
In the Nerve's final show before Christmas, Maureen Callahan is joined by celebrity reporter Rob Shuter to discuss the biggest celeb gossip of 2025, including J.Lo and Ben Affleck's ping pong relationship, Meghan Markle making no plans to see her father over the holidays, Harry’s attempts to make money through speaking engagements, the explosive Diddy trial and his life behind bars, and the grim details unfolding in the double murder of Rob and Michele Reiner. Maureen also takes a swipe at Michelle Obama's recent comments about "letting go" and Timothée Chalamet showing how uninformed he really is during one of his international media stops. Later in the show, Maureen is joined by Nancy Grace, host of Fox One’s “Crime Stories,” to break down latest updates on the biggest crime stories of 2025, including Bryan Kohberger trying to make friends with serial killers behind bars and Diddy planning his post-release comeback. She also dives into Brittany Spears' troubling behavior, reckle...
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Maureen Callahan
Hello and welcome to your Tuesday edition of the Nerve. I am your host Maureen Callahan and this is officially the Nerve before Christmas. Which means it is also the end of a long year of celebrity scandal and drama. And you know, the Nerve is only 8 months old this month, but I think in our baby period, we have shed a lot of light on a lot of people who are, you know, hiding under the, under the covers for a little too long. So we thought what better thing to do to talk about the year in celebrity scandal with one Rob Shooter who is joining us right before he takes off on his own holiday vacation. He made time in his very busy schedule because he too is a troublemaker. And we are going to talk everything that matters, and I mean everything. And we are going to then punt it forward to what will unquestionably be the dominant celebrity storyline that we are all talking about in 2026. So Rob is waiting for all of us on the other side side of this. Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go. I'm going to tell you about a new documentary that I've recently watched. It's called thank you, Dr. Fauci. And it is a deep dive into The Origins of COVID 19, a potential bio arms race with China, and what could be the biggest public health deception in modern history. Award winning filmmaker Jenna first, who pours over documents and grills scientists, intelligence experts and whistleblowers. This is not a left wing or a right wing film. It is a film about accountability. This is a compelling investigative work. It is urgent. It is unsettling eye opening and is now streaming on Angel Studios. It is a must watch. If you have ever wondered, as all of us do, what really goes on behind closed doors, you will not want to miss this. Most alarming, the layers of institutional secrecy and the courage it takes to challenge those. Angel Studios is the only platform bold enough to release this, thanks to Guild members who vote on real stories. It's already available on angel, so be ready to watch, question and share. If you are ready to demand transparency, join the angel guild@angel.com.com nerve become a member stream. Thank you, Dr. Fauci. And be part of the conversation demanding truth and accountability. Rob, tell me to your mind what the biggest celebrity scandal of 2025 has been.
Rob Shooter
Oh, the biggest scandal of 2025. That's a great question. I think I've got to say JLo and Ben Affleck's ever going relationship, now it's over. Could it be back on? This was so annoying and this was so, so long to digest because the two of them were just so awkward about the whole thing. So I think JLO and Ben probably was a story that I've spoke about. Maybe the second most, maybe the number one is the never ending Meghan Markle. Meghan's certainly up there with the stories of the year. She never ceases to amaze me. If there's a mistake to be made, Maureen, she's going to make it. Even at a simple charity event, she'll make it.
Maureen Callahan
You know, it's so true. And I saw, I ripped this out of the New York Post over the weekend and I wanted to talk to you about it. It's called Megan's, Meghan's dad check. And this is basically the, the, the head and the readout, which is Meghan Markle not inclined to see sick father over the holidays. Instead, she and Harry are going to jet off for some luxury vacation on some island somewhere with a bunch of other famous people, allegedly for New Year's. That's what she's going to be doing.
Rob Shooter
Yeah, yeah. Shocking. It's, it's got to the point where it's almost comical. Now. It's so funny to me that somebody who still insists that they've got a brand based on compassion and they value family and relationships and all this stuff that they spout and they do the opposite. I think it goes back to that saying, Maureen, it's not what people say, it's what they do. And if you watch their actions, it explains exactly the who these two are. And maybe I'll be bold enough to predict, Maureen, that next year we might be talking a little less about them. Maybe the bubbles burst. My reporting was that William no longer has any intention to strip them of the Sussex title because. Not because he's been kind, but the title is worthless. The Sussex brand now doesn't mean anything. They're not going to get any more deals. It's over. What would you do if you were a Sussex? What could I do with that brand? Pretty much nothing.
Maureen Callahan
Wow. So that, you know, to your. To that, you know, it's, it's, you know, with narcissists. And I do believe those. I believe she's a malignant narcissist. He's definitely a narcissist. But, you know, bad attention is absolutely fine if you can't get good attention. Bad attention is attention but no attention. So the notion that William won't even be bothered to strip them, it's really rough.
Rob Shooter
It's. It's really. It's really rough that if you think about it, you know, a lot of my British friends work in the Palace. I have great royal sources. I'm from Britain, I know London. And so my sources tell me, and I think this is really, really smart, is that if he strips them, he'll just look like. Look like a petty brother. He'll look petty if he doesn't strip them and ignores them. That's actually more cruel. It's worthless. What is that brand worth? And that's their own fault. This was a billion dollar brand. This is a brand that potentially could have been enormous and they've squandered it. So I think that they don't need William to. And cut them. They've done it themselves. What's that expression, Maureen? I love it. Give them enough rope to hang themselves.
Maureen Callahan
Yes.
Rob Shooter
I think this is a perfect example. And they've hung themselves and the Sussex brang too.
Maureen Callahan
Yes. And you know, the way you just said that, Rob, So elegant. So you're relishing it. You know, we're both just like dying over here. But, you know, we, we were reporting last week or I was talking to Kinsey about this. Harry has been making, like, corporate speeches for, like a few hundred K a pop.
Rob Shooter
Yeah.
Maureen Callahan
In. In. You know, this is a very, very grim way of making money for a former top Royal.
Rob Shooter
Oh, absolutely. This is what real Housewives do. This is what people on shows in the 70s do. This is what Tara Reid is doing. Like, this is what they're doing. Harry is going to be doing this less and less because he's going to be booked less and less. He's going to earn less and less. There's no return for this. And it happens often in celebrity lives. Debbie Gibson used to play the Madison Square Garden and now she's doing small theaters. It's sort of like a natural progression. It's very, very rare to have a career that sustains that much unless you're a member of the royal family that is meant to last forever. They've squandered it. They've absolutely squandered it. They're going to get less and less bookings. When they first came over here, they tried to hire the same agent as Barack Obama. They wanted a million dollars of speech. They were they they thought they were going to be part of this lecture circuit which does exist out there. MAUREEN I've seen people, I know people.
Maureen Callahan
Who'Ve gone no, I know it does, but just the idea that they think they're on the level of a former US President, delusional.
Rob Shooter
They thought when Oprah played the Garden and charged, you know, $80, $100 a ticket, they thought they were that they thought they could sell out the Garden. Talking about not really quite much sure we want but chitter chattering away and no, no, they're not going to get now. And also too, I was talking to some book publishers. With my book coming out, I've become quite, quite intimate in in this world. I've really got to learn a lot about it. And I asked them all about Meghan and Harry and they've said it was a one shot deal. He told all his spare, made him a lot of money. It was a huge success. It's over. And the reason Meghan has not had a book is not because she's a good, clean, decent person and she doesn't want to gossip. She's not been offered the money she wants. That really Meghan Markle book is now, because of her recklessness, almost worthless. She's told all the secrets, all her stories have been told. She gave them away for free on Oprah Winfrey. What else is she going to tell us? And so the the, the appetite, the demand for this couple and I say it with some pleasure as a Brit, some pleasure as as somebody who they thoroughly annoy. But I say it with such heartbreak as a reporter, they have kept me in business this year. I was looking back over my substack and I see in the sort of numbers I get, Meghan's always up there people the last year we're listening but I think, I think it's coming to an end. I think it's coming to an end.
Maureen Callahan
Rob, before we abandon Meghan Markle to move on to other celebrity reprobates, just my opinion, what do you think a divorce memoir could get Meghan? Do you have a sense of how the publishing marketplace would react to that?
Rob Shooter
That's the only card she has left to. We don't want to hear about this life in Montecito. We don't want to hear lies about how successful her business is. We don't want to hear chapter and chapter about making jam. That's what she'll do. We know this. We know celebrities who have got book deals, and you have a word minimum. You have to do 60,000 words at least. And so one chapter is always them just describing what's in their bag. And they're just clearly filling space. And they just clearly. When one word would do, they use fives. And that's what Megan's TV show felt. Felt like to me, that's what a book would be like, unless it was about the divorce. A really witty friend of mine said, with Megan, it feels like every minute on that TV show has an extra 20 seconds. Like, it just goes on and on and on. It rambles on. And so I think the only way, the only story that she has left to tell is a story that hasn't happened yet. But if they got divorced and she was honest, that's the thing, too, with her. You can't rely on her to give you the unvarnished truth. She's very, very controlling. And so I think she would have to get somebody, a writer there that really. That she listened to, and she hasn't. She hired really good people around her Sussex brand. They all got fired or they quit. Nobody is left around her. I found out that all this drama with her dad, her publicists were not really involved. She involved the Netflix prince. It was people that worked at Netflix that were firing off nasty emails to reporters. And so it was so interesting that once again, Meghan's as upset that the real moneymaker in her life, which is Netflix, they don't want to be involved in this. The Netflix publicists want to look after the executives, and they want to get viewers for their television shows, for their streaming shows. They don't want to act as Meghan's personal publicist about her dad, but she got them involved because, A, not smart, and B, she has nobody else left. There's no one around them anymore.
Nancy Grace
Wow.
Maureen Callahan
Wow. I mean, if I'm Megan, I'm calling the Crisis manager that Kerry Washington's character in Scandal was based on. That's who I'm calling. Okay, let's move on to Diddy. We began the year with a federal trial in lower Manhattan that captivated the country. We all lived through the endless playing on a loop of the Cassie beating video. I think many of us had high hopes that he would receive a sentence that seemed commensurate with what he was up to. And he got a slap on the wrist. What does this story tell us about where celebrity culture and criminal justice is in 2025?
Rob Shooter
It's really grim. Maureen. This is one of my saddest stories of the year. I used to work for Diddy, so In the early 2000s, I was Diddy's publicist. So I was really invested in this because I knew him. This is somebody that I would text with, email with, talk to six, seven times a day. I was with him for several years. I traveled on his private plane. I went to.
Maureen Callahan
Was he charming, Rob? Was he very compelling?
Rob Shooter
He was charming. Of the jailers and the Jessica Simpsons and the Alicia Keys. If I could have a drink not today, but four years ago, if you said to me, well, Rob, you can pick one person from your past and go and have dinner with. I'd pick Diddy every time, because he's.
Maureen Callahan
Why. What was it about him?
Rob Shooter
He had that Jeffrey Epstein type monster charm, and you have to have that to get away with this for 20 years. It's a serial killer type charm. It's Jeffrey Dahmer. There's something about them that's flashy and smiley, and when they're on, they shower you with attention and praise, and he looks you in the eye, and it's that sociopathic behavior that now, in hindsight, there's red flags everywhere. But as a young kid, I was 20 years old when I started to work with him. It was in the beginning of my career. Now, looking back, I. I dodged a bullet. There was nothing that went down with me and him. I was clearly not his type or I wasn't powerful enough for him to. To want to abuse me. But did is the story that really upsets me because this is the story that I thought was going to really matter. And the conclusion there is at the end of this story was a real letdown. It was like reading a really compelling book, and you get to the last, last chapter, and it felt like it was missing. It felt to me here as if everything we'd worked for, all the evidence that this was gonna be a turning point that this was gonna be a historic moment. And it just sort of petered out. It just sort of went away. And it almost feels as if Diddy won. Like Diddy once again got away with it.
Maureen Callahan
You know, who else won and what is not talked about. And I would like to just continue to remind people all of the celebrities who were in Sean Combs world who were at those parties, who saw things, who participated in things, who know about who got abused. You know, Usher, those, those clips came back and we played them on. The nerve of him talking about being, you know, mentored and living with, with Sean Combs when he was a teenager and walking into rooms and seeing orgies going on and crazy, crazy shit. And you know, Shot. His was the only name, not a single single name came up in that criminal trial. And it really just makes you think the system is rigged. And it was a show trial and he was the one who was gonna get it, but it was only gonna be a minimal kind of punishment.
Rob Shooter
Yeah, yeah, it feels the same. I used Epstein's name. Cause that's how I feel about that too. It just feels like we did this, we got him. We finally, finally got the end to this nightmare that we wanted that we all deserved. And then somehow it all sort of dribbled away that day that that verdict came through on Diddy. It just felt like it was all a big bad dream that none of this had happened. But you're right. Where are the Anna Winters who was in his life? Where is Clive Davis who he worked with at the record label? Where? Yes, where? Where are these people? They ran and they hid. And it felt to me as if they got away with it too. I don't think, I don't think that behavior is going to change in the music business. And I thought that maybe if Diddy was finally held accountable, it would. But I don't believe that. In fact, now I believe actually something much more terrifying, Maureen, which is that when he gets out of jail, and he will get out of jail sooner than later, it's not going to be long. He could have a comeback. He could be at the Garden. He now has that credibility in the streets that he never had. When I was working with Puff, all the rappers thought he was a soft.
Maureen Callahan
Touch, he was a joke.
Rob Shooter
He was a middle class kid. Yeah, he was just like a hustler, but he wasn't thug. He didn't know the streets. He came from kind of a middle class background. He grew up with the Amish. Like he wasn't that guy. Now that he's spent a little bit of time in jail. Even though it looks like a pretty, pretty cozy place to me. Where he is from the photographs that have leaked. I think he's going to have a major comeback. I think, I hate to say it, he might be bigger than ever. And that's why shows like yours are really important. Because it's so easy. It is. And I do this all the time. We get washed up in that world of celebrity, don't we? It's so glittering, it's so sparkly. I'm looking at your blouse, your top tonight. That's a celeb. It's just fun and it's. But there's a dark side and we have to always remember that it's too good to be true. And Diddy's prove that.
Maureen Callahan
And before we get to the final celeb scandal of the year, I wanna talk to you briefly because it's so related to everything you're saying, which is so smart and profound. You wrote a very incredible piece for our substack for our subscribers that ran last Friday about what Hollywood really thinks about Harvey Weinstein on the back of Dame Judi Dench saying she thinks he did his time and he should be free. So tell us what Hollywood really thinks about Barbie.
Rob Shooter
Yeah, I was shocked. So after Judy's comments, I knew, knew that that wasn't a one off. I'd been hearing this Maureen at some of the fancy places I'm invited to and I love going. So I love getting gossip from these places and I love myself a free glass of champagne, don't get me wrong. And so like when I go to the Zero Bonds and when I go to these fancy clubs and the Ralph Club Lauren bar and all this, you know, I don't go in my own time. But if I'm going to be taken out for a drink by a monarch, sure, I'm quite happy to go to these. And there was a feeling, there was a rumor that, that, that people were okay with Harvey. And if I brought his name up at the table, people didn't cringe. People had a good story to tell. You can see this with your friends. When you go out for your friends and you're like, oh, I can't believe Claire did that. And your friends are like, oh, no, she's good. She's really, she's okay. It was a mistake. That's the feeling with Harvey, I was shocked. And this went really high up. This wasn't people that were in the middle management. This went to executives. This went to People who even miss him. Few executives off the record. They wouldn't tell me on the record, but off the record said, the town's a worse place because Harvey's not in it. And they implied that the behavior that he clearly exhibited was a really justifiable cost for his creative genius.
Maureen Callahan
And, you know, he's not the only one who behaves that way, because you've got people in that town at very high levels who are all too willing to not only excuse it, but accept it. That's the cost of doing business. Want to be a star. Want to win an Oscar. That's what you got to do.
Rob Shooter
That's what you got to do. That's what you got to do. And so, yeah, it was a shocking story. And, you know, when you pull a thread, like as reporters, as journalists, we just pull a thread and you never quite know where it's going to go. Although we've done it for so long, I always think I know where it's going to go. This one shocked me. I pulled it.
Maureen Callahan
I knew it.
Rob Shooter
It just didn't feel right. It felt the whispers, the expressions, the body language. When you mention a monster, you know, if I mentioned Jeffrey Dahmer, I know at the table, people go, oh, my God. If you mention Rob Reiner's son, I know. I know what the reaction is going to be like at the table. Harvey Weinstein, when you mentioned his name, there was always a fondness. And so I kept pulling this thread. I think I spoke to over 15, 20 Hollywood insiders, most of which were really high up, and they were really blase about it. And when Harvey gets out, I don't think he will. He's a very sick man, and he's going to be there for some time, a lot longer than Diddy. But I think if he came out, too, that there could be. There could be a second chance. Hollywood gives these men second chances in, I don't know, any other business in the world.
Maureen Callahan
I don't forget, never forget the standing ovation at the Oscars when Roman Polanski won in absentia. And after that, and or before that, there was a petition that so many of them signed.
Rob Shooter
He did. And the night that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he turned up at the.
Maureen Callahan
Vanity Fair party, applauded, welcomed triumphant body language, dancing around to his own lame hits. Yeah, yeah.
Rob Shooter
And can I just say that the story that is breaking now and the one we're going to be talking about in the top of the year, January, is going to be full of the Rob Reiner Story, Maureen. I met Nick Reiner. I was in LA five or six years ago and he wanted to meet me and we went to a coffee shop and he was a pig. He was rude, he was nasty. Nobody's saying this, he's a bad, bad monster. And because of his parents, we all tolerated him. You know, when they went to Conan o' Brien's holiday party, they didn't invite Nick, they invited Rob and Michelle and they dragged along their 32 year old son. And I'm told from people in the party, everybody in Hollywood knew, they all rolled their eyes, they hated he was there, but nobody would say anything because they were trying to be respectful to his mom and dad. This my New Year's resolution, Maureen, is I'm going to speak up when I see this now. I'm not going to give respect because of your parents, because of people. You know, if you're a bad guy, if you're a monster, if you're a ticking time bomb. I knew it. I met him five years ago and I played into it. I wouldn't have met a struggling screenwriter. When I'm in Hollywood being busy, I'm working. I met with him because I wanted to be in his dad's awhile bit. I was flattered by his dad. It was so interesting to me because the only thing that makes this Nick an interesting person is the one thing he's running away from, which is his family. The one thing that he killed, which is his family. Nick, if you're listening, the only reason we care about you is because of your dad. And look what you've done. I'm so angry with him and I'm so not prepared to make excuses of a drug addiction, that he was a bad guy, that he had, he had troubles. I believe all that and I can be compassionate about that. But I can also be really, really mad. And you know, his parents loved him. This is tricky, isn't it? What do you do? We all know somebody in our family, in our lives that are dangerous people and we can't appease them anymore. We can't. This has to be a lesson here, that I knew it. I knew when he was rude to the barista. When you go to a coffee shop and they get your order wronged. And like I knew it. I spent an hour with him. He smelled, he smelled too. He smelt bad. And I know I'd never really spoke about that story, but I forgot that I'd even met with him. And then I was like, I had coffee with this fool and I could feel It. And then when I'd been making calls the last few days, everybody knew everybody. Can you imagine Conan o' Brien's face when you open your door and you see your two guests and you look behind them and you see you brought Nick. He's 32. He's not 12. It's not like you couldn't get a babysitter. This is gonna happen. This. This next year. January is going to be dominated by this trial. We're going to see insanity. We're going to see drug addiction. We're going to see excuse after excuse. And don't fall for it. Don't. Because Mum and Dad did.
Maureen Callahan
I. I just love everything that you said, and I love. You know, it's very brave of you to say, hey, like, I'm susceptible, too. I know exactly how this town works and this industry works. But, like, it can be very seductive when you get, you know, an invitation to potentially be in the orbit of someone like a Rob Reiner. And here's what I put up with, even though I got a very, very dark, dark energy from this guy. And I agree with you completely. This is going to be the lead celebrity story of 2026, and it's gonna be a very rich story for us to discuss the nuances and the darkness and the layers that go into Hollywood and the film fame and fame in the celebrity industrial complex and all the ways in which society contributes to it. And I really. There's no one. I look forward to more to having this conversation than with. Than with you.
Rob Shooter
Thank you. Thank you. Let me say on a personal note, before I go, you've been the joy of this year, finding you. I was always a fan. I was always a fan of your work. I read your column, but I didn't know who you were, and I didn't know what you were as a person. And the day I got an email from somebody on your team to come on your show, you would have thought I was booked on the Oprah Show. I was. I was so excited. And I really wanted you to like me, and I really wanted to like you. And I could at least say on my behalf everything I've wanted you to be, you are. And you are kind and funny and smart and witty, and my goodness, do you make me laugh. You are so.
Maureen Callahan
You are so lovely. And I just have to say, it goes both ways. I've been reading you forever, and I had a feeling, so just from reading you and the way you write and how cheeky you are and how fearless you are, I was like, I think this guy is the celebrity correspondent that the Nerve has been waiting for. I really do. And our audience just loves you and deservedly so. And we can't wait for your book and have you on to talk about it. So all good things to you my friend in 2026 and happy holidays.
Rob Shooter
Happy holidays. Good to see you my friend.
Maureen Callahan
Good to see you. I have to agree with Rob. You know, it does really go both ways and I think the Nerve One of our favorite, favorite discoveries of 2026 was having Rob as our resident gossip columnist extraordinaire. He comes in with all the best exclusive, you cannot believe it information. And as discussed, he is going to be the one talking to us as the Rob Reiner trial unfolds. The Robin Michelle Reiner murder trial. Coming up On a lighter note, your feedback and a little tease to our our new travel special that's going to drop over the holidays. Back in a minute. Reading the label on a typical bag of chips is like engaging in a science experiment. And your ingredients are seed oils, msg, artificial dyes and mystery whatever. But Masa is part of the growing movement to bring back real food. Masa's chips contain just three ingredients, organic corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. Not only do these chips avoid all the junk, they taste incredible. Snacking on Masa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. With Masa you feel satisfied, light and energetic with no crash, bloat or sluggishness. My favorite flavor of the Masa chips is original, but the white, the blue, the lime, the carbonaro, the churro, they're all delicious. If you love Masa, you're also going to love Vandy Crisps. Vandy is Masa's sister company and they make the most delicious three ingredient potato chips out there. If you are ready to give Masa or Vandy a try, use code Maureen for 25% off your first order at masachips.com or vandycrisps.com or simply click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to claim this delicious offer. And if you prefer to shop in person, Masa and Vandy are now available nationwide at your local Sprouts supermarket. So stop by and pick up a bag or three before they are gone.
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Maureen Callahan
We are back. And of course, we're going to read your feedback. Don't be silly. But first, first, troublemakers, we have repeat offenders to prosecute. Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama is still out here. This book is over one. This book came out on November 4th, okay? Election Day. Her testament to herself. I'm so beautiful. I'm so glamorous. Doesn't everybody want to dress like me? Oh, white women especially. You know. You know what? You're so racist that I keep straightening my hair. She's out here everywhere with straightened hair. None of us are making her do it. She likes the way it looks now. She's been doing any podcast that will have her. Okay, you know, except the. We would never have her. We would never extend the invitation. But she's going on, like, everything. And, you know, it kind of dilutes your star power when you'll just, like, go to the opening of, like, you know, anything. So she has more, as Meghan Markle would call it, learns for us. Okay. She has more things to tell us about what's wrong with modern society and culture. I will never, ever spoil anything for you. Here we go. One of the problems with society today is that nobody wants to move on from leadership. People hang on too long, and they hang on beyond their usefulness or even their practicality. I mean, as we get older, we think a different way. You know, leaders are supposed to move on to make room for the next generation that has new ideas, new energy. But because there's no place for our senior leaders to go with honor and dignity, I think people hold on too long. All right, all right. Okay. So she's telling Anderson Cooper that the problem with society today is that people, either their elected officials or their leaders, their CEOs. You could be talking about Bob Iger, who keeps threatening to retire from Disney and even did it for A hot minute. And he would. Then he sabotaged my opinion, his successor, and was like, I'm gonna ride to the rescue and come back. And, you know, they're everywhere, they're everywhere. But she is among the foremost offenders. What is her use to society? I defy somebody to tell me, what does she do that makes society or the downtrodden better or that seeks to solve a consequential problem? What does she do? She's busy writing books about herself and how wonderful she is and go and having a podcast with her useless limb of a brother, poor brother Craig, you know, and she's hanging on. She's hanging around too long. She's the last one to leave the party, sister. The lights are off, the food is gone, the booze is dry. Please, we've called you an Uber. Go home. Moving on, moving on to Timothy Shyamalama Ding Dong, who is still making the rounds, promoting his little underground ping pong tough guy movie, Marty Supreme. Now we will be going in for a deeper slice and dice as he continues his awards season rounds, because the Nerve is gonna make it our mission. We've got many missions going, but, you know, we're nimble, we can handle it. We're gonna make this kid an undeniable laughingstock. I mean, he's doing it on his own, you know, but we're just gonna highlight his absurdity. Now, Timothy went to the LaGuardia School for the Performing Arts here in New York City, otherwise known as the Fame School. And I' to say, I don't care what kind of a student you are, if you grew up, if you grow up. Excuse me. In New York City, most kids are pretty sophisticated creatures, okay? They're exposed to a lot. And I don't just mean they mature maybe a little bit faster because they see and do stuff that maybe is too advanced for them. Absolute hazard. But they are just. Culture is at your fingertips, you know, other belief systems and levels of socioeconomic strata. You just have access to just so much, so much. Okay, now, this is Timothy on Graham Norton. I love Graham Norton so much. I love his show. Emma Thomas, Emma Thompson. Emma Thompson, also extremely talented. I really, really do like Emma Thompson. They're talking to him about cutting off his hair, his, his ringlets, if you will, into a buzz cut, which I believe Timothy. I think Timothy thinks that it makes him look more masculine. Nothing's going to cure the rodent like beta male energy coming off this kid who looks like he cannot grow a mustache in full. Okay? It really looks like the secondary Sex characteristics haven't kicked in and probably never will. You know, he should be at an endocrinologist getting blood work done to see why at 30, he looks like he's 12. But now Timothy thinks he's a baller. Okay, he's a baller. And he can hang with the likes of Graham Norton and Emma Thompson, who actually seem like readers and thinkers and thoughtful, funny people. Okay, here's something you're not going to believe, what Timothy has no idea about. Okay? But here we go. Here we go.
Rob Shooter
Timothy, what happened to the beautiful chalamet locks?
Commercial Announcer
They're all gone. Yes, yes, they've been stolen.
Maureen Callahan
How long. How long have they been missing?
Commercial Announcer
Since June. June 25th.
Commercial Announcer 2
Did you put them on ebay?
Commercial Announcer
No.
Nancy Grace
Somebody could have stuffed a cushion with.
Rob Shooter
Them and made a lot of.
Commercial Announcer
I didn't think of that, actually.
Rob Shooter
What, did they just throw the chalamet locks away?
Commercial Announcer
You know, it was for a different film for Dune Part 3. And it's supposed to be a nice character shift. And I'm playing 15, 20 years older. So we did a 3 million year.
Maureen Callahan
Hair character, I think it's called.
Commercial Announcer
And then the Director wanted more 1.5. And then we did one. And I begged him, I said, please, please, like, you know, your hair. Weirdly, we're all attached. It's kind of like our personalities, these.
Rob Shooter
Follicles that grow out of our heads.
Maureen Callahan
Samson. Yeah. You know, your hair contains your power.
Rob Shooter
Could do.
Commercial Announcer
I've never heard that.
Maureen Callahan
Samson and Delilah. She cut all his hair off and took all his.
Commercial Announcer 2
His power.
Commercial Announcer
I have no clue what you're talking about.
Maureen Callahan
I'm going to take you for margaritas after this.
Rob Shooter
I'm going to tell you lots of stories about hair.
Maureen Callahan
But you're right.
Nancy Grace
You're right.
Maureen Callahan
Oh, my God. Margarita, read the Bible. You can stop it. You guys can stop it. She was so classy in making kind of a joke about it and. And, you know, bringing everyone in. I would like to see in the future when an uneducated, ill informed, incurious actor appears on talk shows so that he can get the Oscar that he's demanding Hollywood give him. I would like to see. And if the nerve continues our push outward into the culture, this will come to fruition someday. I'm sure that when a dimwit fuckwit like that, like Timothy Shyamalama Ding Dong says, I've never heard of the story of Samson and Delilah, that the crowd reacts with silence, if not gasps of horror at that level of what I would call willful stupidity. Okay? Now speaking of onto Gayle King, who would have us believe that at age 70, she's still looking for her great love for the great love of her life. And someday she might even get married. Someday she might even get married. Really? During a recent conversation with WNBA star Aja Wilson at Time magazine's A Year in Time event, the longtime journalist I'm reading from this report and CBS Mornings co host for now shared that she is still, quote, looking for her own great love story. Oprah, cover your ears. Okay, now on to your email subject, a devoted troublemaker's love letter, the contents of which I will keep private, and a tiny suggestion for the wood chipper, which is what you and I are all going to discuss together. I have one small, enthusiastic and slightly unhinged suggestion, writes this troublemaker, to which I say, don't apologize. We like unhinged here at the Nerve. Okay, the wood chipper sound effect. Now this troublemaker. To this troublemaker's ears, the wood chipper, which we hear at the top of every nerve at night, sounds like a polite dentist drill on its best behavior. I love that we're anthropomorphizing the wood chipper. Efficient, yes, but way too civilized for the gleeful carnage it represents. My suggestion if you revamp it to capture even half of the glorious, messy, guilt ridden devourment. Listen, troublemaker, I adore you, but I do not think that the wood chipper experiences any guilt whatsoever. I think the wood chipper understands it is doing what needs to be done. Some people just need to be eradicated from the culture that this bit of soundtrack will go from great to iconic immortality. We love this. It is taken under advisement for 2026. Hi, Maureen. This is Troublemaker Debbie. I bought the Christmas ornament. Oh my God, I love this. That has you standing out by the woodshed. I propose that the next ornament has you standing by the chipper. And in the third series, we'll have you buy the stump grinder. We should get a stump grinder for Christmas 2026, right? We're going to work on that. FYI, you can also get rid of a tree stump. I didn't know this. By placing a pile. This is just this troublemaker suggestion, so don't come at me if something goes awry by placing a pile of hot charcoal in the middle. Leave it to smolder for days. I have done it and it works. I love this. Hi, Maureen the hate watch that Tim the celebrity makeup artist and I did on the Beast in Me and by the way, Tim and I have decided that our hate watch for the New year as soon as we are back on that first week of January right after the New Year is going to be Emily in Paris. So catch up if you need to. Okay, I think we are very similar because I was going to recommend the Beast in Me as your next hate watch. The dialog is campy. The scenes are completely unrealistic. I stopped at episode two. It is so interesting that you and Tom talked about Claire Danes and how she could not have been in Titanic. We said it's because she's not a leading lady. Claire told Howard Stern. And this troublemaker Kathy links to the People magazine articles that Claire claimed she turned down the role. I doubt it. I doubt it. Okay, to hi, Maureen from Troublemaker Kate Simple. It's contained in the subject header. Don't forget that after the stump grinder there is the burn pile. Keep your feedback coming. Please email me at maureenvilmakeremedia.com or DM me on Instagram at Maureen Callahanriter or at the Nerve show. And remember, subscribe to our substack. You can find it over@thenerveshow.com all you do is enter your email and you will get our weekly newsletter. And you guys are talking to each other. I'm talking to you. So it's kind of like, you know, how you guys talk to each other on the YouTube channel or in the live chat. But this is a place where we all congregate on Friday afternoons. The email will go out to you around 3pm Eastern. And it's got all kinds of really fun stuff that either we couldn't fit into the show. We like to give bonus content to subscribers. It's only five bucks a month and it helps the show grow. But you'll get like, we were just talking to Rob about the Harvey Weinstein story he gave that he wrote about that in our last substack. And Tim, the celebrity makeup artist gives like exclusive tips and, you know, ideas of what to buy if you're looking for any given look. I give tips about what I've been wearing. Anything that you guys are asking about, I put that in the substack. You know, that you, you write about during the week. So it's really, really, really fun. Do yourself a favor, go over there and join all the other troublemakers who are having a real party. And next week, next week, we at the Nerve cannot wait to bring you the premiere of our first edition of the Nervy Traveler, inspired by none other than Tracee Ellis Ross, who befouls airlines everywhere by dry brushing in first class and then gets a deal with Hulu to do a travel show about how intrepid and brave she is for going to other countries by herself and then refusing to leave the hotel grounds. Okay, as discussed earlier.
Nancy Grace
Me.
Maureen Callahan
No, I, I. Oh, my inner grammarian just smacked me around. My travel partner and I. So my travel partner for this is the one and only Belinda Carlisle, who we all know and love originally from the Go Go's and then as a solo artist. And when I tell you that Belinda Carlisle is a troublemaker through and through, you guys are going to die. Okay, do you know what Belinda bought that I forgot to buy? Dry brushes. She brought them when we went to the pyramids in Mexico. Did you even know that there were pyramids in Mexico? I had no idea. I had no idea. Trust me when I tell you, Trust me. This. This is a travel show. This is a travel show, and, you guys, we think you're going to love it. We cannot wait to hear what you think. So stay tuned. That will be dropping the week between Christmas and New Year's. We've got two bangers for you. Okay, for right now, here is a sneak peek. Welcome to the nerves. Very first travel edition.
Nancy Grace
Oh, wow.
Maureen Callahan
What a magical place this is. We're headed to the island of the dolls. It does feel a little much. The pyramids of Mexico. I'm taking my inspo from none other than Tracee Ellis. There's no place in the world you can't dry brush. We got the beat. We got the beat. We got the beat. Suck it, Tracy Ellis Ross. Try to do that with a real go go. That was Belinda's idea. That was Belinda's idea we went to. So Marlena emailed when we were doing that shoot, and she said you guys need to go to, like, a souvenir stall, and you need to buy, like, the most basic kind of souvenirs you can find. Ones that, like, are almost insulting to any given culture, but, like, the kind that Tracee Ellis Ross would think meant that they were artisanal and indigenous. And so we bought those sombreros and that little guitar that Belinda's playing and the little drum kit that I've got slung around my neck. And we made it very clear even as we were buying them, like, we mean no disrespect. And, like, when we went up to this rooftop and that was a story in and of itself, we had to, like, say to the people around us, like, this is a gag. Like, this is a bit like we're not. We are in no way meaning to insult your beautiful, incredible, joyous culture. Anyway, coming up, Nancy Grace, Queen of crime, Queen of true crime celebrity grime. She is going to go through some of the biggest crime stories of the year with us. We will see you back here in a minute. Do you second guess the nutrition, taste and sustainability of the seafood that you bring home? Introducing Wild Alaskan their seafood is 100% wild caught, never farmed. Which means no antibiotics, GMOs or additives. Just clean, nutrient rich fish that supports healthy oceans and fishing communities. Wild Alaskan Company delivers perfectly portioned wild caught seafood straight to your door. I can attest to I love Wild Alaskan. Their fish is frozen right off the boat that locks in flavor, texture and nutrients like omega 3s, which are so good for you. Every order supports sustainable harvesting practices and their flexible membership includes expert tips and feel good seafood. My personal favorite is the wild sockeye salmon. It's rich, it's buttery and it's incredibly fresh. The best part? You can try it risk free and if you are not completely Satisfied with your first box, Wild Alaskan Company offers a 100% money back guarantee. No questions asked. Just high quality seafood that you can feel good about. Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to wildalaskan.com nerve for 35 off your first box of 20 premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com nerve For $35 off your first order. And thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode with Venmo Stash A.
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Kelly Ripa
Kelly Ripa and have you been listening to my podcast? We are knee deep in season three and if you haven't heard it, it's time to get on board. After years of interviewing celebs on camera, I finally get to bring you the real conversations that take place. Cameras aren't rolling. Where else are you going to hear Michelle Obama talk about keeping her girls out of Page Six, Hilaria Baldwin's hilarious reaction to Alec running for office or Jeremy Renner's lucid hallucinations about Jamie Foxx, nowhere else. It's raw, it's honest and best of all, it's off camera. And believe me, that's where you get the good stuff. So download. Let's talk off camera with Kelly Rippa now, wherever you get your podcast.
Maureen Callahan
Joining us now is Nancy Grace. Nancy, as you well know, is a former prosecutor, a media veteran, and host of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, which streams on Fox 1. She's also the host of her own YouTube channel, Nancy Grace. Nancy, welcome to the Nerve.
Nancy Grace
You know what, can I just, instead of saying hello, just save my breath and tell you that Brian Kohberger is threatening self harm. Brian Coburger is threatening self harm. Why? Because he's tired of the other inmates making fun of him and he doesn't like his bananas. He wants different fruit. Well, instead of hello and thank you for inviting me.
Maureen Callahan
Oh, thank you for, for joining us here on the Nerve. Nancy, It's a, it's a very nervy intro you just gave us to the latest on Bryan Coburger. Now if this, this animal has access to the Internet, we can only hope he is watching. And may I be the first to say, Brian, please do harm yourself. Please do harm yourself. Please do humanity a favor and just take yourself out. Don't threaten us with a good time. We've also, yes, we've heard that he is complaining about the state of the bananas that he is availing himself of or maybe not in a federal prison. Nancy, what is this about when you.
Nancy Grace
Don'T know a horse? Look at his track record. You know, this goes way back with him when he bitched out his mother over her cooking pots and pans. You know, I cook about five nights a week and I've never had either one of my children complain about my cookery. The pots and pans. Why was he angry? And I think he started throwing out his mom's pots and pans physically because they were pots and pans that had once had meat in them.
Maureen Callahan
How is it that he is issuing these complaints? Are they coming through his lawyers or how, how do we know that he's unhappy with the culinary offerings one gets in federal prison after you plot out to murdering four coeds in cold blood.
Nancy Grace
He is making they have a sheet for prisoner complaints. I mean his lawyers on to the next big thing. She's probably making her own TV movie right now. Ann Taylor. But you can fill out a form complaint and you write in there all of the insults and injuries, the daggers and arrows that you are sustaining behind bars. And he submits them. And this is by far his first complaint. But he has a history of complaining about his food. He is a vegetarian or vegan. I'm not sure which one. But he's already getting special meals. But now those meals are irritating him and he doesn't like the fact that the other inmates are making fun of him.
Maureen Callahan
He contains multitudes. He may be a vegan or vegetarian. Shocked. He's not a carnivore because he has a real taste for blood. He's got a real bloodlust. He's been complaining. And I would like to give. If I could give a medal to every inmate in there who is making his life a living hell, I would. Okay. I actually think they should get time off for making. For torturing Brian Coburger in prison. He is complaining. And this has been a long standing complaint. Irony of ironies that he's having trouble sleeping because the other inmates have taken it upon themselves to make sure that he get. He hears not banging and knocking and yelling and screaming 24 7.
Nancy Grace
So does everybody else there. It's not just him. And here's another thing for you to think about. He's getting quote, Cookies for Corrections. That includes Oreos, Nutter Butters and something else, Chips Ahoys.
Maureen Callahan
Yes.
Nancy Grace
He's getting a special cookie basket.
Maureen Callahan
From who?
Nancy Grace
It's a charity group that does cookies for corrections. It's their, their name, Cookies for Corrections. So he's gonna get Christmas treats now. You know what? Just recently I was speaking to the Gonsalves family.
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, yeah. One of the, one of the victims.
Nancy Grace
I still to this day, I was doing Christmas card. Listen. And I was getting the card for my fiance, Kate's sister Judy to send her a Christmas card. And it got me thinking about my fiance that was murdered. So that's been over 20 years and it still hits me like a ton of bricks to this day. I thought I knew it all about suffering and grief. I cannot even imagine now that I have the twins, what these parents are going through. Not just that they've lost their child, their one and only, their beloved, but the way they lost their child. Did you know, and I'm sure you do, that Keely Gonsalves teeth were beaten out of her mouth. They were stabbed out of her mouth. She sustained over 20 stab wounds to her face alone. Much the way the others did. Except for Ethan. He had an arterial cut and it's like a sprinkler, a lawn sprinkler. His blood. But the girls suffered horrific disfigurement. And when you look at his history of researching having sex with women that were comatose, passed out, that's what he thought he was going to find that night. He thought he was going to find girls asleep, passed out from drinking. He didn't expect that they were going to fight for their lives and they did. And when I was talking to the Gonsalves family, the thought of them looking at Christmas this year without Kelly and having to think about what she lived through and he's complaining about his banana.
Maureen Callahan
Well, you know, I would like to say before we move on to other more worthy subjects, and that's really saying something because this is a motley lot that the best Christmas present Brian Coburger's inmates could give us is making sure that Brian suffers the fate that Kaylee did. I think it's truly a matter of time. I think they're getting all of their ducks in a row. I would not be surprised if the guards in that prison are more than happy to look the other way. It's happened before. I've written about it. So this is. And I long for the day when we no longer get updates about this, this monster, this.
Nancy Grace
That's a sad state of affairs, isn't it? Isn't that a sad state of affairs that we have to rely or hope for prison justice because the prosecutor didn't have the, I'll just say technical legal term balls to take the case to trial, win or lose and do the right thing. And he basically stuffed his plea deal. I know, down the Gonzalez's throat. They didn't want this plea deal. They will never know the details. They will never know what exactly happened because of that prosecutor. I keep hoping that the feds will step in, but I don't see it happening now.
Maureen Callahan
No, I don't see that happening either. So let's move on to one Sean Diddy Combs, who has gone from swigging his own once billion dollar alcohol brand Ciroc to drinking. What? Thank you. Thanks to Ashley Banfield, who I think might be kind of a troublemaker based on her verbiage here. She's going to report and tell us exactly what toilet wine is and how it was Diddy was caught drinking that toilet wine. Here we go.
Commercial Announcer 2
The toilet is mostly a hiding place and God knows it is not really wine. Right. And Sean Diddy Combs is not the first prison inmate to get busted with it, allegedly. But Diddy may be the first to have once owned a vodka brand worth upwards of a billion dollars. That would be Shiroc, which sold officially earlier this year for a fraction of that price. Chirac is distilled five times from the finest French grapes, or so it claims. Toilet wine, on the other hand, is a fermented combo of. Of Fanta sugar and apples.
Maureen Callahan
You know, Nancy, when I saw this story, and it may seem minor in the grand scheme of things in terms of Sean Combs's criminal activity, but I see stuff like that, and I just think that's a criminal mind at work. We're just going to break every rule we possibly can.
Nancy Grace
Well, he's in a long list of pruno drinkers. Pruno is the hooch. Jail hooch is what it's called. And it's. They get fruit. It can even be the kind of fruit you open up in a little pack, oranges or peaches, and you basically let it ferment, and then you drink it. Scott Peterson is high on pruno right now. I guarantee you it's nothing new, but bon appetit, Skull to you, Sean Combs. I don't like people trashing Fitty right now because of his doc, his documentary. People saying that he's petty because he released it so Sean Combs could watch it behind bars. Why is Sean Combs watching anything behind bars? He is convicted on two felonies. Why is he streaming? So with all the things to say about the Sean combs case, I think 50 attacking him right now is misplaced. There's a lot more energy to go around.
Maureen Callahan
I do wish that the 50 documentary had bombshells, that it was felt they had led us to believe it was going to have. It seems like it was filled with a lot of padding, but, you know, Sean Combs requested, I believe, very specific kinds of federal prisons that had rehabilitation programs for addictions to drug and alcohol abuse. And this, to me, again, it proves he's just completely full of shit. And when he gets out, my prediction is he's going to have found God again and he will get a book deal and he will go on a speaking tour and, you know, reposition himself as some kind of reformed man.
Nancy Grace
He's going on a tour. It's a. He's going to be the star of a musical tour. It's already called Resurrection. How did I know this? That's a go.
Maureen Callahan
That's a go. Surprisingly, do we know the. The level of venue?
Nancy Grace
You've had too much Pruno girl.
Maureen Callahan
Oh my God, no. Do we know like I don't know that. Okay, I would love to know. Did he v J Lo will. Did he be able to sell out arenas or even mid size like concert venues? Or will he have to go like JLO to the bowels of, you know, eastern Europe to fill seats for like 1250 a pop? I want to talk to you. By the way, you've been all over Britney Spears. All over she Radar online reported on December 6 that she had an out of control driving incident. Incident seems too small of a word to me. Following a night out, Britney Spears miraculously cheated death, it seems, yet again as she swerved dangerously over the center line and pulled a wild U turn with her tires screeching on a winding highway on her way home from a night out at dinner at Red O in Thousand Oaks, California. At the restaurant, her erratic behavior, including wandering around unsteadily holding hands with another woman, knocking over glasses and dropping things, attracted the quote, attention, I think more like horror and revulsion of other patrons. And this of course is on top of everything we see on her Instagram. Dancing around in her underwear with knives, etc. Nancy, what is the latest on Brittany?
Nancy Grace
I watched that video multiple times of her driving. It all starts inside the restaurant and you see her drinking an amber liquid and toasting people with it. Then she's led out holding some a woman's arm that's helping her get out. And what's interesting is after this incident another one took place and the people in the restaurants take her out to the car if she's drinking. It looks like she is, they know that and they pour her into her seat and wave bye bye. And she hits the road. In that particular case, you see her, she's being followed by the paparazzi. None of them bother call 911 of course, because they want the video. And she swerves over the lane many times it's a two lane and after one swerve, and this actually gave me a chill the first time I saw it. She swerves way over into oncoming traffic, comes back and within about 10 or 12 seconds another car speeding comes right at her. That would have been a head on collision. God forbid. Everyone, including me, thought that her conservatorship was draconian. It was too harsh that she should get out from under it. But at this juncture she needs help because that was a near miss. And when she finally does run somebody down and kill them, what will happen then? We all know it's happening.
Maureen Callahan
I mean, she is a public menace. She is a public menace. And listen, I thought. I agree with you. I thought her conservatorship was far too draconian and medieval, frankly. But there has to be a happy medium. You can't tell me this woman is just drunk. I'm sorry. I think she's mixing booze with heavy, heavy drugs. Maybe they're antipsychotics. Maybe she's taking them intermittently, if at all. You know, I think that Kevin Federline is truly a piece of shit for releasing the details that he did in his memoir. That said, we do know that she, when she was around those children, her two sons would, according to Federline, sometimes stand in the doorways of their bedroom and watch them sleep while holding a knife. Nancy, legally, what can be done after the fact? Like, can charges be brought for reckless driving at the very least?
Nancy Grace
That's what I was wondering, and I've discussed it with legal experts. We would never be able to prosecute with dui, because for a dui, you need a breathalyzer or you need a blood alcohol test. It can never be proven, but reckless driving, yes, it could be fought in court, but I think that the circumstantial evidence would support a conviction. And do I want Britney Spears behind bars? No. But I do want her off the streets. And another thing to think about is if she's mixing alcohol with drugs, and that's an if, where is she getting it? Who's giving it to her? Who is enabling her? We see people in the restaurant giving her alcohol, ostensibly. But where would she be getting drugs? What hangers on are doing that for and to her?
Maureen Callahan
Well, you know, this is such an interesting question because it brings up, you know, Matthew Perry's doctor was just sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for providing Matthew Perry with drugs, hardcore drugs. And you would think these people might take that as a note, like, maybe it's not the best idea to be feeding Britney Spears or selling Britney Spears, whatever it is you're feeding or selling her. Maybe if you're working for her, you should make sure those car keys get lost forever. I don't understand. You know, it really does feel like rules for one class of person and not another. The rest of us get tickets in the mail. If a traffic cam catches our vehicle running a red light. Running a red light or running a stop sign or speeding. But the entire country has seen Britney Spears, who we know far too well, driving like this, it's a matter of time before she kills somebody. I Swear to God, it is a matter of time. And then what's going to happen? You know, will she get shelters like Alec Baldwin?
Nancy Grace
And there's a long history.
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, yeah, but at least if she kills herself, you know, no other innocents are taken out with her. Bullshit.
Nancy Grace
You brought up Matthew Perry, but there's a long history. Just think about Matthew Perry, Prince, Michael Jackson. It goes on and on and no one does anything about it until the person is dead. Right, and that's what's happening here by the looks of it. She is mixing alcohol with drugs. Who's giving it to her? And are we not going to do anything about it until she or somebody else is dead? But nobody's going to intervene at this juncture after what was done to her father. And yes, it was too harsh, it was too high handed that conservatorship. But no one is going to help her now because they are afraid they'll be ostracized the way he has been.
Maureen Callahan
You know, it's so strange to me too because Britney Spears, while a celebrity is nowhere near the cultural phenomenon she was at her height. She's nowhere near as relevant. I can't believe she's making nearly as much money coming in. I don't understand how the people sucking at her financial teat really think that this is a gamble worth, worth taking.
Nancy Grace
When you say all the money's coming in, it's hard to imagine she's making as much as she was making at that residency. Oh yeah, there's no way $60 million touring and that money's going to be gone because just recently she said she was trapped in Mexico in a $20,000 a night villa. I want to be trapped there. So all the money and sheik's private jets back and forth money is just hemorrhaging and she's going to end up broke. Then nobody will be around to help her.
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, I mean Britney Spears in so many ways is an American tragedy and she has long had my sister. But when it comes to putting the lives of innocent people in danger, just because you are just completely wrapped up in your addiction and your mental illness and refuse to get help. And this is a woman well into middle age. She will be 50 before we know it. It is, it is completely unforgivable. And I'm sure that, I'm sure that you, you would agree.
Nancy Grace
Well I do. As long as it's her twirling around buck naked on Insta.
Maureen Callahan
Fine.
Nancy Grace
Have at it girl. I'd be mad if you didn't just Go for it. But the driving video pushed me over the edge.
Maureen Callahan
Agreed. Well, thank you, Nancy, for joining us for this roundup of true criminal activity among our celebrities.
Nancy Grace
Have a question?
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, yeah.
Nancy Grace
You know, I read you every single day. Can we just talk about Meghan and Harry for one minute?
Maureen Callahan
Oh, please.
Nancy Grace
Let's talk about criminals. Yellow crime scenes around you.
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, go ahead.
Nancy Grace
What is with them? Why don't they go away? Don't they want their privacy?
Maureen Callahan
Nancy, what do you make of the. Well, no, of course. I mean, south park did it brilliantly. They don't. But what.
Nancy Grace
That was what I was talking about. The worldwide privacy tour.
Maureen Callahan
The worldwide privacy tour. But what do you make of Megan's ability to potentially ever, ever, ever? This is like the story of the month. If her father dies before Christmas, he's in the Philippines in an icu. His leg has been freshly amputated. It may be a foot, but it's still part of the leg. And it's major, major surgery for an infirm 81 year old in a hospital. I'm sorry, it's not up to American standards. She hasn't even apparently reached out, even though her people said she did. Her siblings say, I think this is. I think this is. I would classify this as criminal behavior, frankly. In my opinion.
Nancy Grace
What is reaching out? She needs to put herself on a plane and drive to her father and put him on that same plane and drink, bring him back to the US for treatment. If I had the chance to bring my father to treatment so he could have lived. I mean, every day, every day I want him back. He's in heaven. But reaching out. What is that, an email? Did her people call his people?
Maureen Callahan
That's exactly it.
Nancy Grace
Had his leg amputated. His foot was black.
Maureen Callahan
If reaching out means your people made a call to the hospital, which apparently, according to the Daily Mail reporting, was to make sure this story wasn't a hoax. Okay, that is the kind of. I call her now a spiritual reptilian. That's what she is, okay? She's a shape shifter. She pretends to be human. If that's what reaching out means in. In her world, I mean, she can all the way off. That is one of the coldest things I have ever, ever heard. I've got predictions for when Thomas, you know, hopefully it's far in the future when he passes, but I hope. I hope he leaves. I hope he leaves his version of events in writing because his daughter's gonna have.
Nancy Grace
She's gonna play with somebody else.
Maureen Callahan
What?
Nancy Grace
At least as much as we don't like her behavior. At least she's trying to work. What is Harry doing? What is he doing?
Maureen Callahan
Oh, he just did Colbert.
Nancy Grace
Nothing.
Maureen Callahan
I'm a break. He just did Colbert last week. He broke a sweat.
Nancy Grace
A paying job. A paying, you know, check. Money in the bank.
Maureen Callahan
He doesn't know how to work.
Nancy Grace
The man needs to work. She's working. Whether we like her show Forever Megan or With Love Megan or Always Megan, at least she's working. She's doing something. She's trying, whether we like her or not. He's doing nothing but whining. And he ain't getting paid for that. It'll be a cold day in H E double L that I come home from work and David lynch is sitting on the sofa. Haven't done nothing all day long.
Maureen Callahan
No, listen. He never should. He never should have left. He never should have left. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you very much for joining us on the Curve. Bye now. In anticipation of the holidays, Marlena has written her version of the Night Before Christmas. And her version is the Nerve Before Christmas. And here she is. I have not seen nor heard the finished product, so I, along with all of you troublemakers, are hearing it for the first time. Marlena, I give you the floor.
Marlena
Okay, here we go. Me and my stud muffin. All right. Twas the Nerve Before Christmas. From our studio in New York City, we are all still searching for Stedman. And it doesn't look pretty. Troublemakers prepare their holiday spread, then turn on the nerve before going to bed. Maureen is in makeup, prepping feather and tar, crafting another insult to hurl at Bill Maher. Social media is buzzing with its usual chatter. Amy Schumer scrubbing photos from when she was fatter. When all of a sudden, Maureen hears a big crash. She flies to the woodshed as quick as a flash when what to her eagle eye should appear. Some offenders are trying to cosplay reindeer. Get back to the woodshed. You are all so lame. She whistled and shouted and called each each offender by name. Now Oprah, now Hoda, now Gail and Jon Hamm on Ryan, on Taylor. And get rid of Megan's holiday jam. Lena Dunham is being her usual too much. So Maureen shoes her using Jim Curtis's crutch. Jen Aniston flips off Maureen before trudging through the snow. And Maureen reminds Jen that she's a ho, ho, ho. Mel Robbins is babbling, let them for all to hear. While Harry gives Kris Jenner's boobs a long, creepy leer. Meghan's career hits Wall after wall. That's Meghan Markle. Still her own family. Oops. Saying to her own family, dash away, dash away, dash away. All along with his makeup comes Tim McKay. And just like that, it's time for a sleigh. It's snowing, says Maureen. As Tim applies her blush, Producer Marlena says, no, that is dead skin flying off of Tracy's dry brush. Didn't I send her to the wood chipper months ago? I said yes, but she got away disguised as a mo bro. It's time to start the show. We will deal with her later. Did you see this guy in PA As a pet alligator? Did he got caught with alcohol behind bars. And Hilaria just got kicked off Dancing with the Stars. So many offenders, so many cultural crimes to unfold.
Maureen Callahan
J.
Marlena
Lo's death jiggle never gets old. Did Oprah and Gail make Stedman really disappear? To which the nerve replies, hold my beer. This could go on and on. But for now, we'll take a break because if you let me, I'll keep rhyming just for rhyming sake. Happy holidays and troublemakers. Thanks for joining the nerves plight and we'll see you in the new year with our usual bite.
Maureen Callahan
Marlena. Oh, my God. I laughed out loud. I don't think there was a thing you missed for our our year and our. I don't think you missed a prisoner in our woodshed. Thank you for alerting me that Tracy Ellis Ross got away. We're good. The manhunt Once. Once Teddy has located Steadman's remains, off we go. He's going to find Tracee Ellis Ross and bring her right back.
Marlena
She's in a hotel room looking at trees.
Maureen Callahan
Yeah, she's in a hotel room looking at trees, ordering room service. I gotta say, you know, the troublemakers know this and they've come to know you now. And Marlena's our senior producer, and she is just such a genius, and she gives more to this show than anybody will ever know. And it was her idea to write that and to perform it, and I am so glad she did. Nothing encapsulates the nerve more. And among the things I'm most grateful for as the year closes out is not just this show and this opportunity and all of the troublemakers coming together, but it's working with Marlena, who I now consider a real friend. It's our small team of Hannah and Emily and everyone who makes this show show up, you know, four times a week. We love doing it, and we're so happy. It's landed. And Marlena is just such a part of, of why it works the way it does. So Merry Christmas to you, Marlena.
Marlena
Merry Christmas, Maureen. That was a very, very nice goodbye to 2025.
Maureen Callahan
Just to 2025. We'll see you back here on Friday's full nerve. We've got a full nerve on Friday.
Nancy Grace
Where are we?
Marlena
We have a full nerve on Friday. And then we have a mini.
Maureen Callahan
And then after that it's the Nervy Traveler with Belinda Belinda Carlisle.
Marlena
We are locked and loaded.
Maureen Callahan
We are locked and loaded. Oh, and yeah, we just, we. There's just so much more good stuff coming. So we're very excited. So thank you. That's it. That's it, right, Marlena?
Marlena
That is it. That is all she wrote.
Maureen Callahan
Literally all she wrote. You love a pun. You love a pun. Was that a pun?
Marlena
Well, was that more of a cliche?
Maureen Callahan
No, but it was. It was. The point was made very elegantly. I loved it. I loved it. That is it for your nerve. We will see you back here. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate happy holidays, no matter what religion, denomination, ethnicity, whatever you subscribe to. Wishing you guys everything that the holiday season could possibly bring you. That is all good stuff. Come back and see us after the Christmas holiday for our Friday Nerve. And if you haven't already, as discussed, go check out our substack. You can find it and find out how to sign up over@thenerveshow.com Grab your nerve merch. There's some new holiday stuff in there and there's some beer cozies and the like for the so called Mo Bros. It's over atshopthe nerve.com. also, the nerve is now available on Megan's podcast playlist every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9am Eastern on Sirius XM channel 111, the Megyn Kelly channel. We will see you back here at the Nerve where you will never guess what we're about to say next.
Commercial Announcer
He's Kenny Maine, the funny guy from espn. Formerly, he's Cooper Manning, the more intelligent and handsome of the Manning brothers. And he's Brian Baumgartner. But to me, he'll always be Kevin from the office. Yeah, you and everybody else together. We're the hosts of the new comedy golf podcast, We Need a Fourth from Smartless Media and Sirius xm. It's like a cold beer after a round. You hear the strangest and most bizarre golf stories from our friends, athletes, celebrities and comedians. It's all about how much we love golf and how much we hate golf. New episodes are out every week. Listen now and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Could just be anywhere, just on a couch. Doesn't matter.
Maureen Callahan
Holiday PSA from dsw. This is your reminder that shoes are a gift.
Nancy Grace
Literally.
Maureen Callahan
So unwrap something good, like boots that inspire your next big adventure. Or cozy slippers that give you an excuse to stay in. Or sneakers that feel like pure joy. Because shoes aren't just shoes, they're exactly what you wanted. Let us surprise you so you can surprise them. Find shoes that get you and everyone on your list at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or dsw.com.
Podcast: The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Episode: Meghan Markle's Snub, Diddy's Comeback, Michele Obama's Absurdities, & More Big Celeb Gossip of 2025
Date: December 23, 2025
This episode of The Nerve is a fast-paced, fearless, and deeply sardonic survey of what Maureen Callahan and her guests see as the year's biggest and most ridiculous celebrity scandals. Featuring gossip columnist Rob Shooter and crime commentator Nancy Grace, Callahan roasts everyone from Meghan Markle and Diddy to Michelle Obama, Timothée Chalamet, and Britney Spears. With the holidays looming, the discussion pivots between dark humor, blunt social criticism, and a dose of biting industry insider insight.
Maureen Callahan and Rob Shooter open with their top picks:
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry ("the Sussexes"): Their brand is viewed as "worthless" and their relevance is rapidly fading.
JLo & Ben Affleck's on/off relationship was annoying yet omnipresent all year.
"They've squandered it. They've absolutely squandered it. ... When they first came over here, they tried to hire the same agent as Barack Obama. ... It was a one shot deal."
– Rob Shooter (08:43)
"It's easier to ignore them. ... The Sussex brand now doesn't mean anything."
– Rob Shooter (06:31)
"He had that Jeffrey Epstein type monster charm, and you have to have that to get away with this for 20 years."
– Rob Shooter on Diddy (13:48)
"Hollywood gives these men second chances in, I don’t know, any other business in the world."
– Rob Shooter (20:13)
"She is among the foremost offenders (of not moving on). ... Last one to leave the party, sister. The lights are off, the food is gone, the booze is dry. Please, we've called you an Uber. Go home."
– Maureen Callahan on Michelle Obama (31:28)
"I've never heard that."
– Timothée Chalamet, regarding Samson and Delilah (35:44)
"Bon appetit, Sean Combs."
– Nancy Grace on Diddy drinking prison "pruno" (58:06)
"She is a public menace."
– Maureen Callahan on Britney Spears (62:58)
"She’s a spiritual reptilian. That’s what she is, okay? She’s a shape shifter. She pretends to be human."
– Maureen Callahan on Meghan Markle (70:17)
The episode is irreverent, sarcastic, and uncompromisingly direct. There’s a combination of gallows humor, genuine concern (especially regarding crime and mental health), and an insider’s glee at skewering celebrities’ contradictions and missteps. It's part roast, part media criticism, and part dark gossip-fest.
Curious for more?
Sign up for The Nerve’s Substack or tune in for future episodes—the team promises bolder, weirder, and more fearless content in the new year.