. And it does create that matter of presence in everyday life as long as you pay attention to it. And that is really one of the best things about the lingering effects of it for me.

[A]

Yeah. You know, it really. What's really cool about you, Candace, is it sounds like with all the different experiences you've had, like, randomly as well. You've been able to, like, capture the. Whatever the thing was in the moment that you're like, oh, whoa, I'm on to something here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And hold on to it and then allow that to give you peace in your life and also deal with things in the past that you had previously filed away.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Into. Into your conscious. And I think for a lot of people listening out there who maybe have been certainly dealing with their own struggles in life in the past or things that could be even traumatic, like some of the stuff you described, you know, it's not to say like, oh, you need to go do psychedelics or something, but to see that there's any kind of pathway, whatever that may be, be it psychedelics or really meditating, whatever it is, to see that there is some sort of light on the other side that you can possibly have to get more present with your past and understand what that did to you and then be able to use that to move forward in a positive way. I think that's inspirational for people. So I really appreciate you sharing your whole journey, like, throughout today.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's. Listen, the black community, we don't talk much about mental health issues. We just say, go, Go with God. Pray you'll pray it away. So we suffer in silence most of the time, which is why I wanted to talk about it more and more and write a book about it. But when I discovered the benefits that it had for me, plant medicine, I wanted more people to know about it. Not necessarily to say that, to advocate and say that it's for you, but maybe start a conversation. There was a text that I got today, this morning. This kid, I didn't know him six months ago, and he suffered from depression for so many years. And he just texted me and said he was doing his first MDMA treatment. Treatment today with a doctor. Okay. And that's how you do it. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, hey, I'm doing this podcast. Do you think my book helped you? And he's like, absolutely. It not only helped me, it saved my life. I'm 100% serious. He's like, I'm off medication right now. I'm feeling great.

[A]

Wow. That's just. That right there is enough.

[B]

Yeah, that's it.

[A]

That's all you. If you did nothing else, and you definitely have done other things, just that. That's so cool, man.

[B]

To, like, save his life. That's. It's. That's insane.

[A]

Well, if. If people out there want to. Want to hear more about this or specifically read more about this. You can buy five trips. We're going to have that linked down below where you obviously outline this whole thing and I actually want to read that as well myself. I haven't talked with you. It's just, it's, it's really cool to see like where you got to. But, but this was awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming over and doing it on a Saturday.

[B]

Yeah, I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun.

[A]

All right.

[B]

And Paul is straight.

[A]

Paul is straight. That's right. Shout out Paul, Rosalie, everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you for watching this episode. Guys, if you have not already, please hit that subscribe button before you leave and like the video and I'll see you guys for the next episode. Thank you.