JFK Jr.’s Plane Crash Romanticized, Kennedy Family Dark Truths, & Hoda Kotb's Dateline Backlash

Summary

The Nerve with Maureen Callahan

Episode: JFK Jr.’s Plane Crash Romanticized, Kennedy Family Dark Truths & Hoda Kotb's Dateline Backlash
Date: March 31, 2026

Episode Overview

Maureen Callahan delivers a scathing, deeply researched deconstruction of both the pop-cultural mythmaking surrounding JFK Jr., specifically dissecting the finale of Ryan Murphy’s "Love Story," and the persistent cultural willingness to valorize the Kennedy legacy at the expense of truth. She leads listeners through fact versus fiction around the plane crash that killed JFK Jr., Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren, exposes the Kennedy family’s alleged cruelty in the crash's aftermath, and mocks the media’s complicity in perpetuating sanitized narratives. The episode is peppered with biting humor, expletives, passionate listener feedback, and persistent calls for cultural accountability.

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Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. Destroying the Romantic Myth of JFK Jr.’s Plane Crash

(Starts ~01:00)

• Callahan targets the "Love Story" series finale (“Search and Recover”), accusing it of “bastardizing” history and romanticizing a tragedy.
• She rails against the narrative device of depicting Carolyn Bessette’s supposed recurring nightmare about being Jackie Kennedy, which never surfaced in real accounts:

  "This is not part of the historical record. None of her friends have ever said she had this recurring nightmare. The writers made it up and put it in her mouth, and it’s sacrilege." (06:43)

• Dissects how the writers manipulate facts to shift blame onto Carolyn (e.g., the “nails caused the delay” myth) and reduce the horror of the crash.
• Details how women in these stories are expected to “normalize being blamed for things men do, even if that results in them getting killed.”

2. Dismantling “Love Story” – Fact vs. Fiction

(06:00–25:00)

• Maureen methodically debunks several fabricated or sanitized scenes from the show:
  • The marital therapy session, the fabricated flight planning, the false depiction of the in-flight experience.
  • She describes in detail how the seating and behavior of the characters in the plane are wrong, and the series inserts “sick” symbolic objects for cheap foreshadowing.
  • The “cool girl” portrayal of Carolyn, calmly reading as the plane nears disaster, is called out as perverse:

    “This is so beyond obscene. Like, I find it pornographic, really, I really do." (18:01)

• Calls out the dangerous and ongoing cultural compulsion to make women “collateral damage for men’s stories,” explicitly paralleling the crash to Chappaquiddick (Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne).

3. The Kennedy Family’s Callousness Post-Crash

(25:00–39:00)

• Focuses on what happened after the crash, especially Kennedy family behavior towards Carolyn and Lauren Bessette’s grieving mother, Ann Freeman:
  • Details Ed Schlossberg’s cold handling of funeral arrangements, pushing for the Bessettes to be buried with the Kennedys against their mother’s wishes.
  • Quotes RFK Jr.’s diaries that described Schlossberg as having “hated Carolyn” and “bullied, bullied, bullied” Ann Freeman (28:48).
• Destroys the myth that the Kennedys showed empathy or inclusion in their handling of Carolyn and Lauren’s remains, labeling it “sadistic.”
  • Notable quote:

    “They told her that John would be buried in Brookline and that they could do with Carolyn as they pleased. The nerve.” (30:01)

4. Media Complicity & The Persistent JFK Jr. Fairy Tale

(39:00–46:49)

• Excoriates ABC’s “documentary” and media pundits for repeating easily debunked lies, such as the absence of a flight instructor or the idea the crash was an unpredictable accident.
• Airs audio of pilots and eyewitnesses explaining the poor weather, John’s disregard for safety, and the preventability of the crash.
  • Notable quote by an aviation analyst:

    “Recoveries from unusual attitudes…are practiced in daylight without the hideous effects of full blown spatial disorientation.” (44:45)

• Trenchantly links the tendency to protect elite men’s egos with society’s willingness to accept “dangerous sludge” as entertainment.

5. The Horrific, Concealed Reality of the Crash

(47:10–63:54)

• Features extensive input from Navy diver Joshua Benjamin, giving raw, disturbing descriptions of body recovery and the true brutality of the crash.
• Shatters any residual romanticism around the incident:
  • John’s body was “in half;” legs never recovered. Describes how “none of those bodies were intact.” (59:21–63:54)
  • Reveals the Kennedy family’s focus on PR over compassion, e.g., keeping divers on site to prevent “trophy hunters.”
• Questions the destruction or cover-up of autopsy reports (“I’m sure it was burned”), linking it to the family’s anxiety about lawsuits.
• Describes Ann Freeman's reported regret about acquiescing to Kennedy burial plans for her daughters.

6. Listener Feedback ("Troublemaker Feedback")

(67:36–end)

• Celebrates engaged, passionate listeners, highlighting emails that resonate with Maureen’s critiques of the celebrity and media landscape.
• Comments on Hoda Kotb’s awkward interview with Savannah Guthrie and wider Today Show dysfunction.
• Dedicated appreciations from listeners for Maureen's cultural truth-telling, including stories of “finding my table at the cafeteria” and personal remembrances (e.g., about lost pets).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

Blunt Cultural Critiques

• “This is where, like, pop culture transcends and has real consequences for the historical record and the ways in which the mainstream media gets to continue telling their little fairy tale because they’re all fucking children. OK? Real talk about fake people.” (01:27)
• “You cannot make Kennedys sympathetic without giving them traits they don’t possess, without giving them a basic level of humanity they do not embody.” (25:20)

On the "Love Story" Finale

• “She is calmly reading a paperback version…like she’s a cool girl. It’s a cool girl. This is more subtlety. She is calmly reading…It’s really fucking perverse.” (13:43)
• “It’s not romantic that they died and their remains were left on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, you know, on the floor for days. And we’re going to talk about that.” (14:08)

On Ann Freeman vs. the Kennedys

• “Why did they send you?” (Anne Freeman, 27:50)
• “The gall of you to sit there and try and dictate terms.” (Anne Freeman, 27:33)
• “As for Lauren, she doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter.” (Maureen, 30:00)

On the Media's Failures

• “ABC News should be ashamed of itself for not fact checking that lie and for allowing a Kennedy biographer to get on their airwaves and repeat that...” (40:57)

On the Graphic Aftermath

• “The autopsy report was covered up by Ted Kennedy. I’m sure it was burned…they knew that Anne Freeman was going to sue the living out of the Kennedys.” (61:22)
• “None of those bodies were intact. None of them.” (63:54)

Listener Quotes (Troublemaker Feedback)

• “The Nerve makes me feel like I found my table at the cafeteria.” (Feedback, 72:06)
• “This is how diseased it is over at the Today Show. Craig was furious that he didn’t get the sit down, furious. He’s like, ‘I don’t give a shit what happened to Savannah’s mother. He just wants the interview.’” (70:20)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:58 – Show begins ("pulling clips…taking sledgehammer to this dangerous lie")
• 06:00 – Detailed breakdown of series finale's opening therapy scene
• 11:00–18:00 – In-plane dramatizations, symbolism debunked, parallels to Chappaquiddick
• 25:02 – Ann Freeman & Ed Schlossberg funeral meeting / Kennedy family callousness
• 34:25–39:36 – Confrontations with Caroline Kennedy (fictional) & the truth about memorials
• 39:36–46:49 – Media myths, pilot expert analysis, cockpit simulation
• 47:10–63:54 – Navy diver Joshua Benjamin’s grisly account of the crash aftermath
• 67:36–End – Listener/troublemaker feedback and closing cultural commentary

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Tone and Style

• Original Language & Tone: Maureen is fearless, cutting, sometimes profane (“who the fuck do you think you are?”), and fiercely protective of the truth, especially in matters involving victimized women.
• Mix of cultural critique, reporting, and community-building: Humor and sarcasm are used to skewer cultural offenders and foster a sense of solidarity among listeners ("Troublemakers").
• Frequent attributions: Quotes are called out by named speakers (Maureen, Anne Freeman, characters, listener contributors).

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Takeaways for Listeners

• “Love Story” and much of media coverage whitewash the facts and real emotional stakes of JFK Jr.’s fatal crash, as well as the brutal aftermath for the Bessette family.
• The Kennedy family legacy is protected by sanitizing, obfuscating, or outright fabricating facts, often reinforced by credulous or lazy mainstream media.
• Maureen Callahan demands cultural accountability, a commitment to truth over myth, especially as it relates to women’s stories, and makes space for listeners to dissent from popular narratives.
• The episode is both an exposé of historical falsehoods and a rallying cry to break the cycle of elite mythmaking.

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For Further Listening

• Deep dives into the media’s role in perpetuating myths
• Additional Trouble Maker feedback and community engagement
• Ongoing, unsparing commentary on celebrity culture and media complicity

(For full context and Maureen’s methodical, no-holds-barred delivery, listen to the episode; this summary captures the key arguments, memorable lines, and major beats of her investigation.)

Transcript

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[Maureen Callahan]

Hello and welcome to your Tuesday edition of the Nerve. I am your host, Maureen Callahan. I am so excited to do this show with you guys today. This is. I was up late, like, like happily up late. Like pulling clips and old articles and essays and interviews and mixed media. Because we're doing it, you guys. The finale of Love Story aired last week and I watched it in real time. I took notes in real time and I looked around for my nearest sledgehammer because we're taking it to this, we're taking it. We're taking it to this piece of cultural garbage. It is, it's a dangerous lie. Okay? This is, this is where like pop culture transcends and, and, and has real consequences for the historical record and the ways in which the mainstream media gets to continue telling their little fairy tale because they're all fucking children. Okay? Real talk about fake people. The guy who caused the crash that killed Carolyn Bessette, age 33, and her brilliant sister Lauren, age 34. Then, oh my God. The heart of the show. As ever, should I say a sever. The heart of the show. Always your feedback. I have a nice healthy pile of your emails. But we at Nerve HQ saw your response to our weekend mini Nerve, which landed with the shock and awe of Alien Lifecraft. Finally, someone said, what were we were all thinking and going to ourselves? Am I, am I, am I really up? Because I think that Hoda copy is laughing and smirking in Savannah Guthrie's face. We're right. We're right. Then we're going to tie this all up with a bow. Tie this all up with a bow. We've got one person telling one version of a story who's about to be foul our streaming services and basic cable airwaves yet again. And may I just say, we at the Nerve cannot wait. We can't wait. And then we are going to talk about a saint over at the Nerve. And I mean it. This is a spiritual, philosophical, intellectual godmother of the Nerve. And I've heard from you guys before and you love her as much as I do. So are you ready? 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For a limited time, you can add a 60 day supply of their estrogen face cream for just $1 with clinician approval. Stop guessing, start getting answers. Go to joy and blokes.com moren and use code MOREN for 65% off your labs and 20% off all supplements. That's joy and blokes.com moreN use code moren for 65% off your Labs and 20% off all supplements. Joy and blokes. Healthcare that actually listens to women. Let's do this. Let's pulverize this myth into oblivion. For today at least. You know, some, some other jokers gonna come around tomorrow. They're in my comments section going, maureen, what's wrong with you? Nothing. I. I'm a. I'm a smart person who likes truth about. Okay. Season series finale rather of Love Story Episode 9 Title Search and Recover. I find this title interesting because they call it search and recovery. When they are doing these missions out in the field. That is what they are called Search and recovery. And I think bastardizing that a little bit and calling it recover is a nod to what the showrunners are doing here. The what Ryan Murphy and Connor Hines are doing here. And what they are doing is trying to recover this fairy tale that is so dangerous. And you know who it's most dangerous for? Women who are being told to Normalize being blamed for things that their men do, even if that results in them getting killed. And to also accept terrible behavior from a man that they're dating or that they choose to get engaged to or to marry or to have children with, because that's just how they are. It's really, really insidious, dangerous sludge. Okay, so this episode opens with John and Carolyn talking to their marital therapist. And Carolyn is recounting her recurring nightmare, which this never. This is. This is not part of the historical record. None of her friends have ever said she had this recurring nightmare. The writers made it up and put it in her mouth, and it's sacrilege. In this dialogue, the Carolyn character says, I have a recurring nightmare in which I am John's mother in the back seat of that convertible in Dallas on the day of the assassination, and I'm wearing the pink Chanel suit and the pink pillbox hat, and his blood gets all over me. Subtle. It's sacrilege. To Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Sacrilege. Then the therapist advises a trial separation. And listen, the gall. The gall of these writers to put these words in a character's mouth, knowing what's coming in this episode. Here we go. Your advice for our marriage is divorce.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

No. But I think part of the reason that you two aren't finding any clarity is that you're. You're stuck in this sort of liminal space. Maybe if you severed contact for a little while, you would gain a clearer idea of what you're missing or. Or what your life would actually look like without the other.

[Maureen Callahan]

Mm.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

Like, for how long?

[Maureen Callahan]

Yeah, like, one, two weeks?

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

A month?

[Maureen Callahan]

Maybe two.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Do you have, like, too many clients or. No.

[Maureen Callahan]

No.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

I mean, you obviously would see me. You just wouldn't see each other.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

I can't not talk to my wife for a month.

[Maureen Callahan]

Yeah, I don't want to do that either.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

I mean, I don't think I could, even if you asked me to. Well, I mean, you won't come together, you won't let go, and instead, you are just white knuckling this marriage into a downward spiral.

[Maureen Callahan]

A downward spiral, John. I can't use the verb piloted because he was not equipped to pilot that plane, and he, in fact, crashed it brutally.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

He.

[Maureen Callahan]

He went into a graveyard spiral. You cannot tell me these writers are going to claim something as elevated, as artful foreshadowing that is crass beyond measure. And you know who it's. It's most disrespectful to? Not just the memories of Carolyn and Lauren. Bissette. But their mother, Ann Freeman, who is still alive, and Lauren's twin sister, Lis, who is still alive. And the other obscenity in that scene, the therapist says, you're in this liminal space. John didn't know what the word liminal meant. There's this moment the actor, like, looks at. Looks at the Carolyn character. Like, you know what that means? I never heard that word before. I've never heard that word before. After that session, the two of them go day drinking at Walkers, which is a real tavern in New York City. It's been there forever. I had a birthday there one year. It's right next door to where they lived in Tribeca, their loft. So part of the. The big reason their marriage is falling apart is because Carolyn cannot stand having her photo taken. So they decide to go day drinking at the tavern right next door to where all the paparazzi are camped out and would see them day drinking. Like, make it make sense. Make it make sense. Next, we are going to look at a scene that these writers inserted deliberately to make JFK Jr seem sympathetic in the moments leading up to this crash. This scene is a lie. This never happened. Here we go.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Hey.

[Maureen Callahan]

This is John Kennedy requesting a standard

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

weather briefing for a VFR flight from Essex county to Martha's Vineyard departing around

[Maureen Callahan]

6pm that means a visual flight and not instrument rated. Not using your instruments to fly. And he never, ever checked for a weather report before flying. And they put the timestamp in there around 6pm to make it Carolyn's fault. When we see her, as we saw her in the very first episode, arriving late. Not her fault. Only person's fault. The would be pilot next. You know, I was on a subreddit that belongs. It's called John and Carolyn and it's. It's fans of John and Carolyn and people who wanted to love Love Story. And they were all basically 201 saying they had been watching this episode and hoping that Ryan Murphy and Connor, again, you're in the wrong place, you're in the wrong neighborhood, you're in the wrong zip code. These two exhibiting taste and restraint, they're going, please don't show us any. Any scenes inside the cockpit or the. The tiny little. Would you call it a cabin in a plane this small? I don't know. But they were like, we don't want to see any. Any dramatization of what, what went on in the flight, during the flight. Just don't do it. They did it. They did it. And I'm gonna surgically Demolish this shit. First of all, they've got the characters in the plane all wrong. They've got Carolyn and Lauren seated in the back, facing forward, facing John's back and facing out of the windshield. And they were not, they were strapped in with their backs to his back, okay? So that makes their terror all the more poignant. They can't see what he's doing or not doing. They can't all, they can hear the engines and, and, and, and the, the, the instruments going crazy. But we're not going to see it that way. No, no, no. First Carolyn is in the back reading calmly. I mean, sure, who doesn't read calmly in the equivalent of a helicopter with like the noise and all the stimuli and like your anxiety is still spiked because you're an aircraft and you're in small aircraft, you know, but she's, she's a cool girl. She's a cool girl. So this is more subtlety. She is calmly reading a paperback version. We see the title again. These writers, they are just banging us. It's like watching the Flintstones. It's like she's reading Lovers, Winners and Losers. Which is a two act play. 1967. Two act play by Brian Friel. In the first act, a young couple, wife is pregnant. They are killed in an accident. They drown. Which is a version of, of what Love story has been hearkening to and foreshadowing all this time. You know, they love a romantic drone shot of the ocean. You know, it's like it's not romantic that they died and their remains were left on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, you know, on the floor for days. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the reality of that. Also. You want to, you want to weave in some symbolism. You know, it's all in real life. It's all in real life. This JFK Jr. Crashed his plane on the night of July 19, 1999. Here's, here's something for you. That was also the 30th anniversary of Chappaquiddick. I mean the symmetry. 30th 30th, Chappaquiddic in which Ted Kennedy, I'm going to say drunkenly, he's dead. I can't liable him. He was a huge drunk. We all know he was drunk. Drunkenly drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick. It flipped over in a shallow amount of water. He escaped and he left a 28 year old campaign aid devoted to the Kennedys named Mary Jo Kopechne. To die. And hers was a slow, agonizing death. She was upside down, breathing from an air pocket with her neck craned. It's all an ask. Not. And she could have survived if he had only gotten help. But he didn't want to get help. Now she was collateral damage for him. He wanted to run for president. Can't do that if he's like, like. So what did the. The machine do? It was her fault. What was she doing? What was she doing in a car with a married senator? Here's what else never happened. I took note. As I said, I took notes. Happens in the show, happens in the scene. Never happened. Carolyn unhooks her seatbelt and says suggestively to John, because what's sexier than knowing you're gonna die in a violent way? In about two minutes, she says sexily to John, permission to enter the cockpit. And then she climbs into the seat next to him and she. The audio, the sound design in the scene. Like, you hear the perfect click of her belting herself in, the perfect adjustment of her beautiful earphones with the little microphone. Like everything is designed to sound and look dainty and elegant. It's really fucking perverse. Aside from the fact that this never happened, this never happened. And then she. She leaves her sister alone in the cockpit. Her in the backseat, rather her sister, who her only use in this story. This was, by the way, a brilliant woman who worked in finance, a star. She was going places. Everyone loved her. Her only function in this series is to cheerlead Carolyn to stay with John. That's it. And what do we see of Lauren in the back seat of this plane just smiling so contentedly because the quarreling lovers are getting along again. Now the plane warnings start going off. And again we're going to talk about the way this is depicted versus reality. Real talk about fake. Let's go. Everything okay? Yeah. No. You should go back to your seat.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

I want to sit with you.

[Maureen Callahan]

Okay. So that is. That is meant to be an echo of the Jackie Kennedy's. She gave an interview, I believe this was the one to Arthur Schlesinger not long after the assassination, like, really in the immediate days after. And she was talking about the Cuban Missile crisis, which he caused. Read Christopher Hitchens on this, you know, Anyway. And the entire east coast of America was preparing to be attacked by the Russians and blown to bits in nuclear annihilation. And Jack Kennedy had tried to send her away with the children. And she said, I just want to be here with you. I'm going to read the salient part about what really happened in the plane from Ask Not. Okay, so this is after John has left the lit up coastline to turn out over to the pitch black Atlantic, even though he could only fly by sight and it was super, super hazy that night. We'll get into that now. I'm reading from the book. Would have been the time to start using his instruments, but John couldn't. Now would have been the time to radio air traffic control, but John, who loved to get himself into near death situations, did not. Was he that sure he could get himself and Carolyn and Lauren out of it? Or was there a part of him, subconscious or not, that didn't care if he died taking his wife and sister in law with him? His magazine was on the verge of collapse. His marriage was failing. Contrary to the scene we just watched, his marriage was failing. His sister upset that John was trying to stop her from auctioning off their mother's possessions. Jackie's deathbed suggestion was now barely speaking with him. His life was coming apart on all fronts and John did not have great internal resources to draw upon the kind of inner strength forged only from being humbled and humiliated, pushed down and then forcing oneself to get back up again. Let's watch Love Story's depiction of Carolyn. Calm, calm as, as, as, as the plane, the plane is going down. It. In this scene there is no doubt. And, and if you're only listening, I'm going to tell you the, the Lauren character in the back simply peacefully closes her eyes as if to meet a welcome fate. This is really fucking sick, you guys. Really sick. Here we go. It's okay. Just breathe, John. Just breathe. Just breathe. They're all so calm. There's no screaming, there's no terror. The depiction, it's like they hit mild turbulence and we've all been on planes that hit turbulence. And it doesn't matter what your rational mind is telling you. You know that feeling of like the pit in your stomach. This is, this is so beyond obscene. Like I, I find it, I find it pornographic really, I really do. Now we're going to show Constance Zimmer, who did an incredible job playing Anne Freeman, who was a lioness. Anne Freeman, the mother of Carolyn, Lauren and Lisa Bissette, her only children. Two of them are now dead. You know, imagine what Anne thought her later years would be like. I'm sure she envisioned grandchildren and no shortage of happy times with her brilliant, accomplished daughters. And now two of them are dead. Their bodies have yet to be recovered and she doesn't know if they will be. And so this is what the scene gets right, is that Ann had a meeting in Manhattan in a lawyer's office, and her meeting was scheduled to be with Caroline Kennedy. And the topic of that meeting, the only agenda item, was what they were going to do with the remains once they were recovered and how they were going to memorialize John, Carolyn, and Lauren. Caroline Kennedy did not show up, nor did she have the decency to give Ann Freeman notice prior that she would not be attending this meeting. Instead, she sent her husband the vile, deplorable. Just my opinion, Ed Schlossberg. And in real life. Now, this series does a lot to humanize Ed and Caroline. Maybe because they're still living. I don't know. I'm. I'm much more cynical than that. I think it's because you cannot make Kennedy's sympathetic without giving them traits they don't possess, without giving them a basic level of humanity they do not embody. We'll watch this scene, and then I'll tell you what really went down. To quote the one and only Huda copy, Savannah, your mother got ripped out of her bed in the dead of night. What went down? Here we go.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

Let me start by offering my deepest condolences.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Where is she?

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

Sorry?

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Your wife. She was supposed to be here. Where is she?

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

I think she just felt, in light of the circumstances, it would be better if I helped broker the arrangements for the remains.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Is that right?

[Maureen Callahan]

In his diaries, published by the New York Post and seen with my own eyes, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Wrote that the Bessette family. The Bessette Freeman family. Freeman was Anne's married name. She remarried, knew that Ed hated Carolyn. His words, hated Carolyn. My theory about that, which nobody has ever really spoken about publicly, is that Ed Schlossberg probably lusted after Carolyn, who was a striking, statuesque, stylish, compelling woman who. Who had a magnetic force. Complicated person, to be sure, but she had a star quality all her own. And I bet that was the locus of the. Of the resentment, of the hatred, because why else? It's your. It's your sister's brother's wife. Like, what do you care? Now, Edwin, as the scene progresses, is going to talk to Anne about the potential plans, potential burial arrangements. And I'm going after. After this little scene, we're going to get into what really happened. It was brutal. It was sadistic. Here we go.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

President Clinton has offered that John be buried in Arlington National Cemetery alongside President Kennedy and Jackie, next to the eternal flame. However, if we wanted to keep John and Carolyn together, we would propose holyhood. The Kennedy family burial plot in Brookline, Massachusetts.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Why would my daughter be buried in a state she has no ties to? Are you suggesting those are my two choices which you so kindly laid out for me?

[Maureen Callahan]

No.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

No, of course not. Yes, but if you prefer that Carolyn be buried with John, the family would insist that it be alongside the rest of the deceased Kennedy relatives.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

The family would insist. The gall of you to sit there and try and dictate terms.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

I'm simply relaying the wishes of the Kennedy family.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

If the Kennedy family feels so strongly about this, why did they send you?

[Maureen Callahan]

Ha. I do love that. I do love that. You know, Ed Schlossberg also said of other requests at the service for John and Carolyn at. I believe it was St. Ignatius in New York City. I think that was Jackie's church. That non Kennedys don't eulogize Kennedies. That's how up his ass this guy is. He's not a Kennedy either. You're not Kennedy, Ed. You're Schlossberg. Who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think you are? Ask not. Ted Kennedy rushed in to do damage control. He had the remains hastily autopsied, the medical examiner's report, and photos. What photos were taken? They tried to get no photos taken. Sealed, then arranged for cremation. This was before Anne Freeman could get there. And that was deliberate. They knew. They knew what was coming. The Kennedys, I'm continuing, had little compassion for Carolyn and Lauren's family. John's sister Caroline and her husband Ed showed not the slightest remorse or kindness to Anne Freeman. She had lost two of her three daughters. Lauren's twin sister, Lisa, was now her sole surviving child. Anne was terrified that the Kennedys would use their power to bury what remained of Carolyn and Lauren at the family plot in Brookline, Massachusetts, and wanted her girls close to her in Connecticut. And she needn't have worried. The Kennedys told Anne that they did not care. John's remains, however, belonged to them, and he would be buried separately in Brookline. Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Was horrified as he wrote in a diary entry dated July 19, 1999. The agenda for the day was to get Carolyn and Caroline Kennedy. Excuse me, John's sister, and Anne together without intermediaries, so there wouldn't be too many cooks in the kitchen. RFK Jr continues. When Ann came down to New York City, however, Caroline didn't show. Instead, she sent her husband, Ed, and Vicki Reggie, Ted's second wife. All the Beset family knows that Ed hated Carolyn and did everything he could to make her life miserable. So by sending edge, that's Caroline Kennedy saying to Anne Freeman, my brother may have killed two of your three daughters, but you I'm sending my husband, who, you know, tried to make her life a misery. Imagine. Imagine. RFK continues. Ed and I quote, this quote is seared into my frontal lobe. He bullied, bullied, bullied. The shattered, grieving mother. They told her, this is RFK Jr. He knows what's up. They told her that John would be buried in Brookline and that they could do with Carolyn as they pleased. The nerve. Anne could do with her daughter, with her own daughter, her flesh and blood. Whatever she pleases, the Kennedys give them permission. As for Lauren, she doesn't matter. She doesn't matter. Here we go.

[Ed Schlossberg (Character)]

Whatever you decide to do with Carolyn's

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

remains, you keep saying her name. You keep saying Carolyn. May I remind you that I had not one, but two daughters on board that plane that he crashed.

[Maureen Callahan]

That's emotional truth. That's emotional truth. But they, they gave Ed too much of a. Of a characterological glow up. He's a piece of. Okay, some substance. Just my opinion. He's a piece of shit. Do you know that the condition of your hair, skin, nails, your mental clarity and energy all starts with gut health? Adding quality colostrum to your daily routine can help with all of it. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum offers the highest quality bovine colostrum available. It's 100% American, made from 100% American grass fed cows. Unlike other Colostrum brands, Cowboy Colostrum is true first day whole colostrum rich in bioactives. They also use ethical practices ensuring that they only collect the surplus colostrum after the calves have had their little fill. Made with natural ingredients and no artificial flavors. Just add a scoop of their chocolate, Madagascar vanilla, matcha or strawberry into your morning smoothie and get healthy from the inside out. For a limited time, our listeners get up to 25% off their entire order. Just head to cowboycolostrum.com SL Maureen and use code MAUREEN at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code [e-mail] Maureen if you're a parent and

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[Maureen Callahan]

now here's a scene again. This never happened. Caroline Kennedy, I have been told directly by people who would know, is a raging bitch. She is. She's a raging. And this scene never happened. Ann and Caroline never accidentally crossed paths at the Tribeca loft. First of all, there are an army of people and lawyers and handlers who would make sure that that never happened. And Caroline never extended a single act of decency, let alone sympathy or empathy, to this poor woman who her reckless, entitled, spoiled idiot of a brother killed. Here we go.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Some of the media are saying they crashed because Carolyn was getting her nails done, delayed their takeoff. Not that your brother wasn't equipped to fly at night and took off anyway, but. But that she held them back, her vanity. Are you aware of that?

[Maureen Callahan]

Shakes her head no. Stop reading the news.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Well, I have nothing left to protect but their legacies. There are images of your brother beaming around the world on the COVID of every newspaper and magazine. Carolyn's photo is usually on the inside and Lauren is practically a footnote. But she wasn't famous, so I guess her face doesn't sell papers.

[Maureen Callahan]

There is emotional truth in that scene and everything that Anne is saying. But again, Caroline never softened up and said, you know, and, and they have Caroline here, played by Grace Gummer. I'm sorry she's not a great actress. Not a great actress, you know, saying I, you know, I'm, I know I seem remote and I could have done more to help Carolyn and I didn't, and I regret it. And then she starts weeping. Never happened. Never happened. And here's another thing that never happened. Caroline comes over to Anne, grabs her by the hand and floats. A compromise that again, is shocking in its decency, which is never really exhibited by Kennedys. Here we go. I'm remembering a conversation I had with

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

John a while back where he said

[Maureen Callahan]

he wanted to be cremated with his ashes spread across the sea. I was wondering if

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

maybe we could spread John, Carolyn and Lauren's ashes together as one.

[Maureen Callahan]

No way. Never happening. They all, they really did not care what happened to Lauren Bessette's remains. In fact, Lauren had her own memorial in Connecticut. And I talked to people who were there and her uncle spoke and they played She's a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones. And you know, and Anne is correct in that scene, Lauren all even now remains a footnote in her own death because of stuff like this. A show that opened, by the way, Anne says they're already blaming my daughter Carolyn for the plane taking off because she was getting a manicure or pedicure. Now they sped that timeline up. But this very show, Love Story opens its opening scene. It's opening images Carolyn getting her nails done the day of the plane crash and making her manicurist change the color, thereby making her late. There's a scene in the finale where Lauren is talking to John about her being late. We're going to get to our saint, our patron saint of the nerve and what she has to say about disabusing the culture of that. Now at, at the memorial service at the funeral, Anne Freeman did read the poem Death is Nothing at all by Henry Scott Holland. And they do have constant Zimmer as an Freeman reading that same poem. We're just going to listen to a tiny snippet of it as. Because it's the end of the poem, Anne, and it's, it's the final shot of, of this, of this series and it's very disturbing. Here we go.

[Anne Freeman (Character)]

Do not stand by my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.

[Maureen Callahan]

And our final images are of John and Carolyn. Carolyn cradled by John on a beach, just two wasps in love, wearing J. Crew cream colored roll neck sweaters and jeans. Dark wash, no detail too small. And it's a perfect sunny day. They're meant to be in heaven, I suppose. They close their eyes for much of that. Shot in repose, in permanent repose. Their bodies are intact here looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean which would become their watery graves. Okay, now the real and the mainstream media that perpetuates this and we're going to embarrass them and humiliate them until they begin correcting this record. ABC News a documentary called a documentary in quotes. The Last Days of JFK Junior aired July 4, 2021 this is another lie. And it's uttered by Kennedy biographer Christopher Anderson. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

This night he was going to be flying solo. His. The instructor he usually went with couldn't be there.

[Maureen Callahan]

That is a lie. There was an a flight instructor on that tarmac who offered to go up with John and John said, no, I want to do this alone. It's a lie. And ABC News should be ashamed of itself for not fact checking that lie and for allowing a Kennedy biographer to get on their airwaves and repeat that so that people who think that they're trying to, like, learn as much as, as, as actual supposedly trusted outlets will tell them are going to believe that's true, just like so many people are believing that love story is Bible and verse and that that's true. It's not true. Here's the last person allegedly to see them alive on the tarmac. This is aviation analyst Kyle Bailey and this piece just ran last week. On Friday, March 27, on Inside Edition 20, Kyle is going to tell us about how poor the weather conditions that, by the way, John Jr. Didn't check. Not that he needed to because the haze was visible all around the tri State. Here we go. Kyle was 26 at the time. He also had plans to fly to Martha's Vineyard that night, but canceled because of the weather. That particular Friday was, as we say in aviation, the three H's hazy, hot and humid. He says he feared John was tempting fate, went home that night. What did you say? I just kind of made the off the the cuff comment, you know, I, I hope he doesn't kill himself in that airplane someday. You have to love that. Inside Edition voiceover. It's always the same on the flight. It's like not everything should be up speak like not every sentence should be delivered with excitement. Okay, okay. Now back to Inside Edition, noting that Carolyn's older sister Lauren was also on the flight. Here we go. The crash not only took the lives of the Prince of Camelot and his bride, but also Carolyn's older sister Lauren, an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. The doomed flight left two families bereft with grief. Beed with grief. I mean, is there a school they all go to? She's standing outside the Tribeca loft. She uses the phrase the Prince of Camelot. Sister, wise up. The Prince of Camelot and his bride. They were not together at the time of. Okay, now we're going to look at a cockpit simulation of the flight. Okay, this is, this is the most, this is the closest approximation I could get. No one really wants to do it because it's so disturbing that you would never see JFK Jr. The same way again. Am I right? Here we go.

[Aviation Analyst]

The shoreline that John had been relying on for visual reference is now directly behind him. There's nothing to See out of the windshield, output blackness. Scanning the instruments, John realizes he has turned about 50 degrees to the right of his course to Martha's Vineyard. He puts the Saratoga in a 28 degree left wing down bank to get back on course. The Saratoga climbs slightly up to 2,600ft. In the 28 degree turn, the Saratoga starts descending at 900ft per minute. John levels wings. When he reaches a heading of 090, he pulls back on the yoke and momentarily slows the descent. Head movements, gentle turns, acceleration, deceleration, etc. All can contribute to the onset of spatial disorientation. And the effects are starting to set in. John's senses are screaming to him. He feels strongly the aircraft is still turning left. He applies right aileron to stop the turn. He's convinced something must be wrong with his instruments. He doesn't want to descend. He pulls back on the yoke. He's still descending. He pulls harder and adds full power. John wasn't past the point of no return yet. Recoveries from unusual attitudes are practiced in primary flight training and instrument flight training. But they are practiced in daylight without the hideous effects of full blown spatial disorientation. A nose down, steep turn, power on, unusual attitude can be recovered from quickly if the pilot can rapidly interpret and completely trust what his instruments are telling

[Maureen Callahan]

him you can hear.

[Aviation Analyst]

The engine is racing, the VSI is showing a descent. The altimeter is winding down. The airspeed is increasing. The heading spinning right. We're in a high speed diving right turn. Pulling back on the yoke in an attempt to stop the descent at this point only causes the bank angle and rate of turn and nose down angles to increase into the classic graveyard spiral.

[Maureen Callahan]

So that pilot right there is saying experienced pilots know how to get out of this. They could have been saved. But John couldn't do it because he didn't know how to fly properly. He didn't know how to fly using his instruments. And it's so crucial because when you're in that spatial disorientation, the instruments are that your body, your eardrums, your everything is telling you, your senses, that this, what you're feeling is real and that the instruments are wrong. And you have to learn how to override that and say, despite what my senses are telling me, the instruments are correct. And I do think this was a murder suicide. I do. I lay out why and ask, not here. The pilot is going to tell us how John could have gotten out of that death spiral if only he knew what he was doing. Here we Go.

[Aviation Analyst]

What we must do to save our lives is reduce power while simultaneously leveling the wings with ailerons. Only after the wings are level do we pull back slightly on the yoke to ease the nose up and arrest the descent. When the descent has stopped, we can add power back in, continue to ease the nose up to climb to safety.

[Maureen Callahan]

Okay, now we're going to listen to a chief Navy diver known as Joshua Benjamin, who appeared on the same podcast twice. We're going to listen to part of his first appearance on the Marco Ruta Exchanges podcast on November 11, 2024. He. He says that they were down on the ocean floor diving for one week. That is a very long time to retrieve everything. They were still down there while the service where they were spreading the cremains in the ocean on a Navy aircraft carrier or destroyer, whatever it is, which, by the way, an obscenity. It's not for civilians, and you're not supposed to be dumping cremains off of military ocean craft. But they're Kennedys, you know, they do whatever the. They want. Anyway, they all had to stay down there for so long. You know why? Because the Kennedy family was worried that there would be trophy hunters who would find, like, a piece of. Of one of their belongings. And. And Joshua basically says, wind up in a bar going, look what I got. You know, you can't have that kind of, like, mortification. You know, I mean, the guy, like, killing these two women isn't like a mortification. It's like that there might be trophy hunters out there. Anyway, anyway, the diver. Listen to the diver talk about which body part. And now we're doing this because it's necessary, because there are obscenities like Ryan Murphy's love story in the culture, because there are things like this. This is the COVID of People this week. This is why the nerve exists, and this is why we have to talk about the grizzly truth. It's not romantic. It's not cool. It's not aspirational. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

One detail was that JFK Jr's legs were. Some people will say they were inside of them from impact. Fortunately, we found the kneecap in the cockpit dashboard. So you don't really. That doesn't really happen when something goes inside of you. So they were very mangled.

[Maureen Callahan]

The kneecap. The kneecap in the cockpit. He. He didn't say the lower half of the leg. Upper half of the leg. You got to listen very closely to what Joshua says and what he doesn't say. I was doing this, like, all Last night, like playing these clips over and over and over as I was cutting them, because I was. The more you hear them, the more you get in tune with what he's not saying. These bodies, the parts that weren't. I'll get to that. They were blown apart. They were, they were blown apart. There was part of the kneecap in, in the panel in the cockpit. Now Joshua is going to talk about after the bodies. The bodies, the, the remains, like what little remained of these people. And they had the burial at sea and all of that, they were still down there. And one of the, one of the divers found another body part. And again, listen very carefully to how he relays this. And then we're going to talk about what he left out here. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

We found, I'd probably say a quarter size of a scalp that the. Of blonde hair that had been wrapped around her umbilical. And so, you know, you're. You're kind of putting your hose away to be done with the dive. And one of the divers said, topside, I have, you know, this substantial size scalp down here. And at one point everyone was kind of like, well, what do we do? It's, you know, make a decision. And basically just the topside diver said, no, you didn't. And so the diver below basically kind of unwound it from this Velcro boot that we utilize for chafing gear and just let it go into the open ocean and essentially barrel at sea. Right? That's where the other bodies were. So this piece just kind of went away.

[Maureen Callahan]

The first time I heard that. We played this part on a very early nerve. I think we did it last summer when CNN was doing their hagiography of John Jr. What a great fucking guy. I thought when he said a quarter of a scalp, like, I thought he meant like it was shaped like a quarter. Like it was about the size of like a quarter. And upon cutting it again last night, I thought. I think, I thought to myself, I think he means like a quarter of the whole, so like one fourth of the. Like a substantial piece. And what he isn't saying there is that they knew it was Carolyn's scalp because when they recovered her body, she was missing a piece of that scalp. It matched the piece that was missing on her head, because I think her head wasn't there and I don't think they found it. Now, these divers, you know, I, I came to know while I was writing American Predator, this guy named Bobby Chacon, Chican, who was the head of a dive team in LA for the FBI. And we talked extensively about what they do and how they do it. And these guys are beasts. And we are so lucky. They belong to us. They are beasts. What Joshua doesn't say about the extreme difficulty and danger of dives like these, these are more people who JFK Jr. With his recklessness and entitlement, put in mortal danger. As reported by CNN and published on July 21, 1919. Sorry, 1999, the day the wreckage was located, and I quote, the ocean depth in that area of the Atlantic Ocean is about 115ft. Visibility is only about 6 to 8ft. The water temperature is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Dives are limited to about 15 minutes. Takes them a lot longer to get up than to get down because of the bends. Joshua came back for another episode that aired on December 12, 2025. So just before love Story was about to premiere. Now, he said that he can speak about this because the military back then did not require them to sign NDAs for this assignment. You know, and he's also like, I don't understand why the. Why Navy divers were called in for civilians. I still don't get it. Their orders from their superiors were not to talk to the press. Like, and when they went out that night or at night, like, at bars, like, everyone would know. They were like people from out of town and not tourists. And so to watch out for, like, all the media people who are going to be blanketing those bars and like, going, hey, what do you know? What did you see? But so anyway, he feels like he can speak about it now and that it's important to speak about it. And thank God for Joshua Benjamin's. Thank God. Here he relays what the NTSB investigator above the water said the minute they found the propeller. And they can watch above the water, they're watching the rov, those cameras down below, as they find what they find. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

One thing that we do recall is when we pulled up the main, main fuselage, where it had the actual propeller still there, the one NTSB representative that was on board ship with us seen every single piece. And part of it clearly looked right at the propeller. And he immediately almost knew, yeah, that plane was at full throttle when it was hitting the water. Just by the way the shape of the bent. And yeah, this is their profession. They just know these looks to him. And that's was his words alone. He goes, yep, he was at full throttle when he hit.

[Maureen Callahan]

So much for the mild turbulence Ryan Murphy depicted in his season finale. So much for that Romantic. Ted. A tet in the cockpit. The cockpit, you know, Ryan. Sorry. Joshua says the plane hit the water at about 120 miles per hour. That's like hitting concrete. He talks about the NTSB trying to assemble what was left of the broken wreckage of that plane in a warehouse. He also talks about. This is graphic, but we have to talk about it. He saw JFK Jr's face smashed into the cockpit control panels from the ROV camera below. One whole side of that plane was just shorn off. It was gone. The wings were gone. It was laying on its side. The back seats where Carolyn and Lauren had been seated were folded up, he said, like an old flip phone. So these bodies, the divers had to unfold the seats and then they picked up big pieces of the plane and what was left of the bodies. Now, now, Joshua, it obviously feels a little bit more at liberty to talk about the real state of John Jr's body. And remember in that first interview he said some people say that John's legs were shoved up into his torso on impact. Now, Joshua is going to tell you where he got that little talking point. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

How. How bad were the bodies? Very bad. Mangled. Absolutely. For sure. For sure. JFK Jr. Was in half. His actual upper torso was. When we first saw the video, we saw him up against the cockpit when the. When we got down there to remove his bodies off out of the wreckage, his whole torso had fallen off of the cockpit. And when it's physically laying on the sand at that point, okay, I got

[Maureen Callahan]

a little bit ahead of myself, but note in that he says torso. First of all, this is what water does to bodies. You know, it like they come apart. There's animal life down there. You know, they bloat, they distend. He says torso. So at first the torso was upright in the cockpit, and then by the time they got down there, it had fallen out of the plane onto the ocean floor. What he doesn't say is the torso and the head. I believe he, too was decapitated. Okay, now we get to the. How he got the talking point about something that's, I think, probably physically impossible, the legs getting jammed up into his torso. Why they thought this would sound better than the real thing, I've got no idea. But that's a cultural and historical sickness for you. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

So legs still in cockpit. So legs were not in the cockpit. And come later on, we search for the legs. Legs were never recovered. Legs never recovered. So only top half of. Only top half. I didn't Know that? Yes. Yep. It's very interesting. Only. Only top half. And I think I said earlier where we were kind of like advised to, if ever asked, just say. That was exactly one of the key points that we got told to say. His legs got pushed up inside of him.

[Maureen Callahan]

The other. The other guy who's conducting this interview, we hear him speak there. He says, I'm a personal injury lawyer and I've seen just about every contortion a. A catastrophic accident can do to a body, and I've never heard of such a thing. Now Joshua is going to talk about being ordered to go searching again. More people in danger for what? Go search for John's legs because they're not there. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

But what was crazy was one of the dives we had to do. They said, we don't have his legs. Go look for him. So again, we got told to say this, but we had. We also got told to go look for the legs. And we know for sure that. And I'm sure the autopsies out there, too, somebody did it. Where it is, I don't know. But I guarantee you an autopsy would say, well, there was no legs inside of them. As a personal injury attorney, I can tell you the. The legs inside of him thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, I've seen just about any type of accident that you can name, and I. That doesn't add up. Right. And a moving propeller right there in front of you, going at that speed, whatever makes a lot of sense. That. That just lobbed him right in half.

[Maureen Callahan]

The autopsy report was covered up by Ted Kennedy. I'm sure it was burned. We've never seen it. It's a historical document, all three. And you know why Elsie had it burned? Because they knew that Anne Freeman was going to sue the living out of the Kennedys. And, you know, she couldn't have the kind of evidence that would have gotten her not just a payday for the ages. They wound up settling with her for $15 million. And by the way, it's been reported that Ann, who is still with us, there. There's a. There's a misconception out there that there's another woman named Ann Freeman who has since passed away, but it's not. It's not their mother. She's still with us. It's been reported that she forever regretted allowing herself in her shock and grief to get convinced by the Kennedys to cremate her daughters with John, that she wished that she had had their remains buried near. Near where she and her husband live in Connecticut so that she would have a place to go visit them. We're pressed a little bit for time. I'm going to skip over this clip. But he does talk about they were down there for so long because they had to prevent those trophy hunters. And. But that even among the divers they were kind of like is there. Should we take something like, you know, and like being ordered not to not to. And we will end on Joshua talking about the decision to release that piece of scalp. And I can think of someone who would have wanted, I am sure, every bit of her daughter's remains. But they couldn't have this besmirch the otherwise pristine legacy of one John F. Kennedy Jr. Here we go.

[Joshua Benjamin (Navy Diver)]

And it was pretty obvious that the scalp was from a portion of the fuselage that end 100 it was. It was long blonde hair and it matched the description of the one female that we had recovered earlier. And so it was just said that this is not a scalp of another plane crash or anybody else. This came from this plane crash. And again, those bodies are already cremated and released to the sea. So this piece will be released to the sea.

[Maureen Callahan]

That shows you how little of those bodies were recoverable. None of those bodies were intact. None of them. We're going to end this segment on real photos of the wreckage of that Piper saratoga that John Jr. Crashed. These are real. The plane was brought up from the bottom by the NTSB and put together as best as possible in order to determine what happened that night. And we're going to show you them. There are four of them. And this is the real story. And we cannot leave it to hacks like Ryan Murphy to do to really just commit such sacrilege to the memories of innocents who were killed in this and a culture that props up people like JFK Jr because this is what we get in the end. This is what we get for making these people into absolute untouchables. And when we're through showing these photos, we will see you on the other side with troublemaker feedback. We are back in a minute. Troublemakers are banks cashing your interest checks while you are bidding buried in debt. PDS debt can help. PDS debt has freed hundreds of thousands of people from credit card, personal loan and medical debt with tailored plans that put you first and there is no minimum credit score needed. They have got an A rating from the Better Business Bureau and a nearly five star rating on trust pilot. With thousands of real success stories every month you delay just costs you more. So don't wait another month. You can take back control in 30 seconds. Get your free personalized assessment and the best option for you@pds debt.com nerve that's pds debt.com nerv there are countless reasons

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[Maureen Callahan]

We are back. Now before we get into troublemaker feedback, just a couple of mentions of some cultural offenders. Tiger woods we are getting to it. We need a much larger like just segment in which to do it. We're doing it this week. Do not worry. This, by the way, is his fourth car wreck since I believe, 2009. Is that right, Marina? She says I'm right. This again is why the Nerve exists. There is a celebrity culture propping up like this. It's the Nerve will not abide. The Nerve will not abide it. Now we're going to take a look at Angelina Jolie attending a Tom ford event on March 29th in Shanghai, China. I'm sure she was cut a very nice check to fly all that way. Something is very, very off here. This wound up in my algorithm multiple times and I when I went and looked in the comment sect I see people going oh, it's like jet lag. Or maybe she got like too much botox in her left eye. She looks high as to me. Okay, she looks high as a kite. Let's get real. Okay, now we are going to go to Troublemaker feedback. Oh, mini reactions from the YouTube channel. One YouTube comment when Hoda interviewed Savannah, it looked like she was contorting her face trying to cry, but still somehow looked like there was almost a smile going on too. It was strange indeed. Another comment. Hoda always looks like she's about to burst out laughing. Agreed. Agreed. One more the word joy Now Makes me want to vomit. We are going to have more to say about what's going on over at the Today Show. Definitely with Rob. He's got all the behind the scenes intel. Okay, now the only part from a troublemaker named Amy from Alabama. Oh, I love that alliteration. Amy from Alabama. The subject line. The only part when Hoda seemed to really cry in the Savannah interview. All hail troublemaker in chief Amy. Thank you. I have been a silent watcher SL listener since the beginning, she writes. She also thanks us for sharing the adorable Teddy Van Halen. How could I not? The guy is a ham. He is such a ham. Regarding Hoda's interview, I could not help but notice the only tears that felt real and were definitely the most substantive ones, not just grunts and sniffles. Came at the end of the interview when they discussed ellipses. Savannah's return to the Today Show. So clever. Troublemaker Amy tells us everything. Poor Hoda did not do a good imitation of caring about Savannah and this whole nightmare situation with her mother. Plus, I read co host Craig was stunned at not getting the interview. That. That is the reporting. This is how, this is how diseased it is over at the Today Show. Craig was furious that he didn't get the sit down furious. He's like a shit what happened to Savannah's mother. He just wants the interview. But I think you have to give a shit about what happened to Savannah's mother in order to even be in the running for that interview. That's how fucked up they all are. It totally explains why Craig was slouched on that couch. We showed it in the mini after those, those Hoda clips aired on Today of her interview. And Savannah's weeping and struggling and you know, and, and, and Craig, it's like, pass him another beer. He's watching the game. He was so put out, you know, and now, now, Savannah, trust me. Savannah know if I know this and you know this, Savannah knows this. Savannah is going to go back and sit next to crazy Craig on that set. Is she for real? Craig, my man, you might be in danger. Deservedly so. Subject line, the Nerve makes me feel like I found my table at the cafeteria. This warms my cold dead heart, my friend. This is a troublemaker. Lisa, who has written before Maureen. So glad that the Nerve exists. The Nerve really does have a lane wide open for real talk on the culture. Agreed. Now she writes. I remember back when nutmeg Meghan Markle was poised as the next best thing with her guest editing UK Vogue. And it was like if you didn't like her, there was something wrong with you. Trust me Lisa, I know this. Well, I was one of the first American journalists to write that. I thought she was full of shit. You know what that got me? It got me called a racist. Okay? Or when Lena Dunham was supposed to be the savior for us weird edgy punk girls who write. And if you didn't like her or Roxane gay sister, you are singing my song. You were a misogynist or your fat fat phobic. I thought I was alone for not loving these people back in their heydays and now I see I wasn't. Indeed, I feel like I found my table at the cafeteria even if I watch alone. Knowing that there are so many of us who call out celebrity and are not just going to open our mouths to take what's being spoon fed to us by Hollywood creeps gives me hope in this crazy mixed up world. Same Lisa. I am so glad we have all found each other. Troublemaker L in Paris and she signs off much like our beloved Armando does. She is a self described author slash bon vivant slash dork in Paris. Hi Maureen. Thank you to the nerve for calling out one Justin Timberlake. I am glad that the culture seems to be waking up finally and realizing that his Mr. Nice Guy Persona is a complete sham. Just my opinion. In addition to the way he has exploited women like Britney and Janet Jackson. I agree with this opinion. The clips of homeless people used during his wedding were absolutely disgusting. I could not agree with you more. Jessica Beal should not be given a pass either. I could not agree with you more because Troublemaker Damien writes this. We've heard from him before. You'll. You'll remember who he is when I get to the next part. Damien writes, if my significant other thought that this was way in any way amusing, I would be walking out the door, not up the aisle. Agreed. I think I mentioned before you did that I work as a solicitor. That's lawyer in the UK and drunk driving is, based on my experience, one of the most selfish crimes you can commit. One of the worst cases I had to litigate involved a 10 year old boy killed by someone who got behind the wheel after a few glasses of wine. I will never forget how completely broken his parents were. And this Damien in London is why we are going all the fast way in on Tiger Woods. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Poor Tiger. Out. Okay. An interesting and fun diversion. Hi Maureen. Thank you for keeping politics out of your show as best you can. Our pleasure. We want to be your oasis. It is a very dark and scary world out there. You know, there at least we can do something about the cultural offenders that Hollywood and the media industrial complex try to prop up in front of us. We're already moving the needle, guys. As discussed. Look at no further than one Timothy Shamalama, Ding Dong Maureen. Maureen, my queen. Oh, I love it. You certainly hit the nail on the head regarding the innuendo dialogue, innuendo filled dialogue and love story at their therapy session in the finale when Carolyn says I can't be the third person in our marriage, it brings to mind Princess Diana's interview where she Sundays there were three people in this marriage. I am so happy this non love story is ending. It is so painful to watch. It is so far from the truth. How America has fallen for the shit is beyond me. Dear Maureen, loyal troublemaker from day one. I would like to see this as a regular feature maybe Sundays someday on the Nerve. It begs for a title such as Hit a Nerve or the Nerve to tell it like it is. She is a voracious reader, has read Ask not and a couple of others of mine. She would like us to do a book club and I am really all for this. We have been thinking about this for a while now. Our real. You know, I recommended Jonathan Franzen's Crossroads last summer. Summer and a lot of you wrote to me about how much you then went and got it and loved it, which made me so happy. I love Jonathan Franzen. We're gonna do of course Rob's book, which I don't know if you guys saw this, but Rob posted over the weekend his book, it started with a Whisper. His debut novel is Num. Went number one on Amazon. Amazon's pre orders number one Troublemakers. We did it. We did it. His book is going to make the New York Times bestseller list. I don't want to jinx it, but I'm pretty sure it is. And that is our inaugural book club pick. We can talk to the author ourselves. How happy are we? Hi Maureen. Since you have two palms, I thought I would share the loss of my heart. My little girl. Perfect Pearl, I am so sorry. This is Troublemaker Nancy. Almost 15 years ago I adopted her at 8 weeks from a disreputable seller. She was covered in fleas and was sick with kennel cough. This six pound huggable ball of fur was with me through thick and thin and I was hoping she would enter her 16th year. But she looked up at me the other day and said, I am sorry. It's time to go. I am one of your senior troublemakers, and 80 years on Earth brings many joys and losses. Losing Pearl was equally as wrenching as many others. I cannot imagine ever getting as much love and devotion from another pet as anyone who knew Pearl adored her. She wasn't a show dog, but she sure was a showgirl. I have finally stopped weeping. Nancy, you belong to a very hallowed club of dog lovers here at the Nerve. And many of you write in when you're. When you're beloved. Beloved animals cross the rainbow bridge. I think of Mellie right now. And, you know, she wrote in when she lost her beloved. So we are with you, Nancy. We are with you. You will get through this. And you gave Pearl, clearly, a great life. What a gift. What a gift you gave that little girl. Dear Maureen, I highly recommend The Ghost and Mrs. Muir not to be confused with the vapid TV show. You know, I've never seen this film. This is about Gene Tierney, who I love and whose memoir I'm still. I'm. I'm slowly reading it because her life is extraordinary. This movie showcases Ms. Tierney's extraordinary beauty. She. She really looked like nobody else. And her talent for light comedy as well as her ability to break your heart. And she loves us talking about classic movies and says it's so important to remember them. And I could not agree more. Final troublemaker email. We're going to get to it. Probably a couple of episodes, definitely this week. Because we're out of time. We're at a time we were going to do it in C block with another treat, so we just have to punt it to another show. But I promise you guys, because it's too good. And this one will not stand alone. Okay? This. This segment will involve our. Our patron saint. Hi, Maureen. She is digging the nerve. Thank you. An ex New Yorker now in the California Bay area, having lived in Queens and worked in the city for 20 years. So watching you just makes me so homesick. Listen, I'll just. I'll make you feel a little bit better in New York right now. You're not missing much. Okay. Not sure if you saw on the New York Times.com I did. Troublemaker H. I did. There is an article about Carol Radziwill in the style section full of name dropping pretentiousness and self righteous diatribes that she's sick of talking about JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. Wow. Lying much? I saw it. Tore it out texted Marlena immediate. And we're going to get into it. And my favorite thing about this, number one, this really was a pretext for the times, which is getting a little nervy. I will give them credit to to go in on her about like her friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell. It's amazing. We're going to talk about it. But the other great part of the piece is Carol's like, you know, once upon a time it fell to me in some substance, you know what I'm saying, To protect the legacies of JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bessette, you know, on my bony, scrawny little shoulders. It was all up to me and. But I didn't think it was going to mean I would do it forever. And now it's become such a burden. Like now she's a real full on fudgeing martyr and she's coming back to Real Housewives of New York City. Oh, my God, you guys. We're going to feast on this cultural carcass forever. That does it. That does it for our Tuesday edition of the Nerve. Come back and see us tomorrow for the Nerve at Night. If you haven't already, check out our substack atthe nerve show.com be sure to subscribe. Plus grab some nerve merch for yourself. A fellow troublemaker, a convert you're looking to bring in. It's all over there@shop thenerve.com we will see you back here in less than 20. No, it's a little more than 24 hours. It's the Nerve at night. But we will see you back here tomorrow at the Nerve where you will never guess what we're about to say next.

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