Rosie O’Donnell’s Nonsensical Interview, Nate Bargatze’s Virtue Hypocrisy, and Life With a Hoarder

Summary

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The Nerve with Maureen Callahan

Episode: Rosie O’Donnell’s Nonsensical Interview, Nate Bargatze’s Virtue Hypocrisy, and Life With a Hoarder

Date: September 9, 2025
Host: Maureen Callahan
Guest: Amanda Yulee

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Overview

On this episode of The Nerve, Maureen Callahan dives into the week’s sharpest pop culture moments and unpacks the cultural undercurrents with her signature blend of humor, skepticism, and fearlessness. The bulk of the episode is dedicated to a wickedly funny, forensic takedown of Rosie O’Donnell’s interview with 60 Minutes Australia, an unvarnished look at the virtue-signaling hypocrisy of Nate Bargatze, red-hot takes on Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, and the celebrity headlines of the moment, and a deeply personal interview with author Amanda Yulee about growing up in a hoarder’s home. As always, listener feedback and “woodshed” penalties for offenders in the culture abound.

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Main Segments & Key Discussion Points

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1. Rosie O’Donnell on 60 Minutes Australia: Satire, Self-Delusion, and Exile

Setup and Media Shade

• (00:53, 05:36, 07:33, 08:35)
  Maureen frames Rosie’s 60 Minutes Australia interview as being “nerve-coded,” with the interviewer, Carl Stefanovic, throwing playful nods back to the podcast and the “troublemaker” moniker.
• Maureen notes the interview is “cynically framed” around Rosie’s feud with Trump, avoiding more newsworthy topics like her bizarre involvement with Lyle Menendez.
• “You would think Rosie O’Donnell was Alexei Navalny, okay? You would think she’s chained up in a gulag, being starved and tortured…” (09:38)

Rosie as Exile—Ireland and the Great Feud

• (09:07, 14:10, 17:55, 20:01, 22:00)
• Rosie’s self-presentation as a “political exile” comically overstates her move to Ireland.
• Maureen skewers Rosie for feeling persecuted:
  “She’s really involved in what I think is a very unhealthy, codependent relationship with one Donald Trump.” (17:04)
• Discussion of her alcohol intake with an Irish doctor:
  “In LA they’d be sending you to rehab, but here everyone’s like, would you like a pint, love?” (14:15, Rosie O’Donnell via Carl Stefanovic)

Trump & Culture—Vengeance and Culture Wars

• Trump’s offhand dismissal of Rosie’s move as “a good thing, not a bad thing” is lauded as a sharp pop culture moment (12:14).
• Maureen questions the seriousness of Rosie’s activism and draws a comparison to public figures seeking drama rather than peace:
  • “Rosie wants calm in her life… Yet she does.” (22:00, Callahan)

Denial, Celebrity Culture, & Trolling

• Rosie’s account of Ireland as a “non-celebrity culture” is debunked:
  “Get out of here. There is no place where people could give less than two Fs who you are than New York City.” (20:03, Callahan)
• Standout quote from the lollipop lady trolling Rosie:
  “Oh, like the famous actress. And I said, I am the famous actress. And she said, no, you’re not.” (20:28, Stefanovic quoting Rosie)

Rosie’s Activist Self-Comparison

• Grander comparisons, always with caveats:
  • “The people I’ve always looked up to in my life, you know, Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem…Not that I equate myself with those people in any way, but I do feel a responsibility to stand up for injustice wherever you see it.” (23:19, O’Donnell)

Rosie & Lyle Menendez

• Maureen spotlights Rosie’s chilling new “best friendship” with Menendez:
  • “Here is Rosie talking…about her new best friendship with the guy who blew his mother’s face off…Lyle Menendez.” (25:30, Callahan)
• Stefanovic to Rosie: “I don’t care what anyone says about you, Rosie O’Donnell, you are not a boring woman.” (26:12)

Memorable Quotes

• “Rosie, the lollipop lady is trolling you.” (20:36, Callahan)
• “Rosie O’Donnell ain’t going quietly.” (23:13, Stefanovic)

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2. Nate Bargatze’s Virtue Hypocrisy & Working ‘Clean’

Profiling the Clean Comedian

• (27:40, 29:45, 31:50)
• Nate Bargatze receives a “tongue-bathy” CBS Sunday Morning profile, lauded for his “clean” comedy, but Callahan calls out the lack of real questions, especially around his performance in controversial Saudi Arabia.
• “So God…tapped Nate on the shoulder and said…my mandate is that you’re going to work clean. Go. Go on over to Chop Chop Square…” (29:45, Callahan)

Historical Parallels & Satire

• Maureen draws a dark-humor through-line from Cosby’s “clean” morality policing to Bargatze, invoking Eddie Murphy’s “Raw” (31:53):
  “Do you watch the Bill Cosby Show? I do too…he called me up about a year ago and chastised me on the phone for being too dirty on stage.” (31:50, Eddie Murphy via Amanda Yulee)

Bargatze’s Narcissism & Motives Questioned

• Repeated suspicion that “public moralists” are often hiding something.
• “He says in this piece that it was the first thing he did that wasn’t for himself, which tells us he’s a total malignant narcissist.” (35:08, Callahan)
• Bargatze’s stated dream of opening a theme park is immediately skewered:
  “One person, and one person only, gets to build a theme park…and it’s Dolly Parton, so back the fuck off.” (36:40, Callahan)

Call-Out for Media Cowardice

• Maureen lambasts mainstream interviews for not asking the obvious, hard questions:
  • “Why are you going to Saudi Arabia? Don’t you have enough money?” (39:17, Callahan)

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3. Celebrity Woodshed: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, and More

Ryan Reynolds Dragged to the Woodshed

• (40:35 - 44:48)
• Reynolds is criticized for what Callahan perceives as “dead eyes,” his need to be liked by everyone, and his “aw shucks” persona.
• “I think Ryan Reynolds is a psychopath…this guy, when he smiles, those eyes do not light up ever.” (40:35, Callahan)
• Cites a red-carpet moment where Reynolds brushes off a child reporter:
  “I’m a monster. I know. I’m so sorry.” (44:43, Reynolds)
• Maureen: “I concur, Ryan Reynolds. I think you’re a fucking monster.” (44:45)

Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni vs. Taylor Swift

• Explores Blake Lively’s lawsuit drama and Taylor Swift’s rumored retribution:
  • “Taylor is trying to find a way to make it official that she will no longer be godmother to three of Blake and Ryan’s four children.”
• Alleged Taylor Swift lyrics are read and analyzed for their brutal shade:
  “No man has ever loved me like you do…Like a tiny chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse. That's some rich girl shit.” (approx. 46:00+)

Hilaria (Hillary) Baldwin and Alec Baldwin

• (50:45 - 55:00)
• Mocks the New York Times for its puffy, context-void profile:
  • “Extraordinarily embarrassed that there’s this huge portrait of her in their living room…attempting a Warholian commentary on paparazzi and fame. And it’s failing.” (Callahan)
• Revisits infamous Alec Baldwin voicemail:
  “You are a worried, thoughtless little pig.” (55:00)

J.Lo & Ben’s Son, Kennedy Miscellany, Elizabeth Gilbert

• J.Lo is accused of using Ben Affleck’s son for image-making (56:00).
• Jack Schlossberg, the “most embarrassing Kennedy,” is discussed in the context of failed family political aspirations (57:45).
• Elizabeth Gilbert’s media treatment after her confession about a murder plot is labeled as a profound double standard.

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4. Celebrity Feedback and Listener Stories

Fan Mail & Listener Community

• (69:15 - 74:48)
• Listeners write in about topics from Bravo’s latest scandal to comedic hypocrisy about Saudi Arabia—praising the show for blowing open celebrity and media double standards.
• Touching and funny stories about listening to The Nerve in unlikely contexts (fishing in Minnesota, international listeners, group lunches).
• “It’s our guilty pleasure…four guys in their 40s fishing were listening to her favorite podcast!” (74:46)

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5. In-Depth Interview: Amanda Yulee on Life With Hoarder Parents

Setting the Scene

• (80:30 - 102:49)
• Preceded by a stark, documentary-style clip illustrating the reality of childhood in a hoarder’s house.

Amanda’s Story

• Author Amanda Yulee shares her upbringing in a home overrun by her parents’ compulsive hoarding.
• Emotional, unflinching discussion of how hoarding was never named in her childhood:
  “We never ever called it hoarding. Yeah, that was definitely…so I think, shameful for my mother especially to use that word.” (82:22, Yulee)
• Amanda describes the first moment she realized it was a “problem,” tying it to extreme conditions and smells in their house’s garage:
  “If you smelled that, your heart and your body and your mind would say, this is wrong.” (83:52, Yulee)
• She explores how the hoarding, along with inappropriate boundaries (such as her mother giving her an explicit sex talk at age eight), contributed to lifelong shame and secret-keeping.

Life Skills & Survival

• Amanda began cooking for herself at age 11, navigating expired food because they never actually ate the groceries; meals would often be eaten on the floor or in her room as the dining table was lost to clutter (93:47).
• She addressed the shame of not being able to participate in typical childhood rituals, like sleepovers or birthday parties.

Mental Health, Loss, and Advice

• Yulee describes the resultant anger, especially late in her parents’ lives; her parents died young, at 64 and 70, after lives marked by chaotic choices (96:46).
• She recalls needing to employ a crime-scene cleanup crew after her mother’s death (98:44).
• On advice to others: “You have to, if you are in that situation, you have to think about yourself and preserve your own well being…My best looks different different days, different circumstances.” (100:13, Yulee)
• Maureen draws connections to Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, highlighting the wider realities of stigma and generational trauma.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You would think Rosie O’Donnell was Alexei Navalny… She left New York and she went to Ireland. You know, it’s, it’s that simple.” (09:37, Callahan)
• “[Nate Bargatze]…this whole clean cut presentation with the crewneck sweater. It’s very Cosby Ask. Really, it is.” (35:15, Callahan)
• “I think Ryan Reynolds is a psychopath…I think he has no problem continuing to bankroll his wife’s bullshit lawsuit…” (41:08, Callahan)
• “Rosie, the lollipop lady is trolling you.” (20:36, Callahan)
• “You are a worried, thoughtless little pig.” (55:00, Alec Baldwin, voicemail)
• “If you smelled that, your heart and your body and your mind would say, this is wrong.” (83:52, Yulee)
• “You have to…think about yourself and preserve your own well being…My best looks different different days, different circumstances.” (99:47, Yulee)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:53 — Opening, overview, first jabs at Rosie’s 60 Minutes interview
• 06:47 — Rosie on 60 Minutes Australia: Trouble in exile
• 09:07 — Self-declared exile, the Trump feud
• 14:15 — Rosie’s alcohol intake, Irish doctor anecdote
• 17:55 — Rosie on New York vs. Dublin, parental protection
• 20:28 — Lollipop lady trolls Rosie
• 22:00 — Rosie wants “calm,” but is drawn to conflict
• 23:13 — Rosie compares self to Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem
• 25:30 — Rosie and Lyle Menendez friendship
• 26:12 — Stefanovic: “You are not a boring woman.”
• 29:45 — Nate Bargatze’s “clean” comedy, Saudi Arabia
• 31:50 — Eddie Murphy/Bill Cosby analogy
• 35:15 — The curse of public moralists
• 40:35 — Ryan Reynolds, “dead eyes” analysis
• 44:45 — Maureen: “I concur, Ryan Reynolds. I think you’re a fucking monster.”
• 50:45 — Hilaria Baldwin’s fake accent, Times coverage
• 55:00 — Alec Baldwin’s “little pig” voicemail
• 80:30 — Hoarding: Documentary excerpt
• 81:49-102:49 — Interview with Amanda Yulee

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Tone & Style

• Maureen's delivery is equal parts biting, sarcastic, and deeply insightful—never letting hypocrisy or self-importance slip by unpunished.
• The episode is a rollicking mix of sharp pop culture satire, personal essays, and hard-hitting interviews—infused with wit, empathy, and outrage in equal measure.
• Listener letters are weaved in seamlessly, reinforcing The Nerve's status as a community of “troublemakers” who refuse to accept the cultural status quo.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Nerve is a masterclass in fearless cultural criticism. From the surreal self-delusion of Rosie O’Donnell's Irish “exile” to Maureen’s x-ray vision into celebrity hypocrisy (especially regarding public displays of virtue and “cleanliness”), no subject escapes scrutiny or satire. The interview with Amanda Yulee provides a grounded, affecting counterpoint, illuminating the private costs of public stigma. Listener feedback cements the show’s role as a bracing, indispensable space for iconoclasts and critical thinkers.

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End of Episode Summary

Transcript

[Maureen Callahan]

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[Amanda Yulee]

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[Maureen Callahan]

Hey everyone. Welcome to your Tuesday edition of the Nerve. We are ready to go with a full, full slate. First, Rosie O' Donnell sits with 60 Minutes Australia. And you guys, they are watching the Nerve. They are watching the nerve over at 60 Minutes Australia. Wait until you see this. And again, if you are listening, I'm going to implore you go over to our YouTube channel and watch the edits we did. The cuts we did of this interview because you are going to get a full Nerve visual. There are two references to the Nerve that I'm sure we see you. Now, we also have another comedian who is I would otherwise send this guy straight to the wood chipper, but he is hosting the Emmys on Sunday so we have to keep him alive in the woodshed for the whole week. It's Nate Bargazzi, okay? He got a really, really tongue bathy fluffing up your feathers profile on CBS Sunday Morning this weekend. And guess what? He didn't get asked about Nate. Why are you going to perform over in Shop Chop Square in Saudi Arabia, you wholesome mother. Eff. Are you. We're gonna do it. We'll do it. We'll do it. Okay. After that, we have a major celeb roundup in which among other offenders, Ryan Reynolds without bail. Woodshed. Woodshed. You're gonna love it. Plus, we've got your feedback and an interview with Amanda Yulee. And she has a new memoir called Destroy this House in which she talks about one of what I the few remaining stigmas in modern life, hoarders. She grew up with parents who were hoarders. So this is going to be a really great show. We've got some fascinating stuff. We've got some dark stuff, we've got some funny stuff. It's just the kind of mix I love. So let's go. Here's a striking fact you might not know. I sure did not. The number one risk factor for mortality is, isn't obesity. It's not heart disease. It's high blood pressure. That's right. One in every two adults has high blood pressure. And I've had a parent have to take that medication. And once you get on it, it's almost like you're never getting off of it. And then the high blood pressure begins to have a domino effect on the body's overall health. But there is a way to stop it before it even be begins. This product, I'm excited to tell you about it. It's new, it's natural and it can stop high blood pressure from ever developing. It's called 120Life. It comes in powder form, it comes in juice form and it's formulated to not only support healthy blood pressure, it also aids in muscle recovery after workouts. It supports healthy blood flow and liver function. And it is loaded with antioxidants which are key to suppressing inflammation and the advanced aging that comes with that. But don't just take my word for it. 120 Life is trusted by over 1000 health professionals and people who have tried it. Love it. Go see the testimonials for yourself [e-mail]. So why not give it a try? If you don't see measurable, impactful results within two weeks, they will give you your money back. This thing is zero risk and all reward. And they are offering a special discount to our troublemakers. 15% off your first order. Just go to 120life.com and use the code Nerve that's N E R V e to save 15%. You can track your progress by the way with a simple blood pressure monitor. Watch your numbers drop and feel the difference. Again, this is a risk free offer. So if you don't see lower numbers in two weeks, you get your money back. Go to 120life.com, that's 120-life.com and remember to use code nerve to save 15%. This is serious. This is your health and your life. 120 life can help in simple, delicious, provable ways. Don't wait. Take control of your health today. Okay, first of all, Rosie o'. Donnell. Rosie o' donnell who gives and gives and gives to the culture. It's amazing. She's been in our lives for a very long time now. She was interviewed by 60 Minutes Australia this weekend. And troublemakers, as I said in the intro, if this thing isn't nerve coded, I don't know what is. Now to one Carl Stefanovic, who did this interview and I believe, I believe is giving a couple of nods over here to Nerve Central. And when we come to Australia and it is our mission to do so, I would like to buy Carl a beer. Now, we are going to begin with. You know what? I won't even, I can't even set it up. It's too good. You gotta just take a look, listen again. If you're listening, take a look. Here we go. Coming up, Rosie o' DONNELL show is a disaster. How is life in exile, you troublemaker? You know that he's a fake and a frau. The funny woman and the president. Look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers. I'd say, Rosie, you're fired. Inside Rosie o' Donnell and Donald Trump's feud.

[Carl Stefanovic]

No red hats. Triggers me. It triggers me.

[Maureen Callahan]

It's no laughing matter.

[Carl Stefanovic]

That always comes first with him. What about a threat to humanity? That's a good one.

[Maureen Callahan]

And the papers go up. Oh, my God. Okay, so first he said, how's life in exile, you troublemaker? Troublemaker. Secondly, then he throws up his papers while interviewing her in exaltation. He's so it's like, that's a nerve thing. We do that over here all the time. Usually I'm doing it out of complete exasperation, but nonetheless, we see you and we are honored. Honored in a Rosie O segment. Nonetheless. Right. Okay. Now anyway, this interview, I'm gonna say was kind of rather cynically framed around her feud with Donald Trump. And listen, we whether you're pro Trump, you're totally anti Trump, that's just the framework. It's the excuse. It's the way in. Because there really isn't anything actually, there is something newsworthy they could talk to her about. I'm guessing they wanted to keep it light. Or Rosie said that's now a no go zone. And that could be her new bff, Lyle Menendez getting denied parole in the brutal savage murder of his parents. But I guess maybe Donald Trump is safer ground to cover. So anyway, that's just the framework. And it's very, I laughed through this. Now, our producer Marlena said to me this morning, I kind of struggled through this interview. And I said, trust me, I think there are gems in here now, Ireland, land of my ancestors. I apologize on behalf of America and New York in particular for this befouling. Your shores, your beautiful, verdant, exquisite, pure, extremely cultured, warm, lovely shores. And trust me, nobody is more welcoming and wonderful than the Irish. And I'm going to tell you, I think Rosie O. Is going to put them to the test. Now here she is talking about life as a political exile in Ireland.

[Amanda Yulee]

Beautiful, quaint when you think about it.

[Maureen Callahan]

Gorgeous. It's a pretty extraordinary situation. A comedian of all people has become America's most famous political exile. No, she hasn't. There's nothing funny about what Donald Trump thinks of Rosie o'. Donnell. Probably. I'll sue her. I'd like to take some money out of her fat ass pockets or what she thinks of him.

[Carl Stefanovic]

He is a cruel, criminal, mentally unstable man.

[Maureen Callahan]

Okay, this is amazing on several levels. First of all, you would think Rosie o' Donnell was Alexei Navalny, okay? You would think she's chained up in a gulag, being starved and tortured to death. Okay? She left New York and she went to Ireland. You know, it's, it's that simple. There's now the, the, the Donald Trump of it all where she says, and again, you could be pro or you could be anti, but this thing is true. Physician, heal thyself. She calls Trump mentally ill. I mean, Rosie o', Donnell, when she was hosting the View and this was like peak View era, when Rosio was hosting, she did, and I actually loved, she did an entire show on depression because she suffers from so much depression. And she was like, I'm gonna do a public service, I'm gonna do an entire View episode. Which by the way, is just, it's morning chat show. You wanna keep it light, you wanna keep it moving in. Anyway, she brought out this contraption in which, you know, she, she strapped herself in. It was like this really long, almost looked kind of medieval contraption. And then what it does is somebody would like flip her over so she would hang upside down like Batcave style to get the blood rushing to her head to try to like assuage some of the depression. So, you know, she's calling Trump mentally ill and mean and like a threat to humanity and a dangerous guy. And I'm telling you, she loves Lyle Menendez. And she gave this, we did this in an earlier nerve. She gave this huge interview to the New York Times about how she went to Lyle for like advice to deal with her like non binary autistic kid. Now I think the child is no longer identifying as non binary. We're not touching on that here. But so anyway, Ireland Dublin, you've got your hands full. Okay, now this also reminded me of a fairly recent presser Trump had in the Oval with Ireland's PM who was asked a banger again, the nerve. This journalist is going on our short list for the Nerve Awards, first annual. Don't give me any shit, you guys, about not saying inaugural forward looking. Okay. Anyway, let's take a look. Ireland is known for very happy, fun loving people. Great attitude. Many in this room right now that I've met. Why in the world would you let Rosie o' Donnell move to Ireland? I think she's going to lower your happiness is true.

[Amanda Yulee]

Thank you.

[Maureen Callahan]

I like that question. Do you know you have Rosie o'? Donnell? Do you know who she is? Do you know who she is? The PM is pretending he doesn't know. Thank you. Thank you. Donald Trump again, whether you agree or disagree with him politically, when he, when it comes to the culture, Trump usually hits it on the head. He said you're better off not knowing. Remember when he said that he wasn't going to give Harry any trouble with his visa because he had his hands full with Meghan Markle and that was not going to end well. Correct? Correct. Now, Rosie, are we going to look first we're going to look at Trump, I think, talking about Rosie's move. Let's, let's take a look at this. Oh, yeah. On the tarmac left our country, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. Again, on the tarmac, he was asked as president by a member of the White House press pool to comment on Rosie O's move. And again, in terms of pop culture, the guy gives the people what we want. Now, and I'm just gonna say this, I just need to pause here for anybody who's like, Maureen, how can you in any way defended Donald Trump? Listen, Barack Obama sat next to him at Jimmy Carter's funeral and made a lot of fun small talk and chatted and laughed. So listen, the guy is not a threat to democracy. Obama be sending up a flare, don't you think? But Rosie O. Knows better than Barack Obama. So anyway, she talks about landing in Ireland and what does she do first? She attends to her health. She, she attends to her health. So she goes to see a doctor in Ireland and she's filling out some intake forms and let's listen to Rosie O on her alcohol consumption. Thankfully for Rosie Ireland and the Irish have saved her.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Went to the doctor. Getting my first checkup with the gp.

[Maureen Callahan]

We need this stereotype.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Smoke? No. Do you drink? Yes. How often do you drink, please check one box. The first box said one to 15 drinks per week. I said to her, what would you say if I told you I had 15 drinks per week? She goes, I'd say, move on to the next question. I was like, are you kidding? In LA they'd be sending you to rehab, but here everyone's like, would you like a pint, love? Welcome to Ireland. Would you like a pint? Like, I certainly would.

[Maureen Callahan]

She's got to take that edge off. She's got a maybe non binary autistic kid and she's got this, the specter, excuse me, of Donald Trump looming, her fake enemy. She's shadow boxing, like the narcissism to think that the leader of the free world has enough time to attend to the likes of you over in Ireland. Okay, now, now, I'm sorry, my voice cracked this thing. I hope Marlene is coming around because this is hilarious. Now, Carl, Carl, you mischievous eff. Are you Carl, who is clearly really enjoying himself in this interview. It's like everybody came to play. Everybody knows what we're doing here. So Carl decides he's not only going to parry with Rosie by reminding her of Trump's biggest insult and he's not even going to read them himself. They're going to pump in Trump's voice saying these things. This is high production. There was a lot, they had a lot of fun brainstorming about this segment. Trust me. Okay, so not only is Trump's voice going to come in, but Carl brought props again, another nod to the nerve. 60 Minutes. Carl brings in props. And these are just pieces of paper, just like, you know, letter size, office size pieces of paper, except like an 80 point font. They've printed out the words. So Rosie now has to be confronted not just with the audio but, but with the, the visual of Trump's insults on paper. Let's go. Being an enemy of Donald Trump doesn't make Rosie o' Donnell Robinson Crusoe.

[Amanda Yulee]

She has plenty of company.

[Maureen Callahan]

But it's still unnerving by the most powerful and vitriolic man on the planet. Carl, you're verging on camp. Rosie is a loser.

[Carl Stefanovic]

A loser, yes, A threat to humanity.

[Amanda Yulee]

Disgusting.

[Maureen Callahan]

I mean, both inside and out.

[Carl Stefanovic]

These are all one of his, some of his best quotes.

[Maureen Callahan]

Fat, ugly face of hers.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Fat always comes first with him.

[Maureen Callahan]

She's a slob.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Okay, Job of the Hutt. Donald Trump. Whatever. Go ahead, keep going. Is that the last one? I expected more from you. What about a threat to humanity?

[Maureen Callahan]

You covered that one. You covered that one. I mean, Carl is really enjoying himself. Like he had to hold the paper up right to his eyes so that like you she could not see him laughing, like just dying over this. Jeez, geez. So Rosie is really involved in what I think is a very unhealthy, codependent relationship with one Donald Trump. There's something deep going on there. Now Rosie is then now going to go on to talk about how her child, as the child of a very wealthy famous woman who can afford the best of everything, including high security doormen.

[Amanda Yulee]

Building.

[Maureen Callahan]

The kind of danger her kid was facing in New York City.

[Carl Stefanovic]

The people here have been so welcoming. My child is very, very thrilled to be here and loves the agency. She has to go walk to the Green and visit her friends or go get an ice cream with her buddy. And in America, that wasn't happening. You know, my 12 year old child with autism was not going somewhere alone with a friend in New York City. You can know that for sure. I was there all the time. And you know, in fact, the lollipop lady here told me that I was the only woman who walked her sixth class kid into school every day and waited at the door. She's like, do you ever think she's embarrassed of you? Let her walk with her friends.

[Maureen Callahan]

Question of the decade.

[Carl Stefanovic]

You're not in New York now, are you, Rosie o'. Donnell? You're in Dublin, Ireland. And I haven't lost a kid yet.

[Maureen Callahan]

Okay, first of all, I'm gonna, I think Rosie lives around the Time Warner center, around Columbus Circle. I think that's where her place was in New York. You could eat off the sidewalks up there. It's extremely safe. I mean, Tom Brady has an apartment there. Get out it so your child, who by the way, you could like call an Uber X4 if you're that afraid. Secondly, I love how she's talking about her kid with autism. We've seen her child speak in a documentary that Rosie made this. If this child has autism, it is extremely high functioning. This is one of those, I think, vicarious sort of Munchausen by proxy kind of. I'm not saying her child doesn't have autism. I'm saying I think Rosie's laying it on a bit thick. And I think Rosie's laying it on a bit thick because this is now her identity. She is not as culturally relevant as she used to be. And she's touring Australia. That's why this, this little segment, I, I, she should tour America. I mean, maybe she can't really move tickets in America. I don't know. Anyway, the lollipop lady, whose name Rosie clearly has not bothered to learn, I believe is trolling Rosie o'.

[Amanda Yulee]

Donnell.

[Maureen Callahan]

Take a look. How did she recognize you?

[Carl Stefanovic]

It's a non celebrity culture.

[Maureen Callahan]

Yeah.

[Carl Stefanovic]

So people are not obsessed with celebrities.

[Maureen Callahan]

So is New York City.

[Carl Stefanovic]

They go, hey. Or they'll say, welcome. Nobody says, can I have a picture? Can I have an autograph? They literally want to welcome. You know, when I first got there to the school, she, the woman who was amazing, this lollipop lady let the kid in and then would watch. And finally after a few weeks, she said, clay's mom, what's your name? I said, Rosie. She said, Rosie's surname. I said, o'.

[Maureen Callahan]

Donnell.

[Carl Stefanovic]

She said, oh, like the famous actress. And I said, I am the famous actress. And she said, no, you're not.

[Maureen Callahan]

Rosie, the lollipop lady is trolling you. If she knows who Rosie o' Donnell is, she knows what your face looks like. And it's a very distinctive face and it hasn't changed. And your voice is very distinctive, as is your accent, as is the way you speak and move about in the world. She knows who the. And she's having her fun. She's getting her kicks by pretending that she doesn't know who you are. And I love it by the way that she says, oh, in Ireland, in Dublin, it's a non celebrity culture. Like, they don't care. Get out of here. There is no place where people could give less than two Fs who you are than New York City. There just is. And, you know, everybody knows it. People don't even bother celebrities by saying hello. They just let them walk on by. Anyway, anyway, okay, so Rosie, Rosie's apparently fleeing a lot. She's fleeing her burdensome celebrity as well as one djt. Right, okay. Now Rosie says that she, you know, it's kind of adjacent to the Buddha rule. Anybody who is articulating the need that, that they just want calm in their life, that they just want peace. It's like my mother, I just want peace. I just want. No, she loved to fight. She loved a good drama. Rosie wants calm in her life. Okay, let's hear her. Let's hear her take on this.

[Carl Stefanovic]

For me, fighting and arguing is not the way I want to live or entertain. It's not the way I want to meet.

[Maureen Callahan]

Yet she does.

[Carl Stefanovic]

It's, you know, even though I, when pushed, will go there, I don't like to go there. And I'm trying in my old age to keep it all calm and to be around as long as I can.

[Maureen Callahan]

Are you sure about that?

[Carl Stefanovic]

I think so.

[Maureen Callahan]

Thanks, Carl.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Did it ring untrue to you?

[Maureen Callahan]

Well, I do think you make headlines a little bit. You know what I'm saying?

[Carl Stefanovic]

Well, yes. Well, when it, when it comes to democracy dying in America, I'm not silent.

[Maureen Callahan]

So she left. She left. She's such a fighter and she's, she's such a fighter for democracy that she fucking left. But she's going to talk about it on 60 Minutes Australia from Dublin. Come on, what are we doing here? What are we really doing here? Now Rosie's going to go on to, make no mistake, compare herself to some pretty heavy hitters in this field, and then she's going to say, not that I'm comparing myself. Here we go. The point is Rosie o' Donnell ain't going quietly.

[Carl Stefanovic]

That's the truth. You know, I, I have a loud mouth.

[Maureen Callahan]

I was raised in new.

[Carl Stefanovic]

The people I've always looked up to in my life, you know, Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem, people use their voices even at maybe their own detriment, but they did it for the greater good. And not that I equate myself with those people in any way, but I do feel a responsibility to stand up for injustice wherever you see it.

[Maureen Callahan]

I don't know what the injustice is like. I'm still, I'm still perplexed. I don't think she's really articulated it, you know, I truly, I. And Carl is having a great time. Carl is literally at this point, like laughing in her face and she's going on and on and on like she's Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks never, as far as I know, applied for a passport and flew to a Western European country where she lolled about getting a pint at the pub. Get out. Okay, now, because we have to. Because we have to. Let's just take a little, let's just get a little reminder of. So this is when again, a rule at the nerve. These dark minded, dark hearted souls, they all congregate with each other in public and they're hiding behind laughter, but really they're telling us who they are. So here is Rosie talking to none other than Andrew Cohen about her new best friendship with the guy who blew his mother's face off at close range with a shotgun after blowing his father's head open to the point where his brain literally fell out of his head. And then they went on a spending spree the next day in Beverly Hills, the one and only Lyle Menendez.

[Carl Stefanovic]

So I went to visit my friend Lyle Menendez, which is a whole other show. Oh, my God.

[Maureen Callahan]

I mean, I know Andy thinks it's hilarious.

[Carl Stefanovic]

I'm just telling you, honey, you know.

[Maureen Callahan]

I follow my heart.

[Carl Stefanovic]

I just do.

[Maureen Callahan]

She follows her heart. Rosie has what's known as a bad picker. It's damaged greatly. Now Carl is going to issue one of the great understatements of the year. Let's take a look at this. I don't care what anyone says about you, Rosie o', Donnell, you are not a boring woman.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Thank you so much. That has been my biggest hope of life, that nobody will say, God, she was dull. You know, I want to be vivacious like a firework and let everybody go, ooh, ah, Donald, sit and spin, my friend. I don't enjoy him.

[Maureen Callahan]

That was Rosie on the View at the high, at the height when she said, donald, sit and spin, my friend. I don't enjoy him. That was great tv. That was great tv. And Barbara Walters was alive back then and she was on that panel. And Barbara was dying because she was trying to reign Rosie in because she was friends with Donald. I mean, Barbara, as discussed in several episodes of the Nerve and over on Megyn Kelly's show, very complicated woman, but an unequivocal star fucker, non perel. And she did not want to make enemies with Donald Trump. And here's Rosie going sit and spin Donald on national television, on morning show television. Oh, my God. What I wouldn't. Amazing. What I wouldn't have given to be on a fly on the wall in those post production meetings. Amazing, Amazing. Now this brings us to another bad, bad actor. And I think this is going to be one of the many appearances that our pal Nate is going to be making on the Nerve. He sat, you know, CBS Sunday Morning, I know they do softballs, but they gotta grow some teeth. The baby teeth have got to fall out finally. And let's grow some sharp, sharp canines over there, okay? Let's sink our teeth into some of these subjects because they've got shit to atone for or explain or at the very least just answer to. Now, I'm going to preface this again. These, these journalists just take whatever their subject says as gospel. Get a little of Carl at 60 over there into your veins. Okay? Nate is going to talk about the importance, nay, the venerable calling that is being a comic who will work clean, intentionally family friendly. He's a clean comic. I love that people, when they come to my show, it's, I don't want to betray that trust. You can have your kid watch My stand up and you don't like. If you see him have it on, you don't have to be like, whoa, what's going on? I don't say the word sucks. Good for you. This sucks. I don't know what the word in the 80s. And look, I'm sorry to say it now. This is supposed to be a clean show. I'm bringing this filthy into it. Working clean can be a savvy business decision, allows you to sell tickets to the widest audience possible. For Bargetzi, it's also part of a larger mission. You feel like you're being asked to do this in the career that I have, and so you just got to trust that your path is going to be the path and just stick with it. When you say ask to do this, you mean in, like, sort of a religious calling? Yeah. You know, I feel it's beyond me, the narcissism, the nerve. So God, who doesn't have enough on his plate, tapped Nate on the shoulder and said, not only are you going to be a comic and a very rich, famous, powerful one whose name I've only learned fairly recently. I mean, there's a reason we're just all hearing about this guy now. Okay, you're going to work clean. My mandate is that you're going to work clean. Go. Go on over to Chop Chop Square, where they behead people for, you know, pilfering $0.05 worth of stuff at the local store. Or, you know, they. They kill young teenage girls and. And women for, you know, talking to a guy that's not their blood relative or, you know, they'll stone them for having the temerity to get raped or gang raped. Nate, you are a vessel of God. Yeah, you are. Now, you know what else? Do you know who this reminds me of? This whole fixation, this whole fetishization of working clean. You know who else? Who else was a fanatic, a freaking fanatic about working clean? I'm sure you can guess. Bill Cosby. Bill freaking Cosby took it upon himself, by the way, not only to work clean and to remind us all of what a virtuous human being he was when he wasn't roofing multiple women and date raping them or raping them when they were knocked out cold. We have a list of, like, at least 80. You know, I know he's out. I know he got out on some sort of technicality. So we have to bang the drum. We have to keep banging the drum. Now, any excuse. Any excuse to pull up some vintage Eddie Murphy, vintage Eddie Murphy. Here's eddie in Raw, 1987. One of the hands down funniest men ever, ever to do it. Here's Eddie talking about getting a little phone call from Bill Cosby, a guy he had never even freaking met before. Here we go. Do you watch the Bill Cosby Show? I do, too. I love Bill Cosby Show. I've been a big fan of Bill Cosby all my life. Never met the man before, but he called me up about a year ago and chastised me on the phone for being too dirty on stage. And it was real weird because I had never met him, and he just thought it was. He should call me up because he was Bill and tell me that he did about what comedy is all about.

[Amanda Yulee]

And I sat and listened to this man chastise me.

[Maureen Callahan]

And when Bill Cosby chastises you, you forget you grown. You feel like one of the Cosby kids and shit.

[Amanda Yulee]

And I ran in the house all.

[Maureen Callahan]

Excited to talk to Bill and picked.

[Amanda Yulee]

Up the telephone, and Bill got raw on me.

[Maureen Callahan]

I was like, hello, Mr. Cosby. And you hear, I would like to talk to you about some of the things that you do in your show. Now, the genius of Eddie right there is the way he says as Bill, you like the way in both. Both instances, the voice cracks between the O and the U. And it's. It. It really just underscores the personalization that Bill Cosby felt he needed to address with one reprobate known as Eddie Murphy, who, as far as we all know, just minded his business the entire time up on Bubble Hill in New Jersey. As far as we know, Eddie Murphy wasn't roofing unsuspecting women and then raping them when they were out cold while his wife Camille says she has no idea what was going on in that house. Beware, beware, beware the public moralists. And the beware them. They're usually the top, top offenders. And I got my eye on this guy because he's pinging for me, like, in a way that's like, something dark is going on here. Okay, Now, Nate, he might be, what, 42, 45? I didn't even look it up. This whole. This whole clean cut presentation with the crewneck sweater. It's very Cosby Ask. Really, it is. Now, he says that, you know, unfortunately, how this journalist sits here with a straight face and doesn't push back. Nate says, unfortunately, he wishes he could, but he just can't. See, all of us can't go to every club in every arena. You guys, what do you expect? He's got a life. He's got a daughter he's hiding behind too. My opinion anyway, so he says he wants to build. You know, I'm not going to spoil it. I'm not going to spoil it. Let's listen. He even has dreams of one day opening his own theme park and movie studio in Nashville. I'm not going to be able to go to every city in America for the rest of my life. Oh, oh. The loss is ours indeed. Nate. Listen, one person, and one person only, gets to build a theme park to themselves. And it's Dolly Parton, so back the fuck off. Okay, now let's look at nate bringing his 13 year old daughter into this. Please welcome my daddy, Nate Bargetsy. So his daughter, who looks about 13, is doing these introductions for him. And trust me, this is another insulating layer. I believe that Nate's saying, I'm a good guy, I'm a good guy. I actually don't think good guys take their tween and young teenage daughters and shove them into public arenas to introduce them. Okay? The serious, serious people I know, like they barely put their kids on social media, let alone this level. He's a good guy, He's a great parent. You know, he says he moved to Nashville for his daughter. He says in this piece that it was the first thing he did that wasn't for himself, which tells us he's a total malignant narcissist. And you know what, when, when he's asked about why he didn't stay in like an A plus city, an A list city like New York or la, he says, you know, he had a racist daughter. Like in normal environs. Well, you know what, there are normal environs in New York and California. I think Nate might have been running from something. Just a theory. Just a theory, you know. Now here's Nate. We're going to wrap with this moral avatar of decency, wholesomeness and goodness telling us about how when you know better, you do better, you just didn't know no better. There's nothing better than when you don't know that there's better. First of all, the syntax in that statement was jumbled beyond belief. And this is a New York Times bestselling author who I believe had a ghostwriter. So, you know, the transit, you got the translation. So if, if I'm not sure, which I'm not, they would never hire me over at CBS because I. Or like, like ask a real question. He says, when you know better, you'd first of all I would say, could you like, rephrase that because, like, we can't use it. The syntax does not make sense. Then when he said, when you know better, you do better and there's nothing better. There's no better feeling. That's your opening. That's when you say, why the f are you going to Saudi Arabia? Don't you have enough money? The guy made a ton of money last year selling out stadiums all over the place. Why? Why? Why? Somebody asked this guy. Catharsis. Catharsis. Next up. Oh my God, you guys. Do we have a celebrity roundup for you. And we are dipping our toe in the Blake v. Justin Beldoni scandal. We've also got a ton of feedback from our Elizabeth Gilbert segment from our mini over the weekend, which really landed with you guys, which was so gratifying and artwork and email. So we are back. Back in a minute. For years, we've been told that wrinkle creams are the key to looking younger. But a key? According to Beverly Hills beauty expert Dr. John Lakey, that is outdated advice. He says that most wrinkle products are just glorified moisturizers that barely improve appearance and some may even harm your skin. That is why Dr. Lakey has shifted his focus from traditional cosmetic procedures to a new anti aging method that some experts say could disrupt the beauty industry entirely. His clients call it the Age Rewinder method, a do it yourself technique that can visibly reduce the appearance of wrinkles in under two minutes. To share this breakthrough, Dr. Lakey released a free step by step video explaining how to use the method at home. And the video has gone viral with over 2.3 million views and thousands of positive comments. One person wrote, Best results of anything I've used. I can't believe how well this works. I will never stop using this. To watch the video, go to bhmd1.com nerve or click the link in the description box below. Dr. Lakey asks that if this video helps you look or feel younger, please share it with others so that more people can discover this simple at home solution. Visit bhmd1.com nerve now want to look and feel your best this summer? Don't just think skin deep, think cell deep with Prolon. Prolon is a plant based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks and beverages that nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state, triggering cellular rejuvenation and renewal. With proper diet and exercise, Prolon can help target fat loss, support lean muscle and reset your metabolism so you look and feel your best all summer long. Prolon is science backed nutrition that can help change your relationship with food in just 5 days. Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you [e-mail] PandoraPromo these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. See site for details. We are back. First up. Oh, how I have been waiting for this. I've just been waiting for the right moment. Ryan Reynolds. That's right, Mr. Blake Lively. You know, Blake's got this ongoing lawsuit against Justin Baldoni. We here at Team Nerf at Nerve Central. We have opened, we opened up the woodshed this weekend just for Ryan, whose reputation has somehow remained largely unscathed in the culture, which surprises me. I mean, he married this monster, so how great can he be, really? Right?

[Amanda Yulee]

Really.

[Maureen Callahan]

I've also never, I've never liked him. You know, everybody's like, oh, Ryan Reynolds, does he seem like such a great, fun guy? Doesn't he seem like just so wholesome and cool and like. No, never. Not to me. I would run the other way from that guy if I saw him coming. Number one. I think his eyes are dead. I think he has dead eyes. I think he sold out whatever little shred of humanity he had left climbing that greasy pole of Hollywood. I do. I think he's made many compromises along the way that have extinguished any real life force. And now it's all dark. I think it's a black effing hole. I think it's a black hole. This guy, when he smiles, those eyes do not light up ever. They never come alive. And it's like he's got this smile that almost just feels like it's one size fits all. Like it's always the same smile. And he's, he's. And he's got what I also find extremely creepy in middle aged men. I mean, it's a creepy trait anyway. But in a middle aged man who's a father of four, he's got this like awe shucks demeanor which I find extremely unsettling. Extremely. And I'm gonna say lastly, at least for today's purposes, this guy, the flop sweat, the level of desperation that comes through my screen every time I see him, it's so obvious that he wants everyone, and I mean everyone, to like him. And I think anyone who wants everyone to like them is broken beyond repair. It's one of the earliest lessons you should learn as a kid that, hey, not everybody's going to like You. You're not going to like everybody, and not everybody's going to like you, and you just have to deal with it, be yourself and move on as best you can in the world, right? No, everybody's got to like fucking Ryan Reynolds, who's married to the queen of darkness over here, you know, I mean, we say Oprah's the mistress of the dark arts, Blake. We'll come up with a proper name for her. We haven't really had enough time now. I think just my opinion. Don't sue me, Blake. And you can't, because it's just my opinion, and it's First Amendment shit, okay? You bitch. I think Ryan Reynolds is a psychopath. I think he is. I think he has no problem continuing to bankroll his wife's bullshit lawsuit, which I think at this point, he knows is bullshit. He's not an idiot, this guy. I think they are united in their plan. And what I think, I suspect, just my opinion, was Blake Lively's plan to smear Justin Baldoni as a sexual harasser, at least, and wrest away control of all the Colleen Hoover novels He's got. I believe, if the last reporting I read still holds, that he owns the rights to the sequel to It Ends With Us, which I think was really a prequel, but that doesn't matter. She wants that material, and she wanted to make herself the auteur, which is just laughable. Laughable. So, you know. You know where I'm going right now, the. The wood chipper awaits. Our beloved wood chipper awaits. Okay, it's gonna. It's getting good again. We're just. We're continuing to just test it in the days leading up to our Emmy live stream. You know, we're really going to put it to good use there. But first. First, we're going to make Ryan do his time in the woodshed. And for the crime that we are prosecuting him for, you're not getting any bail, Ryan. No bail. We are prosecuting him for his contemptible behavior with a child journalist on a red carpet this weekend. Okay, Take a look. I'm a monster. I know. I'm so sorry.

[Amanda Yulee]

What's your question for me, buddy?

[Maureen Callahan]

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Let's skip to the question. Why is there so much to pull? First of all, you know how our. One of our mantras at the Nerve is these people tell you who they are and believe them, even if they're saying it with a smile or a wink and a nod or they're laughing. He says first, in this clip, I'm a monster. I concur, Ryan Reynolds. I think you're a fucking monster. Secondly, then he bends down very solicit, solicitously, if that's a word to this child makes a big show. I'm bending down. I'm going to get down on your wavelength, okay? And I'm going to smack that really insincere smile on my face and I'm going to lift my eyebrows up and I'm going to pretend I'm interested in whatever you have to say, little kid. And you know what else I'm going to say to you? Uh, let's skip. Let's skip right to the question, okay? Don't tell me how great it is to meet me. I already know. I know how fucking great it is to meet me. This guy has it coming. And the nerve exists because people like you, Ryan, have been getting glad handed throughout the media lo these many years. It stops now. And what is with people being monsters to little kids? That little kid who had the base, the baseball that he caught or his father caught over the weekend or last week, and this woman comes up and she's like, it's mine. Give it to me. You know, what is with people anyway? It is at least great. Now we all have phones in our pockets on our iPhones, and we can name and shame these monsters. Now, Ryan's little mishap this weekend and you know, some night somebody booked the kid, okay? Extra Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight. You know, any of the late night shows that are dying, book the kid. The faceless kid on the other side of that camera who was just trying to get a fun quote from Ryan Reynolds on a red carpet, okay? You're not at the U.N. ryan. These are the level of questions you're getting. This is your chosen career. You're a movie actor. You're going to get softballs. Grow up. Now, again, I would not consider myself team Taylor Swift. But you know what? Nobody exacts revenge in the culture quite the way this bitch does it. And I'm here for it. Now, you know, Blake and Ryan tried to suck Taylor into their legal wranglings with Justin. And Taylor was like, that will not be happening. And not only will that not be happening, you're done. You're out of my life. Now this comes to us from an exclusive Radar online report published August 31st. Now, this report, see, I didn't even know you could do this. I thought you could just do a slow fade and it would just be, you know, plenty of people have godparents that by the time you're an adult, you're like, that was my godparent. Because they're just not in your life anymore. Taylor is trying to find a way to make it official that she will no longer be godmother to three of Blake and Ryan's four children. This is the radar headline. Taylor Swift quote will revoke being godmother to Blake Lively's kids as Pair's war goes nuclear after singer's engagement reveal. Wow, that's a busy headline. There's a lot of. There's a lot going on in that headline. Now, to quote from the report, a source close to Swift said, and this is the quote, Taylor feels she has no choice but to draw a line. Their friendship collapsed months ago, and she. Taylor, doesn't want blurred obligations lingering. That includes her godmother role. She's already considering issuing a formal notice, either through a mutual friend or even a lawyer, to make it clear she's stepping away. Now, I think that's just the opening salvo to keep Blake on the edge of her seat. But I think that message is coming in the only way Taylor knows how to do it in lyric form on an album that has a theme. And I think this theme is revenge. I think that this album is going to be all about Blake Lively. I do. Now, there's been a lot of speculation online that somebody got a screen grab of lyrics to Taylor's. To a song on Taylor's forthcoming album. This song is called actually Romantic, and this song seems like it's an epic diss track about Blake. Now, these lyrics are alleged, okay? So we're. We're taking them with a very heavy grain of salt. But if they are real, just give Taylor Swift, like, the Mark Twain Award. Just give her all the literary award. Just give her everything, okay? Because these lyrics, are they brutal? Are they brutal? So it's. It's. It's basically. She's basically saying to Blake, hey, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna put it out there. You're. You're obsessed with me, and it's to the point where you are in love with me, and that must really suck for you. And I'm also gonna out another one of your secrets in this little thing, remember, because Blake allegedly said to Taylor, if you don't back me in this lawsuit, I'm gonna release all your private text messages to me and all of the. All the stuff you confided in me about your boyfriends and maybe their issues in bed, you know, like, really Sensitive stuff. You know, I don't know what this. I don't know what Blake was thinking. You don't mess with someone like Taylor who's made it her profession to exact revenge in song. Okay? Now here are the sample alleged reported may not be Taylor lyrics, but let's hope and pray these are Taylor lyrics. Quote all the and just you is Blake okay? Allegedly. All the time you've spent on me, it's honestly wild. All the effort you've put in. It's actually romantic. Really? Gotta hand it to you. No man has ever loved me like you do. Hadn't thought of you in a long time but you keep sending me funny question marks. I think that's supposed to be texts. And I know you think it comes off as vicious, but it's precious. Adorable. Like a tiny chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse. That's some rich girl shit. Heard you called me boring Barbie when the Cokes got you ranting. Please Be Real Please Be Real lyrics. Now on to more real Talk about fake people. Hillary Baldwin from Boston has joined the cast of Dancing with the Stars, and the New York Times recently did a profile of her and Alec. And again, we never ask the real questions in any of these profiles. So if I again, no one would send me because I'm going to ask these questions and somebody at the New York Times. The New York Times again. You wonder why you're dying. Rearranging deck chairs in the culture section isn't going to cut it. You need to send your reporters in with a list of questions that are silver bullets such as these. Hilaria, why did you change your name from Hillary? Alec? When exactly did you learn that Hillary, your wife, was in Spanish as you loved to crow about on late night talk shows low these many years, but was in actuality a blue blood from Boston? When did you find out, Alec? Hey, how much debt are you guys in since Alec was tried for shooting Helena Hutchins to death on the set of Rust? It was an accident, but he was criminally charged. How much money are you bleeding, Alec? How come you can't get a job anymore? Are you that unpopular in Hollywood? Are you that much of an of a liability insurance wise, or is that a combination of both? Hey, how many guest lists have you guys been dropped from out in the Hamptons? You know you're showing off your mansion in East Hampton in Amagansett, you know, how are you paying for the run of this place? No, no, no, no, no. Here's how the Times did it, okay? They sent Katherine Rossman, a quote unquote journalist. The nose is way up in the air. Okay, Here's a quote from that piece. Okay? We're going to just sort of do a drive by and clean up this mess. Okay? This is a quote from the piece, from Katherine Rossman's piece. Their fast moving May December romance, their procreation, their baby hoarders. Okay, just my opinion and questions about. Questions about Ms. Baldwin's slight Spanish accent. Excuse me, when you go on the Today show and say, how you say cucumber, yet it's not a slight Spanish accent. This woman has been cosplaying. Talk about cultural appropriation. New York Times, aren't you all about that? Her slight Spanish accent and her first name. She was once Hillary. I don't think she's legally changed her name. We're catnip for tabloids. So, like the dirty tabloids are actually, you know, reporting the real effing story. Which by the way, hat tip to Amy Schumer for bringing that up. And then suddenly the world got onto that. Oh, yeah, this is a white woman from Boston. I mean, I know Spaniards are white, but you know what I'm saying? Anyway, that's tabloid fodder over at the Times. We're busy trying to prop these assholes up. Now, Rossman also notes with zero humor that Alex, eldest daughter from his marriage to the actress Kim Basinger, gave her father just a few years ago. Ireland is 29 now. She gave her dad for Father's Day a freestanding grill in the shape of a pig. And this is a female pig. And we know it's a female because it has long eyelashes. And this is a reference to an unforgettable voicemail left by Alec for Ireland when she was, And I quote, 11 or 12 years old or however old you are. That was like the way her father put it in that voicemail. Just like Chrissy Teigen, another Hollywood star we're lionizing who has no idea how old his own child is. We can never, ever play this enough. Just a little hit. Just a little hit in the artery. Alec Baldwin to his 11 or 12 year old daughter who didn't take his call. You are a worried, thoughtless little pig. I think that that that voicemail and that trauma has really stuck with Ireland because that is a gift for the ages and otherwise. I also think that, I think the troublemaker army is growing faster than we ever thought. Because if you take a look at the comments to this unblinking New York Times profile on the Times Instagram account. It's troublemaker central. Okay? Now the New York Times allowed Hillary. I'm going to call her. It's Hillary. It's Andrew Cohen Hillary. To say she was, quote, extraordinarily embarrassed that there's this huge portrait of her in their living room and she's attempting a Warholian commentary on paparazzi and fame. And it's failing. Okay? Because when you got to call the paparazzi to take your picture and you got to pretend, oh my God, they just showed up and look at me, I'm like, I'm just glammed out to the nines in my bodega. And then you got a commission, said portrait. Warhol's not doing it on his own, you know, get out, get out. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so mortified. If only I had known you were coming over. What? And you know, it's very JLo coded. JLo, who loves to call the paparazzi whenever she's out in the Hamptons. As stated, they're not out here. They don't come out here. So she calls the paparazzi to tell them when and where she is. Sorry, where she is and when she'll be there. And then they show up and she yells at them for taking her picture. It's like bonkers. And by the way, we're getting to J. Lo BR briefly in a minute. Okay. Anyway, so here are some of the comments on Instagram that I suspect are troublemakers in the comments section. Okay. I printed them out because they're so great. Quote, I'm so embarrassed about this painting that I choose to hang up in my house. And there are huge paintings of her throughout the house. Forgot to add, they don't even credit the artist. Everything I have learned about these people has been against my will. Hillary from Boston. It's wild that Hilaria Baldwin has been impersonating a Spanish woman for years and still has a massive following. No thanks in all caps. Nobody wants this. Nobody wants it. All right, now on to Jennifer Lopez, who this weekend was papped. Taking Ben Affleck's teenage boy, Samuel, his son, with Jen Garner, shopping at Balenciaga in Beverly Hills. Okay. Samuel affleck is a 13 year old kid and you tell me with 13 year old boy, his idea of a good time is shopping at Balenciaga. You know, and J. Lo, of course is in full hair, hair extensions, just my opinion. Heavy makeup, platform heels and a midriff bearing crop that is one strong breeze away from displaying her breasts. And you know, that is how you dress when you are taking your ex husband of a minute's teenage son shopping at Balenciaga when he already went public by saying that his kid Sam asked him to buy him a pair of $10,000 shoes. And Ben Affleck said to his kid, well, what kind of job are you going to get that's going to earn that kind of money? And Sam said to Ben, by Ben's own report, well, we're rich. And Ben said, no, I'm rich, you're broke. And what 13 year old needs $10,000 sneakers? So this is JLo sticking it to Ben. And this is JLO trying to keep her coffin nails into one. Ben Affleck, who has made it very clear that he is done with her and wants nothing to do with her. Next up, Jack Schlossberg, who is currently the most embarrassing Kennedy. And again, that's saying something because we got a family of real criminals. You know, kill women, rape them, leave them for dead, lobotomize them. But right now, Jack Schlossberg is their biggest black eye. They have exiled him. According to a bombshell New York Post report, he is not welcome anymore at family gatherings and neither is mommy Caroline, because she's enabled this freak show. Just my opinion. Now Jack, who's 32 years old as far as we know, has never held a job and spends his days creating content within the confines of his luxury apartment. Content and rolling around town in what I can only call a murder van. He's exploring, exploring a run for Jerry Nadler's Senate seat here in New York, which I. Please, please, do it, do it, do it. Okay, now this again. These, these little nuggets give us great excuses to go back. These people don't change. They don't change. When Hillary Clinton vacated her New York Senate seat to go run for President in 2008 for the first time, Caroline Kennedy raised her hand and said, hey, guess what? I'm a Kennedy. Give it to me. Give me that seat. I want it. The New York media wasn't having it. So let's look at Caroline on New York 1 during what she thought was just sort of a peremptory media lap before taking her throne in the United States Senate. Here she is on local cable channel New York 1. This is a great mashup. It's Caroline Kennedy's greatest hits, answering the question, why you? And what do you know about the ins and outs of legislating for New York? Here we go. You know, let me begin this way was a few years ago. You know, after not, you know, I felt, you know, my job was to reach out to, you know, everyday New Yorkers and real, you know, I really ought to give my life, you know, as a mother, you know, while I was thinking about it, just sort of, you know, in my own head and saying, you know, want to UV center. Where else would you think about it? You know, go for it. We're rooting for you, your own head. What are you talking about? On the subway this morning, people were, you know, coming up. She doesn't take this away. Know I do that because, you know, this is my home. You know, I. Oh, you don't say. It's your home, family. You know, public service is really, you know, the greatest honor that anyone can have. No, it's not. It's. That's a lie, Caroline. Okay? Public service in your family is not the greatest honor anybody could have. It's something you all hide behind. It's something you crave because you want power and you want money and you want fame and you want to use your name to create coast to these places. The Kennedy family is dead in the culture. It's over. It's done. I love it that Jack Schlossberg has yet to get this memo. I love it. Please run, sir. Please do it. We hit the nerve. Will be all over it. Okay, now Liz Gilbert, a self confessed attempted murderous, is still getting the kid glove treatment from a worshipful media. Okay, here's the UK Times, Elizabeth Gilbert colon. I came very close to murdering my partner. If this wasn't a wealthy looking white woman, do you think that she'd be getting this kind of treatment? I mean, the media really needs to have a reckoning with itself. It really does. Again, it wonders why it's dying. Okay, here's People magazine. The headline. Sex, drugs and a murder plot titillating. Elizabeth Gilbert has no shame about any of it. How about people begin some editorializing and saying maybe the cops should open an investigation into how this woman died. Because according to an insider who we're going to get to, Elizabeth Gilbert had this woman isolated in that New York apartment they were sharing. I think, I think, I think an investigation should absolutely be opened. The New York Times, in A profile published September 5, this is the headline. Elizabeth Gilbert gets dark with a glamour shot of her when she still had hair. A glamour shot. You know, anyone who has been paying the least amount of attention to this charlatan has long known that this trick has always been dark. Okay? She has always been dark. She has always been a shapeshifter she has always been a fraud and a phony. And she uses the people in her life like a vampire. She is a succubus. She wrote a. She wrote an essay for the Times herself in which she said it. I broke into people. I broke into people. I broke up relationships. I broke into the men. I stole. I broke in. I took all their emotional and intellectual currency. I spent it on myself. And when I was all out of it, I left them. I dumped them. She's a bad person. She's a dangerous woman. All right. Now this brings us. This brings us to the best part of every nerve. And it is your emails and it is your feedback. Now this is from someone who says that she was a real friend of Raya, the woman Gilbert is using for material here. The woman who had cancer and who died. And you can go look at our segment on Liz. We covered it front to back, but this re. This rings true to me. I think it's real. This is from someone who goes by the username Arielle. I can't under the Liz segment. I can't thank you enough for presenting this. You are 100% correct. For those of us who are Raya's friends, this was a nightmare to witness. And I did not say stay silent, excuse me, as I watched this shit show. Raya fought for her sobriety for 27 years. And then this happened. And by this I believe she means the person parading the psychopath. My opinion parading as a human being. This being Elizabeth Gilbert. And it happened so quickly. Shockingly quickly. I have struggled knowing that Elizabeth Gilbert was going to write her version of what happened. Spinning a web of deceit to the public. And Ray? Cremated. Cremated so there's no body to exhume. Interesting. Cremated. After being exceptionally vibrant, clear headed and deeply loving. The world is not the same without Raya in it. She is an icon and one everyone should have known. Read her book Harley Loco, a memoir of hard living hair and post punk from the Middle east to the Lower east side and you'll get to know the woman again. Thank you so much for doing this review. The whole thing needs this type of critical thinking. Another Elizabeth Gilbert is an empty person. It is unnerving how creepy she is. And her soft whisper voice. Great catch. Makes me want to break things. It is such a put on. Like her personality, like her relationships. A follow up comment. You mean her phony SNL does NPR voice. That is it. That is the perfect description. Troublemaker. Now a quick note about the US Open. Carlos Alcaraz won the men's final over the weekend. And you know, after they win, it's traditional that they climb up into the stands and reunite with their family members and their team and they hug and they congratulate each other and then they go back down to the court to be given the trophies. And this is something that people at the US Open do and it's got to stop. It's one thing if you've got your hand out to give the athlete a high five and they high five you back. It is entirely another to take your hands and touch this person. You don't know him and he doesn't know you. Don't touch him. Don't touch people you don't know. God, it's so creepy. I can't believe people feel the ownership they have over an athlete who just played his heart out. Oh my God. Okay, now onto your emails. Onto your emails. Now some of you have been prefacing your emails by saying you were kind of wrestling with or struggling with. Wrestling's too strong of a word. Whether to even email because you're self conscious maybe about grammar or syntax or spelling. And I'm here to tell you, do not be okay? We are a non safe space except for troublemakers. We're a safe space for all troublemakers. And I mess up all the time too. I did it twice last week. Some of you had no problem calling me out. I said Gen X when I meant to say Gen Z. I was talking off the top of my head. I didn't even hear the mistake. And I also in the segment about Tim Dillon on the mini, I used gross when what I really meant was net as in when I I should have said Tim Dillon, the blood money he's getting paid, the 30 pieces of silver he's getting paid to betray himself and his fellow gay men by going to Chop Chop Square in Riyadh to perform at the Chop Chop Comedy Festival where his take home pay according to his own self report is $375,000. What I really should have said was Tim, after taxes and paying his publicists and his agent and his manager and his lawyer is only going to net maybe $150,000. So my apologies for that one. Okay, now onto your emails on the Bravo scandal regard that's currently playing out on on Bravo on the Real Housewives of Orange county in, in which one housewife is accusing another of roofing her against her own knowledge, getting her so drunk so that her rapey. My opinion son Ryan could have his way with this woman behind a locked bathroom door. Maureen, I first heard about the scandal on your show. I am convinced it is real. The fact that everyone there is denying it and then the crazy idea to have a lie detector test convinces me that Bravo is worried about liability. You're onto a major Cohen Bravo scandal. Don't stop talking about it. We think so too. Okay. Hi, Maureen. I just finished watching Saturday's Mini Nerve and all I can say is wow. And thank you for exposing a the deplorable conduct in Saudi Arabia. And by the way, if you go back and look at that Mini, we heard from a lot of you westerners who either spent like substantial time and or lived in Saudi Arabia for a time. And to A1, you have all said that we barely scratched the surface of how bad it is over there, of just how savage and medieval it is over there. Okay? And so for a, for that. And B, the deplorable comedians who are taking the cash grab and participating in the upcoming festival. I wonder if the money 150k tim has blinded the entertainers to the potential for abuse once they arrive. Accidents in planes, helicopters, moving cars can happen quickly and without warning. Great point. So this is a subject line is hands. I'm having. This is from Sylvie. I'm having lunch with a friend. After 10 minutes of girlfriend chitchat, she says, you're really into the Nerve, aren't you? Cover Color me puzzled.

[Carl Stefanovic]

Nerve?

[Maureen Callahan]

What do you mean? I think she rolled her eyes and then stared at me. Your right hand elbow on table. I'm doing it now. Has not stopped waving and emphasizing points with your index fingers since we sat down. It's just what Maureen does on her show. We're still friends. Not too sure about future lunches though. That's hilarious. Merch from Catherine. How about Got trouble on one side of a mug T shirt or whatever. I like it. Got milk? Got trouble. Hi, Maureen. You must. This is from Heather. Have allegedly reportedly just my opinion on some merch. We will do it. Heather also says I'm dying for Emmy party. So are we. And by the way, we've got some more troublemaker art. We're going to throw up right now. Troublemaker Paul from New Zealand is like working away. We've got our raw nerve Emmys art for you right here. Okay. Dear Maureen, this is troublemaker Damien. I am really glad the Nerve is one of the few voices speaking the truth about Emma Willis's exploitation. In my opinion, you troublemakers are fast learners of her husband's condition. I had to stop reading a vanity Fair interview with her, which was published a few days ago as it made my stomach churn. Especially the part about her desperately trying to. To protect her husband's privacy. Hi, Maureen. Love the show. This is troublemaker Harry. I've always despised celebs who think they are superior. Superior, excuse me, to everyone else. When in fact they're actually dumb and shallow. So the comeuppance is you deliver our joy. Couldn't do it without you guys. I mean, we're an army over here. I listen to you on Apple podcasts so rarely see the clips you reference. When I heard the clip you played of Elizabeth Gilbert speaking into that microphone with complete vocal control, and we're at one octave, one timbre, never modulating or moving, I thought I was listening to our favorite duchess. Their cadences and vocabularies are different, but the tone of their voices sounded weirdly similar to me. Great point. Hi, Maureen. This is Donna H. In Connecticut. High praise for every single bit of information we at the Nerve shared on the mini. Brilliantly done. Thank you, Donna. I, too, was a fan of Tim Dillon. No more all caps. Exclamation point. Donna's not effing around within literally five minutes of the end of your presentation. I unsubscribed from his channel. I have no idea how to access YouTube subscriber metrics, but boy, oh, boy, would it be fun to discover the damage you're reporting inflicted on Mr. Dunn. Just get over it. Good afternoon. Morning from our abode in Spain. Hey, troublemaker Catherine. My husband and I just finished watching your mini on the comedians who are about to visit Saudi Arabia. We are now both quite depressed and extremely disappointed in the lack of moral integrity being shown by these comedians. Some. Some of them were our favorites. Not anymore. We both feel quite sick. Thank you for highlighting this and bringing it into sharp focus. Somebody has to do it, no matter how distasteful. I hope many people take notice. Same. And what we should also note or who we should also take note of. Who's not on that list? Okay, who's not on the list? Because don't think Saudi Arabia didn't try to get some of these heavy hitters. I suspect they did. Jerry Seinfeld? Not on the list. Amy Schumer? Not on the list. Ricky Gervais. Not on the list. Chris Rock? Not on the list. All people who we should support. And finally, the. I mean, listen, they're all effing great, but this one this week, I have to say, save the best for last. I laughed out loud when I read this feedback. My wife almost died laughing last week when she called my cell while I was out on the lake fishing with some buddies in northern Minnesota. She's asking how our fishing is going, then stops and yells over the phone, are you listening to the Nerve? We were streaming the Nerve. Oh, my God. Sorry. Over the boat stereo while fishing, my wife could not stop laughing. She couldn't believe four guys in their 40s fishing were listening to her favorite podcast, It's Our Guilty Pleasure. And I gotta say, I get emails like this. They're kind of sheepish, but they're really funny. It'll be like a guy who's like, hey, like, I'm a fully heterosexual man in well into middle age and I've got, like a totally macho job. Like, I'm a cop, I'm a firefighter.

[Carl Stefanovic]

And I love the Nerve.

[Maureen Callahan]

We won't tell. It's cool. It's cool. Anyway. Okay. Up next, we will be joined by a newly minted author. Her name is Amanda Yuli, and she's got a fascinating story to tell. Her new memoir, Destroy this House, is about what it's like to grow up with two parents who are hoarders. I've been looking forward to this conversation. I'm really glad we're going to have it. First, a quick reminder. Keep those emails and that feedback coming. You can reach me at maureenevilmaycaremedia.com or DM me on Instagram, Maureen Callahanriter or henerv show and go check my Instagram because we just went up yesterday with news. I'm going to. I'm honored and so excited to be joining Megyn Kelly on her first tour of North America. I'm going to be at the Anaheim, California stop in November, and I can't wait. And I hope, I hope to see troublemakers there and remember as well to, like, subscribe and spread the word. The faster we grow, the faster we give you stuff like Emmy nights and live streams and live events that we're hoping to get off the ground sooner than later. And we've got a big announcement in the next week. So all of that is, again, due to you guys being such great evangelists and bringing more troublemakers into this army. So that's your friendly reminder. See you in a minute. We've all had days when skin feels dull, hydrating products don't sink in or stick, and energy is all over the place, and no amount of water or skin care or caffeine seems to help. That's where Peak's radiant skin duo can be your answer. This product is a game changer. Peak supports whole body wellness from the inside out. It is backed by experts like Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Will Cole. It has over 15,000 five star reviews. Here is how and why it works. Peak's sun goddess Matcha provides a steady, calm energy throughout the day. Matcha's got caffeine in it, but it won't give you the jitters. It's also packed with L Theanine for focus and EGCG antioxidant. All of these help to boost skin clarity and support gut health because as we know, great skin does start from within. Then you've got BT Fountain electrolytes and these will help you hydrate like nothing else. Clinically proven ceramides lock moisture at the skin's cellular level. They lock it in and it leaves your skin plump, fresh and glowing. Purity matters. Peak ensures that all of their ingredients are free from heavy metals, from pesticides and from mold. Not a big ask. They're giving you clean, science backed hydration and energy. So if you are ready to say goodbye to fatigue, to dry skin and to energy crashes and begin a healthier way to hydrate, get 20% off plus a free frother and glass [e-mail] thenerv Again, that's peaklife.com thenerve Want to look and feel your best this summer? Don't just think skin deep, think cell deep with Prolon. Prolon is a plant based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks and beverages that nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state state triggering cellular rejuvenation and renewal. With proper diet and exercise, Prolon can help target fat loss, support lean muscle and reset your metabolism so you look and feel your best all summer long. Prolon is science backed nutrition that can help change your relationship with food in just 5 days. Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you [e-mail] PandoraPromo these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. See site for details. We are back. We are about to be joined by author Amanda Yulee, whose new memoir, Destroy this House is about her childhood and young adulthood growing up with and then dealing with parents who were hoarders. But before, before we meet Amanda, I wanted to just show this clip because in case you don't really have a real frame of reference for what hoarding is now, according to recent statistics, approximately 22 million people in North America alone suffer from compulsive hoarding. This clip from a documentary series about hoarders is going to show you. It's going to give a flavor of what it can be like for young children to grow up among parents who hoard. Take a look at this. My name is Jennifer and I'm 27 years old. My house is a mess. It doesn't feel like a home. My porch is sort of the catch all for things that we can't fit into the house. I mean, this is stuff you can.

[Amanda Yulee]

Do when you come into the living.

[Maureen Callahan]

Room and the floors, there's trash everywhere, consumed in the kitchen. The sink is an old slop sink, so water spills out of it frequently.

[Amanda Yulee]

There's a lot of spills.

[Maureen Callahan]

Not the passive language because there's stuff on the floor. The hallway is our laundry hamper. There's always a carpet of laundry. And the kids room, that can probably be at times some of the messy, the messiest places. Looks like a dumpster.

[Amanda Yulee]

It's awful.

[Maureen Callahan]

There's food on the floor. And Jennifer is my partner and has.

[Amanda Yulee]

Been for over 10 years.

[Maureen Callahan]

Jennifer, she loves to shop, and I think she feels some control when she's.

[Amanda Yulee]

Able to shop and buy things.

[Maureen Callahan]

The ability to let go of it, passive language and the ability to stop getting it is.

[Amanda Yulee]

It's beyond me.

[Maureen Callahan]

And there's also a very. Another famous memoirist who wrote about this as well. But before we get to that, let's bring in Amanda. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us here at the Nerve to talk about your new book, Destroy this House.

[Amanda Yulee]

Thank you for having me.

[Maureen Callahan]

So this is. I can only imagine what a difficult process this was to write this story. And I think it's really brave because I think there are very few stigmas left in modern life, and I think hoarding is one of them. And in your book, you talk about even the level of denial among the hoarder and the hoarder parents. You say in the book your parents never really called what they had hoards. They called it clutter.

[Amanda Yulee]

We never ever called it hoarding. Yeah, that was definitely. It would have been so, I think, shameful for my mother especially to use that word. And we, we wouldn't dare, you know, my brother and, and I wouldn't dare use that word internally.

[Maureen Callahan]

Were you thinking this is a, this is a hoarding situation?

[Amanda Yulee]

You know, I wasn't until later in their lives. And part of it is the time frame. Right. So I grew up in the 80s and 90s, mostly in the Midwest, the show Hoarders had not debuted in the world. And I think it was less. It was even less known. It was like people thought of folks like my mom as messy or sloppy maybe. But as time went on, it was really clear to me that the stuff wasn't just a mess. Like something was really wrong. So I started to. To feel like things were really wrong in my house around the time I was probably 8 or 9. And then this is an illness, and this is a situation that just gets progressively worse and worse, which is what happened with my mom. It was worse and worse through the 90s, through, you know, when I was a teenager. And by the time I was an adult, I saw it for that. I saw it as that, and I could sort of name it as hoarding.

[Maureen Callahan]

But it was. What was it for you that flipped that switch where you said, no, this is not a. This is hoarding. My mother has a mental illness. This is extreme.

[Amanda Yulee]

I, you know, it was extreme. It felt extreme before this. But I know, I remember very vividly when they lived in a house in Pontiac, Michigan, and their garage is kind of where it was worse, you know, worst of all, although it sort of spilled into the home, but it looked very much like the photos that you were just showing. And there was food. My mom was always accumulating groceries, sometimes non perishable stuff, but perishable stuff, too. Also perishable stuff. So I guess the best way I can explain it is that the smell was like nothing you've ever imagined. Like, if you smelled that, your heart and your body and your mind would say, this is wrong. Like, this is not. It's not possible that they're not seeing it. And that was always the way. I mean, my parents, my mother in particular, kind of like wouldn't see a mess. Like, she just. I felt like she couldn't see what I saw in the, in the piles, in the food, the bags of clothes, the stuff everywhere in her house. It was like she couldn't see it. But I think when we all smelled it, the gosh, that was 2005 or so, it was really clear to me that how wrong it was and that it was hoarding.

[Maureen Callahan]

Amanda did at a certain point. Did you ever feel like it wasn't that your mother couldn't see it, but wouldn't see it?

[Amanda Yulee]

Yes. I mean, she was so. It was really clear. She was just unnaturally attached to stuff, to. To these things that she would surround herself with. So, yeah, she, she couldn't and wouldn't admit to that. It was just too hard. It was like facing some really dark stuff for her.

[Maureen Callahan]

Were you ever able to try to. To figure out what it was that was either the precipitating event or what it was that the horde. You know, they say that the. The horde and for the hoarder is. It serves two purposes. One is it's a womb. You're kind of building just a 360 wall of defense around yourself, but it also keeps people away. It keeps people out.

[Amanda Yulee]

Yes.

[Maureen Callahan]

Were you ever able to identify what perhaps the true trauma was there with your mom?

[Amanda Yulee]

I could never diagnose it. I mean, and I don't even really want to, you know, Like, I. It's just too hard to say. She had a tough time growing up, for sure. I have a lot of sympathy for my mom in a lot of ways, but the. Yeah, the. The situation was one where she was both protecting herself and sort of comforting herself with all of this stuff and keeping people away. We lived in a house. Excuse me. We lived in actually many different houses over the years of my childhood where no one else really came in. It was in. The clip you showed was sort incredible because this person allowed cameras into their home. And I think that that's actually pretty rare when people are hoarding in the way that my mother was. You just did not want anyone to see it. And I think my mom didn't want anyone to see who she was and how she lived and how, therefore we lived in the houses.

[Maureen Callahan]

Can you talk a little bit, Amanda, about. You know, I want to talk to you about when you hit the age of eight, because in the memoir, that seems to be a very pivotal year for you.

[Amanda Yulee]

Yeah.

[Maureen Callahan]

But what it was like as a child to know you weren't going to be able to have one of the most important socializations of childhood and teenage years, your teenage years, which is having not only kids over to your house, but as a girl, like, it's such a ritual, a coming of age ritual. The sleepover party, the big birthday parties. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Amanda Yulee]

Yeah. I mean, I have to say, in a lot of ways that part of it, I didn't think too much about missing it. Even though looking back, I'm kind of like, wow, that would have really been nice. The overwhelming feeling when I was a girl was how do I make sure none of my friends come over? Like that was the priority? Because it was actually so scary and shameful to think of the people I went to school with, seeing what I saw when I opened the door to My home. We would open the back door, which is the one we used. And for some reason, my mom had stored soda, like, 12 packs of soda, all on the stairs. You had to, like, really find a place to stand or to navigate the steps. And I don't know if they'd been outside and frozen and exploded or whatever, but many of them had opened. And so there was, like, Coca Cola dripping down the stairs that had just sat there. I mean, it was so. It was a scary sight. And that's when I was in high school. And, God, I mean, it was so terrifying to think that someone would, like, pick me up for something for school and, like, see what was inside the. Inside that door.

[Maureen Callahan]

Like, you were never going to have a boy come over and pick you up for prom. That sort of typical 80s tableau of, like, the girl at the top of the stairs and, like, the boy at the bottom with the corsage and, like, your mom's got Coca Cola.

[Amanda Yulee]

We had. I did have someone come over my junior prom, and he was only allowed in this one part of the house that we'd cleaned up. And then at senior prom, it was a bad time, and I went to other people's houses. So, yeah, I mean, it was like the very, very rare times that someone came in the house, and it was very scary. So. But, yeah, it wasn't like mourning. I wasn't, like, missing it at the time. I was just sort of afraid of letting it be seen. Just felt very shameful.

[Maureen Callahan]

You talk about at the age of eight, a couple of things happening, which I think are fascinating. One is, your mother predicts you. You befriend another girl at your school. You've moved from Long island to the Midwest, and your mother is angry about this, and she says, oh, you're over there all the time. And I bet when you're over there, you see the tracks of the vacuum cleaner in their freshly vacuumed carpet. And I bet their house is sparkling clean. And the implication is, you. You like that better than this house. And that's a problem.

[Amanda Yulee]

She was so insecure about that. And she sort of would put people down if she thought that they were, like, too perfect and too prim and had a tidy house. And, of course, I did want that. I really wanted it. I thought it was. For me, it was exotic. And it was really interesting to think about living that way and living in a clean house. Sort of like all I ever wanted when I was a kid.

[Maureen Callahan]

You also write about, and I wonder how you see these as possibly related. And there's I don't know if you're aware of this, but there's a very famous memoirist who has just about the exact same story as you do. Close. Not the same. But you write that when you're eight, your mother comes in and has a conversation with you, and she's like, listen, here is everything you need to know about sex, front to back. And again, you're eight. And then she says, and I really hope you start masturbating because this is gonna stop you from experimenting with boys before. I think you, you should. Yeah, it, what is the comorbidity there, you think, between that kind of what I would, I, I, I know you're, you're laughing and I'm laughing. I get it. But I, I, I read that, and I think, whoa, this is so inappropriate. She's so little. She's so little. Her mother should not be talking to her this way. Do you think that, that there's, there's, there's a relationship between that lack of boundaries in that way and the hoarding?

[Amanda Yulee]

Maybe. I mean, my mom was, she was chaotic and inappropriate a lot and in a lot of ways. And so I think that those stories show that the sex stuff, I think, was really about this whole notion, which, again, is pretty 80s, of preserving one's virginity, preserving your sanctity and sort of purity, which my mom had lots of exceptions. There were lots of ways around that. And, you know, masturbating was one of the, one of the ways that she thought was a way around it. But, yeah, I mean, it was kind of weird. And I think it speaks a little bit to the fact that my mom was looking for less of a daughter and more of a peer and a friend, you know, and that was always a line that was kind of blurry, for sure. Later in my childhood, I became a real parent around the house. Right. I started cooking dinner and doing other things like that. And I think that that was just, like, comfortable for my mom to have another person. Not a, not a little daughter, but another adult, like, figure. And so speaking kind of inappropriately to me about sex is, like, probably one of those fits with the same pattern.

[Maureen Callahan]

At the time that you begin becoming truly parentified and doing the household tasks that moms or dads usually do for their children, like preparing their meals. How old were you? And would you ever attempt to surreptitiously either clean part of the house or remove parts of the hoard without them knowing?

[Amanda Yulee]

Yes. So I was about 11 when I really started cooking dinner. What I was noticing Is that we had all these groceries in our house because really, we just had a lot of food. My mom was buying food all the time, way more than we could eat, but we were never cooking it or eating it. We would always, like, get food from Arby's or have, you know, we would just eat in other ways, but we were never eating the groceries. And so that just, like, where would you eat?

[Maureen Callahan]

Cause I'm gonna guess that there was. The dining table was up place for the hoard. Like, where would you eat?

[Amanda Yulee]

We. I mean, if we got food out, we would eat in the car or, you know, some other place and at home. You know, I remember making a plate and sitting on the floor in front of the TV or sitting in my room, which was the probably the least messy spot in the house. But, yeah, our dining table was always pretty well covered with stuff, so we didn't eat there. But, yeah, I really, you know, I craved that as a kid. I saw. You could see on tv there's families where, like, a parent makes a meal and everybody gets a plate and sits at a table. And that seemed pretty appealing to me. I saw it at friends houses, too. And so I started, you know, experimenting. I don't think I was a great cook at 11. Like, I'm. I'm much better now, but, you know, I was kind of interested in it, and I. I worked at it. And, you know, what I was working with was sometimes really gross expired food because we had all this old food sitting around. But, yeah, I mean, I started it. And I. I think in my, like, kid head, I was thinking that giving my parents, like, a little boost, like, do. I'll do it Wednesday, and then maybe on Thursday or Friday they'll take over. But that's kind of. That was not how it worked. You know, I did it Wednesday, and my mom was like, oh, good, somebody cooked dinner. So she was, like, happy to have the extra hands. It never spurred her to do, you know, what I was hoping.

[Maureen Callahan]

We're hoping she would do.

[Amanda Yulee]

Yeah.

[Maureen Callahan]

Did you ever read or see any interviews with the former child actress Jennette McCurdy, who wrote that very famous memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died.

[Amanda Yulee]

I know about this book. Unfortunately, I have not read it yet. It's on my list, though.

[Maureen Callahan]

You might want to read it. We were going to show a clip, but we won't, because I'm just more fascinated talking to you. But she gave in one interview. She gave. So her mother not only sort of forced her into child stardom and into an eating Disorder. But her mother was a hoarder, and her mother was also very sexually inappropriate with her. And it reminded me of your story in just these Weird Comorbidities and this. You know, I love the title of her book, I'm Glad My Mom Died, because it really is so embracing of. I would imagine at some point in your adolescence or your young adulthood, you get. And maybe you've never experienced it, I don't know. But did you ever experience a feeling of rage against them?

[Amanda Yulee]

Oh, for sure. I mean, particularly toward the end of their lives, they were just so. They were in such trouble. All of these choices that they'd been making about their finances and their health, the hoarding, I mean, the hoarding is one part of a lot of things in their lives. So they were kind of the consequences of all these choices were coming true for them. And it was.

[Maureen Callahan]

How did they. How did they come true? Like, what. What were. What was the scenario?

[Amanda Yulee]

Oh, I mean, they were just living.

[Maureen Callahan]

Together at the end, or were they separated?

[Amanda Yulee]

Yeah, they were.

[Maureen Callahan]

Okay.

[Amanda Yulee]

They were, Yeah. I mean, they lived in a house that was, you know, repossessed, and they. Then they moved to an assisted living place that was. The hoarding was so bad that they were almost kicked out constantly of this place, so that I was always having to intervene. And, you know, their health. They died at 64 and 70. So they were pretty young. It's pretty young. And it's. You know, they were making these terrible choices. And it. What was hard for me is that I really felt like I saw these terrible choices playing out from when. From the 80s, when I was a kid. I saw it, you know, and I was. I felt like I was the person trying to get their attention, saying, hey, you know, let's. Let's do better. Let's do it differently. And they just couldn't, you know, or wouldn't. Whatever the reasons were, it was something I saw coming for decades and was dreading for decades in a lot of ways. And then I had to deal with it, you know, in the end, it's still kind of came to pass that things were really, really hard. And, yeah, I was angry in the.

[Maureen Callahan]

Beginning of your book. I'm angry for you. You write about. This is a trick my mom used to pull when she was compost mentis. But it would be like, oh, you gotta come. You gotta help me. You gotta help me right now. You gotta help me right now. It's like, well, I can't, you know, well, you gotta do it. I don't care that you Gotta drive two hours one way. I need it now. You better come now. You know, like that constant, that constant hampering. And you just want to, you know, give it to them. Just give it to them. And so I was really angry for you in that opening scene. And then you write, after your mom dies, you gotta call a cleanup crew that specializes basically in homicide scenes. And you're so mortified by what the cleanup crew is going to see, you think it's worse than anything they've probably ever seen.

[Amanda Yulee]

I thought it was gonna be worse than the homicides. This is like a Detroit crew of cleaners and they specialize in murders and things or, you know, crime scenes. And they also did some hoarding. So I was like, is this, are they going to be, are they going to do it? Are they going to charge me more? Is it going to take longer? And it was embarrassing. You know, there were so many things about my parents where I did feel embarrassed and sad, you know, about what was there. And I had to engage these people who were very nice people, very professional and great at their work. And I had to say, well, it's pretty messy. Here's some photos. And you know, they were, they were cool about it, which I appreciated.

[Maureen Callahan]

Is there anything, Amanda, you would say, if there's especially somebody young out there, but anybody who is related to a hoarder, who is stuck living with a hoarder, what would be your best advice in terms of self preservation and surviving?

[Amanda Yulee]

You know, I think this is such a tricky one because there isn't an answer. There's no prescription that I know of that would fix or change this behavior. I certainly tried. I tried for years and years and years. And it was one of the hardest things I faced is trying to navigate that.

[Maureen Callahan]

Oh, I don't think there's anything anyone can do. Yeah, there's nothing you can do for the people who are suffering at the hands of a hoarder.

[Amanda Yulee]

You have to, if you are in that situation, you have to think about yourself and preserve your own well being. And so the way I think I did that was assuring myself that I did my best kind of every day that I was dealing with it or every week or whatever it was. And my best sometimes meant doing what's in that opening scene, which is like driving up to where my mom lived and cleaning out her disgusting freezer and helping her. But some days my best was like, I can't. I have some other. You know, my career is important, my little daughter is important. Whatever else I was doing. So Setting those boundaries and just like, knowing this is my best, then I feel good that I've done my best. And that's. I think we owe that to ourselves, you know, to.

[Maureen Callahan]

Oh, yeah.

[Amanda Yulee]

To do our best for ourselves and for others. And. Absolutely. Your best looks different. Different days, different circumstances. So that's all.

[Maureen Callahan]

I also think with your. With your family. And I wonder this, especially when it comes to hoarders who have children, I. I suspect just my supposition, your parents may have been moving around a lot, in part not only because it kept eyes off of you.

[Amanda Yulee]

Yeah.

[Maureen Callahan]

There are no relatives around to pop in and suddenly go, what's going on here? Those kids are staying at my house until you get this taken care of. I'm calling child protective services. I'm calling the cops. I'm calling the city because you got code violations out the ass over here.

[Amanda Yulee]

I called the city myself, actually, at one point, and it didn't. It didn't work. But really, I was so, you know, at the end of my rope with the situation. And we had gotten a call that basically my dad needed an ambulance. And the fire department went in and they called me and they said, well, this is unsafe. You can't live this way. You have to fix it. And I said to the fire department, I've been trying. What can we do? You know? And then I waited an hour and I called them back and I said, maybe. Maybe you can help me. Like, they need help. And I can't give it. Like, what can we. What can we do? Can we involve the authorities? Unfortunately, they. They were not able to do anything. It kind of was tossed back to me.

[Maureen Callahan]

Ah, municipal bureaucracy. I did try. Good for you. Well, Amanda, I. Congratulations on destroy this house.

[Amanda Yulee]

Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Maureen Callahan]

And thank you for this conversation which has been so illuminating and so fascinating. And I just wish you all of the best. Thank you book and all your future endeavors.

[Amanda Yulee]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Maureen Callahan]

Thanks for coming on, troublemakers. Now, before we say goodbye, just for today, Just for today, we have. Here's your friendly reminder. Less than one week until the Nurse Nerve goes live. Before our first Nerve live stream for Emmy night, some of our favorite repeat offenders are gonna get it in new and original fresh ways. So start sending your questions in now. Email, Instagram, however you wanna do it, carrier pigeon. This way we can get the ball rolling. And then on Sunday, September 14th, when we go live at the 6pm Eastern, we'll also have you guys in the live chat and we'll be going back and forth in real time for the first time. And. And we've got Nerve Merch. It's going to be available. It's amazing. We can't wait. We cannot wait. Okay, that is it. That is it for your Tuesday edition. Come back and see us on Friday, won't you, for a whole new episode of the Nerve, where you will never guess what we're about to say next.