Bill Maher Uses Diddy to Blame the Victims, "And Just Like That" Premiere Flop, and Frenemy Tactics

Summary

The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Episode: Bill Maher Uses Diddy to Blame the Victims, "And Just Like That" Premiere Flop, and Frenemy Tactics
Release Date: June 3, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, host Maureen, affectionately known as Maureen Callahan, delves deep into contentious topics spanning from Bill Maher's controversial remarks to the underwhelming premiere of the Sex and the City sequel, And Just Like That. Additionally, the episode features an insightful conversation with comedian and author Mike Albo about the complexities of friendships and frenemy dynamics.

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Bill Maher’s Controversial Remarks

Timestamp [00:32 – 39:17]

Maureen opens the discussion by vehemently addressing Bill Maher's recent monologue on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. She criticizes Maher's tendency to blame victims in cases of domestic abuse, particularly highlighting his stance during the Diddy (Sean Combs) trial.

Key Points:

• Maher's Treatment of Women: Maureen points out Maher's problematic behavior towards female guests, noting his subtle contempt and dismissive attitude. She shares specific instances, including Maher's relationship history and his interactions on his show.

• Victim Blaming: Central to the critique is Maher's editorial on the Diddy trial, where he suggested that victims of abuse are partly to blame for their circumstances. Maureen vehemently disagrees, emphasizing the complex emotional and psychological factors that trap victims in abusive relationships.

Notable Quotes:

• Maureen Callahan:
  "If it were that simple, there would be no more women for men to beat the shit out of."
  [08:04]

• Maureen Callahan:
  "This is disgusting. He's equating surviving a brutal beating to something trivial."
  [10:18]

• Maureen Callahan:
  "Bill, Fuck you. I don't want to hear your contemporaneous accounts."
  [12:31]

Maureen underscores the severity of Maher's statements by juxtaposing them with real-life examples of abuse, including high-profile cases involving Rihanna and Chris Brown, Tina Turner, and Pam Anderson. She passionately argues that Maher's perspective not only perpetuates harmful stereotypes but also causes significant damage to societal understanding of domestic violence.

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"And Just Like That" Premiere Flop

Timestamp [43:54 – 84:04]

Shifting gears, Maureen critiques the much-anticipated premiere of And Just Like That, the sequel to the iconic Sex and the City. She expresses disappointment with the show's direction, character development, and overall execution.

Key Points:

• Character Development: Maureen criticizes the portrayal of Carrie Bradshaw, highlighting unrealistic and outdated behavior, such as the absurd hat choice and questionable relationship dynamics with Aiden.

• Production Quality: She laments the lack of involvement from original creators like Patricia Field, resulting in poor costume choices and lackluster storytelling.

• Audience Reception: Referencing viewer comments, Maureen illustrates the widespread dissatisfaction, citing issues like character inconsistencies and off-putting scenes.

Notable Quotes:

• Maureen Callahan:
  "This is, this is a show that exists as a shrine to the ego of Sarah Jessica Parker."
  [50:47]

• Maureen Callahan:
  "The choice of that hat alone, they'd have her committed."
  [50:47]

• Maureen Callahan:
  "Kim Cattrall is laughing hysterically at her former castmates... what a waste of space."
  [59:05]

Maureen delves into specific scenes that she finds problematic, such as Carrie’s exaggerated sexual behavior and the unrealistic romantic gestures from Aiden. She also touches upon the lack of meaningful character arcs and the superficial representation of complex issues, ultimately questioning the show's relevance and authenticity.

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Frenemy Tactics: Guest Mike Albo

Timestamp [66:34 – 84:04]

In the latter half of the episode, Maureen introduces comedian and author Mike Albo, who co-authored The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life. Their discussion centers on identifying and dealing with underminers—those toxic individuals who drain your emotional well-being.

Key Points:

• Definition of an Underminer:
  "An underminer is that friend who makes you feel really horrible about yourself no matter what you do. They always have a feeling that they're better than you."
  [67:02]

• Identifying Underminers:
  Mike explains how underminers often disguise their toxic behavior under the guise of concern, making it difficult for victims to recognize the manipulation.

• Dealing with Underminers:
  Both Maureen and Mike share strategies for addressing and mitigating the impact of underminers in personal and professional settings.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Albo:
  "She was talking about her boy friends and how this untouched relationship had actually become a disaster."
  [77:08]

• Maureen Callahan:
  "You have to be sly about it and just be like, 'Oh, okay, wow.'"
  [78:25]

• Mike Albo:
  "When you get obsessed with comparing yourself to other people, which we all do all the time, but if the more aware you are that you're comparing and that other people are comparing, the better off you are."
  [79:20]

The conversation provides valuable insights into the subtle ways underminers operate and offers practical advice on maintaining healthy relationships by setting boundaries and fostering self-awareness.

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Conclusion

Maureen Callahan's episode intertwines sharp critiques of influential public figures like Bill Maher and dissecting the flaws in popular culture phenomena such as And Just Like That. Coupled with enlightening discussions on personal relationships and toxicity with Mike Albo, this episode encapsulates Maureen's commitment to tackling uncomfortable conversations with humor, skepticism, and unwavering honesty.

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Notable Quotes Recap:

• "If it were that simple, there would be no more women for men to beat the shit out of." — Maureen Callahan [08:04]
• "An underminer is that friend who makes you feel really horrible about yourself no matter what you do." — Mike Albo [67:02]
• "You have to be sly about it and just be like, 'Oh, okay, wow.'" — Maureen Callahan [78:25]

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the fervent discussions and critical perspectives offered in this episode of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the topics covered and the insights shared.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

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And this is the biggest offense of last week and that's saying something because we just lived through Hoda Kopi's Joy101 app launch. Okay, saying of something. We're also going to have a big catharsis amongst ourselves over the first episode of and just like that, we got so much audience response to the Sex and the City segment. We did a couple of episodes back and I've been hearing from you guys since since that first episode of season three dropped on Thursday night. And this is why we're here. Because we're all gonna come together and get through it together. We're all thinking the same thing. Trust me. We've also got some more real talk about fake people, plus a guest I'm really excited about. This guy wrote one of the funniest books I've ever read. Mike Albo is a New York City based comedian and the co author of the urban classic the Underminer or the best friend who casually destroys your life. I think we've all had one or two. We're going to talk complicated friendships, how to read people's true motivations, how to spot a predator in the wild, and when it's time to call time on a friendship. But first, this, okay, we're. This, this one's going out back. We're taking him out back and he's getting what's coming to him. Bill Maher. Bill Maher. I have been dying, dying to talk to you guys about this since I saw it, I saw it in real time, which is quite fitting on his show on Friday night. So I am a regular viewer of Bill Maher's show on HBO Real Time with Bill Maher. It usually airs most every Friday night live from LA. So it airs at 10pm in New York and 7pm in LA. I watch. I am a fan, but I am a qualified fan because I have some real issues with Bill. And namely it goes to the way he's, he treats women. Now. He's gotten a little bit better at hiding his contempt on the air, you know, especially when he's got like a woman one on one. And it always depends who that woman is and her status and is she a damn, you know, whatever, you know. And, and I say this even though he is one of the lone voices on the left. And I honestly, I don't even know if he identifies as a leftist or a progressive anymore. But he's always interesting, he' always challenging, and he's one of those very few voices, along with the late Christopher Hitchens, along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins. To take real issue with what Islamic fundamentalists do to their women, and that's namely mutilate their genitalia, marry them off as small girls to adult men, cover them from head to toe in burkas, denying them their education, their sexual agency. If you're raped, you're probably gonna get murdered by a member of your own family, a male family member in what are called honor killings. And you know, the right to spring or speak rather, or sing outside of the four walls of their own homes. And those voices, a passerby can't hear them either. Okay, so now let's talk about what went down on Friday night on his show where he often, more often than not, he will have two male panelists. Before COVID there used to be three. Now it's down to two. And more often than not, it's two guys he's talking to. And then when he does have on, he will often roll his Eyes in utter contempt at whatever point she might be trying to make. These are guests in your house? I would consider that a guest in my house. I wouldn't invite people on to roll my eyes at them or like, smack the table, you know, and smirk and talk down to them, you know, okay. Like on a. There was a 2002 EP22 sorry, 2022 episode on a show a few years ago. He had a guest named Chris. Catherine Rampel. Sorry, Catherine Rampel. She was a WaPo op ed columnist, and she was talking about restricted abortion. And Bill blew it off, saying, it doesn't affect my life. I ain't getting anybody pregnant. No, he's not. Bill instead, infamously dated a woman who goes by, or went by the name Superhead. She was a lot younger, and her real name was Karine Steffens. And when they broke up after two or three years of dating, I think it was on and off dating. She said this to Vibe magazine, and I quote, bill wants someone he can put down in an argument. Her quotes, her words, not mine, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is, and that you're an idiot. That's why you never see him. She says, with a white girl or an intellectual, I might as well have been a Muslim woman with my head wrapped, walking 10 paces behind my man. Interesting. Most recently, he's been photographed with Al Pacino, Sugar Baby Nor Alfala, if I'm saying that correctly. Bill is 68, Noor is 30. And Bill, you know, he was something infamously of an incel as a teenager and young man. He talks about this all the time on his show. I don't think he uses that word, but he talks about all the time. It's still with him how girls and women wanted nothing to do with him in high school or college. He hasn't gotten over that. He was also a habituate at Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion. And there are no shortage of former playmates or girlfriends of Hefner's who have come forward lo these many years to say what a house of horrors that was. And not just the stuff they were forced to do sexually. You know, Bill would say, I'm using the word forced, probably like inappropriately, but, you know, what do you want to call it? Coercion? We'll go with that. Okay. And I'm not just talking. I mean, I'm talking like hygienically, because there were strangers in that house all having group sex and all variety of just whatever, you know. So Bill gets on TV Last Friday. And he decides that his closing monologue, he's going to, I guess he calls it his editorial. He's going to use the Diddy trial as, I guess, his Trojan horse to talk about women who are abused by their partners, women who are stuck in relationships with men that are violent. And he's here to tell us it's all our fault. It's all the fault of these women. If you are getting beaten up by your man, your husband, you know, it's your fault if you don't leave after the first one. Your fault. Okay, we're gonna take this guy apart, okay? We are going to metaphorically savage him limb from limb, and we are going to leave his verbal carcass to be feasted upon by wild boars. Roll this clip. Beginning.

[Guest Speaker]

Things have changed enough so that moving forward, the rules should be, if you're being abused, you gotta leave right away.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, I'm just gonna say this. If it were that simple. If the women, women who typically get into abusive relationships have a lot of backstory and a lot of complicated emotional, psychological, maybe physical trauma, you know, and abusers can spot these women like that. So if it were that simple and there were just an algorithm, a simple equation that women could follow, you know, there would be no more women for men to beat the shit out of. Okay, Bill, moving on.

[Guest Speaker]

Now I completely understand why in the past, women often did not do that. I understand, as counterintuitive as it seems, why an abused woman would send complimentary texts or emails to her abuser after the abuse. In an era where women felt for good reason that OG predators like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein would never be held accountable, why not at least get something out of it?

[Podcast Host]

Okay, Several issues, Bill. Number one, Bill Cosby's out of prison. Okay. Harvey is appealing his guilty verdict in New York. Okay. Why not get something out of it? During the initial Harvey trial here in New York, which I paid extremely diligent, close attention to, the prosecution was sure to call an expert in rape survivors because a lot of these women had maintained very friendly relationships with Harvey. Some of them continued to have sex with him. And as she explained, as this expert witness explained, it is often a way to that a survivor, especially a survivor who had a prior relationship with her rapist, tries to gain control and make sense out of what happened to her because it's so traumatic that someone that you knew and trusted violated you in this way. So I think Bill is confusing, like an old school casting couch. And again, if you want to tell me The Bill Maher hadn't heard a goddamn peep about Harvey Weinstein and what he was up to on the east coast, the west coast, internationally. I knew, Okay? I knew. If I knew, he knew. Okay, let's move on.

[Guest Speaker]

In that scenario, it was not illogical for an abused woman to say, well, if I can't get justice for my pain, can I at least get a receipt? A couple.

[Podcast Host]

This is disgusting. This is disgusting. He's equating surviving a brutal beating. Like, look at what we just saw Cassie go through on that videotape. Sean Combs was trying to deny it until that video got published by cnn and then he was up Schitt's creek. Okay, but you know, it's definitely worth taking a beating and going limp on the floor to try to protect your lower organs or having a man who hates women so much try to disfigure you by like marring your beauty by punching you in the face. I take a coupon for that. Sure. Okay. Let's hear more about how Bill has come to inform himself on this most consequential topic of domestic violence against women.

[Guest Speaker]

And I'm aware that it can be difficult to leave an abusive relationship. Most of what I watch on TV is the Lifetime channel.

[Podcast Host]

That's just a straight up misogynistic joke. That is just a straight up misogynistic joke because Lifetime's programming is geared towards women. And he says so blithely and confidently, I understand it can be difficult to leave. Do you, Bill? Because I don't think you know many lower income women who are yoked to their men by financial desperation or whose only option would be to leave their minor children, their very small children with an abuser. And they don't have the resources or the outlets that you do. Or like the rich, famous women you think you. You would think would have. Which we are going to get to. Okay, we're going to get to. Because Bill is going to rue the fucking day he did this fucking monologue. Okay, next up, let's go.

[Guest Speaker]

But this should be society's new grand bargain. We take every accusation seriously. But don't tell me any more about your contemporaneous account that you said to two friends 10 years ago, tell the police right away, don't wait a decade, don't journal about it, don't turn it into a one woman show. And most importantly, don't keep fucking him.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, Bill, Fuck you. Fuck you. I don't want to hear your contemporaneous accounts. We are all seeing play out in real time. Witnesses taking the stand, grown men, grown men who are twice the size of Sean Combs say that they were terrified of him, that they knew he could have them killed, that he would threaten to have family members killed. So maybe there's a reason people didn't come forward, forward right away. Maybe there's a reason when you've got women on the witness stand in downtown New York City saying they thought that Sean Combs had far too many ties to the police in New York or LA or Miami, that there was no way they would even bother reporting it. We're talking about a systemic, institutionalized, fucked up system that has always been against women as far as this shit goes. So you can go fuck off with your edicts that you don't want to hear about contemporaneous reports from ten fucking years ago. Fuck you. Now here is Bill on why he's not victim shaming with this little piece here.

[Guest Speaker]

It's not victim shaming to expect women to have the agency to leave toxic relationships. Quite the contrary. To not expect that is infantilizing them. If Diddy walks free, it will be because his lawyers can point to an endless stream of text from Cassie expressing what's often called enthusiastic consent to their sex life. If you're me tooing someone, it doesn't help your case if you texted him, me too. I just want it to be uncontrollable. If you want us to think you weren't always ready to freak off, don't write, I'm always ready to freak off.

[Podcast Host]

Okay? That, yeah, he knew. He looked at that audience member and was sort of like, I don't know that that's appropriate. And throughout the whole bit, the audience was largely silent. Like, they were like. I think that they were like, are we hearing what we think we're hearing? Are we hearing? So, you know, again, as. As discussed, displayed and understood by a jury in New York City that was composed of more men than women, a jury that convicted Harvey of this stuff, they heard very complicated, nuanced testimony. You know, in the beginning of the relationship, maybe Cassie was into it. Okay, fine. Who cares? That doesn't apply to the entirety of the relationship where she's. She's got images, there's video, you know, of her being beaten. There are reports, there are witnesses, there are grown men who said, I had to stand there and watch this guy beat the shit out of her because he had people in that room who were threatening to kill me if I didn't just stand there and watch it. You know, so it's not like a blanket. Like, it's like. That is the equivalent of saying if a woman sleeps with a guy once, let's say someone has slept with Bill Maher once and they go out on another date with him and they're like, you know what? I don't want to fuck you again. That doesn't give you the right, Bill Maher to have sex with her again because she did it once. I mean, is this the kind of binary thinking, the kind of low level intellectual energy you are bringing to one of the most fraught subjects that. That women are still fucking dealing with? Are you fucking kidding me? Next up, we're going to hear how the music industry is so highly sexualized that of course, what was Sean Diddy Combs to do but abuse allegedly multiple women and men lo these many years? Let's have Bill educate us.

[Guest Speaker]

And music is, to begin with, highly sexualized. Magic doesn't strike at the office. It strikes in the studio at 3am when you're high as a kite and horny as a youth minister and everyone is sexy as shit. And you're working on a song called Slut Up My Goo Machine, of course.

[Podcast Host]

A freak off breaks out Slut up My Goo Machine. Bill, if I may, you need younger writers and you need more females in your writer's room. I don't know if there are women. The women who do work on his show can speak freely to Bill, but you need some women who can speak freely to you, Bill, because there is a difference. And, you know, we all get it. Rock and roll Hollywood. We all get it. These are industries that are pushing the norms and, you know, they're sort of things go on among consenting adults that are, whatever, whatever, fine, we all get it. There's a difference between that and what Cassie endured. The beatings she endured, I will never forget in her. In her legal complaint. I think that was the civil suit she brought against him. And it's coming up again in this criminal case against Diddy. He stomped her face in the back of an suv. He stomped her face with his feet. She was beaten so severely, she threw up. He made her get breast implants and within 24 hours had her back in a plastic surgeon's office, demanding that plastic surgeon remove them because he didn't like the way they fucking looked and put new ones in. And the surgeon said, I'm sure, Mr. Combs, sir, I can't do that. She needs to heal first. From. We cannot open this woman back up. And whatever Sean Combs said in that office scared that doctor enough to do it. Okay, so we're not dealing with a guy who likes to throw some sex parties now and then. Okay, now let's have Bill explain to us why we women should have been getting this memo all along. Because we've got people in the culture to teach us and tell us what's what. Let's look at this.

[Guest Speaker]

But if we're going to have an honest conversation about abuse, we also have to have an honest conversation about what people are willing to do for stardom. If you want a number one record on the chart so bad, you'll take a number one in the face, some of that is on you. And if you're doing it for love, well, come on. Oprah and Dr. Phil and every podcaster in the world have done a million shows by now about how abuse is not love and abusers don't change. If it happened once, there will be more of it.

[Podcast Host]

So, Oprah, we're going to get to Oprah on this very, very topic. We should know because Oprah told us. Oprah, Oprah, who blamed us all for making her feel bad about being fat and having to lie about going on Ozempic. I'm not hearing any of that shit. Okay? This is an extremely complicated issue that more than one extremely powerful, successful, famous woman of great means and resources has found herself in. The next example Bill gives us is that of The British singer FKA Twigs, who had dated the actor Shia LaBeouf and has filed suit against him for abuse in their relationship. And everybody knows In Hollywood, Shia LaBeouf, allegedly, he's a handful. He's. I believe he was arrested for assault in, I think Sundance one year. I'd have to look that up. But anyway, listen to. Listen to Bill on why FKA Twigs should, I guess, in his estimation, take her lumps, pun intended.

[Guest Speaker]

But by her own account, she said, the whole time I was with him, I could have bought myself a business flight plane ticket back to my four story townhouse in Hackney, London. Really? Then why am I reading about this? Then do that. Buy that plane ticket, even if you have to go coach. If you're literally being held captive, that's one thing. But if you're putting up with whatever for love or for your career, then you need to have a little more honesty and accountability about that. Ike Turner was a psycho, just like Diddy. But in an era where there was no movement to help her, Tina Turner somehow got away. And she did it with 36 cents in her pocket and a mobile card.

[Podcast Host]

Okay? To FKA twigs, Bill, the reason she's saying that she still, with all of her money and her resources, didn't book that plane ticket is the very point. He had infected her mind. He had fucked her up psychologically. Women don't stay because they enjoy being treated like punching bags by men. Okay, Excuses for men, I should say. They stay because their minds have been so fucked with and they can't believe this is happening to them. That is the exact fucking point. And you are just way too smart to not understand this, to be so willfully ignorant. And we're going to get to Tina Turner, by the way, who, you know, it's not like I killed her once and she was out the fucking door. It took her years and she had kids with him, so fuck off. Okay? Now to my point, we are going to talk about very famous, wealthy, powerful women who have been brave and have been openly talking about their own experiences. You know, I will never forget anybody who was around when this happened. You know, Rihanna, she was. She was like a supernova. She was such a star. She was so beautiful. And everything she put out was like a banger. And she gets with Chris Brown and they go to the Grammys. And the next day we all went online, opened the paper, and we saw what Chris Brown did to Rihanna. And here she is talking to who Bill thinks should be teaching us about this complicated issue, Oprah fucking Winfrey, who. Whose response is frankly, less than stellar. Let's take a look at this. In 2009, just days after Rihanna and her then boyfriend, pop star Chris Brown.

[Bill Maher]

Were photographed seated next to each other smiling, this image was leaked to the public. In the early morning hours of February.

[Podcast Host]

8, 2009, Chris Brown and Rihanna left.

[Bill Maher]

Clyde Davis annual pre Grammy party.

[Podcast Host]

According to police reports, while driving home, the two got into a heated argument.

[Bill Maher]

Which escalated into a vicious and violent attack.

[Podcast Host]

First of all, Oprah, I don't know if it was her legal team or not, but you could push back for calling that a fight. That, quote, escalated. We all just saw Rihanna's face beaten to a pulp in that clip. Okay? That's not a fair fight. You know, again, a man assaulting a woman like that, that's not a man. And that is a vicious assault. And Chris Brown, by the way, just got arrested again in England. He was stupid enough to go back because there was a warrant out for him for assaulting, I believe, a music manager in a nightclub. He broke a bottle over the guy's head. The guy fell to the floor and then he started kicking and punching him. That's Chris Brown. That's a guy. Those guys do not fucking change. But okay, so Rihanna sits down with Oprah and talks about this. And listen very closely to how she talks about what happened to her and what she was thinking in the immediate minutes, hours and days after that vicious assault on her.

[Bill Maher]

But nobody could feel that more than me. I was hurt the most. Nobody felt what I felt like. So it was. You hurt the most?

[Podcast Host]

Because it happened.

[Bill Maher]

It happened. It happened to me, and it happened to me in front of the world. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was hurtful. You know, it's not easy. I lost my best friend. Like, everything I knew switched. Switched in a night, and I couldn't control that, so I had to deal with that. And that's not easy for me to understand or interpret. And it's not easy to interpret on camera, not with the world watching. So it was hard for me to even pay attention to my mind and figuring things out, because now it became a circus. And I felt protective. Like, I felt like the only person they hate right now is him. It was. It was a weird. It was a weird, confusing space to be in. Because as angry as I was, as angry and hurt and betrayed, I just felt like he made that mistake because he needed help. And, like, who's gonna help him? Nobody's gonna say he needs help. Everybody's gonna say he's a monster without looking at the source. And I was more concerned about him.

[Podcast Host]

That is really powerful. Okay, the takeaway. And we'll get into the whole thing, because there's a lot there. But Rihanna, through tears, you can tell she's struggling to keep her composure, is admitting that despite what he did to her face and how brutally he beat her and how humiliated she was on the world stage, because now everybody knows she's in an abusive relationship and a guy did that to her, that she was concerned about him, that her number one concern was about him, and that people were going to think he is a monster, which, in my opinion, he is. He has not changed. He is a monster. And that she's worried that people aren't looking at the source of the behavior. And listen, women who have dated guys who are not great, and we've all been there, you know, when you're really in it, you're like, but he just doesn't understand why he's behaving this way. Trust me, they do. And if they don't, they don't even care. Okay? And she's saying. She goes on to say, by the way, in, in that interview later that she's still in love with him. She went back to him after that beating. She went back to him and it was public. Everybody knew it because the paparazzi were following them, following them everywhere. They couldn't believe it. Right. But what Oprah has to say to that, to Rihanna saying, no, I was, I was more focused on him than, than, than myself. That my own physical and emotional well being and my safety, I was worried about him. Oprah says that's really powerful. That's not the answer, Oprah. And so to Bill Maher, who thinks that we all got educated by Oprah Winfrey, I would like to disabuse you of that notion with that very clip. Now we're going to go to Mariah Carey, who was asked about Rihanna in an interview around that time. Mariah had very famously, very famously been in a marriage. She, she was discovered at a very tender age. She was like 19, 20. Tommy Mottola, a much older, very powerful, very powerful music executive signed her and then he married her. I believe he left his wife and married Mariah Carey. And there were always whispers, you know, that things were really, really sick up. She was like kept upstate. She was a young girl at the height of her, of her power, of her beauty, of her talent. And this guy was keeping her locked away in a big mansion in like, I believe it was upstate New York. And there were always whispers that that was an abusive relationship. Listen to Mariah on Rihanna. You know Rihanna?

[Bill Maher]

Yes, I do.

[Podcast Host]

What did you make of that story?

[Bill Maher]

Oh yeah, yikes. I don't know. I think that I can't imagine if I had been like let. I was very, as, you know, sequestered when I first started out and if I was just allowed to be like young and with a young boyfriend who's also a star and you know, you're working and you're both. I don't know what goes on. You know what I mean? So it's like I wasn't really allowed out of the house.

[Podcast Host]

I wasn't really allowed out of the house. For Mariah Carey to say that on national television took a lot of guts because that guy, I believe was a very, very dangerous guy. And when she finally got that divorce, it was, it was, it, it had the feeling of like again, it's just the feeling I got from all the reading I did about it. But that she basically kind of escaped with her life. She had to sing the kind of music this Tommy Mottola wanted her doing. She wanted to be Young and cool and like running with the hip hop crowd and doing music that was like of the moment, not like torch songs, you know. So there were always rumors that that was an abusive relationship. And she is asked directly, and I think she had to sign the mother of all NDAs to get out of that. But you notice she never uses her ex husband's name. But listen to her try to answer this question of, have you been abused like that?

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you've never been abused like that?

[Podcast Host]

Ever been hit by anyone?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Anyone ever abuse you?

[Bill Maher]

Abuse has several categories.

[Podcast Host]

You've been emotionally abused.

[Bill Maher]

Emotionally, mentally.

[Guest Speaker]

Why is it hard to get out of it?

[Bill Maher]

Well, it's scary. You know, I just think you get into a situation and you feel locked in. If your situation is similar to one of these situations I've been in, which.

[Podcast Host]

I won't, but it is hard to.

[Bill Maher]

Get out for me to really get out. It was difficult because there was a connection that was not only a marriage but a, you know, business thing where the person was in control of my life.

[Podcast Host]

The person was in control of my life. Okay, if you're not watching and you're only listening to this, I encourage you to go watch this section of the show in particular, because Mariah Carey, she's not having trouble articulating her thoughts. You can see her being extremely careful in choosing her words so she doesn't incite a reaction or a major lawsuit from this extremely powerful man. So she can't even tell her own story about what happened to her. And she's saying right there, abuse takes many forms. Being locked in a house and you can't have friends or family over, you can't go out, you can't live your life. Can't do what you want, you can't make the music you want. That's abuse. Okay, Was he beating her? We don't know. But, you know, it doesn't. Doesn't sound great. Okay, so then Mariah gets out. Mariah gets out and she wants. She wants to be in with the hip hop crowd and she wants to be doing music that's like, again, of the moment. And she makes this incredible album called Butterfly. You know, the title was meant to be evocative of her newfound freedom. You know, I don't think Mariah knows that much about butterflies. They only live six weeks. But that said. So look who helped Mariah out on her first record after extricating herself from this incredibly difficult, complicated, what she says was an abusive marriage to this record executive, Tommy Mottola. Look who helped her out so what we're. What we're seeing here is the music video for honey from 2015. And none other. I think he was going by P. Diddy back then, was all over this. He helped produce the record. He did a bad boy remix of the single. He was all over that video, you know, leering at her, rubbing up against her. You know, she went from one predator to another. And I'm sure at that time, Diddy posited himself to her as someone who was going to help her get her freedom. Okay? That industry is so fucking dirty. Hollywood's dirty. Bill Maher fucking knows that he can go fuck himself. I can't say it enough. Onto our next one, our next powerhouse of a female, Reese Witherspoon, who just sold her company, hello Sunshine, for like a billion dollars. Here she again with Oprah. Oprah promoting Big Little Lies, which she produced and starred in. And at the heart of that story is a gor. It's not Reese. It's the Nicole Kidman character. A successful, gorgeous, wealthy woman, a wife and a mother who is in a physically abusive marriage. And here's Rhys on how everyone, every single woman who was working on that project had a fucking story. Listen to this. It was incredible when we did Big Little Lies, how we would sit around all the women and talk about. Each one of us had very similar specific experiences. They weren't. There was a range of experiences, but there wasn't a woman there that hadn't been affected by abuse. Not one of those women. And it's why we decided to make this show. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I.

[Podcast Host]

And I'm hard pressed to find any group of women where you can't say it happened. It happened to my sister. It happened to my mom.

[Bill Maher]

I saw this.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Oprah, if she had something valuable to say in that conversation, I didn't see it either. Okay? Charlize Theron, whose father was so physically abusive to her mother. And that's all we know. She's always been vague on the length of time it sounds like it was her whole life. Charlize's. That one night when Charlize was still a teenager, her mother shot and killed her father. Her mother shot and killed Charlize's father. Okay? So here she is on Drew Barrymore show talking about the lasting scars of that extremely traumatic abusive childhood. I'm not so eager to jump into a relationship because I'm so proud of the fact that my kids live in a home where they feel safe and.

[Bill Maher]

They feel like they're never gonna have.

[Podcast Host]

To walk on eggshells.

[Bill Maher]

And they're never gonna have to come.

[Podcast Host]

Down and worry about how their day is gonna go because mom's boyfriend is not, you know, or. I don't want any of that because I was. That's how I was raised.

[Bill Maher]

And it's a horror.

[Podcast Host]

It leaves. It leaves marks on you for sure. By the way, do you remember when Charlize was dating Bill's really great friend, Sean Penn? That was back from like 2013 to 2015. I went and looked it up, and they were this very hot, unlikely couple. The tabloids were all over them. There were sources coming from her camp. You know, she's famously marriage averse. You can see why, who were saying, you know, that she was so in love with Sean Penn that she might even marry him. She was considering it. And then Charlie's ghosted him. She ghosted him. And she has never said why. But, you know, she had adopted a baby in 2012, the year before they got together. And then In August of 2015, the year that she ghosted him, she adopted another baby. And not for nothing, you know, Sean Penn, again, Bill's good friend, we talked about this in a different episode. He also reportedly tied up his then wife, Madonna, another powerhouse of a woman, and beat her and forced her to perform a sex act on him. And she escaped. Escaped with her life, in my opinion. So, you know, Bill, you have zero authority here, zero right to speak about this. How many more do I have to go through for him to get the point? Pam Anderson, who was beaten by her then husband, Tommy Lee, while holding one of their small children. Listen to Pam. What was the violence that actually happened there? Who hit who first? I didn't hit him at all.

[Bill Maher]

I had hold holding Dylan and he.

[Podcast Host]

Took Brandon and ran out the door with him.

[Bill Maher]

And I don't know, it was something. I had to call 911. And then when he knew that I did that, then he smashed my head into the phone. It just got very ugly.

[Podcast Host]

And here you have the father of.

[Bill Maher]

Your young son, who you're holding, kicking you, lashing out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I haven't thought about this in a long time, but, yeah, it was bad. You were very brutal in terms of reacting to what he did.

[Bill Maher]

This was like, no, not having it.

[Podcast Host]

The police are coming and you're gonna get punished. And he was. He went to jail. Well, I mean, I did it because I thought everybody thought he was gonna go further.

[Bill Maher]

I thought he was gonna go further. I mean, I thought that he had no concept of who he was or what was going on.

[Podcast Host]

And I had two babies there.

[Bill Maher]

And I really thought he was going to. I don't know.

[Podcast Host]

He could have killed me.

[Bill Maher]

Could have killed. I did.

[Podcast Host]

Didn't.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Had any.

[Podcast Host]

I had no idea. I mean, I never felt like I.

[Bill Maher]

Had to call 911 in my life.

[Podcast Host]

So, Bill, to your question as to why women don't just call the fucking cops, Pam Anderson says it right there. She called 911 and Tommy bashed her head in once he realized she called. Sorry. The way she's telling that story, it's like it never happened before. Violence like that does not come out of nowhere. I believe it had happened before. And what it does is it starts out low and then it escalates so that by the time it's escalated, the woman has become so conditioned to her new normal. You know, there she is saying, I didn't think I would ever have to call 911 in my life. I thought he was going to kill me. And she's excusing him in that clip, too. And I'm not blaming her, but this is what happens to women. They get so in the head by these guys. She's saying, he wasn't there. Like, she's basically saying, that wasn't Tommy. You know, he was so out of it on drugs or whatever, that he didn't know what he was doing. Well, he, he knew enough to realize that you called 911 and the police were on their way, and he was angry enough about that to beat the. Out of you. So he was conscious of what he was doing. I would say not for nothing, Pam went back to him. Okay. She, she has said they continue to have a relationship and sometimes they would be intimate after that. You know, their two small children were involved. So it's complicated. Okay. Finally, finally, the late, great Tina Turner. I could not love this woman more. I mean, what a story. What a talent. What a. What an original. An American original. Now, Bill cites Tina Turner as the prime example of a woman who just, you know, she got hit by her husband. She stood up and said, no more, no more, and leaves after the first strike hit punch. She's fucking out of there. Well, here's Tina. I pulled this clip in particular. The audio's a little soft, but bear with it because it's very nuanced. This was 1993. You know, she'd only recently come out with her story. You know, that when she came out with her story, people were shocked. The, the, the memoir she co authored with Kurt Loder that turned into a movie called what's love got to do with it. And people were shocked because she seemed so strong. So Ike Turner, her abusive ex husband, was still alive at this time. And again, I would encourage you to watch this part of the show because you can see her, the great Tina Turner, like, tentatively looking at the camera, like, as if that's Ike, like watching from a corner of the room about to pounce on her. And you can hear. You can hear the fear just under that, like, beautiful, controlled voice that she's trying to modulate. Here is Tina Turner on 60 Minutes about life with Ike. His beatings were savage. Yes. Not just for me, for everyone involved. As a kid, I saw you on television and I'm amazed to read it and some of those performances with him. You had blood in your mouth. Yeah, it was the first time I experienced it when I had a nose problem and I didn't know I'd never had a broken nose before. It was cracked there or something. And from one of the beatings. Yeah, this was one before show and.

[Bill Maher]

One of those things in the dressing room. And I don't know what to tell you.

[Podcast Host]

I. It's just. It became a way of life. It became a way of life. It became a way of life. You know, Bill Maher owes women everywhere a huge fucking apology. And if he has any balls at all, he will. He'll do it on his next show. Because what he just did, that message that he just put out there, he's got a lot of men who listen to him and take him seriously. And he just did a lot of damage in the culture. He just did a lot of damage to women and to our ever growing understanding of domestic violence and the women who managed to survive it. A lot of women don't, Bill. A lot of women don't. Now, if you want to know what really gets Bill Maher, like, what he's really concerned about, I couldn't help but remind you guys of this because fucking eat it. Bill Maher, around Christmas time, he had a huge hissy fit. Huge fucking hissy fit. Caa, the powerhouse agency where he was repped for more than two decades. The super agent Brian Lord had a private Oscar party and Bill did not get invited. Furious. Furious. He was so furious that he. He couldn't believe that he wasn't invited to a party at Lord's home, which included these bold face names. J.J. abrams, Barry Diller, who we all just took to the woodshed. Kamala Harris, Margot Robbie, Bob Iger, Brian Grazer, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston. And he has Such a fucking hissy fit. He fired his agents of like two decades who got him these like great fucking deals with HBO. They had just renegotiated his two year extension for real time, which took it into 2026 and is the longest running HBO original show, only behind Real Sports with Brian Gumbel, which was a great show and it's no longer airing. They aired their last episode, I think last year. But anyway, fuck Bill Maher. And you owe an apology to women. Okay, give it to us. Next up. Okay, next up. Again, really cathartic. We're going to go through what we all just let's talk like Hodakopi would talk. We bore witness to something, all of us together, and it didn't quite induce joy. But what we're going to do is make some space and breathe our way through it and come out of it with the kind of joy that can propel us into our next topics. Okay? And there's a lot more on the back end of that too. So we'll see you in a minute. Introducing a warehouse. Your one stop shop for unique premium home goods sourced exclusively from small businesses. In a world where nearly everything is mass produced, a warehouse is doing things differently. They are committed to preserving traditional craftsmanship and directly support the makers behind the products by offering a curated selection of these expertly made goods with a strong focus on American made manufacturing. Over 75% of their vendors are based right here in the US so from hand thrown pottery and artisanal kitchen tools to luxurious candles, soaps and more, every item is selected for its integrity, craftsmanship and story. Small businesses need our support now more than ever. This year, Forbes has predicted a record breaking 15,000 retail store closures in the United States. That's more than double the 7,000 plus closures in 2024. So by making the effort to support these small retailers, you can make a real difference in people's lives. Today, a warehouse believes that true luxury isn't about brand names, labels or price tags. It's about the dedication, creativity and care that goes into every product. So if you value made in the USA manufacturing and you want to fill your homes with items that tell a story, visit awarehouseshop.com discount thenerv and use code thenerv for 15% off your first order. That's awarehouse shopcom discount thenerv promo code thenerve. Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I got it.

[Podcast Host]

No, I got it. Seriously, I insist.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I insisted first.

[Podcast Host]

Don't be silly. You don't be silly.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

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[Bill Maher]

Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Podcast Host]

Rock, paper, scissors.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Shoot.

[Podcast Host]

No.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

The Wells Fargo active cash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply.

[Podcast Host]

Welcome back to the Nerve. Now, we all just endured a man made disaster on Thursday evening. Some of you maybe punted this viewing into the weekend. I took more than one emergency call from friends who hit a specific part in that episode and have been traumatized greatly. I, I, I'm, I, I myself am among them. But, you know, I'm like Hoda. I'm a giver, so I'd rather. I'm like Larry Baldwin. I'd rather you be comfortable first. So I put aside my own pain and trauma and to attend to the wounded out there. Now we're all gonna talk about it. So the season premiere, season three of the Sex and the City sequel, and just like that dropped. And, you know, we talked about Sex and the City a couple of episodes ago, and we got so much response from you guys. I was hearing stuff like, either I always hated that show too, but I was in the minority, so I had to keep my mouth shut, or I came to New York thinking that was a realistic way for young women to live. You know, it would be just all designer shoes and cosmos and brunches and beautiful apartments and holy, did I get the wind knocked out of me. It's not like that at all. Or, yeah, like, my daughter's watching it now and I'm trying to tell her. I'm trying to tell her this is up, you know? So anyway, I thought it was worth revisiting because we open this episode and I did, I did a lot of research for you guys. So this is not just me opining, okay? We begin this episode. Carrie's living in one of these old, like, these are really old beautiful houses in Gramercy park in New York City. This is, these are very rare. There are very few of them. They date back to at least the 1800s. She's living in like a $40 million house, okay? It's, it's obscene. And they have this woman running around licking stamps to put on postcards, okay? Like, stamps haven't been self adhesive for decades. I mean, this isn't NASA technology, but, you know, Carrie's just being her young, coquettish, youthful, whimsical 80 year old self. I mean, she looks like she's 80 years old. And you cannot tell me that these writers and producers and costume designers Aren't with Sarah Jessica Parker. They are. They make. They may claim to the contrary. And we're going to go through a little bit of the. The official companion podcast. And just like that. But so now her character Carrie, we're picking up from last season where Aiden, as discussed, you can go back. I can't do the deep dive, but this guy comes back into her life and trust me, he would never, in real life, this guy would never have a thing to do with her, okay? So he says to her that their reignited third go round has to be put on pause for five years. And during that time, they can have no communication, no texting, no emailing, no flares, nothing. Okay? And he left her and he's moved multiple states away. And so this is the edict. And she's treating it like they're in a really loving, healthy, mutual relationship that's just hit like a bump, you know, that is called a breakup. So that is either the character of Aiden. I don't think the writers are firing on all cylinders. And we're going to get to. We're gonna get to one who I think is a chief. A chief problem in that writer's room. I don't think they're firing enough on all cylinders to be this smart. Like where they're doing a subtextual kind of thing where it's like Aiden's really just fucking with her for. Again, put me in that writer's room. I got a million ideas. I would have him be fucking with her for all the lying and the cheating she put him through, for losing his beloved dog, for accepting his marriage proposal and allowing him to buy not only her apartment, but the one next door and combine the two, and all she does is and moan while he's doing all this renovation work for free. And then she breaks his heart yet again. But everything's great with Aiden now. Everything's great. You know, he's out in Virginia, which in this show's world, that's code for bum usa. That's what they think of middle America. Okay? Code for bum usa. What are you doing with that country yokel? Okay, now, a woman like Carrie, who is ostensibly a Manhattan sophisticate whose friends are smart and high powered and wealthy, would be taken by the hand by at least one of them and told, listen, I am taking you to the best psychoanalyst in New York, okay? Because women like this always have a great shrink on speed dial. Jackie O was in therapy for the bulk of her adult life in New York City, okay? So this Mental patient, by the way, okay? We all were nearly blinded by this hat. Look at this hat that they put Sarah Jessica Parker, AKA Carrie in. Okay? That hat. By the way, that hat retails for almost $600, okay? Wearing that hat alone, they'd have her committed. You know, the hat alone. But the refusal to get help for talking about this. This guy who has ghosted her as. She's in a. She's in a loving, mutually supportive, healthy relationship. If she refused the help that was offered to her, the deep psychological help she frankly needs, that entire cohort would back away slowly because that's the kind of person who becomes a social and professional liability, a huge liability. You cannot be seen in that company, okay? Can't have her telling your shit all over town. Now, Michael Patrick King, who has been the circus ringleader of this debacle for three years now, and to hear him talk on this podcast, like, he's so impressed with himself, like he really thinks he's a fucking genius. And, you know, this is his playground. These are his women. There are. There are these one or two original writers from Sex and the City. And you can tell they're trying to, like, or they gave up long ago really, I think, trying to inject any of the show's original DNA into this woke flat, one dimensional, humorless reboot that really exists as a shrine to the ego of Sarah Jessica Parker. And they have a newish writer named Samantha Irby. And we're going to talk about her because it's important. Okay, But. Okay, on the podcast, the official companion podcast, they talked about the choice of that hat. It's worth noting Patricia Field, who was the original costume supervisor on the original Sex in the City and is a genius. She has nothing to do with the show. She's over at Emily in Paris, okay? Making people look awesome. I don't know who's. I don't know who's doing this, but if they're not fucking with Sarah Jessica Parker, they need to. They might be legally blind. Okay? Listen to Michael Patrick King on the choice of this hat.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

If you're going to wear a hat.

[Podcast Host]

That'S the hat to wear.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, eating sherbet.

[Podcast Host]

And why not? The beginning of this episode is all about Carrie making up her own rules and being an individual. She's not Mrs. Waiting for Aiden. She's kind of like going to go ahead. She's wearing that. She thinks it's fun and funny. All I know is she's making her own rules. I mean, this woman's like 60 something, you know, like, what is she rebelling against? You know, her insurance carrier denying her cover? What the is she rebelling against? There's nothing to rebel against. Rebellion is for the young, okay? Rebellion is for the young, and you just have to let it go at a certain point. I mean, we're troublemakers and we are rebelling, but we're not rebelling by wearing hats like that. That hat which screams, like, just pay attention to me. At any given. You know, when you see the pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker in that hat on set, like, she's. She's walking around like she's hot. She thinks she looks great. I mean, my God. Oh, my God. She should get together with Hoda Kopi. They should do, like, a book club or something. They should do some sort of, like, manifesting event. Okay? Anyway, other disasters of note, there is a beautiful, beautiful actress on the show. Really? Her character is given nothing to do. She doesn't exist. But to be a token friend. Okay, they are. They are. They have. WOKE has become tokenism. And. And tokenism is the exact thing that you would think WOKE is against, but, you know, these are not geniuses running the show. So there's this beautiful actress named Nicole Ari Parker, and they've outfitted her character who goes by ltw. There are several scenes where she's wearing this enormous necklace that looks like dryer balls. You know, it's like you couldn't even move your head one way or the other. This dress. And these are the kind of encumbrances. Again, I think Michael Patrick King is a gay man who hates women. And that is a type. That is a specific type, and you gotta watch out for it. Like, he's making these women look, like, ridiculous. He's making Sarah Jessica Parker look like she belongs. Like she needs to have a cognitive Joe Biden level evaluation. And he's marring the style and beauty of this other actress, you know, by. By dressing her up to look again. Ridiculous. And, you know, her, her. Her. Oh, my God, her plot line in this, it's so stupid. She's. She wants to do a documentary about unsung black. She rose that nobody's ever heard of. And she's having this pitch meeting at, like, PBS or whatever, and they're like, yeah, that sounds great, but you need, like, a star. Which is what really anybody would say, like, you need a star. Can you get Michelle Obama? I think they could be teeing up a Michelle Obama cameo, and I would love this for her. I can only hope it's happening. I can Only hope. Now Rosie o' Donnell appears. Now they don't talk about Rosie O in this podcast, and I wonder why. But Rosie O. Appears and she's playing again. A hick. She's. If you're not from New York, you're a fucking loser. What are you doing? Why are you living your life? Move to New York or die. So she. So they're all making fun of her. Not because she's a nun and a virgin in her 50s or 60s who comes to New York and has a one night stand with Miranda. And we were all silently saying to ourselves, please do not show Cynthia Nixon and Rosie O' Donnell 2 of New York City's most obnoxious lesbians in bed. But they did it. They showed it. They fucking showed it. Okay? And, but the embarrassment wasn't that I'm going to say it, that Rosie o' Donnell had sex with Cynthia Nixon. Cynthia Nixon's the loser in this scenario. But it's that they depicted Rosie o' Donnell as a hick who wanted to take Miranda to do things like go on a carousel at Central park or, you know, this is a show that, by the way, put Sarah Jessica Parker in a fucking horse and carriage ride, horse and buggy ride with the Russian in winter to show how romantic they were. And that's something, I can assure you that no native New Yorker has ever been in one of those. I refuse. Not only just because it's a cliche, I think those horses are abused and I think it's a huge crime. It's a huge animal rights crime. But no. So Rosie o' Donnell is like, she goes to see Wicked and she's wearing a Wicked shirt and T shirt and she wants to meet Miranda in Times Square. And Carrie and Miranda are laughing about what a hick she is. Nice, nice. Okay, now we're gonna, we're gonna get to the real, the real crime here. Once you see this scene, you can't unsee it. And if you haven't seen this episode, I don't know whether I should, I should advise you to watch it because it's so fucking wild and disturbing or avert, avert, Abort. Abort. You know, that's me talking Jax Taylor at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Abort. Abort. So I'm gonna let. Okay, I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this for you. So we've, we've had this story spun that this is a huge win for Carrie, okay? That she, she. So the way they talk about it is that Carrie knows that Aiden's coming back. Aiden's gonna come back. That's why she's not delusional, thinking that they're in a loving, healthy relationship, even though he said, I'm not gonna see or talk to you for five years. And I don't. Don't go and be with anybody else. Don't have sex with anybody else. Don't go on a date with anybody else. Don't eat so much as look at another man. You're in. It's like. It's like you're dating Bill Maher, okay? And so they say that she was so secure in her knowledge that Aiden would never be able to resist Carrie for that long. Because really, we're talking about Sarah Jessica Parker, not Carrie Bradshaw. That Aiden would come back. He come running back, you know, so enraptured by her youthful beauty, just her whimsical young, young ways. So he cold calls her in the middle of the night. He wakes her up and he's like, I want to have phone sex. And she's like, okay, that's a big win. That's a big win. That's what we. That's what the kids used to call a booty call. Okay? He just wants to get his rocks off. And he's. He's like, oh, I miss you so much. He just wants to get his rocks off. Okay? So he. We. We are subjected to sites. We should never have seen this. And I don't understand why Sarah Jessica Parker went along with this is Michael Patrick King in her ear being like, this is so edgy and cool, and we're going to go viral, and people are going to love you for it. They're going to say, you're. You're braver than, like, you know, like, who. Who calls themselves brave? Like, you know, actors go nude. They're like, oh, I was so brave. Okay, so she begins masturbating in her. We watch Carrie Bradshaw administer to herself while she's on the phone. And this is how old? This is how old timey. When I said these women are old, I mean philosophically, technologically old. They're not in the real world with us. She's. She's having. She's masturbating while holding her iPhone with her other hand to her ear. Like most people. This would be a FaceTime with, like, a computer or, like a phone, or she would just put it on speaker or she would be like, wait, let me get my earbuds in. Okay, but. Okay, so that's. That's one of. But Again. And nobody, no, nobody wants to see Sarah Jessica Parker be sexual like this. And then we cut to Aiden, who is in a field. In a field in Virginia where he lives in his pickup truck. In the cab of his pickup truck. And he prepares for this real as. Again, Michael Patrick King is telling us this really romantic scene by taking his. This is graphic. So if you have little ones around or you're not up for it, you know, I'm just warning you. Now, he takes his hand like this and we see him, in a very slow, deliberate manner, lick the entire length of his palm and. And then shove his hands into his pants and clumsily, clunkily begin attending to himself. And then he tells Carrie that he got so spooked because he accidentally hit his horn that he sharted. That he sharted. And she laughs. And this is the. This is. This is what has become of this show, okay? And. But Michael Patrick King is going to tell us this is the height of romance, okay? This is Heathcliff and Catherine. It's Wuthering Heights. It's Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. It's Scarlet and Rhett. And we all know how that one turned out, okay? So let's listen to this brain trust. Yeah. You can't just have sex. You can't. Not on this show. That's called pornography. We've gotta do something else. And this wasn't romance. This was sex. He was saying things like, touch yourself. Are you inside yourself?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

And it was places we had never gone with Carrie and Aiden, okay?

[Podcast Host]

They can say that all they want. I'm going to read some comments from New York Magazine's Vulture recap of this episode. Episode this. And I chose these because this is a self selecting group of hardcore Sex and the City fans, okay? And they are revolting. They are revolted. And they are revolting. The bleach I poured into my eyes trying to wash out the scene with Aiden in his truck. Agreed. Number two. I also noticed that the more SJP is involved in the show, the less enjoyable it is. Yeah, exactly right. Number three, I am convinced that Michael Patrick King hates women. This episode proved my theory beyond the shadow of a doubt. He puts the three main characters through some ridiculous scenarios. These are Gen X women, right? I hate watch two seasons of this. Kim Cattrall. We're going to get to her later too. It was wise to stay away from this nonsense. What a waste of space. Number four. Wholly unwatchable. Number five. Last one. I bet Kim Cattrall is laughing hysterically at her former castmates she is schadenfreuding the. Out of this embarrassing show. I was a little bit more forceful in my choice of language there. Okay, now I want to get to Samantha Irby really fast because she is now in the writers room. This is a woman who has been touted to us as one of America's foremost humorists. Not so. I got one of her first collections of essays. I tried to get through it. I couldn't get through, like, a first chapter. It wasn't funny. But I have a suspicion that her identity might have something to do with it. And definitely, I think it's something to do with why she's in the writers room. And just like that, and has been for the past three years. Samantha Irby was taking part in this most recent podcast that you and I were just listening to, okay? She's not exactly the sex and Sex in the City demo. She's not. Okay. Sex in the City, for good or ill. It was about four very skinny, ambitious, attractive white women who were just on the hunt for, like, the alpha male that they could just snag, okay? They were about money. They were about power. They weren't about causes. They weren't about the oppressed. They weren't, you know, if there was a Black Lives Matter, you know, rally, Sarah Jessica Parker's character would have been using it as, like, a great time to go shopping because everyone's out in the streets, right? Okay? And Samantha Irby is, by the way, I'm close friends with Roxanne Gay, that humorless, insufferable feminist. The New York Times once gave an advice column to her, okay? I wish they still had it because we'd be going to town all day long, okay? Like Roseanne, Samantha Irby is a woman of color and a lesbian who goes out of her way. It seems to look as unattractive as possible. Okay? Samantha Irby gave us what I believe it was like. It was a botched abortion, okay? It was the. And just like that episode in season one, episode five, where Carrie recovering from her hip replacement. She's young and she's hip. You know, she had a hip replacement. She pees in her bed while Miranda is in Carrie's kitchen getting digitally violated by jdz. Okay? Elegance, aspirational. This new writer's room is be fouling an already shaky legacy, okay? And you know, they're gonna. I think this might be the last season for them because people are like, I can't even hate watch anymore. That was so off putting. That was so off putting and so Gratuitous, unnecessary and unnecessary. Excuse me. Okay, now to more news about gratuitous and unnecessary people. Okay, Taylor Swift. Over the weekend the news broke that she bought back her catalog. Finally. Finally. You know, I hope this is the end of it. I don't want to hear another fucking word about this catalog. About her feud with Scooter Braun. Take your money. Just shut the fuck up and go away. And just be. Just be grateful your lawyers got you out of the subpoena involving Blake Lively. None of, none of us care enough about you anymore. Take your leave. And finally, as I don't, I don't enjoy being right about this stuff, but I suspected. I told you guys, I think she's going to be with us now going forward as a person in the culture. Violet Affleck, who last week we talked about her school paper, her academic paper in which she lambasted her mother for checking the whole family into a five star hotel in LA while the wildfires burned the whole town to the ground. And she took issue with this because, you know, it's corporatist, it's materialistic, you know, to be staying at a five star. To say nothing of just needing security that those places, whatever. Okay, so she was photographed over the weekend carrying, guess what, a $1,000 Chloe handbag. Okay, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot. Okay? She was also photographed wearing a 300 Marc Jacobs bag, which is actually just a crime because like, Marc Jacobs ceased being cool a long time ago. Nobody's running around looking for Marc Jacobs's stuff, okay? Anyway, that's it. That's it for our fake people and our real talk about them. And up next we will have for you Mike Albo, who is going to be talking to us about complicated friendships and frenemies and everything in between. So we will see you in a minute. Father's Day is coming fast. And if you are a savage eyeing another tie or a gas station gift card, just stop yourself right now, okay? You can do better and so can the dad in your life. I'm going to put you on to something that actually delivers. You may have heard Megan Kelly or Joe Rogan talk about it and now I'm going to tell you about it. It's Firecracker Dot farm. Now this isn't a mass produced flavorless filler. This is handcrafted and it's truly special. The flavor is incredible. The packaging is really thoughtful. And yes, this is a family run business, which, that alone makes it worth supporting. And here's, here's the deal. Though they don't make a ton of this stuff. So when it's gone, it's gone. And with Father's Day around the corner, it's going to sell out. So if you're smart. Firecracker Farm hot salts. This isn't just seasoning. It's a stainless steel grinder packed with coarse sea salt and a perfect blend of hot peppers. It's bold, it's savory, it elevates everything. Steaks, veggies, eggs, you name it. And they've got different heat levels too, so you can match it to his taste. Okay, this isn't a sad, lazy, last minute Amazon panic buy which we all see a million miles away. This is a thoughtful, unique and unforgettable gift. But you need to act now. Go to Firecracker Farm. Yes, dot Pharm with an F and use code the Nerve for a special discount and you're welcome. Now go get him something he will actually use and love. Welcome back to the Nerve. We've been having some conversations about mean girls and terrible behavior. Stuff that will leave you in tears. You think in childhood it's going to end when you're an adult. You become an adult and you realize they just get more sophisticated and even meaner. And I came across this book when it first came out years ago and I recommend it. I know we're going to be doing more book stuff like this, and I'm really, really happy that this author is here with us today. This book is called the Underminer or the best friend who casually destroys your life. And as said at the top of the show, I think we've all experienced this at least once. So, Mike, welcome to the Nerve and thank you for being here.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Thank you so much and thanks for reading the book.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, are you kidding? This book had me laughing out loud. And I was rereading it this weekend in anticipation of speaking to you, and I realized how much it feels in some ways like very 90s New York, but so much of it is still, like, applicable today. Like, you've got. You've got your. Well, first of all, why don't you lay out the premise of an underminer and how they sort of manifest in one's life, right?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

An underminer is that friend who makes you feel really horrible about yourself no matter what you do. And they always sort of have a feeling that they're better than you, that they don't say that out loud. They just sort of subtly are concerned about you in this way that makes you feel like when you walk away from a conversation with. With them, and you're like, why am I so depressed? You don't really know why. It's a very gassy, vaporous kind of evil in your life.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. And it's a kind of gaslighting. You know, you. You know those people, and I. I kind of want to get your expert advice on how you spot them in the wild and if you've gotten better at it over the years. But, you know, there are those people one finds in a social circle who really, really get off on other people' bad news or traumas or failures, and they. They wrap it in this well of. I'm just the most concerned person, and my concern means I'm so compassionate and so giving. So why don't you give me all your misery so I can go home and feast on it later?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes. The. The. The Underminer feels better about themselves as long as you're below them somehow. And it is always done with a level of like. I'm so worried about you. You look tired. Are you okay? Is. Is there something wrong? You know, this sort of, like, concern, which I think is so. Which. Which was. Has been around for. Since the beginning of time, but I think with social media and with wellness and with the way that we all work now, it's. It's even more exponential. And with social media, you can. You can pose that you're better than someone so easily and make them feel so bad about themselves, but also, you can also be a. I feel, you know, when I wrote this book, it was before the term thought leader was such a big term and before the term wellness was a big term. But I feel like those two. Like, a thought leader is someone who thinks they're better than you, you know, who has ideas that maybe you don't really understand, but maybe if you work hard, you can get them, like Hoda Kopi.

[Podcast Host]

Did you see her launch last week?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

No. What did she launch, Mike?

[Podcast Host]

I. She. She's launched an app. She's left the brain trust, the Mensa members over at the Today Show. She's launched an app called Joy 101. And she's gathered a bunch of thought leaders like Maria Shriver, you know, and she's going to teach you. She's. Now, if you, Mike, sign up for her 16.99amonth or $99 a year, she will personalize this app for you to help you find joy that she's got, even though she can't offer any specifics. And I think that it's that kind of person, you're so right. Who's like, infested social media with the idea that their wellness tips and tricks are going to make you feel better, but really they're designed to just make you feel worse.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yep. And I think also, you know, the way that culture has evolved, there is a level of people who, who think they're enlightened. Enlightenment became a luxury product in a way. And yes, you know, there's, there's people who can pay for it. And then, you know, they go off to these ashrams or wherever they go and they come back and feel enlightened. And, but also they, they have the money to be able to do so. And, you know, you can pay to be enlightened now. You can pay to be hanging out with the best meditators. And, and it's, you know, I, I practice Buddhism, but I don't know what kind of form of affliction it is, but it's definitely, you know, the hocus pocus, which has been around again since the beginning of civilization, has exponentially formed into these thought leading, enlightened beings that make you feel horrible about yourself.

[Podcast Host]

Well, the other thing about this book that's so funny, I mean, I want your opinion on Gwyneth Paltrow because this book feels so 90s and you've. Actually, there was a line here and I literally wrote, gwyneth, the Underminer is talking about getting enlightened and how the. It's never clear if the Underminer is male or female or the target of the Underminer is male or female. I do believe the Underminer is a female. Am I right?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I would say the Underminer is either a female or a gay male. And.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. And be a gay man.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yep. And. But there are, I've, in my experience now, I mean, you know, parents can be underminers, kids can be underminers. There's, there's other types of undermining, especially among mothers with each other.

[Podcast Host]

Talk to me.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yeah, talk to me. Tell me more about mother. Mother mining.

[Podcast Host]

Yes, yes. Mother minding.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I mean, I just noticed that, you know, of course this is like, as I've aged, I've seen different phases of it. And then, you know, when all my lady friends had their kids and, and you know, they're, they would come back from the playground or something and, and you know, their kid would have been, you know, like, is there something wrong with your child? Or like your child has a cough or is, is everything okay? You know, there's this level of concern you can really pull out of somebody. I mean, A level of concern you can show to somebody to make them feel terrible about their decisions, especially in the playground.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. And then talk about the mother to the child as an underminer of the child.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Oh, well, my. My favorite one is my friend whose mother said to her, do you still like your new haircut? Which is just sort of just like the. The perfect undermining line. It's just the. Still is really the dagger in that sentence. I. You know, I think when it comes to parents, they don't really know that they're doing it very often. But. But, you know, I disagree. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right.

[Podcast Host]

I think that's. I think that's either being a little bit too generous or it's. It's a reluctance to be like, can my mom be that mean to me? Really? She can.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

She can.

[Podcast Host]

Usually it's. Yeah, because she knows. She's like, she's your mother. She's like, are you really gonna. You know. So in terms of. There's this other thing you've gotten here. So the Gwyneth thing, I wanted to get back to. So the. The Underminer is becoming enlightened, and she's saying to. Or. Or this gay man is saying to the target, these three modalities are all really equal. And the word modality struck me like a Mac truck, because that word is. Wasn't that common then? But now, like, the Gwynnets of the world, love to talk about modalities.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

What's a modality, Mike?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Well, in the Underminer, there are three different types of people. There is the shpastas, Vashtas, and Wishtas. And the Underminer is like, you know, shpasta is like my boyfriend, you know, strong, manly, you know, is trustworthy. Vashtas like me are naturally thin, sort of healthy, have problems with their hands a little bit. Wishtas are larger people who have problems with depression and bad skin and, you know, maybe. Or wishta. You know, that's kind of like. Like the way that it can happen perfectly in enlightened circles where you can divide people into these different types of people, and there's always one that's just more the loser. You know what I mean? I'm a Gemini. And I can't tell you how many times in the astrology world people are like, oh, no, I'm so sorry, you're a Gemini. And I remember one time an Underminer friend of mine was just like, your Venus is an Aries. I'm so sorry.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God. You know, we Showed this clip on the last episode. It was. Do you know that woman, Glennon Doyle? Oh, yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I'm obsessed with her whole substack thing that got. You know, what happened with her and Substack.

[Podcast Host]

No, what happened with it?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Well, this is very undermining, but it's almost like an underminer army. Glennon Doyle had a. Was going on substack to start a. You know, she's huge. She's a giant thinker and thought leader in person. And then all these. All these women, mostly women, kind of ganged up on her and said, like, how dare you take over? How are we going to find our voice now that Glennon Doyle is here? You know, And. But a lot of the comments would be like, I like Glennon Doyle, but I. I just feel bad that she's, you know, ruining my. My time here at some stack and, like, ruining my career. So. And then Glenn was like, I'm out. And she just, like, left sub stack after, like, five days.

[Podcast Host]

Well, Glennon is, you know, she's. She's one of these people in the wellness space, which I. The whole wellness space I have a huge amount of cynicism towards. And she. She was on Monica Lewinsky's podcast the other day, and Monica Lewinsky was doing a lot of facework, like, listening to Glennon's story. It was a lot of, like, whoa. You know, it was. It was a lot. And Glennon was telling the story about how she, her whole life identified as an Aries, and then a friend, she used the word astrologist. She meant astrologer. I'm being an underminer now. But anyway, she said this astrologer came over and revealed to her that she was not really an Aries, but like a Pisces, because she. So I'm telling you this to say that you could get a new diagnosis if you want. Maybe you're not really a Gemini.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I have to find the right astrologist, I suppose.

[Podcast Host]

So, Mike, what is your best advice? Having written one of the funniest books about some of the worst people we all encounter. And my other fucking bet noir is, like, when I see these people on social media who I know, like, they're in my social circle, they might be attempting to be underminers towards me or others. And, you know, they're all over, like, talking about their latest accomplishments as if, frankly, they were like me and had gone to space. You know, I'm an astronaut now. I don't know if you've heard, but congratulations.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, I have heard.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks. But, you know, you're Kind of like, what are you. What are you doing? Like, what are you doing? I don't. How do you deal with these people, like, in the actual physical world when you encounter them and you know what they're up to?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yeah. I mean, to. Some people have been like, oh, hello, Underminer. You know, it's kind of. Please feel free to use the word, kind of to claim it to other people. But, you know, one thing that I really want to warn people about is never say, like, I got all my Underminers out of my life. I got toxic people out of my life. Because that is such an Underminer thing to say.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. That you've gotten toxic people out of your life. People like the Gwyneths of the world love to say that. Like, I've gotten rid of all the toxic people in my life.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

It's an Underminer thing to say because.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Because it makes you sound superior. Like you have a better group of friends or something, or you just don't have any problems with your. Your shining, wonderful friends who are all, you know, beautiful and exercise a lot or something. So, yes, you. You just have to kind of, like, be sly about it and just be like, oh, okay, wow, cool. I mean, you know, I'm still friends with my Underminer, and when I wrote the Underminer book, he undermined me in a meta way and was just like, I guess the Underminer is, like, the most successful thing you've ever done, so.

[Podcast Host]

Stop it. Stop it. Does your Underminer know?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And did you tell the Underminer, or did the Underminer just figure it out?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I kind of told. I kind of told him, and, you know, we're pals. And he. At this point now, I'm just like, oh. Oh, sweetie. Like, oh, how nice that you have to do that to feel better about yourself. You know, you could kind of. You can kind of do a jiu jitsu move with. With your Underminers and be like, oh, that's so sweet that you were saying that like that.

[Podcast Host]

You know, it's amazing that your Underminer did not course correct. But, I mean, it's. Do you think it's a fixed trait, being an Underminer into adulthood?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I think so. I think. I think once you realize. Once you get obsessed with comparing yourself to other people and not doing the. See, I'm about to sound like Glennon Doyle, but, like, don't do. If people who don't do the inner work, you know, and. And, like, go through life comparing themselves with other people, which we all do all the time, but If. If the more aware you are that you're comparing and that other people are comparing, the better off you are.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, because that phrase, that. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

No, I was gonna say, I think. I think we all undermine. I'm. I do it all the time. To some of my friends who seem more up, I'm always. Oh, my God, are you okay? Like, did you get home okay? You know, those kind of things.

[Podcast Host]

You know, I just want to ask, while I have you, how you would categorize this, because, you know, Gwyneth sort of feels kind of in this realm. And there's parts of Gwyneth Paltrow I actually enjoy, like, aspects of her, like, and her product line, whatever. But, you know, last summer, there was this very stubborn rumor, and she never denied it, and she, I think, actually wound up, like, confirming it. Do you know that guy Derek Blasberg, who's been like, this. New York fixtures, for those who don't know, he's like, this gadfly. Like, he wants to be like Truman Capote and have these famous women be his swans, but really, he's just, like. He's mediocre. He's got no talent. He's just sort of inserted himself into their world and, you know, I guess for, like, pages in Vogue or Vanity Fair, whatever. And he was staying at Gwyneth's, allegedly. This is the story out in the Hamptons last summer and shot her bed, literally, like, in the guest room. Shot the bed.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, I've heard this. Are you reminding me now, was maybe.

[Podcast Host]

Taking Ozempic, but the real crime here is that he left the house, allegedly, in the dead of night and did not strip the bed.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Oh, my God.

[Podcast Host]

Now, is Gwyneth justified in spreading that story? Is that a public service? Or should she have taken another road and kept it quiet?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Oh, good question. If she did.

[Podcast Host]

If she did that. I'm not saying she did, but if she did, it makes me.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

I mean, I love the idea that she's just, like, called up. Her best friend was just like, girl, okay. This is just what happened. I mean, that's. That makes me make her more human. Do you know what I mean?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Which. Which makes me like, her.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Like, if she was.

[Podcast Host]

Who among us wouldn't? Who among us would not? But would you say to said friend, you got to do just keep this quiet because this is going to be ultra humiliating. Or, like, you imply that you have the blessing so that it does wind up on TMZ and Page Six, Right?

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes. I don't. I mean, I. Now I feel for. First time in my life, sympathy for Derek Plusberg. Like, it's just horrible. And like, he must have felt so ashamed that he had to. I mean, even if they were like, you know, 3 billion thread count Frette sheets or something and he had to, like, be like, I would. I would have lied and been like, I had a bloody nose. I'm taking your sheets. I'll get you new ones or something. I don't know. That poor guy.

[Podcast Host]

You gotta strip the bed. And, you know, I think the punchline to this whole story was that Gwyneth was most offended because, you know, he left it for the help to deal with.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, yes. And you gotta be careful out there. The Hamptons, that is like, there's a landmine pariah city.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Social, social. Landmines everywhere you step.

[Podcast Host]

But at least he probably got out and with no traffic because it was probably three in the morning and he was like, running on adrenaline, fleeing. The Paltrow Falchuk household.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, I know this is not the subject, but I'm writing this article, very short article for New York Magazine about being a house guest in the Hamptons. How to do it right.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

And thank you for bringing that up. I have to put this in the article, but it. But I've talked to enough of these people out in the Hamptons now and they're, you know, one of them was like, take a photo of your bed and restage it. Like, it pisses me off when someone messes up the staging of my bed as a guest.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

And they also said another person I talked to, a private chef, said that there are. That no one knows how to talk about Ozempic now because everyone's on it. Everyone looks like a ghastly pale piece of white asparagus. And like, there you're supposed to be like, you look great. But no one knows how to say it because everyone is thin and weird looking.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I've also heard that in parties out here, I'm coming to you from this sort of world, but I'm not of it. Trust me that they're most catering companies. Like, they barely provide food now because everyone's on Ozempic. Yeah.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Yes, I heard that too. Yeah. Fascinating.

[Podcast Host]

It's a feast for the Underminer. I hope to meet your Underminer someday. Sounds like a blast.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Who's yours?

[Podcast Host]

I'll tell you off air. Okay, I'll tell you off air. But, Mike, this has been the most fun conversation. Like they say, never meet your heroes, but you have disabused me of that.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Oh, it's so sweet. Thank you so much.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks again to Mike Albo. What a fun conversation. That guy. You know, that guy's fun at a party. That is all for today, but certainly, you know, we're not done here. We'll be. We'll be back on Friday, and we may have a little gift for you as well. So, you know, hang tight, spread the word. Email me. Like, subscribe. Let's keep growing so we can get you more and more content. And we will see you back here on Friday at the Nerve, where you will never guess what we're about to say next.