Amanda Knox

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

I'm Dak Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hello.

Today we have Amanda Knox on.

She's an exonerie, a journalist, a public speaker, author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Waiting to be Heard, and host of the podcast Hard Knox.

She has a limited series coming out on Hulu that's based on her book, Waiting to Be Heard, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox on Hulu

now, which we've both watched and it is

really good.

Yes, I mean, this is one of the craziest stories you could ever hear.

And even if you think you know the story, there's so much more that isn't in any of the docs that I've seen.

Isn't it, you know, exactly?

There's a ton here.

I really, really enjoyed meeting her and talking to her.

I think when we saw the doc in 16, we were like, God, we would just kill to talk to her.

Yes.

Well, that's pun not intended.

Pun not intended.

Also, for anyone who loves best friend Aaron Weakley, as I do.

As we all do.

And many people have been clamoring, which delights me, for a show with the two of us

building on race to whatever that was,

270.

We're back at it, and it starts tomorrow.

It's called Mom's Car and Aaron and I drive around Los Angeles and we deliver food with a delivery service.

And I have an account and I actually, we go pick up food and we meet strangers and we drop it off.

And then we also have guests in the back seat, among which Lily Padman.

That's right.

Great episode.

A great trick was played.

It's so fun.

It's really fun.

It is a really fun thing to do.

Because I've been telling people, if you miss driving around in the car with your friends in high school, that's what this show is.

Yeah, totally.

And everyone that gets to come on it is like, oh my God, I feel like I was in high school driving around my mom's car.

Super fun.

So check that out.

That's out tomorrow.

It's on YouTube and it's everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Go do it.

Please enjoy Amanda Knox.

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He's an all-checkster.

He's an all-chance.

I have another.

Oh, don't even worry about that.

You can set it anywhere you want.

You can like that on fire.

It's nice to meet you.

I have books for you, bro.

Oh, my God.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You would think we were highly literate, by the way.

Thank you.

Yeah, I like it more personalized.

Me too.

I hope it says something about my looks.

Well, no, I haven't.

Oh, no.

No, I haven't met you yet, so I can't say anything, really.

Did you say anything about Monica's looks?

No, no, you should, should I?

No, in person, I read much different.

So, yeah, you should wait.

You should wait till we have some time.

Yeah, maybe I can do a little epilogue.

Now, here's an interesting part of our low self-esteem.

Sure, would you agree that you think you look better in real life than in pictures?

Definitely, yeah.

Yeah, same.

And I don't know, that seems incongruous with our low self-esteem.

No, I think it's in keeping.

I look at pictures and I'm like, this is disgusting.

I hate this.

Yeah, 100%.

In real life, I'm like, I can, it's fine how do you feel about yourself and pictures what is my relationship to me and pictures

that felt calculated but very organic

uh yeah i've had lots and lots of pictures taken of me so many kinds you're very well documented i'm well documented in the worst of situations worst psychological filter between me and the rest of the world people don't look their best when they're panicked

people don't look their best when there's literally an accusation between them and the rest of humanity for sure.

And I was just actually texting my friend before you got here about how it feels like my entire adult life,

everyone's been trying to find

something wrong with me.

There's always this sense that like there's some sort of fault.

Something is not right, but no one can agree on what that is.

Right, right, right.

They're just like, we just know there's something wrong with her.

So let's all talk about it.

Figure it out together.

Let's figure it out.

That's the puzzle.

What's wrong with Amanda Naus?

Consensus.

I think the reason people do that is because they're like, well, there has to be.

Because if there's not something wrong with her, then all of us are susceptible.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Which the truth is, unfortunately, all of us are just susceptible.

Yeah, we're incentivized to make you others so that we're not as panicked that something like this could happen to us.

Right.

And I think the other thing, and something I genuinely empathize with, is also the feeling of, oh no, if she is actually not at fault for any of it, then what does that say about all of us that we have spent the last nearly 20 years trying to demonize this person?

Or like, what does that mean?

Why would we do that?

We wouldn't do that.

There must be something.

Let's find the fault in her.

And if only we could crack that nut, then everything makes sense.

This sounds like a pat on the back to myself, but it's just the truth.

I never, ever, ever once thought that.

From the second I heard that, I was like, that seems insane.

I will say you are sort of rare, a rare bird, in that you actually do the opposite thing.

Whatever everyone's doing, he's going to do the opposite thing.

So in this case, I'm a little bit like that too.

He's going to like explore that really passionately because I am very suspicious of kind of group think.

And I think that that was one of the things where early on the juvenile part of me was like, oh, everyone is wearing like a Gucci belt.

I'm going to wear, you know, a Mexican sweater, you know, like I'm just going to like be different just by default.

And that ended up being translated into, oh, she's a weirdo.

So what else could she be a weirdo about?

Hopefully lots of stuff, but exactly.

Well, you know, also something I like to point out to people at the time is this is like 2007, 2008, 2009.

I don't know if everyone recalls, but the Manic Pixie Dream Girl was a true fact.

What's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

Wait, you don't know the Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

We're going to have this episode about you, but fuck that.

Let's do an example.

Yes,

it's a character.

So during the 2000s, there was this idea.

Zoe DeCanel is a good example of this.

The beautiful oddball, the quirky, cute girl who enters into the guy's life and completely transforms him through her love, but also her quirkiness and her willingness to eat pancakes for every meal of the day.

It became a trope.

It was the cute, sexy girl trope when I was 20 years old.

Yes.

And I was sort of leaning into that

When I was 20.

Yeah.

We're watching Natalie Portman on Garden State.

We're like, we have to be her.

Yes.

That's how you get people.

So yeah, lean in.

Lean into that.

I was drawn to it, but it's really funny if you look at it now and you deconstruct it.

It's like, you still got to be smoking hot, but you got to be smoking hot and then also be into my weird dude shit.

Cartoons.

It's a laboratory for male fantasy still.

It is.

Yeah.

Like, I want a supermodel who will fart.

Yeah.

Right.

It won't smell.

100%.

It won't smell like candy.

Yeah.

No, I like to say that basically, if you want to like boil down my story, it's Natalie Portman in Garden State is suddenly put into a law and order episode.

Yeah.

Right.

There's a genre mix up.

Yeah.

We've got a mixed genre.

Yes.

And the mixed genre leads to an explosion of male fantasy because then it becomes, oh, it's the sexy, quirky girl plus murder.

Was that happening?

All these men were obsessed with you.

I thought you were hot.

Oh, this is ideal.

Well, you are beautiful.

You are hot.

I mean, no one's like, normally that wouldn't be appropriate to say, but I think in this situation.

Still not, but it's okay.

It was definitely a facet to the whole story.

Sorry, I just pick up on this.

This is interesting.

I didn't know that men were obsessed with this story.

Oh, it was pornographic in nature.

The number of people who were writing me their sexual fantasies about me.

Because they had bought into this notion that you were

the femme fatale.

Yes, the femme fatale, the girl who orchestrates murder orgies.

It was

pornographic in nature.

I got to be very clear.

I didn't think you did it.

I just thought you were hot.

So I didn't think there'd be any blood orgies.

I think everyone agrees on.

I didn't think there was blood orgies in the future.

I think I went to, here's exactly what I went to, Amanda.

I was like, I, at 19, went with my girlfriend to Europe for a month after she graduated.

What a fucking time.

It was among the best month of my life.

And I remember meeting a bunch of people and everyone's so friendly and you like fast forward to best friendship.

And so I just went like, I would love to bump into her when I was 20 in Italy.

This

is exactly why you go.

It is exactly why you go.

To this day, I am in full promotion of studying abroad because everyone should know that the world is bigger than their own backyard.

Everyone should have the opportunity to just be a new person in a new place, meeting other people who are new to a new place.

There is something about being sort of removed from your network that allows you to just be a little more open-minded and a little more open to people and experiences.

And even that aspect of it, they were like, oh, see, Amanda was studying abroad.

She was open to new experiences like murder.

And I'm just like, no, I was thinking more like siestas.

which we don't do here in the United States, that kind of thing.

There's also in this part, maybe on the surface, it's a little gross, but I say fuck that.

And if you're young, you should do this.

Like, there's also everyone there is young and they're writing the story of their life, and it's very romantic, and they are already on a path which has taken them out of the traditional.

Everyone has this inflated sense of romance and novelness, and it's very enjoyable.

Who am I here?

Yeah, exactly.

If anyone can do it, it should be done.

I was re-watching the documentary last night, and I was like, God, I mean, I know this is like the least worst part, but she didn't even get to experience this thing.

She was so excited to do, and all these kids are doing.

And it is such a beautiful thing.

I studied abroad twice, it was incredible.

She was robbed of that.

Like, this is my mom.

I know that part feels petty, but

I was mad too.

Yeah.

I'm like, boy, she just got this boyfriend a week ago.

She's been there for what, three weeks?

Is that how long you were?

I was there for five weeks.

Okay, five weeks.

But I was planning on doing like a whole year there, and it just didn't happen.

But I'm glad you're mentioning this because this is a story where two young women went to go study abroad in this beautiful place and only one of them survived.

One of the things that I'm really proud about for the show that I've made that's coming out next week.

Ah, oh my God,

is that it's not just limited to a courtroom drama.

It's not just like, here's a crime.

It's very much begins with the personal.

We actually start, have you guys seen it?

Did you guys get screeners?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So you saw how the beginning is Amanda's going, me, Amanda, is going to Italy again.

All these years later, I'm on this journey to go back to Italy to confront my prosecutor.

And I'm on this very personal journey.

But to appreciate why I'm going on that journey and what the stakes are, you then have to go back in time and like relive this experience with me on my way back to Italy again.

Was that 2022 that you're service of the folks who don't know your story, everyone will know your name, but I do think there's some details we should go through.

So everyone's got the full story.

You're in a very tricky position, which is you're reclaiming your life.

You've already done that.

And yet we need to know this part.

But I will say the thing that fascinates me most is actually coming home.

I think that's a much more fascinating question.

And that's the now what question, which is, oh, you've been through a super traumatic thing that now has defined your life in a really fundamental way.

Now what?

Yes.

Yeah.

So You're from Seattle.

Mom and dad got divorced at 10?

No, when I was very young, I was just over a year old and my mom was pregnant with my sister when my dad fell in love with another woman.

Down the street.

Down the street and left.

Left to down the street?

Yeah.

But that was actually purposeful so that he would still be a very present part of my life.

My parents were young.

My mom was 25 when she had me.

Both of them have had the grace, especially in the years since, to be like, we were dumb kids.

We were not ready.

This is 1987.

I didn't grow up with that sense of conflict between them.

It was more I just grew up very aware that I had two houses houses that I lived in, and they were both culturally very different.

Oh, interesting.

Because my dad is like Mr.

All-American, hamburgers, and hot dogs.

And my mom, who's born in Germany, is my European background.

You have a German vibe.

I mean, no, not because

the derndale is literally wearing

a sweater.

Yeah, but you have a German-ness to you, which I'm a big fan.

Anyone else?

What can you define what that means?

I think, boy, this runs the the risk but here we go

i said it

i think germans can have an initial harshness that you realize quite quickly is not their spirit right they might have a resting bitch spirit yes and they also they also have an attention to detail and a meticulousness they have a lot of things that if you're observing them they're intense yeah but then it's such mixed messages because they're also so warm they're like the funnest people to talk to when you're traveling totally so i think you have that and that might be a part of what people are trying to isolate.

That's interesting, though, because I feel like.

Is that not your stereotype of Germans?

No, that is.

And I think.

that would be right, but that's based on what we know about you from the media.

Yeah.

Like as soon as I walked in and we were saying hi, I was like, oh my God, Amanda's so warm and sweet and nice.

And yes, I was not necessarily expecting that.

I think I was expecting like maybe a little more guarded.

Well, obviously.

Even a few years ago, you would have experienced me in a very different way because i'm thinking back to when i first met monica who is executive producer on the show as well so when i first met her was way back in 2017.

so this is right after the Netflix documentary came out.

So there was this initial sort of reopening, re-examining of the case from a more intellectual and also empathetic perspective.

People were sort of recognizing that, oh, maybe this was a media freaking nightmare.

Like what was going on?

So there was this initial openness to maybe I'm a victim of this circumstance.

And so I was invited to give my first ever public talk in the immediate wake of this.

And if you had met me then, I would have had a very different vibe

because I had up to that point spent my entire adult life with people.

calling me a monster and not listening to anything I said.

And no matter what I said, it was thrown back in my face and twisted and distorted.

And so I was very timid, which is not how I was growing up.

Like I was more of the spirit that I have today, which is open and silly, whatever.

We're having a good time.

It was palpable that you were being hunted.

Yes.

I could feel that from the initial things I saw.

I loved the doc so much.

Right when we saw it, we were like, we would love to talk to you.

I learned so much, of course.

I didn't know everything that had gone on and that media circus.

The guy in the dock.

Oh, my Nick Pisa.

Oh, my.

My family likes to call him Nick Pisa shit.

Yeah,

that's it.

His smugness about being a piece of shit is, I think, what is most offensive.

If I had a sense, he was oblivious to his shittiness, but there's a smugness to his shit.

And he has no remorse whatsoever.

Yeah, and to his defense, which I'm always doing, I'm sort of always defending the people who attacked me, but to his defense, he was getting rewarded constantly.

Oh, yeah.

For that kind of like psychopathic behavior.

In a way, I understand how that feedback loop of here you are getting paid, here you are getting headlines, getting rewarded for this behavior.

He's going to feel entitled to do that thing.

Yeah.

My issue with him probably triggered something more personal, which is flying under the bullshit guise of journalistic integrity.

As a journalist, I must uncover this.

A, you're not uncovering the truth at all.

You're perpetuating a lie.

It really, of course, reminded me of when we were battling the paparazzi over our children, which is like, no, I'm sorry.

They're not news.

No, I'm not.

I get it.

I'm news.

We can even dissect that, though, because you going to to the grocery store isn't fucking news.

I agree.

But you could make the argument that, you know, the fourth of status was to check power.

You could argue I have power because I have status.

Okay, it's all thin to me.

I don't really think it's news if I go to the grocery store, but at least I am someone in society that maybe has an outsized bit of power.

My kids don't.

They're little pieces of shit like every other little kid.

And they should be allowed to be little pieces of shit.

Like, oh, my God.

You know, I was like, oh, these are the fucking dicks I argued with on TV, the paparazzi I debated.

I'm not arguing you don't have a First Amendment.

We have like a sit-down debate.

Oh, yeah.

We ultimately got this thing agreed to by all the publishers to not show kids anymore unless you have the consent of the parent, which is great.

But in the process of that, somehow we agreed to go argue with the paparazzi on TV, which we did, my wife and I.

I didn't know that you were behind all of that.

Oh, my God.

So my argument to him was, I get it, bro.

You have a First Amendment right.

You also have a First Amendment right to shit on your kitchen table.

Do you do it?

No, you don't do it because you have some morals and some ethics.

There's some common sense that you legally can do that you, of course, wouldn't do because you're not a pile of shit.

So, at any rate, I think I was well primed to dislike that character at the time.

Oh, quite a bit.

I think I hated him more than the prosecutor.

A lot of people did, actually.

A lot of people came away feeling really surprised that the villain was the media and was this guy who happened to represent the perfect crystallization of like what was going wrong.

That I don't think a lot of people knew if they weren't in a position like yourself.

Well, people still don't know, they don't know when they're getting fed stuff via the media that it's sensationalized or that they're a business.

It still happens.

Well, also, that you have to confront, and again, I'm in no judgment of anyone that enjoys seeing pictures of little kids.

I love to see pictures of little kids.

I'm not blaming the consumer.

I was imagining that

in swimwear, preferably.

No, but of of course I want to see people's kids just like anyone else.

So I don't blame the consumer, but the problem is, is I enjoy.

And then as the consumer, if you find out, oh, it's a little grosser than I wanted.

I guess I didn't realize these little kids are getting followed all day long into school.

I don't love that.

I'm almost better off disagreeing with the journalist so that I don't have to take on the by proxy guilt of it.

I'm incentivized to think, well, it is First Amendment.

I'm empathetic.

Yeah, they're just.

It would serve them to just agree with that person's point of view so that they could not feel guilty about enjoying.

Anyways, back to mom and dad.

So culturally, so dad is very American.

Mom's German.

Yep.

You're a great student.

Very German of you.

I know, right?

Basically, just do well at everything.

So be good at sports, be good at music, be good at school.

What was your sport?

I played soccer, of course.

Fusbaugh.

Oh, my God.

And there was a time in prison where I thought that, again, the things that you do to try to like rationalize what's happening to you when it's so fucking surreal.

I would tell myself things like, I guess I was supposed to have some bad things happen to me when I was young, but fate forgot me.

And now all of the bad things are happening all at once.

Nothing bad ever happened to me growing up.

My parents divorced, but who cares?

I get two Christmases and two Thanksgivings.

And so great, I have two houses.

They're within two blocks of each other.

I can walk between the two of them.

When I'm getting tired over here, I'll go over there.

I did well in school.

I did what I was told.

I was the good kid.

In fact, I'm the oldest of three sisters.

The joke now is, oh, wow, of all of us who got sent to prison, Amanda,

this is me getting sent to prison.

It really is.

I remember you're like, thought of it.

Do you have sisters too?

No, I have a younger brother, but I'm very type A.

I followed all the rules.

I did all the things.

Got great grades.

Yep.

Yeah.

Murdered someone, got away with it.

Didn't even have to.

Sex orgies, you know, all the normal things.

Good.

My goal was that this would be the first time you go through this whole thing and you're laughing a lot.

I hoped that this could be.

Yeah.

You had to learn how to laugh.

Well, actually, yes.

I mean, well, tragedy plus time equals comedy.

I actually do stand-up now.

So when I get it, yeah, yeah.

So I make jokes about this whole ordeal.

I bet that has been healing.

It has been healing because it's nice to talk about the absurdity of it and to do a stupid fake Italian accent, you know, be like, ah, she looks very innocent, which makes her more guilty.

And just like do some stupid impressions like that.

It's fun because it is an absurd situation.

If you can't laugh about it, then how the hell are you going to survive?

You have it now, it's yours.

You get to decide it could bring you continued misery, or you could find a way for it to give you joy.

And I think I would have the biggest chip on my shoulder that someone would be telling me if I were you how I'm supposed to process this whole thing.

Oh, I get that all the time.

That's one of the finding faults in me thing: oh, now she's making jokes about it.

That shows that she's a psychopath who doesn't really care about what happened to her roommate.

I'm not joking about my roommate.

I'm joking about me.

But that was from day one.

Well, we're going to go through this.

this

it's almost irresistible to not know post script the whole time but you're on the dean's list that you dub you're a husky and then you go abroad and five weeks in i suppose you have this new boyfriend you've spent the night at his house god now that i'm saying it to you in person it's like a whole different level oh yeah why what because there's such a degree of separation in a documentary and a photograph and all these things and now i'm sitting with you and i go oh yeah you really walked from your boyfriend's house back to your apartment yeah so this was during a holiday weekend.

It had just been Halloween, so this is the day after Halloween, which is a big holiday in Italy.

It's when everyone goes to their family members, they go and visit the graves of their ancestors.

Very much a solemn but quiet holiday.

So, it's a quiet day.

One of my roommates has left the city.

The guys who live downstairs from us have all left the city to be with their families.

There are a lot of people who have vacated so that they could celebrate the holiday with their families.

The city is very quiet.

And Raffaele, my boyfriend, wanted to take me out for a romantic weekend to this nearby town called Gubbio, which is famous for truffles.

So Raffaele was like romantic Italian guy.

And if the show is accurate and the doc is accurate, he's also new to all this, right?

He had only kind of had one girlfriend.

He's very sweetly.

Very sweet, very nerdy, not your typical Italian stallion.

Very quiet, but at the same time, once we were locked in, he was like, oh, I want to take you on trips.

And oh, I want to to buy a perfume for you he didn't have a volvo but you might as well have been doing that kind of thing a vespa a vespa sorry

i don't know the names of cars

vespa i didn't want anyone to get confused he was swedish i took it as like we're gonna have kids together and have a volvo that's why

well but also yeah meet meeting yeah like meet me we're in italy or like scooting or joe

joe

exactly so that was the vibe that we were doing and that's how i woke up that morning was oh i'm just gonna to go home.

I'm going to take a shower.

I'm going to get dressed in a nice little dress and we can go out on our little romantic weekend.

And then you get home and you notice some things are amiss.

But it's not immediately clear to me that something bad has occurred.

What I notice is that the front door is open, which is odd because no one's home.

Also, the latch on our front door was kind of sketchy.

So I was like, oh, maybe someone didn't close it all the way.

Who knows?

Also, people are leaving to go on a trip.

Maybe they're like, yeah, you know, it could be a thing.

Then I go into my bathroom and there's a spot of blood in the sink and I'm like, huh.

But then, of course, I think, well, it's the bathroom.

We're all girls here.

Exactly.

Blood sometimes happens.

So, okay.

Get in the shower, get out of the shower, notice another spot of blood on the bath mat.

And I go, huh?

She really had a heavy flow.

Yeah, you know, who knows?

It sounds like someone cut themselves.

Yeah.

And then I was thinking maybe someone cut themselves and they left really quick to go get like a bandage or something.

I'm just trying to figure out what a normal reason for all of these things to be.

Again, context is everything as it always is.

Because if you were in Baltimore for the weekend and these things happen, you'd already gone to Baltimore going, there's a lot of murders, but you're in a fantasy.

I'm in a fairy tale.

And there's no murders in Italy.

That's interesting.

That's not what I was expecting.

Worst case scenarios were not, is someone going to hurt me?

It was, is someone going to steal my passport?

Even in your day-to-day life, though, anywhere, you live with people and you see a drop of blood in the bathroom, and you go, There must have been a murder, then you're actually crazy.

Like, you're like, I'm

paranoid.

I'm very paranoid, and then that's what people are like, oh my God, you're crazy.

Also, the interpersonal, like, if I live with three people and I saw blood on the sink, whoever I already didn't like, I'd be like, fucking mic's a pig, right?

Like, I might go to straight resentment.

Fuck you, you couldn't clean up.

You couldn't even clean up.

You can't kill the thing.

Yeah, I'd already be like mad at the personality.

100%.

Like, imagine that being in your 20s living with people, like you're not gonna think that.

No.

And as far as I could see, my house was fine.

Nothing was out of the ordinary.

I did have a moment when the front door was open and go, oh no, did someone come into the house?

But then I walk into the house and our TV's there.

Our stereo's there.

Like anything of value that's immediately, obviously there is untouched and is exactly as I left it.

So then I'm automatically thinking, oh, just someone forgot to lock the door and it swung open.

That's what's going on in my head.

The big eerie thing as it would be is a shit in the toilet, unflushed.

In fact, so there are two bathrooms in my house and this is something that a lot of people don't know.

They get the misinformation and the facts of the case wrong.

They hear that there is shit found in the bathroom and they think Amanda took a shower in a bathroom that had blood and shit in it.

Like, what is she doing?

That was the different bathroom.

And I didn't know, I didn't see that until I went to go dry my hair in the other bathroom.

Okay.

I don't even know if I was calling it.

They didn't make that clear in the dot.

That's one of of those things that the show is going to show is it's like, what are these contextual details that went overlooked all these years?

But yeah, that's an incredible

thing.

So then I finally noticed that after I'm all changed and ready to go and I'm like, that is weird.

Of all the things that I had seen, that was not something that I expected my roommates to do.

And I immediately got that creeped out feeling that somebody was in the house with me.

And so I grabbed my things and left and went back to my boyfriend's house.

While I'm doing that, I'm turning over in my head all of these weird things that I've seen.

And I'm like, am I overreacting right now?

Why would someone come into our house and just take a shit and leave?

Am I crazy?

Did someone just forget and they're in a hurry?

But that doesn't seem like them.

So what do I do about this?

And I go and I ask Rafaele and he says, you should just call your roommates and ask them.

And I'm like, the.

So I start calling and calling.

And two of my roommates don't answer their phone.

Maybe they're still sleeping.

Who knows?

How many people lived there?

Three.

Another thing that a lot of people don't remember is that I had two other roommates.

They just happened to be older than us and Italian.

I was the youngest.

I was 20.

Meredith was 21.

And then our two Italian roommates were in their late 20s.

There's four of you in there.

There are four of us in there.

And two, Meredith and Laura, don't answer the phone.

Philomena finally does.

And I tell her what I've seen.

And she says, okay, that sounds weird.

Go back to the house, snoop around a little more, see if you can see anything, and then I'll meet you there.

So she actually spent the night at her boyfriend's house as well.

She wasn't home.

So, I go back with Rafae.

We poke around a little more and we go into Philomena's room, which we hadn't.

Her door was closed.

Like, why would I go into her room?

We finally open her door and look in her room, and her room has been ransacked.

Oh, the window is broken.

See, yes, yeah, this is wild.

Exactly.

Like, the number of things that people think they know this case, but then they don't.

They don't.

So, we open the door, and her room is a disaster.

There is a broken window.

Her stuff is thrown everywhere.

But again, her laptop is right there.

Her camera's right there.

Why did this person start rifling through her clothes when her expensive stuff is there?

I asked Raffaele to call the police because I don't even know how to call the police in Italy.

I'm calling my roommates.

I'm calling my mom to tell them what's going on.

At this point, you're like, there's been a break-in.

There's been a break-in.

We're calling the police.

We're still sort of trying to assess the situation, but there's been a break-in for sure.

And we wait for the police to arrive.

And when they arrive, they act like they have no idea what we're fucking talking about.

And that's because in Italy, there are two different kinds of police.

So Raffaele had called the Carabignetti, who are like the state police.

The reason he did that is because his sister is Carabignetti.

So he's just more familiar with them as an institution.

The police that arrived at the house were from the local postal police.

Okay.

And they were from the tech crimes unit.

And they had no idea what we were talking about.

We were like, there's a break in.

There's a break.

And they're like, what are you talking about?

We're like, what do you mean?

What are we talking about?

Like, we called you.

We just called you and said there was a break.

And they're like, we didn't get any call from you.

It starts off in this weird, conflictual way.

And they're like, well, we don't know anything about a break and we're here because we found these two phones.

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They are there coincidentally, in a sense.

Whoa.

It's not a a coincidence because it is related.

Right, it is related, but coincidentally, they're like, have you seen Philomea Romanelli?

Because these phones belong to her, one of my roommates, the one that's inbound, who I just spoke to on the phone.

And I say, well, they can't be her phones because I just talked to her.

It's so confusing.

Exactly.

And the language.

That's what this show does a great job of that the doc didn't is the

absolute tower of babble, which is the experience.

If you don't know what anyone's saying, they don't know what you're saying.

And if ever there was a moment where communication was imperative, it's this and it just starts completely wrong.

Yeah, from the very beginning, the miscommunication that led to people suspecting me.

Here's a great example.

So the police finally get there.

We finally convince them to go into the house.

Philomena arrives.

She's freaking out.

Her room is like a mess.

She's sorting through it to see what's stolen and what's not.

And in the meantime, I try to explain to the police officers that I've looked in all the other rooms.

Laura's room is like completely untouched.

So whoever broke into our house was rifling through Philomena's room, but not Laura's room, didn't go into my room.

And then when I tried to open Meredith's door, it was locked.

And I was like, that's weird.

And I try to explain to the police, her room is locked.

Can we break down the door?

And they're like, we're not going to break a door.

We don't have authorization to just break doors in people's houses.

And they're trying to tell me, well, is it normal for her to lock her door?

And I'm like, once or twice she locked the door.

They interpret that as she always locks her door.

And then Philomena overhears this and she's like, she never locks her door.

So again, like the miscommunication.

And I'm like, no, like every now and then every now and then she would lock the door to her room and she's

coming.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, ah,

and so then Philomena is immediately demanding we break down this door, we break down this door.

Her boyfriend breaks down the door and discovers the crime scene, which we had not seen up to that point.

And gratefully, in a way, I did not see into the room because I was like, everyone's yelling in Italian and I'm the youngest and I just want all of the adults in the room to figure this out and tell me what to do.

Everyone's yelling in Italian.

I can't understand what half of people are saying anyway.

So I'm just sort of going to back away.

And they break down the door.

And then of course, everyone starts screaming and they push us out of the house.

I'm picking up words here and there, blood, foot, closet.

I'm trying to piece it together.

And I initially think, is there like a dismembered foot in the room?

Like, what is going on?

And Raffaele then is able to talk to the other people and get an idea of what's going on.

There's a body.

It's under a blanket.

They don't know who it is, but they think it's Meredith.

And I just go into shock.

Of course.

And I spend the next several days.

in and out of the police office.

I was ultimately questioned for 53 hours over five days.

And those scenes are so intense.

Those are the scenes in the show that I was most concerned about getting right.

Two like 10-hour shoot days, and those were the days that you were quite vocal.

Not in the sense that I didn't trust everyone involved, but that was the one that I really needed to get perfect because there's so many misconceptions about what interrogations look like.

Everyone has a fantasy version of it in their mind, and no one really knows what it looks like.

And one of the things that I'm a big advocate for now in the criminal justice reform world is really trying to push back on this distinction between an interview and an interrogation.

Are you guys familiar with this concept?

No.

Okay, and this is vital.

So, this is true both here in the United States and in Italy.

It's kind of a universal thing where police say there's one thing which is called an interview and there's another thing which is called an interrogation.

And the reason why it's very important to distinguish is because there are different rights involved.

If you're in an interrogation, you are in custody and you are being being accused and you have the right to an attorney.

If you are just being interviewed, we're just talking.

We're asking questions and you have no right to an attorney, even if they start asking questions that suggest that you are guilty.

And so a thing that's an ongoing battle for me in my own case, but also just in general in the criminal justice world, is pointing out that this distinction between an interview and interrogation is just a loophole for police to deny you your rights.

It's very arbitrary.

It's so arbitrary.

It's so subjective.

Yeah.

And at no point was I ever informed I was a suspect.

Right.

At no point was I ever given the opportunity to have an attorney present or even to know to say, I'm not answering.

You wouldn't know if you're just like, I'm just here to answer questions.

Right.

And they'll say things like, well, you were always free to leave.

It didn't feel like that when you had the door closed on me and a cop between me and the door.

You're yelling at me and telling me I have to answer your questions or I'm not cooperating with the investigation.

That doesn't feel like I'm free to go.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, now here's where I'm going to project a bit.

Yes, please.

What I also worry about when I fear this situation happening to me is I am really bad with authority.

You get attitude.

I do.

I don't like being subjugated.

I don't like being talked down to.

Every time I'm watching a doc about someone wrongly accused, I'm like, I'd fuck myself over because I could only take so much and I would be very confrontational.

and would look like I was guilty.

Well, here's the thing, though.

Whatever you do looks like you're guilty.

Yeah.

Right.

Like I, I was not like you in the sense that I, at this point, was still sort of getting over the shock of my roommate being murdered.

And I'm in a foreign country with no one.

I've met my boyfriend a week before.

All of these people are new.

My automatic reaction is to lean on the police and to trust the police.

And so I'm actually looking to the police for reassurance, for guidance, for comfort.

And increasingly, I'm discovering that they don't want to comfort me or give me guidance.

In fact, they are becoming increasingly hostile towards me.

And I don't know why.

If you could break down in the 53 hours, how deep into that do you think before you realized?

Oh, oh, oh,

they think I did it.

I didn't realize that until the final interrogation.

So again, five days of being questioned, I noticed that they were being a little hostile towards me.

And again, it also depended upon the cop, because that's a really important thing that we show in the show is that there are lots of cops in this room with me.

And some of them are really nice.

Some of them are trying to comfort me, but the way that they're comforting me is by saying, we know you've gone through something terrible.

We know you've witnessed something terrible.

We're just trying to help you.

You need to help us so we can help you.

Part of them is coaxing and other ones are being really punitive and yelling at me.

As they're getting more and more hostile with me, I'm I'm interpreting that as they're under a lot of stress because they're trying to make sure that there isn't a serial killer on the loose.

I think they have their work cut out for them because this murder makes no fucking sense.

You're their best lead.

And you know, I don't know anything.

Exactly.

Like I'm the best lead.

Yeah.

Like if you're looking to me for answers.

And again, talk about horrible situations.

It's not like Meredith was drunkenly stumbling down a dark alleyway somewhere

and got attacked.

She got walked home by her friends after having a nice dinner with them and watching a movie and was getting ready for bed when she was attacked in her own freaking bedroom in her own freaking house.

That's the other thing.

Because the story, not this story, but the story is about you.

No one knows about her.

And no one knows about the person who really did it.

Exactly.

No one knows about the other, quote, characters in the story that are very important and especially the victim because it was eclipsed by the media portraying you in this way.

Like you became the story.

And there's a dead woman and all these people don't even care to know.

Exactly.

And then in the scenario that I find myself in, I'm like, okay, here's a girl that I met five weeks ago.

I don't know her very well.

Of course.

Yes.

But I know that she didn't have anyone who disliked her.

I'm trying to imagine if someone was targeting our house.

Like it felt like someone was targeting her.

And so I was like, why would someone attack her?

And I'm trying to think who could do something like this.

It's just beyond me.

And so in those early days, I'm trying to navigate this.

And I'm feeling like the police are getting more and more impatient with me.

The thing that they told me is that any little detail that you might remember, maybe there was an interaction between her and a boy at a bar.

Maybe it isn't meaningful to you, but it could be everything to this investigation.

I'm sitting here trying to like rack my brain.

Okay, in the last five weeks, was there any little thing?

And I even point them to a creepy guy that we met at a bar, but of course he has nothing to do with it.

And I don't know what the fuck's going on.

And then we get finally into that interrogation and there is a huge confrontation that I was not expecting because I wasn't even expecting to be interrogated.

I wasn't even called into the police station.

My boyfriend was.

And I was just afraid to be at his apartment alone, understandably.

So I followed him to the police station.

And I thought it was going to be like a half an hour, an hour at most.

So I brought a book to read.

I was sitting in the waiting room, but then a police officer cozies over to me and starts chatting.

And then that chatting turns into, have you given more thought to maybe any weird interactions?

And I'm like, okay, I'm answering these same questions over and over again, but no, I still don't know who could have done this.

And then another cop comes over and is like, wait, are you talking about the case?

And he's like, yeah, I'm just asking a few questions.

They're like, well, then we have to write it down.

And so they sort of bring me casually into this office that's not an interrogation room.

It's just an office.

There's like filing cabinets and books.

And it's a normal room where I've been questioned.

Everyone else has been questioned.

And then they say, you've been lying to us.

And immediately I'm just like, oh, God.

And they're like, we know about the marijuana.

Yeah.

So this is really important.

And God, again, this is a part that scares me so much is in the effort to cover up something benign, often people seem like they're dishonest.

Right.

And it's like everyone involved was smoking weed and everyone involved like, hey, don't mention the weed.

Wait, what?

So again, I don't know about this.

So what happened?

This is actually unknown to me, but the boys who live downstairs from us.

They were growing marijuana in their bathtub.

Okay.

And so they had a significant amount of marijuana in their possession.

And because Meredith was dating one of them and because we all lived in the same house, the police were like, there's no fucking way that Amanda's telling the truth when she says, oh, no, we don't smoke marijuana.

Her roommate specifically said, like, hey, when you talk to the police, just don't tell them about the marijuana.

Which again, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, obviously.

Yeah, obviously.

Why would I just bring

information?

Yeah.

I'm here on a student visa.

I don't want to be kicked out of the country for possession of marijuana.

So

I'm confronted with an actual lie.

But now they say, what else are you lying about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so.

the dissent.

And you're like, nothing.

Nothing.

I've told you everything and I'm sorry.

And now I'm trying to ingratiate myself with them again to be like, no, I swear I did lie about that and I'm so sorry.

And I'm immediately on this sort of wobbly foot.

They're like, the things that you have been telling us are inconsistent.

And it's like, is it because my language isn't good enough?

I'm trying to talk to you in Italian.

I'm not fluent in this language.

Why would they bring in an English speaking?

Well, I had no right to a translator because I wasn't being interrogated, remember?

I'm just answering questions.

It's just a challenge.

You don't need a translator for it.

I mean, that just goes to show that they really, really did not care about finding the person because they would want to have an English speaker.

To their defense, in their defense.

There we go.

In their defense,

I believe, and everyone that I've worked on in this show also believes.

And I want to give credit where credit's due.

Like, I did not make this show by myself.

The creator and showrunner is KJ Steinberg, and she did years of research to uncover things about this case that I didn't even know.

This is like her big, beautiful project.

She devoted herself, gave her full heart to this project, researched the shit out of it, and discovered that the police had already suspected me from day one.

Now, as I was watching the doc years ago, there's a lot of different things on trial here.

The one that stuck out most to me, and maybe you'll disagree, is just this kind of deep misogyny

that is cultural and it's so powerful.

Like the most key sentence to me is that the lead prosecutor says, well, the killer covered her with a sheet.

Only a woman would do that.

And it's like, stop, stop, stop.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Based on what?

What study are you quoting right now where they did a double blind?

I mean, that's insane.

And now, because he's so committed to that, once we find out there's more people involved, then it's like, well, but she still has to be there to put the sheet on.

Cause again, this guy would not put a sheet.

There were numerous things along the way.

It was like, men do this and women do this.

So therefore, a woman must be involved.

Confirmation bias, like by the clearest example.

I believe this and I will find things that support this.

Yeah.

Well, the grossest version of this was to go back to how Meredith was erased from this whole ordeal.

Who Meredith was as a person is not the person that was represented in court.

We talk about character assassination of me.

That was obvious.

I was called Luciferina in the courtroom.

I was a literal she-devil in the courtroom.

That's who was on trial.

But even Meredith.

who is this girl from Leeds, England, who was a tour guide, who loved to dance to music and who was just starting to hook up with this guy downstairs, downstairs, being a young girl, studying abroad, having fun, she was turned into this uptight judgmental bitch in the courtroom.

Because they needed to give you motive.

Exactly.

So the motive was here are the two epitomies of women.

The Madonna.

The Madonna and the horror.

It's so basic.

It's so biblical, but also.

It's a witch trial as well.

So additionally, like the other layer of misogyny for me is we have had now now for hundreds of years this notion of witches.

And what do witches do?

They're very sexual and they kill children.

This crazy cartoonish idea of a witch.

And you were that like a crazy deranged sex orgy that became the premise.

Yes.

And that you were hypersexual.

Well, they had to explain how a woman could be guilty of a man's crime, right?

Yes.

Meredith was raped and murdered.

She was found.

Someone had ripped her clothing off.

There was DNA in her vagina.

Like this was a man's crime.

Yes.

And they're like, but we've arrested a woman.

And so how do we make a woman guilty of this man's crime?

We make her the orchestrator of the rape.

And also, oh, inconveniently, the guy whose DNA is all over the crime scene, he has no relationship.

He played basketball with the guys who live downstairs.

So they could sort of say maybe he encountered Amanda.

And so maybe Amanda, maybe, they don't have evidence, but maybe Amanda and him had a secret love affair.

But in the meantime, Raffaele, who is my actual boyfriend, has never seen this man in his entire life.

Right.

And so the way that they explain this is that the crime was all my idea.

And I was in a secret love triangle between these two.

And so I decide to put my two men to the test and see what they're willing to do to pleasure me.

So I have them rape my roommate for me and then hold her down so that I can stab her to death.

That's the story.

If it didn't end so fucking horribly, it's laughable.

It is laughable.

Thank you.

It is.

This is so deeply absurd.

But if you drill super deep into it, I think it's quite fascinating because, again, under it is all this male insecurity.

Like you're an insatiable sex machine that cannot be satisfied, which is just males.

deep fear they will not satisfy a woman.

Yeah.

There's so much gender shit in it.

It's bonkers.

And also just that a sexual woman in general of any kind is bad.

That then makes them capable, they got that.

Well, sure, sure, you're right, you're right.

In the dock, when someone was asking you, what did he ask you something so deranged?

Like, have you ever done sexual

Chris Cuomo interview?

That also is in the show, but there are some really bad interviews.

There are questions that are coming your way about your sexual history and are you like into sexual deviance and stuff?

Directly to your face, they are asking you these questions.

And it's like, what if the answer is yes?

That has nothing to do with murder.

Yeah, I made friends with a bunch of dominatrixes after this because I was like, how does it feel to have your lifestyle demonized in law?

I was really surprised by their answer because they were like, well, we're really surprised by that because actually professional dominatrixes, at least here in LA, this is where I met them, have a really good relationship with the police because the police use them as helpers to understand if there is an actual domestic violence situation or if it's a kink scenario oh interesting and because in the kink world there are certain ways that you hurt people but you don't do any sort of like legitimate

yeah well and there are rules like they will never hit you in the kidneys for example exactly so if somebody shows up with a wife who's been kicked in the kidneys and says oh we were just doing sexy stuff a dominatrix is gonna go

that's not what we do Yeah, like this is the sign that it's domestic violence.

And so they actually have a good working relationship, but I doubt that they had that good working relationship in Perusia, exactly in Italy.

Exactly.

Yeah, so you're getting into the misogyny, but then you're also veering into a very Catholic country as well.

Yeah, I was not prepared for that.

Here, famously and accurately, I think people will say, like, oh, we'll have a female president before we have an atheist president.

We'll have a black president before we have an atheist president.

Like, that's that's still very true.

Oh, 100%.

And that's here.

And there it's amplified because it's much more Catholic.

Absolutely.

There was a huge cross of Jesus above the judge in my courtroom.

Wow.

So if you're godless, which you weren't shy about saying, at least in the show,

you're evil.

Oh, yeah, you're evil.

I have no moral grounds.

Nobody's got anything.

What do you kill?

Cause you won't have to pay.

Yeah, because you don't rape and murder people unless you don't believe in God.

That's right.

And people who believe in God don't rape and murder people.

Never.

Of course, not.

Of course, no.

Certainly don't molest people.

Right.

Definitely not.

Definitely not in the Catholic Church, especially.

Yeah, so man, a lot of my triggers.

This is like, yeah, I'm sorry.

You do that.

You should be sorry.

I want you to comfort me for your story.

Well, I don't know, though, because I think that one thing that actually is really nice is when people find my story relatable.

Yes.

Because for so long, I was just an other.

I felt ostracized and like nobody understood me and no one could understand me because they had not gone through this experience I had went through.

But one of the things that I push back on is it's like, well, bad shit has happened to all of us.

We've been lied to and we've been hurt.

And that's what happened to me.

It just looked like this.

And also, there's all these different shapes for the same experience in some way.

So that's a huge trigger for me because I had stepdads who showed up and all of a sudden there was a whole new game plan and a whole new set of rules and none of them made sense and they were very arbitrary.

Sounds like a a new cellmate yes yes because you are trapped right you're trapped and now the social dynamics of the thing that you're trapped inside are completely changed and the strongest person in the room is going to impose a new reality on you that's like getting a new cellmate yes so i just could relate even though I can't to just this notion of like fuck the people that have all the control have an entirely different reality than I have.

Yes.

And they're in charge.

I don't know for how much longer.

And that's such an important part of what I was trying to convey in this show is that I think the police truly believed

that I must know something that I'm not telling them.

And they're all tired and they are under a lot of pressure.

And they're like, if we can just get this girl to tell us what she knows, we can all go fucking home.

This will all go away for me.

Yes.

In your case, for 53 hours.

So imagine last week's work week plus two more days.

That entire time you were there, someone's asking you the same question question over and over and over again and at some point you're heavily incentivized you just want them to go away you want them to stop asking you want to give them an answer that'll make them stop asking you but especially when they introduce this idea of blackout oh right that so this is a really common interrogation technique so once they've sort of like broken you down and made you feel bad they basically give you an out they say well maybe you aren't telling us the truth not because you don't want to tell us the truth but because you don't remember what the truth is.

Yes, I'm so susceptible to this.

I know you thought you could be convinced you were a man.

We had a guest.

Wait, what is this?

Tell me about this.

This is incredible.

We had this guest on it.

It was Jonathan Hyde, I think.

So he's a righteous mind.

I couldn't make you believe you were a woman.

I'm like, yeah, of course not.

I have a penis between my legs.

I can feel it.

You could never convince me.

And Monko's like, yeah, you could.

I was like, I mean, if you showed me something.

You showed me DNA.

If I showed you DNA.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Yes, I am.

I'm not so arrogant to think I know everything.

So I would be susceptible.

That's fun.

I would be susceptible.

I'm jealous.

I'm jealous.

That's kind of the crux.

On the one hand, it's great that you are confident in your perception of reality, but so was my prosecutor.

Yeah, exactly.

And he was so confident in his version and perception of reality that he imposed it.

Well, he had more leverage to do so.

But he also was so closed off, he couldn't even begin to see that maybe we have it wrong here.

Right.

But you made a good point and I appreciate you doing it.

And I kind of try to do the same thing all the time too, which is you have to acknowledge they're weirdly in a similar situation as you are because they have all of Italy saying, figure this out right now.

This is scaring the shit out of us.

And you guys have got to figure this out.

Anyone else that was murdered in any other place, you'd have people that knew her for 30 years you could talk to.

You could really construct something, but man, they have nothing.

Yeah, they're used to tracking down drug dealers.

They're not used to homicidal maniacs in their midst.

Yes, completely random, completely not a family member, not a lover, all those things.

Because they had ruled out the boyfriend, is my assumption.

Well, he was out of town for the weekend.

So he had an ironclad alibi.

So very early on, and also maybe I should clarify that one of the reasons why they thought that someone like me was involved is because from the beginning, my prosecutor believed that the break-in was staged.

He thought you you couldn't get in that window.

He thought that a burglar would have broken in in any other way besides the way that he broke in.

He could not be convinced that a burglar would break in to that window of all the windows that he could possibly break into.

Sure.

Therefore,

you're a killer.

Someone who has access to the house is involved in the crime and is trying to cover it up.

So this is a conspiracy.

Yeah.

And this conspiracy suggests maybe multiple attackers.

We also know that the only people who have access to this apartment are girls.

And we know that a man at least was involved in this crime.

So a man is involved in this crime and one of the girls who lives there is involved in this crisis.

It's puppet mastering this whole thing.

Yeah, it's just a terrible reverse engineering.

Exactly.

So it's logical if you assume.

It's impossible to break in.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So the alternative is someone did break into our house and they did break in through that window.

And I don't fucking care what you say.

That's the one that they chose.

It's not the most logical entrance.

Also, what's logical about breaking it?

It's all.

Well, I see his point that that window was kind of high up.

There were easier windows.

But again, I see his point, but you can't build everything on top of that.

Right.

He couldn't distinguish between what is a fact and what is an opinion.

He was looking at a number of facts and then he drew a conclusion, which was his opinion from those facts.

When I talked to him, because I continue to talk to him to this day, that is a sticking point where he's just like, but this is a fact.

No burglar would ever break in through that window.

And I'm like, well, that's not a fact.

That's an opinion.

Exactly.

A fact is that here is a window and here are other windows and this one's broken and other ones are not broken.

Those are facts.

Yes.

Your interpretation of those facts is not a fact.

Yeah.

It's an opinion.

Again, the fact that only a woman would cover the body.

It's like a body.

That's not a fact.

That's an opinion.

But you're treating it as a fact because you are so confident in your perception of reality that you are willing to impose it.

And that's the danger.

So, okay, I'm still a little confused on this part.

So at some point, they hand you a piece of paper and it's a long confession in Italian.

Yeah.

So what they do is once they've completely broken me down and I don't know what's true or not anymore and they've invited me to remember the truth, aka imagine an alternative memory.

I try to imagine an alternative memory.

Are you open to that notion?

Because you're just so at this point exhausted.

I'm very scared.

Yeah.

And they finally bring a translator in.

It's the middle of the night.

I'm exhausted.

I haven't been able to sleep anyway these five days because my friend has been freaking murdered.

Exactly.

And I'm scared and I don't know what's going on.

And they start telling me that what I think is true is wrong.

And I'm like, I have actual memories of being at my boyfriend's house.

And they're like, well, the mind will do crazy things.

Doesn't that seem like other nights that you were at your boyfriend's house?

Maybe your mind is trying to cover up the fact that you've witnessed something terrible.

I mean, this is my opinion.

This isn't a fact, but I don't think people who murder don't want to murder and then they do.

I mean, obviously for self-defense and things like that, that's a different case.

But like, I didn't want to murder anyone, but I guess I blacked out and murdered.

That doesn't happen.

That's like Paul Bloom saying, there's no hidden memories.

Yeah, he thinks there's no repressed memories.

Yeah, well, and I think I don't know what's really going on in our human minds because there's so much that we we don't know about our own minds.

Maybe there is such a thing as repressed memories.

All I know is that the evidence has shown that the mere idea of a repressed memory has been used by law enforcement and psychologists.

And it is the reason why the whole satanic panic happened.

Because they're like, you don't remember being a part of a satanic ritual, but you have depression today and it must derive from something.

And

maybe you were molested as part of a satanic sex crime thing.

And then you're like, maybe.

This is called cognitive opening.

A cognitive opening is when something happens in your life that leads you to be more receptive to new ideas and new ideology.

And typically that happens when something tragic and unexpected occurs.

And so here I am in a panic because all of these cops are super mad at me.

They lie to me and they tell me they have physical proof that I was there when the crime occurred.

I'm like, how is that even physically possible?

And then they're saying to me, well, because you are a victim of this whole thing, you just witnessed it and you don't remember.

But here's the thing.

We're going to have to punish you if you don't remember because people are going to think that you're just trying to help the murderer.

And so we really need you to remember what happened.

Now,

because this is the moment.

And they find this text message on my phone from the night of the murder where I'm texting back and forth with my boss, my waitress every once in a while at this local pub.

Again, miscommunication.

They misread my text message.

He had texted me and said, hey, it's a slow day.

You don't have to come in tonight.

So I texted back, cierto, chi ediamo putar di buona serata.

Certainly, see you later.

Have a good night.

They read see you later as see you tonight.

And so they say, here's proof that you're lying to us.

Here's proof that you met with this Patrick person instead of being with your boyfriend.

And so here's proof that you're either lying or you don't don't remember what really happened.

What did Patrick do?

And the translator didn't say, like, colloquially, that's an American thing.

Well, we didn't have a translator yet.

The translator came later, and her big contribution to this whole thing was to tell me a story about how she was once in a car crash and she was just driving along in her car and then crashed and woke up in the hospital and she blacked out.

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Now, here's a very troubling aspect of interrogations.

Two things I can't stand.

One is that they can actually legally say we have your DNA.

Yeah, the lying.

What's crazy and no one's, I don't think, realistic about is you could be presented with a situation that you still reject,

but you could go, if they have my DNA, I'm getting the electric chair.

Yeah, so some say they have my DNA.

I don't know how they can't have it, but they have it.

And I know that the result is electric share.

Or now I lie to get something less.

That's a decision you have to make.

Some people cave and think, well, I'm so tired of this interrogation.

I know the DNA is wrong, so I'll just tell them what they want to hear.

They can leave me alone, and then I'll let the evidence prove my innocence.

But that's not how it works.

Is that, do you think, what happened in your moment?

I was led to believe that I was insane.

Psychologists identify two different kinds of false confession.

So one is coerced complacent.

You just become complacent.

You're like, fine, I'll just tell them and like, it'll all be over.

And then the evidence will sort it all out.

That's one kind.

Then there's internalized false confessions.

So, I was led to believe that I witnessed this crime and that I blacked it out temporarily.

I'm in this heat of the moment, and I'm like overwhelmed, and I try to start imagining, and then I'm imagining things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't actually imagine the murder because I still don't know anything about it, but I imagine being in my house.

I imagine being with my boss, Patrick, and it's enough for them to type up their own little narrative in Italian, put a sheet of paper in front of me and say sign it

and with that

i doomed myself yeah oh this is the nightmariest part of the nightmare i don't think any of this would have happened if you know that

are you disassociated from it when you i disassociated in the moment that was the time when i most had this out of body experience was when they were yelling at me and like hitting me i completely disassociated and it was like i was watching myself in the room and being like, what is happening?

That's the one time I've had that.

Today, are you there again?

Or

has enough time passed?

I just want to know where you sit.

I mean, it's both.

On one hand, it does feel like it's the whole other life ago, you know, a different person.

I was a 20-year-old kid who had never had anything bad happen to them.

I look back.

and feel so much pain and sadness for this kid who was going through this.

And so in that way, I sort of disassociate, but then I remember what it felt to be hit.

I remember their voices.

I will never forget.

After they get what they want, suddenly they're very nice to me and they're like, oh, do you need something to eat?

The cop who hit me, took me down the stairwell.

In the stairwell, was like, you know, I'm sorry I had to hit you.

I really just needed to help you remember the truth.

As if like memories are marbles that you just like hit in the middle of the bottle.

Yeah.

Now, do you have, and I hate asking this because my journey with getting over being molested was people said, oh, it's not your fault.

And I was like, yeah, but I remember, oh, I don't like this situation, but I want this thing.

I did ignore my instincts, right?

I had to forgive myself ultimately.

I just put myself in your shoes.

I think I would have tortured myself about that night a lot.

I think I would have shame about, I should have been stronger.

Do you have any of that?

So.

I hope you don't mind when I say this.

Let me make a comparison.

So my situation would be you get molested right

and then later you get convicted of seducing your molester right right so that's my yeah exactly current scenario i'm still convicted of having falsely accused an innocent man during my interrogation They say I willingly and intentionally, knowingly accused an innocent man during my interrogation.

Sorry, interview.

This is slander.

Yes.

conviction, yes.

In a real way,

I am blamed for what happened to me in that room.

To this day, I am shamed.

I am vilified.

Three of the years that I spent in prison, they deemed rightfully served.

Oh, my God.

Because of the slander conviction.

18 years later, I'm still fighting that.

On the one hand, yes, I lived for years.

feeling so much guilt and shame and feeling like everything that happened to me in that interrogation room was probably my fault.

And it wasn't until I met other wrongly convicted people and I talked to experts and police interrogations that I realized that it wasn't my fault.

But now I spend my entire adult life trying to convince people and doing so not just because it helps me with the trauma of it, but also because there are common sense things that we can do to prevent these things from happening in the future.

One of them is banning lies during interrogations.

I can't believe that is legal.

It's legal everywhere in the United States.

Some states have recognized that minors,

anyone 17 and younger, shouldn't be lied to.

That was in the making the murder doc.

Remember, they got that poor kid, and then he wanted to know if he was still going to the WWE, if he could watch it.

Yeah, Brendan Dassey.

Yeah, heartbreaking.

Okay, so you were self-flagellating or you won't?

I was self-flagellating for a long time.

Yeah.

You think if only I had been stronger, if only I had been smarter, if only I had been more courageous.

I thought that what happened to me was that I was a coward.

That's why I asked.

That's my fear because, God, no, you weren't.

If there's any fucking headline of your story, it's that you're indomitable.

You're so resilient.

You're really indomitable.

Thanks, guys.

No, it's not.

I hope people are telling you that every day.

You know, it's funny.

There has been one moment in my whole life of this where I have felt indomitable and unstoppable.

And that was when I decided to go and confront my prosecutor.

Yeah, let's get to that.

So sorry, yeah.

So you do four years, you're convicted twice.

Ultimately, a higher court does throw it out.

Yeah, four years in prison, eight years on trial.

I spend the first four years in prison and then another four years in freedom, but facing extradition, trying to be a person, but stalked by paparazzi.

I heard you talking about this, and I think this is really profound.

You're in that prison for four years the entire time going, I just got to get my old life back.

You can see your old life.

You're going to go eat sushi when you get home, right?

The irony is even if that event didn't happen to you, there would never be getting your old life back.

Even if you were just there as a student, you're 20, you're going to start another chapter.

You were never going to get your old life back.

I was living in a state of denial because this thing had sort of taken me out of what felt like my real life.

Yes.

It felt like my real life was going to be there just waiting for me.

Yep.

But it never was going to be.

And that's probably a very hard lesson to learn from your perspective because there's such an obvious explanation of why your life doesn't exist anymore but also it wouldn't have anyway so yeah you return home and now you're 24 and you've had this entire experience and you're known around the world and

the bravery to not get defeated by that moment where you come home and you realize like oh no i have nothing basically i'm kind of back to the drawing board i'm gonna have to start and build an entirely new life I had a very hard time.

And this is something that both Monica and I as executive producers, and of course, KJ because she's Monica Lewinsky, executive producing the show as well.

What was really important for us was to show the aftermath.

Like you think you know what this story is.

There is a whole life that you have to figure out and rebuild from below ground.

Yes, yes, yes.

After something as traumatic as this, it's not pretty.

I'm still a 24-year-old kid who's in some ways deeply matured and in other ways is completely oblivious and naive.

Also, you're going to go get a job where everyone there knows you?

And hope that the people who are sending you death threats don't just show up at your job and murder you.

You said you made a lot of mistakes.

We are able to show some of this in the show, but part of it was me wanting to act like I could have a normal life.

I would be in hiding and hiding and hiding and then I'd be like, but I just want to go to my friend's Halloween party, be a normal person.

And then I'm followed by paparazzi.

And we don't show all the mistakes that I made in the show.

I really pushed for more episodes so we could get really into the mistakes.

But if anyone's really curious about some of the really bad mistakes I made, that's what's in my book, Free My Search for Meaning.

And I'll give you one example that's in the book, but didn't make it into the show just because the real purpose of the show is to show me going back to Italy to confront my prosecutor and what were all the things that led up to that.

This little detour that I talk about in my book.

So dating is kind of hard when you're, you know, a sex monster in the eyes of the world.

This just is so sad.

Dating's hard enough.

Yes.

So then I stumble upon a very, you know, handsome, nice person who tells me that he just got out of jail for a crime he didn't commit.

And I'm immediately predisposed to believe him and to sympathize with him.

And because I have spent years now trying to navigate a world that doesn't seem to feel like there's a place for me that just wants me to disappear and wouldn't be surprised or upset if I just offed myself.

Here's somebody who could understand me.

Yes.

I'm all in on this person.

And then I realize

that he was not in fact innocent of domestic violence and breaking and entering.

And in fact, this person who now is in my home is very, very much like the man who murdered my roommate.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

What do I do?

Because when I tell him to leave, he doesn't leave.

I think I'm rid of him and then I come home and he's broken into my house.

And the last time I called the police

for someone breaking into my house, I was the one who got sent to prison.

What do I do?

I'm still on trial.

And if word got out, that I was shacking up with a criminal.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

I know.

It would be over.

Yeah.

It would vindicate everyone.

So I'm trapped.

And my stepdad has to come and save me

again.

And I'm like, I can't trust anyone and I can't even trust myself.

Oh, man.

That's so unfair.

Also, I want you to take my number because I have a hero complex.

And I would love to show up at any point and tell any man that they have to get the fuck out of your house.

I will take that number.

This is going to be a perfect trauma match.

Sorry, I don't know.

Are you dating?

Are you married?

I'm not married now.

Okay, so worked out.

Yeah, I'll show you my baby pics.

I'll look for the swimsuit ones.

Chris Robinson.

Chris Robinson, author.

She reviewed his book, then she went.

It's a really good meet cute.

I love meet cues.

I wasn't on Tinder, obviously.

Yeah.

That makes me feel good that you have someone.

Yeah, he was not a true crime person.

He got two master's degrees in poetry and was totally oblivious.

Good.

And then went out of his way to not Google me when he became my friend and only started sort of grappling with the entire ordeal when we started dating nine months later.

And he started having people Photoshop knives into pictures of him on Facebook.

And he was like, oh, yeah.

Like he knew there was a thing in his approach to meeting me and falling in love with me.

That wasn't the thing that mediated our human-to-human interaction.

Right.

And in fact, that was what was such a great relief about it for me.

It was a huge gift.

She was hardly interested in that part of you.

Exactly.

And as soon as I heard you say that, I was like, she's going to hate me because I'm going to go right after all this stuff.

That's why I preface it by saying, like, I got to go through the thing.

Well, this is an interview.

I mean,

it's not an interrogation, but it is an interview.

You have no right.

No right.

Rob's a paralegal.

He's not a full attorney yet.

Okay, so you're home and what comes first?

Your mother, and God bless her, she kind of forces you to go to this exonerie conference.

Yes.

My mom is noticing that I'm struggling.

Also, because, again, I'm still on trial and I'm convicted again.

I would be just as fascinated to talk to your mother because I actually,

I weirdly would rather go through this myself than have to watch my child go through this.

Thankfully, she's in therapy and has a great therapist who has been very supportive.

And I think she has really worked through a lot.

But you're right.

The second I gave birth to my daughter, my mom's in the room and my daughter's screaming because she's just been given birth to.

She's in a very loud, big space.

Yes, but also a painful experience that she just went through.

She's in pain and they put her on my chest and I can't take her pain away from her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My first words ever as a parent were, I'm sorry, because I couldn't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I look over at my mom and my mom was in the exact same position

for years.

Oh my god, I mean, the level of powerlessness you both were experiencing, and I'm sure your father and your stepfather is so monumental.

And having to be strong for what's on your shoulder.

Oh, yeah, I'm here to protect you for your whole life.

That's my commitment to you, and I can't.

I'm overwhelmed by this big machine, too.

So, Sharon Horgan plays my mom.

She's one of my favorite actors from Bad Sisters, which she also wrote, right?

Yes, yes, super, super talented, amazing.

This is a really cool role for her because so many people associate her with being funny.

This is a very tense role.

But also, can I just say that Grace Van Patton is freaking amazing?

Do you guys know Grace Van Patten?

So I just started Tell Me Lies, very sexy show.

Yeah, extremely sexy show.

I just recently met her via that.

And then I saw she was in this.

I was like, oh my God, exciting.

Yeah.

No, I can't wait for you to see her in this because...

She is phenomenal.

Oh, that's awesome.

Like she had to do so

much to do this role.

And she's got to also, as an actor, learn Italian because you don't speak Italian very well at the beginning, but by the end of the trial, you give your closing statement in Italian.

Yeah.

Thank you for appreciating that nuance.

Because again, one of the things about this show is that miscommunication that's happening.

And she not only has to become fluent in Italian in order to portray this role, she has to portray quasi-fluency.

She has to portray a progression of fluency over time.

Okay, so mom though encourages you to go to to this, I guess it's the innocent conference.

The innocence network conference.

There's an innocence project, which was the first ever project based in New York.

And now there are projects that are separate entities all throughout the United States, now around the world.

There wasn't at the time, but now there's an Italy Innocence Project.

So there are all these disparate entities that all have to do their own fundraising and they have their own cases, but they all are a part of something called the Innocence Network.

So this network is what allows for everyone to stay connected and communicating and like sharing research.

And once a year, they host a conference where all of these people from all over the world, but primarily here in the United States, come together in one space.

to again have panel discussions where they say oh this is how we communicated with the prosecutor in the case or this is a cold case unit here's how you talk to them all of the minute detail of like what's

involved how to exonerate someone what's the latest research on shaken baby syndrome, all of that kind of stuff.

Yes.

Handwriting analysis, all these debunked things.

Exactly.

Recently, my prosecutor sent me a handwriting analysis thing and I was like, why are you doing

that?

Anyway, so, but there's also all of these exonerated people, people who have spent time in prison for something they didn't do.

The vast majority of them are men.

And black men.

Very disproportionately, also Latino men, disproportionately.

Non-white folks.

Yes, yeah.

I mean, and to say that there are white folks there, but like disproportionately, we're talking about people of color.

And so it's men who have spent way longer in prison than I have because the appeals process here in the United States is so incredibly difficult.

In Italy, it's actually easier to appeal.

I spent four years in prison.

I've met people who have spent 40.

Yeah.

That's the scenario I'm suddenly in that I had no idea existed.

And I'm connecting with people who immediately reassure me that I don't have to explain anything to them, that there is not this barrier between me and them, me who feels like I'm doomed to have to explain myself to other people for the rest of my life.

They're like, no, no, no, girl.

You know,

oh, that's so good.

Well, if someone there says to you, thank God you were wrongly incarcerated.

Yeah.

All these men who go kind of unrecognized in the world, like no one gives a crap.

A lot of people don't believe that wrongful convictions are really a thing.

A lot of people to this day look at people who are exonerated by DNA and they go, they're really guilty.

There just must be some other explanation for why the DNA of this other rapist was in this crime.

They probably committed together, even though they don't know each other.

Like there are people who find reasons to still think these people who are demonstrably innocent are actually guilty.

And so there's this resistance to believing that wrongful convictions are a thing.

Again, because if they're a thing,

two things.

It could be me, and that means there's still killers out there.

If those people are innocent, where's the killer?

Yep.

That's too scary.

So it must be that they did it.

And then they're like, and then you came along, the little white girl who's college educated and had everything going for her.

You get wrongly convicted.

And suddenly people are like, oh, it really could happen.

And a lot of them are also like, here we are, these big, tough guys in prison who are struggling.

And then we see you, this little white girl in prison.

And we think, if she can get through this, I better be able to get through this.

So I connect with them on this deep human level.

And I come away feeling like I'm not alone and this is way bigger than me.

And I start to feel purposeful again.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then that purposefulness leads me to make a very unorthodox choice, which is to

go and talk to my prosecutor face to face and figure it it out.

I love this.

I saw an interview where you said, I want to be incredibly clear.

I was not in search of forgiveness.

I was in search of comprehension, understanding how this happened.

I must know how this person, who I'll grant isn't an evil person, how this happened between us.

Yeah.

If I assume that this person had no intention to throw an innocent girl in jail, well, something went wrong.

Yeah.

And I want to understand what that is.

And so I I reach out to him.

And initially, he's like, why are you trying to talk to me?

In the history of history, no defendant has ever attempted to contact their prosecutor after the fact.

I don't even know if this is legal.

Eventually, he agreed to communicate with me.

But then the pandemic happens.

And so I can't actually see him face to face, but I've already established contact.

Is this via writing email or talking on the phone?

So at first it was writing a letter and it was delivered by my my friend from prison the priest who also happened to know my prosecutor very well he plays a big role in the show we had a very beautiful relationship because here i am the godless heathen and here he is my best friend in the prison the catholic priest and we bond over music and we bond over philosophy and he's just a good person he was in prison yes so he's the priest who is he's the sign to the prison i didn't know if he was imprisoned no no no no no no no he was the spiritual advisor of the prison.

Which at first you're like, I'm good.

Yeah, yeah.

At first, I'm like, you can't help me.

Are you going to tell me that God put me in prison for a reason?

Nuh.

You know, like not having that.

But he's the kind of guy who cries at the end of Kung Fu Panda.

Like, that's my kind of guy.

We connected on this human level, and he delivered this first letter to my prosecutor.

And it took a while of convincing, but eventually he responded and we started an email correspondence.

In reality, that took place over years while the pandemic was going on.

But then ultimately, it led to, as soon as it was safe to travel, I booked a ticket to Italy.

I told my family about this and they were all in opposition, understandably.

I told all my exonerie friends about this and they were like, what are you doing?

They understood more because they were like, I know that you just want to hear from the person who hurt you, that they acknowledge that they hurt you and that they're sorry that they hurt you.

All of them were like, but that's not what's going to happen.

You are going there to be further traumatized.

Yes, exactly.

It's not worth it.

And they were right in a big way.

If I went to Italy to get something from my prosecutor, I was doomed to fail.

It would take a Herculean effort for my prosecutor to come out of his own perspective.

and really truly recognize the harm that he had caused.

Because in his mind, justifiably so, he's like, I was just doing my job and I believed in what I was doing.

This is again this weird parallel between you guys, which is he too has to question how great his grasp is on reality.

How much can he trust himself?

This is so crazy that the victim and the, you know, could be confronting similar things.

Yeah, I don't want to like give it away because it's really beautifully depicted in the show, but how my prosecutor is on the one hand, digging in his heels and being defensive.

And on the other hand, is evolving in his understanding merely by the fact that the person he thought he was prosecuting would not have done what I just did.

Right, right, right, right.

And so he's like, how do I make sense of this?

And he

finds himself in conflict with himself for maybe the first time in his life.

Yeah.

That's not an easy process.

One thing that KJ talks about when she was like, how do I describe what is happening in this show and what happened in real life?

And she talks about it.

She calls it the anatomy of bias.

These were people who convinced themselves of the story at the same time that they were trying to convince other people.

It was a feedback loop.

It's called confirmation bias.

There are lots of things that decision to say the break-in was staged is an anchoring bias.

That means that my anchor for interpreting reality is this, which I'm recognizing as a fact, even though it's an opinion.

If your foundation is faulty, then of course your whole thing is a house of cards, even if it is logically pieced together.

Right, exactly.

So it's more complicated than a bad guy who doesn't care if there's an innocent person in prison.

He's not a bad guy who just doesn't care if there's an innocent person in prison.

He's a guy who is acting logically and believes that he is acting with integrity.

So how could it be also true that he was so, so wrong?

Right, exactly.

It's so complicated.

It's so complicated.

And I think that's a really important message that I want to get across is we are all human.

Sometimes we encounter each other and there is a perfect fucking storm.

Yes.

We should recognize that.

It didn't just happen in Perugia, Italy in 2007.

That happens all the time, every day.

And what kind of perfect storms are we participating in or inciting?

And how do we interrupt those?

How do we interrupt that?

What do we do to stop the boulder from rolling down the hill?

I love that you went and saw him.

I love that you have found some empathy for him and some level of compassion, and then accidentally some forgiveness probably.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, so here's the thing.

When you see someone who's struggling, you feel for them.

I was not watching this person struggling in front of me and thinking,

yeah, no, that was not.

You know why?

Cause you're not a murderer.

Right.

Well, you know, like I was like, oh my God.

And I told you before, there was a one moment in my life where I felt unbeatable and unstoppable.

It was in that moment where I was like, I thought he had all this power over me.

I have all this power over him.

And what am I going to do with it?

And I knew in that moment that the way that I was holding him was with care.

I was not holding this person who was struggling and using his weakness to crush him.

That's not who I am.

I saw him and I was like, here's this fragile bird.

How do I hold him gently?

Yeah.

Something you weren't really given the grace of.

It's in the rearview mirror to some degree.

I don't want to be insensitive, but do you think if you're not already there, do you see somehow that you will go, oh, wow, I was kind of perfectly built for this situation and I'm going to make a lot out of this situation.

And maybe it happened to the right person.

I mean, can you have that perspective?

I definitely have had the thought, thank God, this didn't happen to any of my sisters.

Thank God it happened to me.

Weirdly, I discovered, you're right.

And this is where it gets so interesting: is when my priest friend would say something like, God has a plan and everything is for the best, I'd always be like, fuck that.

Yeah, exactly.

But then he told me,

if you pray to God for strength, God doesn't give you strength.

He gives you the opportunity to be strong.

And I was like, oh my God, I don't know anything about anything.

There is so much that we don't know, but I do know that there have been moments in my life where I have felt completely in tune with the universe.

And I would not have come to that place had I not had everything happen to me before it.

And that leaves me feeling eerie.

That leaves me feeling spiritual.

I do a lot of meditating now,

which is my form of spirituality.

It's being super present in the present moment and just noticing the feelings, noticing the thoughts, observing, and then realizing that whatever the fuck is going on, you're okay.

And I wouldn't have come to that place if that weren't for all of the things that came before it.

I have two last curiosities.

One is, what about nightmares?

Yes, I've had nightmares and I do get triggered by things.

And to this day, I feel really uncomfortable in crowds.

I'm less concerned about that.

The thing that really bothers me that I still haven't figured out, and I'd be curious to know if you guys have any insight into this whatsoever, because I really don't know how to carry it, is the fact that because I'm known for my roommate's death, in a weird way, I feel like I'm carrying not just my own legacy with me, but also hers.

And I always feel like for better or for worse, I'm being compared.

to her.

You're linked to her.

I'm linked to her.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing because she was a really nice person and she was really sweet to me.

And we had great times together, but I have to go through years of trauma just to reach my memories of her.

To this day, I know that some people will watch this show and go, you're not the real victim.

Your roommate was.

This is the, you said it.

I wrote it down, the single victim narrative or whatever.

Yeah, the single victim fallacy.

Yeah.

Your mom's a victim.

Your parents are victims.

Rafael is a victim.

So many people are victims in this story and you want to honor all of that and you want to grieve all of that.

And at the same time, I'm only one person.

I have my own story.

You have enough to carry on your own.

And I have a lot.

That's a lot to carry, but I also get it.

Can I ask you, would you be having this tension

in the absence of people actually sending you messages saying, you know, who couldn't get married today, Meredith.

Right.

You know, who can't have a baby today, which happened to her a bunch of times.

Paparazzi photographed her wedding when she tried to keep secret.

And people were like, you know, who can't have a wedding, Meredith.

So how much of it is driven by your own sense of that?

And how much do you think is driven externally?

You know, that's a really good question.

Because I can give you the tip that being famous for 30 years has taught me or 23 years, whatever, is simply, I regularly have to go.

Wait, hold on a second.

Does anyone in my real life that knows me think that?

If anyone that knows me has that opinion, I got some self-reflection to do.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if I can't find a single person who knows me who has this opinion, there's no work for me to do.

Fair.

No one that I know thinks that.

However, what I maybe am grappling with, and it's like aggravated by the fact that stuff like that gets thrown at me is survivor's guilt.

Yeah, right.

Of course.

Like there's no reason why two young girls go to study abroad and only one of them should get to go home.

What good thing can you get out of that except be grateful for life because it is so precious and can be taken away from you in an instant.

That's sort of the big takeaway I get, but I still have that sort of survivor's guilt feeling that comes from within, but is also deeply imposed from without.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

Let's say you weren't accused.

You didn't go to jail, whatever.

You just experienced this.

Your roommate was killed in your study abroad.

Forget the rest.

I'm probably going to get into trouble for saying this, but this is what would happen if this happened to me.

I'd go home.

I'd be so sad that that happened.

For the rest of my life, you'd be like, this horrible thing happened.

But I'm not responsible for carrying the story of it, her life, her legacy, anything.

I just get to have my feeling about it and move on.

You don't.

You have so much publicly and personally to hold in regards to her that no one else in this situation would with regular trauma.

And so that is fair for you to be like, I wish I could put this down.

And I don't know how to tell you how to do that.

Maybe Monica could help.

The closest I've come to it was how we portrayed her in this show because one of the things that was really important to me was again, to make her a real person again, not this stereotype about an uptight British girl that was in the public imagination for so long.

and grieve her.

Like part of art and the beauty of art is that it's a way to process your emotions.

I found one of the big takeaways for me from working on this project and co-writing the final episode with KJ and all of that was this is my opportunity to grieve through art.

Okay, the one thing that I'm wondering how it's impacted your life is, so here's what's really bizarre about fame in my own experience.

The amazing part about it is it confirms you exist.

That is true.

Either this is the matrix made just for me or yes.

Yes.

What is fascinating about being famous is we all have this kind of weird fear that we don't exist or we're not important or we're not real.

We're not impacting, you know, that we're pointless.

The mere fact of many strangers knowing you confirms you exist.

It confirms that a version of you exists in the public imagination.

Yes.

Yes.

But here's my own experience with it.

Here's what's so complicated about fame, which is I wanted it.

I got it.

It was uncomfortable for me.

And then

mostly I wanted to go back to being able to just watch other people at restaurants.

And then also I'm walking to the airport one day in Detroit and not one person looks at me, which I'm used to.

And then I have this weird panic of like, oh, maybe I don't exist anymore.

And I just have to be honest, what a weird relationship I have with this.

It's like I wanted it.

I don't know that I enjoyed it.

And then I'm also now afraid it's going to go away because I'll not exist anymore.

But you wanted it.

That's

why it wants to know that they exist.

That's why I'm not going to be able to do that.

But

very different.

It's wanting a lot of people to know you exist, wanting strangers to know you exist.

That's fame.

That's different.

You were thrust into fame.

You didn't choose it.

You didn't, as far as I know, want it.

Maybe you did.

I don't know.

Maybe you wanted to be under the plan.

Right.

You weren't pursuing anything.

No, you weren't pursuing anything.

So you didn't go through the ride of like, oh, I want to be validated and appreciated and known by strangers.

And then, oh, actually, it's not that fun to be appreciated by strangers.

It wasn't that.

But I will push back certainly there are people that came out to become kim kardashian sure yeah yeah so i think there's this huge spectrum of i do think i wanted fame to know i existed i think it's okay to be

sympathetic to the desire of fame because i think what really is under the desire for fame is the desire of like i do exist i think that's right but i don't think it applies because this might be well no no but i think he's making an interesting connection here now which is like well now that i am oh now that i am fully exist and it's it's been brutal.

Yes.

Can you have that same bizarre relationship I have where it's somehow also scary to be completely anonymous again, even though that's what you would want?

Multi-part answer to your question.

So one, the very quick part is I did get the worst of the fame thing out of the way first.

Yeah, you didn't get any free jeans like I did or a great restaurant, a table at a restaurant.

So like now weirdly that I've gone through the most horrible parts of being famous, I'm now weirdly experiencing the nice parts about it.

Right.

Someone will text me and say, hey, I didn't commit suicide today because I heard you on a podcast.

Right.

That's a amazing feeling.

This is human connection.

Like this is the thing that was taken from me that I never thought that I would get back.

And now I'm getting it back in all these new and surprising ways.

And so that's.

Good.

Yeah.

You and Monica must have so much shared experience in that way.

Surprisingly, if if you were to, you should bring her on.

Oh, yeah, you have.

We learned of this months ago when we had her on, that she was producing this.

And I said, you're the perfect person to approach her.

No doubt.

She was the perfect, because I knew how many people out there are forging a path.

in precisely the way that I would need to be shown that there actually is even a path.

Like she invented

having to reclaim your own story and how to do it.

And she's the one who's been putting herself out there as the kineap so that it makes it easier for someone like me.

Yeah.

She is a success story of coming back and reclaiming.

Yeah.

Owning her shit and taking the worst and making the most of it.

She's so incredible.

And she's been through some horrible shit.

Yes.

Yes.

I find her to be so inspiring.

And the thing that she did for me was made me feel safe.

to do this.

And then of course, like I got to meet all of the people that I would work with.

You know, I worked with Warren Littlefield on this.

I love him.

He was producing something I wrote.

He's one of my favorite people ever.

He's so smart.

Hundreds of people have worked on this show and have been striving so hard to get it right after so long was just one of the most validating things.

There's this acknowledgement that I have a valid perspective and amazing.

But then on top of that, here I am executive producing and I'm learning the ropes.

of the industry of storytelling.

And I'm

the best of the best.

And they're taking care of me and guiding me and not making me feel pushed aside at all, but inviting me in.

I feel like I'm very lucky.

Yes.

And I know that that's not the typical way that you arrive at that place because you guys are in this industry.

You know, like it's fighting and scraping and not getting the credit you deserve until you are in a position to demand the credit you deserve.

And this is a tough industry.

I would say you didn't get the credit you deserved until you got the credit you deserved as well.

So there's similarities.

Fair enough.

I loved it.

It's a great, great show.

For people who don't know, like Warren also produces Fargo and Hammett.

Hammetail.

I mean, he's a beast.

And everyone that worked on this, the actors are incredible.

The Italian actors also, Francesco Aquaroli, who plays my prosecutor, he's a legend, but also Giuseppe de Domenico, who plays Raffaele.

Yeah.

I got chills watching him play Raffaele.

I never seen someone capture his spirit.

It's weird how good he is.

I felt very bad for him in this whole as you should.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So, okay, everyone watch The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox on Hulu and read

Waiting to be Heard if you love it because you'll get all the more details.

And then your newest book, Free, My Search for Meaning.

Yes.

I'm very grateful I got to meet you.

I saw that, Doc, years ago, and I very much wanted to meet you and just say, my God, you've been through a lot and I admire you.

Oh, thanks.

It's really nice to meet you.

Strong motherfucker.

Also, a lot of my friends who love your show wanted me to just say thank you for doing your show.

You guys are leaving a really lasting impact on people.

So thank you for doing that.

Yeah, we're so, so, so privileged to have you.

So everybody check out the show, read the book.

I hope we get to talk to you again.

Yeah, I would love to.

Please.

Let's do it.

I sir hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs.

Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

I am a little, I don't know what to do.

Should I present him with his hat and matching scarf on, or he also has a crown?

Oh.

let's see him in the crown.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh-oh.

Are those mittens?

Oh, my goodness.

What do you like?

Both.

Do you like both?

I think he's going to have to do an outfit change.

Okay.

I'm going to, I'll start him in the crown.

Okay.

He deserves it.

Okay.

Hi.

Hi.

We have something very cute happening.

Our most special boy got a new outfit from an armchair.

Yeah.

Who knits baby clothes on Etsy?

How cute are these?

If you had really put your baby in these little overalls.

I know.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, someone sent Groot.

For the listener,

someone made Groot an incredible outfit, knit these beautiful green overalls.

In their shorts overalls, whatever we call those.

I'll call it shortalls.

Shortalls.

Some really cute shoes.

Yeah, he's got nice shoes, a nice scarf.

Yeah.

a beautiful crown.

But that's not all that came, Monica.

He also should have got chilly, which it is a little chilly in here.

I like it cold.

I'm going to take his crown off for one second.

He has a beautiful matching hat.

Winter hat.

Winter hat.

And cute little gloves that they put, you know how they put these in kids' sleeves.

They come out the end of their sleeves in the wintertime.

Do you know that?

No, I didn't.

Yeah, they attach them so that kids don't lose their little kids because they're idiots and they'll lose one of their gloves.

You put this attaching string and they hang out the bottom of your coat, and then you put them on when you need it.

But I just, as happy as he is, I just want to say thanks about this gesture because Delta was so excited.

I mean, it's the sweetest thing.

Groot's shoe fell off.

Oh, okay.

Well,

I want to tell people that in obviously, Groot was in Nashville.

And when I went to Nashville,

we went to dinner for Kristen's birthday and Groot came.

And Groot,

Delta-packed Groot's dinner and brought it to the restaurant.

And it was in like, you know, a little lunch box.

And

I, as the aunt, got to hold Groot for a lot of the dinner.

Yep.

And I was sort of in charge of feeding Groot his dinner.

Yeah.

Which had like.

cantaloupe and some, you know, like crunchies.

She's a great mom.

There's always going to be a protein, a vegetable, and a fruit.

Yeah, there's healthy foods in there.

And

I did have to look at Kristen and say, like, are you supposed to make?

Yeah, are you supposed to eat some of this?

So it looks like, you know,

you know how the rest of the sentences.

I know.

I don't even want to say it out loud.

I know me either.

Yeah, but I know what you're struggling with because I've been in this situation a few times.

Yeah, and then I didn't get a clear answer and I didn't know what to do.

Yeah, I don't know that anyone knows really, but I have found that she's not making it this.

Oh, God, I don't want to say this.

You know, we have to.

I know, but it's fine if it's just there is what I think.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Because what I do.

He eats it.

You might not notice how much has gone away, but he just, he eats it on his own time.

Yeah.

I put it, I put some to his mouth, and I assume he ate what he wanted to eat of what I put to his mouth.

And I don't want to trigger any food scarce people around the world.

You know, I do think if you're in a, in a food scarce region, you find out how much food that dogs in America eat and that like people have it delivered and it's freshly cooked and all that, that maybe it's a little, you know,

and I just know this could potentially fall into the similar issue, but it's a very much food.

He's not, he doesn't have a huge appetite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, trees, you know, it's, it's only the half that's a boy that needs a little bit of a taste.

A little sustenance.

Yeah.

So then I put

the food away in my purse when dinner time was over.

Oh, you did?

Yeah.

Okay.

With the lid on.

Yeah, with the lid on.

Oh, he didn't dump.

I got to get this out of here.

And I just dumped it in my purse.

No, I put the lid on.

I put it in my purse.

And this is very me.

Like four days later, I realize I have not taken that food out.

And it's fresh food.

Yeah.

So it wasn't, it didn't smell good.

Immediate follow-up question would have been.

So if I was in that situation, I'd be like, oh, fuck, I left that in there.

It's sealed.

But then I would go like, I bet it smells so gross.

And then I'd have to smell it to see if I was right.

Oh, you could smell it.

You could smell it through the seal.

Like, well, no, when I, when I.

It was proper Tupperware or something.

It was Tupperware.

But when I opened it to throw it away eventually.

It hit you.

I was like, yeah, this stinks.

And this is.

Were you already home or this is still back in Nashville?

No, it was

right the day I left.

Security.

No.

That'd have been great if they pulled it out in the TSA line and they opened it and they were like, hey, what a weird meal you've packed for yourself.

Also,

you have an eating disorder.

That's not enough food for a human.

and you like it rotten

and then you have my kinks i'm so sorry this is for my friend groot and then they would have been like okay and now she's nuts on top of everything especially if i started explaining this my friend groot he's half tree and half boy so okay it doesn't look like it's enough food for a human boy but he's not a human boy he's half human and half tree you understand yes ma'am i think you might be more comfortable on a train or a greyhound to go to your destination well i think no we'd be much more comfortable if you went via train or.

Okay, well, fuck you because I spent $3,000 on this plane.

Oh, you're rich.

Yeah, I am.

No wonder you have a half boy, half children.

No wonder your brain is disintegrated.

No wonder you're insane.

You're not grounded to the earth.

Anyway, Gritt looks so happy in his hat.

And

he's happy with his granddad.

He started school.

Oh.

He said, you know, because everyone's gone back to school as of this week.

He's in school.

And I said, what grade?

And she said, they don't really do it.

That way.

That way there.

Okay.

And where's the school?

And I set his school.

In the bedroom?

No, he goes away during the day to school.

And the school.

Where does he go?

I don't know.

What I'm telling you is he goes to school and there's no grades.

And it is for folks with different.

Oh, learning needs.

There we go.

Yeah.

Or physical needs, I guess.

He's what he's got.

So yeah, he's in a great school, though, that he loves that doesn't have grades.

Great.

Yeah.

Because every time his age comes up, I get in a little bit of a circle because he ages differently and stuff.

So

it's hard for me to nail down exactly how old my grandson is.

Yeah.

Which I guess is none of my business.

None of your business.

Take it for what it is.

It's a number.

Yeah.

Do you think that he is playing hookie right now, Ben?

Why'd you just

that went wrong?

Let's try it again.

Didn't we write it?

We'll try it again.

Fodge.

I will get this third.

You get three strikes.

Okay, sure.

You get to.

I got to make myself a little more physical.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Oh, great.

Thank goodness.

Really good job.

For the listener, there was a

picking up of a mint to catch in the mouth.

To Wow Monica.

Yeah, and the first one resulted in a head hit.

Reverse head butt.

Not a reverse back.

A reverse headbutt.

I would never reverse back with my grandson on my lap.

No, that would be really inappropriate.

Now, so is Groot like playing hookie today?

No, he's out of school.

He gets out at this time.

Okay.

Enough about school.

It's like, where's the food?

I know, like, look, people have these questions.

I know, and they're best not asked.

Put it on the shelf.

Is that what the saying is?

That is not how you feel about life.

You are not someone who says, don't ask questions.

Unless it's for my kids.

And then I do everything.

Yeah, I don't love that.

There's a lot of hypocrisy there.

I kind of want to wear his crown, but I know it'll stretch.

But my head is small.

It is.

It might fit you.

Maybe I could just do it like that.

Great.

Thanks.

It looks really good.

It brings out the brown in your eyes.

The blue crown does.

It is almost my birthday.

Speaking of age is just a number and crowns.

You might need a crown.

Yeah, I might need a crown.

Birthday crown.

I'm getting excited for my birthday.

Birthdays are tricky because

I really get anxious about planning something.

But you do like a party.

I like the day feeling fun.

Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a party, but I just want my day

to be, I want it to be a good day.

And sometimes that's lower key than others, but you're planning a pool party at a hotel.

Yeah, the four seasons, I can say that.

It will be done by then.

My party will be over.

Molly did it for her birthday.

Oh.

Some years ago, and it was such a fun time.

They got a cabana

and they just had people come by and people hung out at the pool and

playing games, ordered snacks.

So that's what we're going to do.

Just to reference a previous episode, this is where Shaq used to come and eat.

That's right.

A man of Scalco would wait on him and get that great tip.

Yep.

And he would eat that unconventional breakfast.

Fruit plate.

Fruit plate.

Unexpected.

Maybe we should get one in his honor for my birthday.

Are you coming?

Yes.

Well, unfortunately, we also have the back-to-school barbecue that day.

Yes.

So we will have to come on the beginning of it.

Yeah, great.

Yeah, yeah.

I wish it were not the case that these two things overlap.

That's okay, it's no press.

This is part of the anxiety.

Um, I don't this is what prevents me from having a party, this little element right here.

Yes, I don't like the idea of people feeling pressure, but I also do want people there.

Yes, and I want it to be low-key, but I also want it to be festive and high-key.

Um, I want it to be low-key, but very stressful.

Do you want to tell people about your shirt today?

I was just looking.

I was like, it is a really pretty shirt.

Thanks.

And then I remembered it was

backwards earlier today.

So I'm

a very hot guest.

Yeah.

Shockingly so.

Did you know he was that hot?

I have thought he's attractive when I see him in projects, but in person, there's really a rhythm and an energy and a playfulness and a fun vibe.

I really liked him a lot.

Yeah.

Anywho, I didn't dress for him.

I just dressed because I like to wear cute clothes.

And I got this new shirt.

I ordered it from Moda Operandi.

And it's blue.

It's really cute.

It's knit, not unlike Garut's clothes.

It's knit.

Right.

And it has button, black buttons going down what I thought was the front.

I thought it was a button-up sweater.

Me too.

Yeah.

And I did think, so I put it on and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't remember it having buttons.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then I put it on and the neck was really, really high.

And I thought, huh, that's interesting.

But like, that's a look.

Yeah.

Like, that's cool.

Yeah.

So I wore it.

I had a meeting in the morning.

I was out and about.

I'm going to launch a crazy theory right now.

Are you about to start your period?

I don't think so.

Oh.

You're pregnant?

I don't think so.

Okay.

It's not that time.

I don't think it's that time because, I mean, I can tell you.

You always know.

I do know.

Get your period calendar out.

I write it down.

I theorize this because Kristen took Delta to lunch yesterday after her first day of school and she wore her pants backwards.

And she's about to start her period.

She did say that.

Sorry.

I don't know for like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's okay.

People know she has a period.

They should assume she has.

She has a period.

Yeah.

She's not menopausal yet.

No.

Despite how much you guys want to be menopausal.

Okay, I started on Wednesday, the 30th of July.

So one, two, huh.

Okay.

I just ruined your weekend.

Oh my God.

If it, if I get it on my birthday, I'll be pissed.

Okay, hold on.

One, two, three.

No,

I'll start it on around the 27th, but starting tomorrow-ish, my PMS.

So maybe my PMS has started and maybe that had to do with the.

I just think that'd be interesting.

You guys usually have your period at the same time.

Yeah.

And if you both are putting your clothes on backwards, I would say that's correlation.

Of course, not causation, but we have something to investigate.

Okay.

Yeah.

I just thought it was a cool shirt that I, I don't know.

And I was out and about and I wore it and it did kind of scratch my neck, but I was like, I guess this is the way it's supposed to be.

Right.

Then we're walking, me and you are walking out to the garage.

We're like 10 feet away and I feel something on my neck that feels weird.

It's the tag, and I was like, the tag is in front of

the tag.

Why is the tag here?

I feel bad because what I did chalk all this up to is that this brand I think is Japanese.

Yeah.

So I was like, oh, the Japanese are doing a high neck.

The Japanese are putting all these buttons.

Okay, now listen, I'm going to, I hate to bring this out of the vault, and you shouldn't keep things in the vault.

It's not healthy for a friendship.

But I will say,

when I said that if your dad did something very peculiar, I might assume this this might be an Indian thing.

I understand.

Okay, so I just am relieved that you do it too.

Listen, I understand.

I have a lot of clothing that is Japanese.

I love brands, clothing brands that are Japanese.

There's a few I really love.

Orally,

some other ones.

Lady White.

Honda, Toyota.

Yes, actually.

Lady White, all these, whatever.

And they're...

The clothes generally are very like minimal.

They fit really well.

They're beautifully constructed.

Now, I'm going to say something very dangerous.

Okay.

I'm a little shocked that the clothes from Japan are fitting you perfectly.

You're shocked.

Given that you have an ample

bosom.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's interesting because.

Like, I'd be shocked if the Japanese clothes fit me perfectly because I'm much taller than the mean average in Japan.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's working out.

They fit perfect.

And I went into a store in New York and it was a Japanese clothing store.

I tried on these pants and the man who worked there was like,

you have to buy those pants.

Like you are the person that's supposed to wear these clothes.

Right.

Because I'm petite and yes.

Well, that's that, a lot of it makes a lot of sense.

The pants make sense.

And the shoulders and the

length of the waist.

Yeah.

All the different measurements.

But you're just like surprised they're not, it's not super tight.

I'm shocked that you don't run into issues.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

so far, so good.

So far, so good.

Anywho.

I don't know.

I'm looking directly at your eyes for the listener.

But Rob told me that you were.

Yeah, he's always looking.

He's superb.

He's not even here.

Rob, are you here?

I'm here.

Oh.

I wonder if the hot guest looked, probably.

I hope so.

I want people to admire them.

Yeah, great.

And he's, I don't want to give up, this would give too much away, but he's been married for 34 years.

Yeah.

That's about as much as he gets.

I'm giving away.

I'm very generous.

Anywho,

I do have great boobs.

I'm just going to say that.

You will have artwork that says it.

Yeah.

My wife commissioned some for you.

So anywho, I chalked, I did chalk it up to like, oh, this is a really cool piece of clothing because it's Japanese and they make amazing clothes.

So.

But they put their tags right in the front.

Yeah, I was like, oh, maybe.

And then as soon as it was all falling into place and I was like, oh my God, it's on backwards.

So I had to quickly change it.

Okay, I have a couple updates.

Quick housekeeping.

Great.

So my post about Luke Combs.

Oh, yeah.

I said within the post he's going to join the ranks of Nicholas Holt, the young men I tried to have relationships that won't text me back.

Yeah.

I had forgotten.

I guess they even brought up in the fact check last time, though, that I was waiting for him to text me and he never did.

Do you remember that?

I guess that was in there because I saw it in the comments.

I don't remember saying that.

I think you did, yeah.

Point is,

that was my post.

And

I went to DMs and there was a DM from him.

He's like, dude, and it was a screen grab.

He's like, I sent you this and I never heard anything back.

So he sent me right away when he left.

He's like, so this is so fun.

You know, totally, you know, and opening the door to be buddies.

And it was in green, the bubble.

I'm like, yeah, I never got that.

It's in green.

In the DM on Instagram, he sent a screen grab of the text he had sent me.

That's weird.

But it was in green.

Yeah.

So it never got to me.

So he tried.

So to clear the thing, he tried.

So then we had a lovely flurry of text yesterday.

Okay, well, can he post?

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I would like that.

You know, if that's helpful, this is a business.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert,

if you dare.

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So I've been thinking a lot about the biz.

Okay, tell me about your thoughts on the business.

Tell me your business thoughts.

Maybe this is because I'm about to start my period.

Let's say this is why.

Yeah, your clothes are on backwards.

You're having any business thoughts.

I'd have a lot lot of peace if I knew there was a reason for this.

I find myself generally,

not to brag, but I find myself pretty at peace with things.

Like I don't think

I'm very jealous.

I'm happy.

Like I am very happy with my life and my day-to-day and everything.

So I don't have a lot of.

jealousy because I'm privileged not to have to.

I'm really lucky.

Yeah.

But

I've had a few moments of jealousy lately.

I think I know where this is going to be.

That is going.

Very interesting.

I got a lot of DMs and messages, of course,

last week or two weeks ago, whenever, that when Taylor was going on Travis's podcast, New Heights.

Yes.

Yes.

Huge podcast.

Yes.

Duh.

Duh, she is going on that show.

She 100% should go on that show.

That's her boyfriend's podcast.

Of course.

And that's lovely.

Like, it's all good and reasonable.

Yeah.

And yet when I heard it,

I did

get so

jealous.

Jealous is the honest word.

Right.

Because really I was like,

no, like she needs to come on this show.

This show

is going to

like, you know, we're going to have real conversation with her, talk about things that are deep, but that maybe she doesn't always have the opportunity to talk about and show some sides of her that people don't see.

What I'm also, when I'm doing all this,

I am aware that that's, she doesn't want that.

And why should she?

She's not incentivized to.

She doesn't want to.

And everyone is delighted with it.

Oh, yeah.

Also, who knows what anyone wants to hear?

Because they're super pumped to just hear whatever those two.

I think they're most excited to just see how they interact exactly which is so fun Yeah, and which I wasn't like no don't go on his

can you also please come on ours Those are gonna be very different conversations.

That's right and But then I was like well, yeah, no, of course not like she's gonna go on his show and they're gonna like when we have Kristen on like we're not gonna put her in a weird position.

She's the safest she'll be here.

We've talked about a lot of stuff that she's never gonna talk about somewhere else.

Because she's safe.

Yeah, yeah.

Like she knows if she says, like, guys, we're not doing that.

Then we'll just be like, yeah, obviously.

Like, it's just, it's obviously a much different situation when it's us two and her.

Yes.

Her best friend and her husband.

Yes.

And so obviously for Taylor, same situation.

She's with her brother-in-law and her,

you know, boyfriend.

And

she's going to be able to dictate that conversation, which I

great.

So I got upset, but then I was like, I mean, duh, like she's going to go on that show.

That's fun.

And like, she gets to, great.

Then I had a, there was a moment where I thought she was going on somebody else's show.

Right.

Too.

Yes, also.

And I got like enraged.

Right.

You had a little moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm not proud of the thoughts I had about it.

Sure.

Not about, not about Taylor, but about the other podcast that I thought she was going on.

And I was like, how could Tree let her do that?

That is so crazy.

Why does this, yeah, this is a mistake?

Why does this person get this credit?

Like a lot was happening.

Right.

And then I had to walk myself back.

What's going on?

You don't normally feel that.

You calm down.

Your heart rate dropped.

Yeah.

Your frontal lobe came online.

Yeah.

Then you did some self-reflection and exploration.

I did.

And it was interesting, though, because,

and I talked about this on an interview recently.

I said,

and I think this is true, that we, me and you here, have a very specific thing going on,

which is that there's a man and a woman anchoring the whole thing.

That is not true for,

in my opinion, any of the podcasts in our realm.

Yeah, I think

that's right.

I think we're the only ones, yeah.

I mean, somebody's going to comment that I'm wrong, and that's really great.

We could be wrong.

I mean, if we're wrong, we're not meaning to be wrong.

No, no, I don't mean to be.

We have shows where there's a female host and male hosts and combinations of those.

I mean, multiple female hosts, multiple male hosts, whatever.

But I do think we're significantly different in that it's both of us here offering

two types of opinions and thoughts and things that I'm proud of.

I'm proud that we have that.

Me too.

And so, you know, in my head, I'm like, I will, again, this is like jealousy.

I, it bums me out

when we don't get that recognition.

When it's like, this is another male podcast or a male hosted podcast, which, you know, whatever.

Well, you're feeling like we're falling in between.

No, I like that we're in between.

Yeah, but I'm just when you, you're, are you feeling like when a potential guest is evaluating that they're going to pick either they want to go the male demo or they want to go the female demo?

Yeah, do.

And that we're a tweener.

Yeah, like I think there's like some

smart PR moves to go into one of those two directions.

So people are going on other shows.

Every time it happens, it is a little like, eee, like, I don't, that sucks.

Yeah, yeah.

But I guess I'm also saying I'm, I was sort of sitting with this, like, there's these categories of male podcasters and female podcasters.

And I think I, I'm not even gonna talk about the show,

fall through the cracks there.

When they're pitting like the female podcasters against the male podcasters, we're in that category.

Which one?

The male podcasters.

Oh, I don't think so.

Well, I'm gonna, I don't wanna like be rude, but yes, like on Alex's documentary, when she's talking about all these male podcasts, you're mentioned.

But let's be ultra clear.

I'm mentioned as someone who has an epic deal at that time.

I'm not, we're never mentioned in the manosphere.

We're never mentioned in like male podcasts.

We're not, that it doesn't ever happen.

I'm not mentioned there.

Yeah, that wouldn't have made the point they were making.

Like, again, that's taking it quite personally.

Of course, I'm going to take, that's my whole point.

Like, of course, I'm going to take it personally

when, in order for this narrative to be, there's some female podcasters that are huge and saying, look how big they are in comparison to these male podcasts.

I'm dropped from the narrative and that doesn't feel good.

Right.

So, I understand that, you know, anyway, I'm just balancing.

I was balancing a lot of those feelings.

Um,

and I guess ultimately, I was kind of like,

at the end of the day,

this is the job I want.

This is the podcast I want to be on.

These are the types of conversations I want to have.

So

here we are.

Like, this is what it is.

It's just, I mean, I know it might sound, maybe people don't like us talking about this, but I, if I was listening, I'd want to hear the way we're digesting all these about the insanely

tricky landscape of podcasting.

Like we've been doing this for seven years.

A lot's changed.

Seven and a half.

Like

almost eight years.

That's a long time.

And a lot has changed.

And we've.

And ours has grown too.

That's the, that's the amazing thing.

That's also a huge gift to be grateful for.

Ours has just grown.

It's not smaller than it was five years ago when we had access.

Yeah.

It's just that some shows have gotten enormous.

Yeah.

And yeah, I just think it's an interesting time for everyone.

Oh, and I give one compliment.

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

To you.

So in talking about this, like a podcast that's hosted with a man and a woman, that

was a decision on your part.

Uh-huh.

Like for some, maybe some of the other ones that have that, like, it was two probably equally established people coming together.

Yeah.

That was not the show.

You were established and you decided that

I could add something potentially.

A great, great counterpart to

debate.

That's a feminist move.

That's an actually feminist action.

Action.

Like, I'm bringing in a woman to be here and

contribute a voice.

There's all these other people

who present themselves as

so progressive and feminist, and they aren't, their actions don't, don't match it.

Yeah, sure.

So, I mean, it's the truth.

And, like,

yeah, so I'm,

I think

because you

have tattoos and talk about your motorcycles and fucking and this and that, like, you can be put in a category but it's really like all the actions you've made are the most progressive ones right now we're a 50-50 team aren't we yeah we got you emma rob and i and i do like when we go out that it's equal in that yeah i like that okay i have one last thing before we do facts right as the arm cherries are so good at doing they uh solved my you remember my issue about 5a 6a 7a yes well first of all everyone was on your side so just let's start there no one could understand my frustration that it felt very extraneous and didn't signify anything.

You didn't like that.

Yeah.

If they're all A, why are we including A?

Well, there are B and C schools.

Oh, okay.

So it is like batteries in a way.

Myself said it's more that like

C is some increment, right?

It's some multiple.

Okay.

So it's like a 5C is way less than a 1A.

And then a 5B is less than a 1A, but more than, you know what I'm saying, more than a 7C.

So there are A, B, and C, which also coordinates with the 1, 2, 3.

Got it.

Okay, so I feel much better.

Now then I know there's B and C category.

I'm happy for you.

And thanks to everyone for correcting me.

Did anyone respond that you are supposed to write it with the letters in the amount of numbers?

Someone said that's not true.

Yeah.

Actually.

That you don't do that.

You do not write five A's.

You write the number five and then the letter.

Okay, interesting.

Yeah.

Okay, one person.

We both took it on the channel.

Well, one person.

Okay.

But I think they were not.

right.

Sounds like they were wrong.

I'm really not sure.

In my head, there's like flags hanging in the gym that had five A's.

Oh, really?

I think.

Oh, wow.

You have to go back to your high school.

Now they would have to add more because it's 7A now.

Yeah.

Well, and that's an argument for doing it that way because you can always add A's without scrapping the original.

But if you go from

number five to letter A

to six, you need a whole new thing.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

All right, let's do some facts.

I'm gonna steal a bite of something while you read the first fact.

Oh, let's just wait.

Why don't you just eat your food?

No, yeah, yeah, I didn't take a bite.

You took so much.

No, says who?

Eat your food.

I don't have any food.

Oh, my God.

I'm wrongly accused.

Why are you trying to Amanda Nox me?

Don't do that when you are actually guilty.

No, but she

had a sense of humor about her situation.

But she guilty.

Okay, I finished.

No, you didn't.

I did.

I'm all done.

Eat your food.

As you ask your question, I'm going to swallow really quick.

It's going to be a magic freaking thing.

You love magic.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

Okay.

I don't want to pull this card, but I have to edit it and I'm going to see you chewing.

And I'm going to have to say, don't be on Dax while he's chewing.

And it's a thing.

And I don't want to do it.

So can you just eat it?

What kind of bar is it?

It looks yummy.

It's an almond butter

protein protein ball.

Do you want more?

You can have more.

I don't want more, Monica.

I had too much.

I am so.

I feel sick and I might puke.

Oh, my God.

Pioke.

Okay, facts.

Yes.

For Amanda.

Well, I just want to say one thing.

Say.

We have another Amanda coming up.

This is Amanda Week.

It's Amanda Week.

Other Amanda has some stories about these punk rockers who used to come into her coffee shop and they were called the pukes.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that was their like gang name oh my god they're the pukes um

okay

now some facts obviously not a lot of facts because very personal story and the facts are known they're known for the most part they were excruciatingly uncovered yes unearthed over eight years what a resilient woman I wonder if I would just die

I have no idea how I would handle a situation like that yeah it's almost insulting to like assume anything.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't assume anything or anyone else that's been through something like this.

My just, my prediction is like, I just have a terrible temperament for that situation.

I mean, more like you're in prison and you didn't do it.

And then, yeah, then you're re-entered and everyone thinks you're a monster.

People still think you did it, even though you've been

exonerated.

Like, fucked up.

Fucked up yeah it's funny I was just watching something recently and there was a joke about her oh there was

what was the joke is that the joke it was like

she came up and it was like did she kill someone

okay and I was like

yeah

I didn't like it yeah

all right I don't like all the jokes I see on TV yeah yeah I was watching a I watched a pilot of a show yesterday with Delta, half of it.

Yeah, and there was like three or four kind of over the top making fun of real life people, actors and stuff.

And I was like, yeah, I never love it.

I never love it.

I don't like it either.

I

also

finished Beast Games.

We'll save that for next fact check.

Okay.

Okay.

Halloween in Italy.

In Italy, Halloween is a blend of American-style celebrations and traditional Italian holidays focused on the dead.

Halloween is not a traditional Italian holiday, but it has become increasingly popular, especially among younger generations with influences from the U.S.

Children.

Children may trick-or-treat at bars and restaurants, often in the town center rather than going door-to-door as in the U.S., and tend to dress up in scarier costumes like zombies and witches, while adults often don't participate in costume wearing.

Of course, people.

Who wouldn't want to participate in Halloween?

If you see it in a movie and you're in Italy, you're like, hell yeah, go door to door and get candy, free candy.

I mean, it's a very easily sold holiday to somebody yeah definitely like hey do you like candy that's the first question so you're ciao ciabello i'm not doing that oh you got to say can i say it in english ciao

hi oh

well i guess you should i'll be the italian yeah exactly

pronto hi do you like candy i love a candy have you heard of you have a candy um

yes

but you have to come to my door and you have to say trick or treat and you have to wear a costume and i'll give it to you oh i love it

See how easy that picture was.

It was really easy.

It was really, really easy.

Okay.

Okay.

The interview rights versus interrogation rights.

So in, so police interviews.

I mean, she went through this, but still.

Purpose, to gather information and investigate potential criminal activity.

Nature, typically non-accusatory and conversational.

Location, can occur anywhere, including on the street or at the individual's homes.

Miranda rights, generally Miranda rights are not read during a non-custodial interview.

Consequences, statements made during an interview, even without Miranda warnings, can be used as evidence in court if the individual is not in custody.

That,

how is that legal?

That's the whole point of Miranda rights.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm stressed out.

Now, look, okay, I'm going to, I have to make

a good faith argument,

which is detectives in a murder trial have to talk to like 50 people, right they gotta they gotta go talk to coworkers and all these different people

and to have a lawyer present at every one of those obviously would be a big logistical challenge if every single person the co-worker hey did you guys ever get lunch together that whole thing if they've got to have lawyers present for all these kind of mundane now what i think is clearly happens is they abuse this but in concept i understand they got to to talk to a ton of people and it should be really surface.

And then if five of those people seem like further questioning is one of them.

You can bring them in.

Bring them in, read them their rights.

You shouldn't be able to, even in that, we're trying to figure out who to bring in, quote, interview.

You shouldn't be able to use any of that in court.

I agree.

I agree.

Now, police interrogations, purpose to obtain a confession or incriminating statement from a suspect.

Nature, more formal and can involve accusatory questioning, pressure, and psychological manipulation.

Why'd you kill her?

Exactly.

Location often occurs in a police station or other controlled environment.

Miranda rights.

If a person is in custody, detained, and subject to questioning, police are required to read Miranda warnings before any interrogation begins.

Consequences, if Miranda writes are not read during a custodial interrogation, any statements made by the suspect may be inadmissible in court.

So it is a workaround.

It is a workaround workaround they're trying to do.

Yeah.

Okay, why handwriting analysis is unreliable.

It lacks scientific validation for assessing personality traits or predicting job performance.

Despite its historical use, research consistently shows that graphologists are no more accurate than chance when making such assessments, and their methods are often susceptible to the Barnum effect, where vague statements are interpreted as uniquely relevant.

The Barnum effect, a psychological phenomenon where individuals believe that vague and general personality descriptions apply specifically to them, even though those descriptions could apply to a wide range of people.

This is my complaint against astrology.

Oh, sure.

Which is like, there's only 12 types.

And so

somehow everyone feels

that it's specifically them.

Yeah, totally.

Okay, yeah.

It's essentially the tendency to accept generalized statements as uniquely descriptive of oneself.

Cool.

Well, that's it.

That's everything.

For the facts.

And you are eating again.

No, I'm not.

You're going to continue to lie lie to my face.

Well, I think it's so obvious that I did that.

It's cute and funny.

But I'm wrong in my assessment of how you would take it.

Right, right.

I thought you would go, look at this boy.

He's eating his cookies again.

But you didn't.

You're like, you're going to keep doing this?

Yeah, because

you're a bad father.

You killed her.

I told you why I didn't want you to eat it.

And then you ate it.

But I was quick and no one saw a thing.

Okay, love you, buddy.

Love you.

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