← The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Anna Wintour's Surprise Exit, Celebs Flock to Bezos Wedding, and Bill Maher's Clean-Up Attempt
00:56:59
Maureen puts Anna Wintour in the woodshed, as her decades-long reign at Vogue shockingly comes to an end, highlighting testimonials from those who were brushed by her cut-throat business style. She also showcases the celeb mob scene descending upon Venice for the grotesquely lavish wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. Then, Maureen takes another swipe at Bill Maher for his latest feeble attempt to deflect from his own misogynistic opinions by highlighting Andrew Tate's hatred for women. Done with Debt Visit: https://www.DoneWithDebt.com Firecracker Farm: Visit https://firecracker.FARM & enter code Thenerve at checkout for a special discount!
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
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- [00:57]
Maureen Callahan
All.
- [00:57]
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- [01:14]
Maureen Callahan
Hey, and welcome to the Nerve. I am your host, Maureen Callahan. We have so much for you today. So much. We have breaking news, a developing story, a bombshell. Anna Wintour is out at Vogue. Now, of course the official report has her stepping down, but troublemakers. Do we believe it? Do we believe it? We have assembled for you a forensic examination of Anna's reign of terror. What might have done her in. Because I don't think this is a voluntary exit. And how mutt. How much do you think she is agonizing right now while the Bezos Sanchez nuptials get underway in Venice? I mean, this is going to be a dark win. Dark. A dark winter, a dark weekend at Casa Wintour. Okay, well, there's a lot more because we've also got a little bit of teaser coverage of that obscenity happening in Italy right now. Plus, plus our tease to a very special edition of the Mini Nerve. It's got a great theme. I think you're gonna love it. Along with one of the wildest, most bonkers love stories ever promoted by the New York Times. By the modern love section of the New York Times. Plus your emails and. And a little follow up on your friend and mine, Bill Maher. No rest for the wicked, Bill. No rest for the wicked. First, I would like to extend a very special and very personal thank you to a few of you gems out there. First, Edison, who has become, whether he knows it or not, but I think he does know it and I think he likes it. My IT guy out here, he owns a company called Tech Solutions in East Hampton, New York and he has not only been helping pull together the nerves new studio, but you know, I lost my phone. I have been reconstituted. I have been made whole in large thanks to Edison who helped me with a very complicated retrieval of my data from the cloud. Okay. And it's no joke because like those are our memories in there. You know, like I had. Those were some of the last messages I ever had from my dad before he died, stuff like that, you know. So, Edison, my deep and abiding thanks. And if any of you are out east and you find yourself having tech support issues, Edison at Tech Solutions in East Hampton is your guy. Also to Karen at Meta, who heard my on air plea for help getting back onto Instagram. I had been completely locked out of Instagram. It wasn't a matter of password retrieval. It was like I was at the Game of Thrones wall and Jon Snow was not letting me in. Okay, Karen heard my plea and, and emailed me directly and said, can I help? I work at Meta. I can help escalate this ticket and take it directly in house. And she did. And within 24 to 48 hours I was back on. So, Karen, you know how grateful I am, but I have to thank you on the air at the Nerve. You have my heartfelt thanks and I will see you in the fall. And a very special thanks to her BFF Irene, an early troublemaker who introduced Karen to the show. Irene, thank you as well. Thank you guys so much, so much. We are backfiring on all cylinders at the Nerve. And so now we go, we go to our breaking earth shaking news. And I am loving it. I am loving it. Anna Wintour announced late Thursday morning, early Thursday afternoon. She is out. It is over for her. She is. We are not taking her to the woodshed, okay? Anna's fashion remains are in the woodshed and there they will lay. Okay? And I would like to thank another troublemaker, Jennifer Sampson, who sent this incredible mock up of your humble host here at the Woodshed, keeping guard, looking out for further entrance into said woodshed. This thing is a piece of art and I love it. I love you guys. Your creativity, your smarts knows no bounds. Now I would like to begin this. Anna Wintour. There is so much to pull from it, really. You know, it was hard to choose. And I'm sure we'll be talking about this in the days and weeks to come as we learn more details, but I think Anna's about 75 now, thereabout and. Or thereabouts. Excuse me. And I truly thought the only way she was going to leave Vogue was. I don't mean to be crass, but feet first, I thought she would die in that chair. I mean, the way she kept her fiefdom and constantly exterminated all potential comers and rivals. I mean, when Edward Enifold, who used to work under her at American Vogue, was recently cast out from British Vogue, where everyone agreed he'd been doing a great job, people thought that was Anna's work. He. He was getting too close to the hem of her skirt. You know her, you know, for a fashion dictator, she's like the Fidel Castro of fashion, if you will, the Saddam Hussein of fashion. She only ever wore, like, floral skirts. She wore the same exact pair of beige Manolos every day for years, for decades. The hair, the sunglasses. You know, there's a fine line between being an icon and just being stuck and, like, afraid to change your look. And, you know, I think Anna's gonna get what's coming to her in the days and weeks to follow. I do. So we're going to begin with Tim Gunn, who became famous through Project Runway and who really carved out a niche for himself as sort of the nice guy in the fashion industry. So listen to his anecdote about Anna Win. And this clip is about nine years old. It's from Meredith Vieira's old talk show. Take a look at this.
- [07:33]
Tim Gunn
What is the most unforgettable moment you've ever seen in fashion? Very matter of fact. I had a very matter of fact response, and it was watching Anna Wintour being carried down five flights of stairs from a fashion show, period. And her office called my office the next day and demanded a retraction. And I said, but it's true. It happened. I mean, I didn't make this up, right? And they still demanded a retraction. And I said no. And there were many calls back and forth.
- [08:04]
Maureen Callahan
So Tim goes on to say that this went on for days, that her office was calling for days. Retract it. Apologize. Tim then goes on to say, he gives real color. He says there were these two burly bodyguards she had, and they locked and crossed arms like firefighters do when they're responding to an active inferno and they're trying to get People out. That was how they were carrying Anna Wintour down five flights of stairs before they deposited her like a baby. Like, remember when Justin Bieber's bodyguards would, like, pick him up like a baby? Like, that's what they were doing. And depositing her in her town car so she could go off to the next five alarm fashion show. Now, it was also all there in the September issue, which was a fascinating to a point look at what it took to put Vogue's once infamous, once consequential September issue together. And this was released in 2009. And I have a few things to say about this, but first, we're gonna set the scene of the importance. I mean, you would think these people were gathering in the Situation room at the White House for, like, a major bombing, a major military attack, a bin Laden raid. But here's Andre Leon Talley, the late, great Andre Leon Talley, who for quite some time was Anna Wintour's velcroed gay black sidekick, who she would later cruelly discard and leave to die in penury alone in upstate New York. Here's Andre agitating for Ms. Anna.
- [09:48]
Andre Leon Talley
We have to see clothes. First of all, it's been a very bleak week so far. It's been bleak street over here in America. You know what? It's a famine of beauty.
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Maureen Callahan
It's a famine of beauty. A famine of beauty. And, you know, so this documentary goes on to basically show a bunch of Anna's top editors cowering in her presence. And in rewatching some of these clips to prepare this, it really struck me, you know, the level of misery within those walls. You would think, like, putting together a fashion magazine should just be fun. It should be fun. It should be creative and exciting. And instead, they're all running around like they're about to get a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Every time they walk into Anna Wintour's office, they all look miserable. These are women, and a lot of them, you know, they. They come from, you know, well, to do families. You. You had to be sort of a scion of a well to do family to even become one of Anna's assistants. These women all have terrible skin. Like, they're breaking out. It's like dry, it's parched. Their hair is dry and unkempt. They look under fed, they look fearful. Grace Coddington, much the same. A former model, she did have an accident, I believe it did disfigure her. And she had some reconstructive surgery. She nonetheless, like, sort of aggressively tried to make herself seemingly unattractive which I only mentioned because if you're gonna be telling American women. And by the way, we'll get to them bullying the celebrities and the models that they would put on the COVID and the people that were contributing to the magazine. You know, if you're going to be doing this to the average American woman, you better come loaded for bare looks. Wise sisters. Okay, so you know Grace Coddington, by the way. So this is what Anna did very shrewdly. Well, I'll get to that. But I also want to show you again, this is. This goes to, once these people drink the Kool Aid, how truly delusional they become. And they don't see their own ridiculousness, and they don't see the levels of insecurity that are on display. This is Andre Leon Talley in the same documentary the September issue filmed playing tennis while swathed in some sort of Louis Vuitton towel or scarf or. Or something cumbersome that basically inhibits movements when one is trying to swing a tennis racket. Let's take a look. Here's Andre on the court in a hat. And that. And that towel, it looks like, barely.
- [12:47]
Andre Leon Talley
Inaugurated me into health by intervention. She saved my life, I guess, in the long term because she intervened about three years ago that I go to lose weight. So naturally, what Ms. Winter says goes.
- [13:02]
Maureen Callahan
So what Ms. Winter says goes. Three years ago, she told Andre he needed to lose weight. I am sure the ending of that sentence was, if you want to keep your job. And it was clearly a struggle for him. And he's sitting there, and the camera lovingly but winkingly takes a. A pause on his Louis Vuitton, like, cosmetics case, like his hard vanity case. And it's, you know, okay, so now we're gonna go to. I will never forget this interview. And it's notable for what's in it and what's not in it. If. If. If there's a part of the country that does think it's a crime, that. Not maybe not a crime, but definitely journalistic malpractice to say, have edited, like, Kamala's interview so that she could sound more cogent. I'm going to tell you what 60 minutes edited out of Anna's interview. Okay. Because if I'm putting those two together up against each other like it's a. It's a draw, I think. So here she was in two again, was 16 years ago. Yeah. 2009, talking to Morley Safer, who introduces her in this package as so fearsome that she has inspired, quote, terror, loathing, and obsequious toadies. Here we go. He asks her about her long reported coldness.
- [14:26]
Andre Leon Talley
But where people made comparisons with you. The coldness that Anna must not be spoken to when she's on the elevator.
- [14:35]
Maureen Callahan
Oh yeah, I heard that you're not allowed to get in the elevator with me. That's not a denial. That's not a denial. That was the lore at Conde Nast. Anna walks in the elevator, you walk out. I will say years and years ago I was do. I was up at Conde Nast for a job interview and I was on my way down in the elevator and it stopped and she got in the elevator and I was not leaving the elevator. And she stood there and she overtly looked me up and down and up and down. And I thought, you know, this is a lot of energy to expend to maintain an image. I suppose. There's another great story that I believe is true. I mean, I've read all the Anna biographies. Jerry Oppenheimer, I think, wrote the definitive one where, you know, the lore to within the Vogue offices was especially if you were a lowly, a low level editorial employee, you were not to talk to Anna. If you saw her coming, you were to go the other way. She was, she was to have the restroom to herself if she didn't have her own private restroom, which I'm sure was built into the new Conde building. And no eye contact. And there was the story of one editorial, low level editorial person who tripped and fell on the floor and Anna was coming and so they didn't move and she just walked right over their body. I know we're not supposed to rejoice in the face of others misfortune, but I can't think of a better karmic ending than what's going to happen to Anna Wintour. Okay, here she is telling Morley on whether she will gracefully accept it when it is time to go. But when the time comes, will you go quietly? Certainly. Very quietly. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, think about it. She's been the editor of American Vogue for decades now. She forced Oprah to lose weight, to get on the COVID She has controlled. And this is not propaganda like everyone in the industry, all the power players in the fashion industry have said, Adam Wintour controls everything. If you're a designer, you got to go through her before you show your clothes in any given collection. She comes and sees your, your collection and says what you can keep and what can go and whether you're good enough or whether you're even going to get in the pages of Vogue. And there have been many designers who have said, anna Wintour tried to kill my career because I wouldn't play her game, her little sadistic game. And in that documentary, that September issue, there is a clip where, you know, also. So she an adeptly sort of tried to turn the documentarian over to look at Grace Coddington as kind of the brains as a way of sort of sliding out of center stage because she liked to maintain some mystique. Because I don't think there's a lot of depth there. I don't. And, you know, so Grace sort of like took on the mantle of the good witch. Anna was the bad witch, and Grace was the good witch who, like, rolled her eyes and told one of the cameramen that Anna's remark on camera that this guy needed to go on a diet was mean. You know, meanwhile, they're all, like, allowing for public consumption, you know, in this documentary, like, Sienna Miller's on the COVID She's doing a cover shoot, and she's Sienna Miller. You know, this was again 16 years ago. She's in her 20s. She's a gorgeous young movie star. And they're picking her apart on the COVID They're going, oh, it's too toothy. You can see a filling. We're going to have to fix this. What are we going to do about this? What are we going to do? Or we're looking at Anna, and I'm just saying it's in the film. I'm not saying it's, you know, but it's important to note these things. She's going over a photo shoot of Jennifer Garner, and Anna says she looks pregnant. We have to fix this. I mean, it's mean. It's mean. It's mean for the sake of being mean. And it's a woman who never felt beautiful, who is getting her sick kicks in trying to denigrate these other women who are young and beautiful and famous and probably have somewhat fuller lives than she does. I'm going to guess now in that 60 minutes, this is what they took out. And I found the original New York magazine piece. Because guess what? This video has been scrubbed from the Internet. I'm sure you're shocked as I am. Okay? In that 60 Minutes interview, cut out, she explains asking OP. Asking Oprah. That was a dictate. Asking Oprah to lose weight for her Vogue cover. Anna says it was, quote, a gentle suggestion. And in a separate clip, again, flyover country, which is what the elites on each coast consider the middle of America or anything that's not a major metropolitan city. You're not wrong. This is how they think of you, Anna. Quote, I had just been on a trip to Minnesota where I can only kindly describe most of the people that I saw as little houses. She also said she doesn't understand that people criticized her use of Photoshop on Hillary Clinton. It makes me rather angry. Wintour says, I don't understand that. If you look wonderful, does that make you look less important, less powerful, less serious? You know, this is so great too, because Melania Trump is currently first lady. And again, this isn't political. This is just cultural. Anna's fucked because she has put every major Democratic female leader on the COVID of Vogue or in the pages of Vogue or made over in Vogue and she has iced out Melania Trump. And, you know, Anna Lo, these many years has been agitating reportedly and seeking a major ambassadorship. Like, she has wanted to be the United States Ambassador to Great Britain for a long time. And I don't think Trump's. I don't think he's gonna give it to her. I just don't think he's gonna give it to her. Now let's take a look at Lauren Santo Domingo. I was mentioning to you, to her. Sorry, I was mentioning her to you guys last episode or the episode before. It's all like, we're all clicking in the culture right now. We all are. Like, we're firing on all cylinders again here. Talking about the Devil Wears Prada, the Meryl Streep Anne Hathaway film that was based on Anna Wintour in Vogue and the Romana Clay of the same name. Listen to her. Is it wilder than everyone thinks working there or is it less wild? If you watch the movie A Devil Wears Prada, it's almost like a National Geographic documentary. It's that accurate? It is that accurate.
- [21:31]
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Like her office is accurate.
- [21:33]
Maureen Callahan
The hallways, the way people dress, the meetings, the everything, everything. What she's not saying is the cruelty and the sadism. But there you go, it's all true. It's all going to come out. By the way, I can't wait. I can't wait till people start talking. And this is. I'm going to tell you, this is what I think. Did Anna Wintour in? On June 13, Page Six exclusively reported that the people, the staff at Vanity Fair was freaking out, that the mood over there was dire because Anna Wintour single handedly hired a Nepo baby. Okay, this kid, I say kid, like mid-30s, with like very little executive experience, if any, who is BFFs with her daughter to run Vanity Fair. And she reportedly did it by blindsiding Conde CEO Roger Lynch. And I think Roger lynch had had it, and I think that did her in and couldn't happen to a nicer person. Okay, on to the Sanchez Bezos wedding. This unholy union. Now, I just columned on this for the Daily Mail on Wednesday, and I called it Jeff's Big Fat Incel wedding, because I think it is a foam party on a yacht. Feels very freak off adjacent to me. Anna Wintour again. She's dying. She's dying over here. Okay, so we're going to see Lauren and Jeff right now waving to their fans, probably the paparazzi. I mean, most Venetians, I think, are out in the streets protesting this obscenity. So they're waving to their fans. And we're seeing all the celebrities alight in Venice via water taxi to this wedding. We are seeing Oprah and Gail. How Gail can be here and still call herself a reporter after going on that, like, joyride into space with Lauren. How could she possibly be a journalist who can cover the excesses of these people or perhaps the illegalities that they might? You know, Jeff Bezos runs like sweatshops at Amazon. We know this. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Again, the legacy media wonders why it's in its death rattle. So Oprah and Gayle are there. Various Kardashians are there. We saw Kris Jenner, we saw Kim arrive, the epitome of class, in an elasticated bra and tight elastic pants with the name, the label Balenciaga on the waistband. I mean, if this isn't the height of glamour and sophistication, Tom Brady showed up. Orlando Bloom, newly single. And, you know, he made sure to get that press release out post haste so that when he was caught cavorting with no shortage of women at this wedding, there was no way Katy Perry could claim anything else. And by the way, one of my favorite gossip stories of the week was that Katy Perry was so upset that Orlando Bloom was on the verge of breaking up with her because he didn't understand. Okay? He didn't understand how consequential her space flight was. No, he thought it was ridiculous and embarrassing. To which I say, make Orlando an honorary troublemaker. We could accept he's at this wedding, so we can't. We can't. Okay? And, you know, as for these protests in Venice, which I'm. I'm living for, I. I wonder, where's Greta? This seems environmental overreach to me. You know, these people, this party overrunning 90 private jets. I could go on, but, you know, I think Greta's. Maybe she doesn't want to antagonize Jeff Bezos. Who knows? Another person who I think is dying over not being at the Bezos wedding is diddy. I think he's dying. I think he feels like he would have been on that invite list. I think he saw that foam party on that yacht and is thinking, like, that's. Hey, that's my material. I'm the originator of that stuff. My best stuff is going to waste over here. Okay. Anyway, his trial wrapping up in federal court in New York this week, so we'll have more when that verdict finally comes in. But it's nice to have a breather. It's nice to have a ditty breather. Okay, now onto Maria Shriver, who the past couple of days has been co hosting the fourth hour of the Today show with Jenna Bush Hager. So we have two political nepo babies together. Now. On Thursday morning's show, they were talking about the Bezos Sanchez wedding. And there were two things of note. One is Maria Shriver is sitting there going, I mean, she really must be a moron. You know, all of this media attention they're getting, it just makes me sad, you know, you think they would just want some privacy. It's not the point, Maria. That point just sailed way over your helmet hair. Okay, way. Then Maria and Gianna lamented not being on the invite list. We will be covering this whole wedding in depth on Tuesday's episode of the Nerve. We have a special guest coming on to break it all down then. So then Maria and Jenna took, like, an advice question from a viewer. And this question was about whether it was okay to exclude plus ones from invites to weddings if. If their guests aren't married to the date they want to bring. So Maria Shriver, who, again, is in her, like, mid to late 60s, I'm going to say, says, well, she has a very simple answer. And it's. I quote you, I quote, I quote, I quote, no ring, no bring. And Maria says this 80 times like it's a stroke of genius. But really, she sounds like a. More a moron. No ring, no bring. Like, if this is the metric. I mean, how many married couples do you know who you're. You're like, you know, they're. They might be on the verge of divorce, but because they're technically married, you're going to invite them. Whereas, like, say, if it's a couple that's lived together for several years and they're really in a committed marriage. You're not going to invite that plus one because they're, I mean, Maria Shriver, whoever's taking advice from this woman again, you know, we have visited and we will continue to revisit because she is trying to profit off of her idiocy. And she also then said she is doing an event with Hoda this weekend. Her close friend Hoda. She's doing, I guess It's a Joy 101 event, but Maria said on air, I have no idea what I'm doing there. So how close are you anyway? I'm just gonna tease. I'm gonna tease you. This mini nerve. It's, it's a dwarf minds special. Dwarf mind special. There are Kennedys all over it. There are morning show hosts all over it. Oprah's in it. It's a banger. And Jack Schlossberg's in it, too. So very exciting. Very exciting. Okay, so next up is one of our repeat offenders. And we have got a modern love for the ages for you. We will be back in a minute. It wasn't supposed to get this bad. You were on top of your bills. Then inflation hit. Groceries, gas, everything has been shooting up. Prices have increased by 26% from just a few years ago. 26%. Of course, it's not your fault that you've fallen into debt. So let me share a smarter, faster, far easier way out of it. It's called Done With Debt. And this is not like other debt relief companies. They do not push loans or bankruptcy on you. 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- [30:23]
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- [31:04]
Maureen Callahan
We are back. And you know, speaking of dwarf minds, I mean, this is an ever expanding category. Michelle Obama's out there, you know, banging that drum, bleeding her grievances against one Barack Obama. And now she's going on about why everybody's so interested in the state of her marriage. TI1. It's the only thing this woman has to talk about. It's the only thing. There is not another thought rattling around up there, I promise you. Now, I'm also going to say this, and it's because these people, they don't tell us the truth. Okay? I don't think she's ever come out and said how she's been dropping weight so quickly, but it looks like she's developing Ozempic face. It looks like her face is now. The facade we're seeing is now a combo of her utter misery seeping outward mixed with Ozempic face. And. And it's all accelerating. It's all accelerating in real time. Okay, so anyway, let's listen to Michelle on why she doesn't understand why we all think her marriage is in the toilet.
- [32:20]
Michelle Obama
The fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage. I mean, it's sort of so we still, you know, so that is the apocalypse. It's the apocalypse. It's like, okay, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. You just are not going to know what we're doing every minute of the day. You know? And yes, I guess we're famous, but we're 60.
- [32:44]
Maureen Callahan
You are. I guess we're famous. Michelle, you won't leave. You could easily retire, like, from public life, but you won't. And you're using speculation that you are ginning up about your marriage to stay in the spotlight. You said, oh, just because I'm not seen on dates with him. Well, you two made a very concerted effort to be seen on a date within the past two to three weeks in New York City. And yeah, you're full of shit. So keep. Keep banging that drum. Keep going. Blame us. Okay, now this is. This is so good. These people are going to tell you their story. And I can, but I can't, you know, okay, here's, here's how you know, something that the New York Times has published is too bonkers even for the executives there. They shut the comment section off. And this modern love. They shut the comment section off. It's a podcast and it's 40 minutes long. And it's a couple named Jacob Hoff and Samantha Greenstone. Now Jacob is a gay man and Samantha is a straight woman and they are married. And this is, they say, a real marriage. Even though Jacob only wants to have sex with men. And Samantha can't quite understand, can't quite understand why he doesn't want to have sex with her. Now listen, I'm going to say Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg did it first, did it best. But let's listen. Okay? Foreign. It's like if someone scripted this dialogue, you'd be like, it's a little too on the nose. It's a little too obvious. You gotta dial this detail back. Listen to Jacob talk about when they decided to marry. Like have a wedding and marry and celebrate their love. Their non sexual but romantic but platonic love. What Jacob wanted to walk down the aisle to.
- [35:09]
Jacob Hoff
I wanted to come down to the Phantom of the Opera. There, there's this moment, this woman just screams and it's like, dun dun, dun, dun dun dun. And I was like, that's what needs to happen as I appear in a mask.
- [35:26]
Maureen Callahan
He doesn't need to be an out gay man. Like, that's enough to tell you, honey, you're marrying a gay man. He wanted to walk down the aisle to the Phantom of the Opera while wearing the mask. I mean, metaphor of all metaphors. Okay? Now here's these people have zero self awareness. I mean, they are like, oh my God, I'm on a New York Times podcast. I must be so important. I'm redefining romantic love for the ages. Listen to Samantha talk about her vision for the wedding cake.
- [36:00]
Samantha Greenstone
I love Titanic. There was a point where I wanted to have a sinking Titanic on top of our wedding cake.
- [36:09]
Maureen Callahan
Again. I mean, that's the metaphor for the marriage. That's the future of it. You're going to go down like the Titanic. It's going to be that level of embarrassment, of fatality, of just, oh my God. Okay, now let's listen to Samantha telling us that she did realize or that I think he had told her at some point. Like as if you couldn't guess it. This guy is not passing, as it were. The moment she Knew. Here we go.
- [36:50]
Samantha Greenstone
It definitely felt sacred, and it felt like something that I had never experienced with anyone before. But it was also confusing because I knew that Jacob was gay.
- [37:09]
Maureen Callahan
So I. Forgive me, but I don't understand what's confusing here. He's a gay man. If you would like to enter a marriage as a straight woman, you should go find a guy who wants to have sex with you. You should find a guy who isn't gay. But, you know, the New York Times loves nothing more than making simple things complicated and then trying to intellectualize and rationalize them in ways that are sort of, then, we are told, are redefining and reclaiming things. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, so listen to Jacob again. The metaphors these people use, like they don't hear themselves think. Listen to him talk about the idea, being confronted with the idea that if he's going to go through with this and marry this woman, he's going to have to have sex with her at least once. Listen to this.
- [38:06]
Jacob Hoff
But that was the one. Kink in the hose.
- [38:12]
Maureen Callahan
The kink in the hose. If I'm an editor, if I am the modern love podcast editor at the New York Times and I am being forced to run this pod, I am. I am headlining it. Kink in the hose. Kink in the hose. Now they begin fighting because he's gay and she's straight and she wants to have sex with him and she won't get it through her head that gay men typically don't want to have sex with women. Listen.
- [38:48]
Jacob Hoff
And that then for me, translated into, unfortunately, a lot of anger. I would, I would be. It was like explosive. Like, you know, she would ask me something and I'd just be like, I'm gay. Why don't you get, I'm gay.
- [39:08]
Maureen Callahan
I really don't know what these two are doing. I. I mean, I'm gonna also tell you something. The Times gave them a write up in their wedding section, in their vow section. I mean, there's another epic vows thing that just ran last Sunday that we're gonna get to if we have time next week. But I mean, I like, what, what is the. He's being pretty open with what the problem is. I mean, he's also at fault because he went through with this. You know, he went through with this. Okay, so after that explosive argument, Samantha tells us that everything's cool. Everything's cool. And despite these bumps in the road, you know, these little flies on the windscreen, they're gonna be together forever.
- [40:00]
Samantha Greenstone
Listen to this just everything we've been through, I know that it's just deeper than just a sexual preference. I really think that once I understood that this is my soulmate and this is my person in life, and we have just found ourselves in this dynamic and form in this lifetime, it made me realize, okay, this is. He's not going anywhere. I'm not certain about a lot of things in life, but I am certain that Jacob is in this forever.
- [40:44]
Maureen Callahan
These two, by the way, are failed actors. They're like failed musical theater people. And you can hear it in her elocution because she goes, Sir, 10. I'm certain he's not going anywhere. I wouldn't be so sure, honey. Okay. In fact, I'm sure he's going somewhere. It's the nearest gay bar. And, you know, there's this Showtime reality series. It's more of a docu series called Couples Therapy. And it's this New York therapist named Orna. Her last name begins with a G. I don't want to mispronounce it, but she's treating real New York couples who are in crisis. And it's done by the same team who did Wiener. Actually, that incredible Anthony Weiner documentary I was telling you about. It's really fascinating because she's very, very bright. She's extremely smart. She's extremely sensitive. She's very, very good at what she does to a point. I mean, in the fourth season, she had a throuple in there and. And she was really, you could tell, fighting against herself to. Instead of being like, you guys, what are you doing? This isn't sustainable. She was really trying to, like, get herself there because she feels like the culture is there and that's where she should be. And she also. The one thing. This does make it fascinating viewing, though, because you're watching on multiple levels. The other thing that I think is something that she could work on is she too often takes any given client's self report to heart. Like the guy, Josh, who was at the heart of this throuple. It was him and two women. That guy, my opinion, I think dangerous guy. Dangerous. And he tells a story about a wildfire that he was probably responsible for, and he turns himself always into the victim. And alarm bell. She's not. Orna's not letting the alarm bells go off. But otherwise, she seems to be a really good shrink. And I recommend it. I recommend it anyway. Okay. This is also my reminder, by the way, before we get into anything else, to send me all of your thoughts. I'm back on Instagram. You can DM me. Also you can email me maureenvilmakehairmedia.com Remember to like and subscribe. Faster we grow here, faster we get to give you more and more of the nerve. Up next, you guys have been asking for this. I've been getting a lot of emails about Hugh Jackman. We're going to talk about it more Bill Maher and your emails coming up. Mundane and mediocre. That's for someone else. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. So why settle for boring food? This isn't about indulgence. It's about standards. You deserve better. And yes, that includes flavor. A flavor profile. Meghan Markle might say the rest of us call it flavor. Enter Firecracker Farm. You've heard Megyn Kelly rave about it. Maybe you caught it on Rogan. Thousands of five star reviews say it all. People are obsessed. Comments range from where has this been all my life? To how did I even live without this Now Firecracker Farm is a small family run American company making something truly crafted. It is not mass produced. It is not gimmicky. We are talking coarse sea salt flakes infused with the three kings known as ghost reaper and scorpion peppers. If this isn't up the alley of troublemakers, I don't know what is. These flakes are aged for depth. They are designed for balance. It is never too hot. It comes in a precision stainless steel grinder that gives you free full control. These flakes are not about melting your face off. This isn't hot ones over here, okay? This is sophisticated flavor with power and no regrets. The heat will hit in waves. Eggs transformed Veggies upgraded steak next level if it was sold out last time. Good news. Alex just made a fresh batch. It's still small batch, it's still handcrafted and it's still blowing minds. So go to Firecracker Farm and use code thenerve for a little extra. Thank you. Zero regret. All flavor Firecracker Farm Torrid fits.
- [45:06]
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- [45:39]
Maureen Callahan
Hello and welcome back. We are on to my absolute favorite part of the show, of any show, your emails. Now, this is from a troublemaker named Paul from Florida who wanted to share this. I think it's worth talking about. Gayle Craig. Gayle King crashes North Carolina wedding. It was a gay wedding. Now, I do want to talk about this, because we are always shown stuff like this in the culture. Like, oh, look, a celebrity crashed a wedding. Like, Tom Hanks was in the same hotel. He crashed a wedding. Isn't it great? Isn't he a nice guy? Isn't Gail a nice person? I say no. Think about the narcissism you need to possess to be like, huh, I'm staying in a venue and there's a wedding going on. And I don't know any of these people. And they. Well, they know me because I'm a famous person. One would think. But wouldn't they love it if I showed up? Wouldn't they love it if I just came in and said, hey, everyone, look at me. I mean, this is the biggest day of people's lives. You often hear movie stars say, you know, I go on red carpets. I get the. I get the treatment, the hair and the makeup and the photographs and the attention. And, like, that's like a wedding almost. This is the one day in most people's lives where they are the star. And assholes like Gail King. It's not enough that she's an astronaut now. It's not enough that she's over be fouling Venice with Oprah. She's got to crash a wedding and show what a great person she is. Oh, fuck off. Okay. Dear Maureen, please don't use my name. It's okay. Just signed a troublemaker. I wanted to share my lovely experience with one of the greatest minds of our time, Whoopi Goldberg. Now, this was circa 2006. At this point, the troublemaker says Whoopi's career was in the toilet and she was completely washed up. This troublemaker was super young and working on a promotional shoot. She doesn't want to get into specifics. These are identifying details. But it was like a public health issue, so it was like a psa. It wasn't some glitzy Hollywood affair. This troublemaker says, where behavior should be expected. This was something that celebrities were doing to, quote, show they care. And during these times, they are normally on their best behavior anyway. The American treasure known as Whoopi Goldberg. Black people have it worse than women in Iran. Whoopi Goldberg. Dwarf mind. Mini nerve. Keep an eye out. Obviously hadn't gotten the memo about not being an asshole because she acted as though the entire thing was a poor personal affront to her. I love the word affront. When I politely said hello to her, she said nothing and looked at me as though she was smelling a steaming pile of dog shit. It's the same feeling when you get when you watch her on the View, as if she were doing everyone a huge favor by simply showing up, giving her professionally aggrieved, idiotic hot takes and then collecting millions of dollars. Yes, I also pulled this minor ditty update from the Daily Mail, which scored an interview an exclusive one of Diddy's male escorts who money quote and showing quite a lot of self awareness. I was there for my penis. His penis got him in penis kept him in the party name of said escort, Anton Hardin. Again, nominative determinism. I think this from a troublemaker who asks to go by Trixie, I just can't help but write to you quietly about how I feel about Tyler Perry, who we got to the other episode Compared to Kevin Spacey, I was an extra. Again, these are just the testimonials of troublemakers. I was an extra on House of Cards every season and had the unique opportunity to watch Kevin in action. We could all see how he would pick out his boy toy for the day. When the director called cut, he would beeline it to whoever he picked out. He didn't care if the guy was gay or not. Also, crew came to realize that Kevin didn't like facial hair, so they all grew beards. Okay. And finally a very heartfelt email from a troublemaker named Melissa, Man's best friend. And this is this goes to the segment we just did with Bill from Brooklyn about a New York judge ruling that dogs are immediate family. My dad was one of those tough old farmers who never showed emotion. He had several working dogs, but one named Scott was special. He broke his leg jumping on the back of the truck as he went everywhere with dad. Most farmers where I come from would have put the dog down. Dad took Scott to the vet, they amputated his leg. So for the rest of Scott's life with only three legs, dad would lift him onto the truck and off they would go to work. Dad was 78 when he had a major stroke and was in the hospital for five weeks. I went home every day to help Scott. The three legged border collie cross sheepdog helped with all of this by mustering sheep to loading lambs on the truck. And all the rest of the time he would lie at the gate by the sheep yards, waiting for dad every day for five weeks, I couldn't get him to come home except for dinner. Dad finally came home. A few weeks later, the dog died. After the dad came home, I had never seen my father with tears in his eyes. That dog was. Was really his best friend. And she dug the grave under the chestnut tree to bury Scott because her dad wasn't strong enough. And I will say again to just the gift that dogs are to all of us. A few years ago, I had to have surgery. And it wasn't anything major, but, you know, surgery is surgery. You get up at 4 in the morning, it's dark, you're away for hours. And I had family helping me out and went to the hospital, left my dog at home. And I was told when I got back maybe three in the afternoon, that my dog, Teddy, Teddy Van Halen, who you can see on Instagram, had sat at the front door and wouldn't move for anything until I came back. And, you know, you can't articulate that kind of love. You just can't do it. So anyway, onto a. A human male dog, Hugh Jackman, whose nice guy reputation is in the toilet. And it's crumbling, and it's crumbling. And again, I have been hearing from a lot of you troublemakers in Australia that you've been wanting a little bit of a discussion about Hugh because a lot of you have never bought the image. And, you know, I found this, this edition of the Star with Deb, his former wife, Deb Lee Furness, who had been with Hugh forever. When they got together, she was the famous one. She was the star, she was the celebrity, she was the accomplished actress. Hugh was like on the come up, he was the grinder. He was trying to make it. And she wound up putting her career on the back burner for him. And she was reporting reportedly, always the brains behind Hugh Jackman Inc. And you know, what does he do? He ups and he leaves her. Sorry. He ups and he leaves her for his co star, Sutton Foster in the Music Man. And it's not going over well. And they just reportedly wrapped up the terms of their divorce. It was filed here out in Suffolk County. They have a house out in East Hampton or had. I don't know who's getting it or if they're selling it, but Deb has begun speaking out and she's normally a very private person. She said, my heart and compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal. I'm going to give her a pass on traversed and journey because she's clearly going through it. She said the breakup is a profound wound that cuts deep. I am going to guess that there will not be a divorce memoir, as speculated here, because she has probably signed the mother of all NDAs. But I think it's going to work out for Deb in the long run. And just another anecdote. These people are just like, you know, the ones who are like, oh, I don't like attention. I don't know how I became. I got to be such, like a famous movie star. How did that happen? I was never gunning for that. During COVID a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of people who lived in the city relocated full time out to their homes on the east end of Long Island. And Hugh Jackman and Deb Furness were apparently among them. Because I was in a grocery store out here and everybody had to be masked up. Back then to go anywhere in New York, you had to be masked up so you couldn't. There was no recognizing anybody. And I'm online getting ready to go to the cash register, and there's this tall guy and a smaller woman who looks a little bit older. The guy is ripped, and suddenly he's speaking from his diaphragm to the cash register attendant. And most of these people like English is their second language, you know, but he's laughing and he's blah, blah. And it's the unmistakable voice of Hugh Jackman, who couldn't even just do a humble transaction at the grocery store at the height of a global pandemic without drawing attention to himself. So there you go now to Bill Maher. To Bill. He's still, still trying to clean up after his editorial about abused women deserving what they get if they don't leave immediately. So this was his op ed, his new rules section, the ed editorial he does at the end of that on last Friday's show, which. And then he announced he's taking a month off. And as I've said, he's taking a month off. We hit the nerve. Or not. So first he's doing this op ed on how the culture depicts men as idiots. And he is then venturing into famous men who have long been saying, you know, or ever since it became chic, that women are superior to men and how wrong they are. And Bill chose as one of his prime exhibits Barack and Michelle Obama. Let's take a look.
- [56:01]
I
Even Barack Obama says about women that what I can say pretty indisputably is that you're better than us.
- [56:08]
Maureen Callahan
Really?
- [56:08]
I
Because I don't remember Michelle taking out bin Laden.
- [56:18]
Maureen Callahan
Again. Even Bill's reportedly paid audience at $70. An episode that comes from a company called Standing Room Only that provides said audiences. Thank you, troublemaker who gave that inside information was like, are we supposed to laugh at this? It's not funny. And like, Bill took a look around and literally stuck his tongue out. Now he showed that very famous image of Barack Obama and his top advisors in the Situation Room watching that raid on bin Laden. And in that room is one Hillary Clinton. So, yeah, no, Bill, Michelle wouldn't be in the Situation Room because she wasn't a member of the Cabinet. She was First Lady. He can't resist. Like, he can't, he just can't stop himself with the misogyny. He just cannot. Now he then goes on to put a target on Andrew Tate's back for, and I mean this metaphorically as a refuge for young men. And he's explaining that young men are flocking by the millions and billions to the likes of Andrew Tate, who's an accused rapist because of this rhetoric that seeks to elevate women who Bill thinks don't need elevation because they've already been made equal in the culture. Even though Bill just told us that battered women deserve it if they don't leave right away because it's their fault instead of blaming the men who beat the shit out of women. Okay, let's go now.
- [57:49]
I
If you don't know who he is, your teenage son does. He's an accused rapist turned influencer whose videos get billions of views where he says things like, women should bear responsibility for being sexually assaulted. Yes, he's a huge asshole.
- [58:08]
Maureen Callahan
Oh my God, Bill. Bill does. Bill doesn't see it. Bill has the self awareness of the gay man and the straight woman who are married in modern love. He says Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate blames women who have been sexually assaulted for being sexually assaulted. He's an asshole. Bill, look in the mirror. Physician, heal thyself. You share more cultural DNA with Andrew Tate than you would like to admit. Catharsis. It was all very cathartic. It flew. It flew for me. So that's it for today. We have another very special mini nerve for you this weekend. And this one, like, it just, it flew out of me. I'm like dying to get to it with you. It's going to drop on Saturday at 10 in the morning. Remember, the minis are only on YouTube at the moment. So go to YouTube, I will meet you there and then we will see you back here for the post. Game. Wrap up of the Bezos Sanchez Unholy Union next week on the Nerve where you will never guess what we are about to say next.
- [59:21]
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- [59:53]
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