Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Part 2: Sarma Melngailis of Bad Vegan - What REALLY Happened Behind the Netflix Doc

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Part 2: Sarma Melngailis of Bad Vegan - What REALLY Happened Behind the Netflix Doc · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I remember being in a small town in Italy, struggling
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  Speaker 1: That's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash P-O-D. Start your journey to
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  Speaker 1: real conversations in a new language today. Welcome back to Misunderstood.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: This is Rachel Yucatel, your host. Thank you so much
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: for listening to part one. If you haven't listened to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: part one, please do so because this is part two
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of my amazing interview with New York vegan restaurateur Sarma
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Melganalis from Pure Food and Wine. which would become the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: number one spot for celeb spotting and delicious vegan food.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Sarma is known as a very smart, capable woman who
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: was the face of this business. You couldn't go in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: there without seeing her. A lot of people would travel
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: from all over the country to meet her. She's a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: beautiful blonde. Eventually, Sarma married this sketchy guy, Anthony Strangis, a.k.a.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Shane Fox, who for several years claimed he worked in
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: special ops and said he had special powers, giving him
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the ability to secure a passage for Sarma to find
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: utopia and where her dog would live forever. I know
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: this sounds crazy, but this is what really happened. Sarma
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: ended up transferring almost $ 2 million from her business accounts
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  Speaker 1: at Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck into
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  Speaker 1: her personal accounts to give it to this guy, Anthony.
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  Speaker 1: Draining the business of all the money and unable to
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  Speaker 1: pay employees, workers ended up walking out twice in protest. Ultimately,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Sarma and Anthony ended up serving time in prison at
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  Speaker 1: Rikers on charges of fraud, among other things. After watching
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: all four episodes of Bad Vegan, I think audiences really
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: walked away not knowing if Sarma was a con artist
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: or if she had just like fallen for the wrong
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: dude and had a bad picker and was so psychologically
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: abused that she lost her way. Well, Sarma is here
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: today to tell her side of the story. She has
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a lot to say. We are separating one interview into
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: two parts because the conversation was just flowing. It was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: so good. I'm so excited to have her on our show.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And you definitely should make sure that you watch Bad
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Vegan so that you know a lot of, you know,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. But I'm going to make sure
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that she goes through the whole scenario to give you
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: guys an idea, if you've missed it, what we're talking about.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: But her story is so unbelievable. And I think she's
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the perfect guest for Misunderstood because she's someone whose story
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: was narrated by the media and And she has not
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: really had a chance to tell her side in her words. Today,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: we are releasing part two. Make sure you listen to both.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So check this out. I hope you like it. And
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited that Sarma decided to come on to Misunderstood.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So your staff walks out and you finally find out.
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  Speaker 2: And then I came back.
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  Speaker 1: But now your credibility is getting ruined in the tabloids
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: because now the news has picked this up, this celeb-driven
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: restaurant is closing and it's because their employees are not
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: getting paid and they are attributing it to you, right?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And this happened twice. So how did that make you feel?
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: How did you react to your employees? Because in the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Netflix docuseries, it makes it seem like they tried to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: talk to you over and over and you just didn't
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: want to hear it. And the people that did confront you,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: you would fire or Mr.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Fox would fire.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So how, what's your thought on that?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Well, a lot of, you know, I've had to go
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: back and kind of look at, you know, emails and things.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: And sometimes like I would go back and read you know,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I'd search through my email, not the ones with Mr. Fox,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: because he deleted those, but maybe with some of the employees,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: some of the people that work there. And I would
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: read them and just like, be like, oh, you know, like,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: it's like reading myself in a sort of, like, as
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: if I had some of that delusion, you know. And,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: you know, when I've written in my book about Specifically
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: that time when I found out it closed and I
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: had to fly back and walk into the closed restaurant,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: it was like, it's like it was so devastating that
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I was kind of numb. And also already in this
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: sort of like compromise, like quasi or actually very dissociated state.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And so I was very fixated on like, get it
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: back open, get it back open.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And you were able to, even in a position of
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: being someone who was trashed in the paper, you were
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: able to raise another $ 800, 000 or so from investors. How
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: did you even do that?
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Because people believed in the concept. And I, you know,
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  Speaker 2: when I was raising that money, I was like, I'm
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: trying to get this restaurant back open. And I just wanted,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: you know, I wanted good people invested. And like, it
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: was very confusing because here's Mr. Foxx. acting like as
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: if this is almost like a test or something and
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: he's still feeding me all this bullshit and i'm just
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: like i don't know what to believe all i know
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: is i have to get this restaurant open and i
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: was exhausted and um and i was able to raise
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: a bunch of money and the vast majority of that
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: money went to reopen the restaurant all this back rent
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: was owed all this money you know the money the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: employees got paid back first um you know there's money
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: was owed to vendors um I made some sales tax
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: payments because the sales tax wasn't getting paid. And so
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: almost like the vast majority of the money that I
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  Speaker 2: raised went to pay all the stuff and reopen the restaurant.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And then it reopened. And so, you know, one of
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the things that I sometimes point out when people are like,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: you know, you were in on it. It's like, why
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: would I have like, you know, done all this stuff
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  Speaker 2: to reopen the restaurant, put all that money into reopening
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the restaurant? you know, pay sales taxes. I also paid,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: you know, like I made like a $ 10, 000 payment. One
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of the loans I'd taken from somebody that I felt
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: really bad about because I'd promised him he would get
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it back. And it was obviously really late. You know,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I made a $ 10, 000 payment towards that, made some big
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: payments to sales taxes. And then boom, I like disappear.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, according to the tabloids, we were
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: like on the run. But like why, you know, if
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: my intention was to like take a bunch of money
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  Speaker 2: and run off. Why would I be like paying sales tax?
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And then bolt.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So in your mind, if you weren't, people have said
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: that you were on the run like Bonnie and Clyde.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: If you're saying that that wasn't true, what was the case?
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, at that point, there was no money left.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: At that point, was that when the employees walked out
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  Speaker 1: a second time?
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  Speaker 2: That happened after I was gone. So I didn't know
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  Speaker 2: what happened. So one of the things that, um, you know,
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  Speaker 2: once when he took me.
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  Speaker 1: Away, um, were you wondering who's, who's running the restaurant
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: or you thought it was just being run? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: obviously you knew they weren't getting paid.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know what was happening.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Right. And, um, you know, this is where it's like the,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: it'd be great. I actually kind of think how much
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I would love to talk to a really qualified, um,
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  Speaker 2: like neuroscientists who really understands these things and people who
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: understand about, you know, the way your mind works and
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: the psychology of it, because it was like, that's where
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I kind of really broke because it was like having
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: gone through all that and reopening the restaurant and then
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: like having it fail again. Well, but I didn't, it
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  Speaker 2: was like, it wasn't having it fail again because I
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: didn't necessarily know what happened, but it was like, him
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: kind of you know because he came or he was
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: like oh finally i'm gonna buy i'm gonna buy everybody
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: out all the people that i'm gonna buy everybody out
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and it's gonna be yours and all the back stuff
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: is gonna get paid so he was like pretending to
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: be somebody that's where like he pretended to be somebody
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: else because he didn't want to use his real name
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: and you know the the uh and.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Affected your credibility with Jeffrey Chowdhury when he pretended to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: be someone else and set up all these meetings.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: But like from my perspective, it was like, well, he's
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: going to pay everybody back. So like who cares what
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: his name is, you know? I didn't think– he wasn't
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: trying to get money out of people as far as
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I knew. Right. So why would it matter like, you know, whatever,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: if he's Donald Duck, if he's going to give them
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the money back, you know what I mean? Like so–
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I mean it was obviously– it was super uncomfortable because
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like a horrible– I'm like super uncomfortable– lying to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: anybody but um you know it was like it's almost
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: like as if it was turned into like this movie
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: you know i mean like it wasn't real life yeah
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: it increasingly became like that and so um you know
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: once he took me away it was like that was
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: really like a like i'm in a different reality now and.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So then you guys were gone for about 10 months right.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Did you have Leon, by the way, with you? So
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: in the beginning, I didn't. So that's another thing. Like,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: if he got me to, like, you know, if he
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: drove me away without Leon, like, I had to be
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: really kind of.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Who had Leon at that time?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: My mom. Oh, okay. So, I mean, I knew he
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: was with my mom. And I didn't know, like, what
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: we were doing or where we were going or what
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: was going on. You know, I have very, like, fuzzy
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: memories of it. But.
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  Speaker 2: It was like it was sort of devastating and i
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: didn't really understand it and he you know sort of
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: explained it in this way that like really has nothing
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: to do with reality right So now I'm just kind
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: of like, you know, it's like if you watch some
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of these stories where people get pulled into cults or
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: like the one that really affected me, well, two that
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: really affected me most was the Puppet Master, which was
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: heartbreaking because this woman is gone for a really long time.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And you see how like broken she is. And then
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: also the... the story about the Sarah Lawrence students.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And they, I mean, you know, again, and, and the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: one who gets the most kind of broken is, um,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: you know, she had like a, a scholarship to, I
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: forget where she was like at Stanford medical school. You know, she,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: she was incredibly smart about to graduate medical school and
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: become a doctor. We obviously incredibly bright and gets her
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: mind completely twisted around where, you know, she's like a,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: You know, she's almost behaving like a child, like a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: broken child. Right. And this man did that to her
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: and these other Sarah Lawrence students. So it's very much
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: like that. You know, whatever he did to them is
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: very similar because, you know, it's like I wasn't, you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: what happened to her? What happened to that student? How
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: did she turn into that? Right.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Sometimes in life,
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  Speaker 1: we're faced with tough choices and the path forward isn't
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  Speaker 1: I lost my fiance, Andy, in 9-11 and the pain
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  Speaker 1: understood and get on your way to being your best self. Yeah,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: gaslighting can be really debilitating because you don't know what's
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: up and what's down. And then they've completely become in
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: control of you almost. and, um, and your self-esteem and
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: they're holding the money. Sometimes they're the one in charge and, um, they,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you know, they can really push you down to the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: point where you don't even know who you are anymore.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you don't know what's real and you're completely
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: like dependent on them. Right. You know, a lot of
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: times there were so many questions I would get asked
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: and I would be like, I don't know. Right. I
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And you answer that a lot in the docuseries, you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: would say, I don't know, or you weren't sure. As
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a viewer, I think that was really hard to watch
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: because you're just like, you want to sort of scream
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: at you and be like, Sarma, come on, like, you
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: know better than this, or this is crazy. But, you know,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: people need to understand that in that situation, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: people do things for a certain reason. And I think
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it's important to realize that before meeting him, your life
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was this restaurant. And There are people that question whether
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: or not, you know, you sort of became a con
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: artist through this or if you just really met a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: bad guy who turned your whole life upside down and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you lost your way, you know. And I think that's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the biggest question.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I lost my way. I lost my company. He conned
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: my mother. Like, you know, burned every bridge, left me
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: owing millions of dollars to all.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: These people, which is … All said and done, how
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: much was it?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Humiliating. Well, I did … This was another … So
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: towards the end of the film, they actually– I think
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: there's a part where I'm talking about how a friend
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: of mine was like, how much do you owe? And
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I never wanted to like total it up because it
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: was like it's just so much money. I didn't want
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to think about it. Yeah. And I totaled up kind
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: of like everything all in and got to six million. Yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And I laughed when I said that total to my
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: friend because it was just so like, oh, my God. Oh,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: my God. And just because it was so overwhelming.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: But it's so easy for people to think that like, oh,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: she's laughing. No, it's just beyond overwhelming. And what really
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: was intentional and frustrating in Bad Vegan, aside from fucking
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: title Bad Vegan itself and the way it was marketed
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: and all of that, was that I had been sort
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: of told given the impression had the understanding that at
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the end of the film they were going to say
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: because it's very like in a regular documentary right it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: like journalism it's supposed to be like journalism right it's
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: telling it's like telling a news story yeah based on
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: facts right and so in journalism like if the new
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: york times does a profile on you they're not paying
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: you right because that would screw up the ethics so
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: a documentary is supposed to be like that right But
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: in this case, you know, when I originally agreed to
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: do it, I said like, well, one way or another,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I want to get my staff paid because of all
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: that money that I owed, the amount that the staff,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: the employees were owed was by far the smallest, like
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: a small percentage of the total, but it weighed the heaviest.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And it was the most meaningful to me because a
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: lot of the people that are owed money, like have
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: a shitload of money. So yes, it feels horrible, but
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: like they're not stressing as much as, you know, maybe
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: one of the, you know, dishwashers who's still owed whatever,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: a thousand dollars or whatever it is. So all of
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: that money that was owed to the employees, like I
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: just wanted to get that paid. I wanted to get
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: that paid. I wanted to get that paid. And so I, um,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: you know, so when I agreed to participate, I was like, that's,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: that's what I want. Um, and so I was paid
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: an amount that was pretty much equal to what the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: employees were owed. Didn't even go into my bank account,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: went into a lawyer's bank account, from the lawyer's bank account,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: went into the, you know, the person representing the employees
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: who could then distribute it, right?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: So the employees were paid back.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: So they were paid in 2020. And it was the
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: very day in March when Cuomo announced that restaurants were
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: shutting down because of COVID. And I felt like, like,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I just felt like, I'm glad it didn't take longer
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: because I felt like a lot of them are probably
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: still working in restaurants and now suddenly they might be
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: out of a job. Yeah. So for them to be
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: able to at least get word like the money's... This,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: by the way, this money that you thought you might
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: never get back is here. So you might be out
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: of a job, but at least here's this money back
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: at a time when you might need it. So that
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: felt good. But they were supposed to put at the
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: end of the show, like in a sort of full
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: disclosure way, you know... the employees were all paid back
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: and that I wasn't compensated anything more than that. And again,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: had they included that, it would have been like, oh,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: you know, she made sure the employees got paid. She
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: didn't get paid beyond that because one of the things
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: like thrown at me over and over again is, you know,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: you should pay your employees and like you got rich
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: off this and people just getting the impression that a
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: lot of people thought that like, you know, you're in
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: this thing on Netflix, you must be like rolling in
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: money now. And it's like, no, I'm still like freaking
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: out and trying to figure out like what I can
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: do or sell or what, you know, it's just.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And to be clear, you ended up having, you got arrested,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: you had to go to Rikers and you still have
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to pay restitution to this day, correct?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean, the majority of that money I've
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: owe because, you know, it's not like I could just
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: go wait tables and I'm going to make a dent
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in $ 6 million or, you know, even if it's 4 million,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: even if it's 3 million, whatever it is, it's like,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not, how am I going to make a dent
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: in that unless I, you know, kind of Think of
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: some things I could do that might grow into something
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: big and have a lot of enough value. So that's
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: been really challenging is to try to work on those
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: things and kind of like get by at the same time.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And work on getting your credibility back, which is always
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: hard when your story has been narrated for you in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a way that's taken your credibility.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And I thought like I didn't expect that. I
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: thought on the other side of this film that. First
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: of all, they also interviewed, they spent a whole day
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: interviewing the psychologist who's like the authority on what's called
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: coercive control. So he works exclusively with people and on
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: cases where people. Itching, burning, soreness.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: When you know it's thrush, you want it gone. Treat
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the cause, not just the symptoms, with Caniston Combi. Ireland's
• 20:59
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• 21:02
  Speaker 3: contain cotrimazole.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Always read the label. Number one based on volume sales data.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: To verify, contact info.ireland.bayor.com.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Generally women, it happens more often to women, are like
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: severely psychologically abused, manipulated, and very often end up in
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the criminal justice system. And the criminal justice system doesn't
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: kind of really understand that. So, you know, I think
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I was told that he'd said, like, if I'd had
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: anything to do with her case, you know, she never
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: would have gone to jail. And part of the reason
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: why I... continue to want to speak out about it
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: is because I hear from other people who, you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: what so many women say, like I hear this all
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the time, still almost daily, is people who say, I understand.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I went through something similar. If you haven't been through it,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: there's no way to understand it. You can't explain it.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And it's so isolating, right? Because very often people end up,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: their families don't understand. They're mad. I've had lots of
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: people mad at me because they didn't understand. So that's
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: part of why, you know, it's like that's why I'm
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: here now. This friend of mine was like, why are
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: you doing a podcast? You don't have a book to sell.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I'm like, because I feel like if it's going to
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: help somebody, you know, if it's going to help somebody
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: recognize like, you know, my sister's boyfriend is really kind
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of creepy. That guy, you know, like maybe something's going on.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: If it's going to help somebody, I want to come
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: out and talk about it, you know.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: So what would you say to women or men who
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: are in circumstances where they feel like they have lost
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: their way because they are with an individual or in
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a certain relationship that that person is just either gaslighting
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: them or they are in a position where they don't
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: feel like they can get out and it is affecting
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: their lives? their parenting, their jobs, whatever it is that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: they have lost some sort of control.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: What would you say to them? It's so tragic when
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: people have kids too. So tragic because very often what
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: they do is, especially if they're older kids, like in
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Puppet Master, I think they will like, you know, they'll
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: pull mothers away from their kids, which is horrible. I mean,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: just really awful stuff. Yeah. And, you know, what's so
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: hard for, you know, a child, even an adult child
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: understand is that like somebody hijacked your mother's brain. That
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: was not her, you know? And so I've heard really
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: devastating stories like that. And I've heard.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: But I think that's important what you just said and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: for people to hear. That's how you feel, right? You
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: feel like your brain was hijacked. It wasn't you. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: you were sort of made to do all these things
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that you normally wouldn't because of the situation you were
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: in and what you were being told. And Um, is it,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: am I getting that right?
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: It's like you're, it's like you're in an alternate reality.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, it's like you're in a waking nightmare. And
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: that's how I felt. I felt like every day I
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: was waking up into this nightmare and, you know, it's like,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I didn't see any way out. Right. Um, and I,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, I didn't know what to believe.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I was always confused. I was always exhausted. That's, they
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: always keep you exhausted because they have to keep you
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed and exhausted. Because if you start to like, if
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you get away from them for long enough and you
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: start to like, And you're well rested and you start
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: to like think rationally. Well, then you're going to start
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: to kind of maybe come to your senses.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: But they don't let that happen. They keep you exhausted.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: They keep you overwhelmed. They keep you confused.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: And do you feel now that he's out of your life,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: now that you feel like this is that part is
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: over and now you're making amends. But do you feel
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: more secure? Do you feel more confident? Do you feel
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: better about the place you're in?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Are you more prepared in case someone else shows up
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in your life and does that again?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. But what I've told some people is that, um,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: like it's very common for something like this to happen
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: more than once, which is, seems counterintuitive, but it's like
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: whatever about my personality, you know, and you could say like,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gullible or naive and, but it's more complicated than that.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: But there probably is something about me where it's like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I it's like I'm just not naturally skeptical. I just
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: sort of assume that like people are good and whatever
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the case is.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Or maybe you're just hoping for something.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: And it has, and again, it has nothing to do
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: with intelligence because I've had women, most of the people
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: that reach out to me that have been through something
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: like this, sometimes, you know, one woman's like, I have
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: a PhD in clinical psychology and I got to a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: place where I didn't know which way was up, you know,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: and people who are like are tech entrepreneurs or, you know, it,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: their lives were destroyed. I mean, it happens to intelligent, ambitious,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you know, entrepreneurial women. It's almost like the more accomplished
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: you are, the bigger the takedown. Because for them, I
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: think it's very much like about power. It's not necessarily
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: about money. And so I also thought that I was
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: sort of immune because A, I'd been through it before. B,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: when I, out on the other side of this, like
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: I had not only did I have no money, I'd
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: lost all my belongings. I had no stuff. I had nothing.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I was obviously in debt. So I thought like, what
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: could somebody get for me? And yet somebody kind of
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: stepped into my life and like did a bunch of
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: damage again. And I feel like, holy shit. And so
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I tell people who are recently on the other side
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of it to be really careful. Cause it's like, you're more,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: you're more vulnerable, not less. You're more vulnerable.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Until you kind of really process it. And I definitely
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: feel like having been through it kind of three times, Mr.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Fox was like the big explosive one. I feel like
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I get it. Eyes wide open. I almost feel like
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: kind of like an expert on it now. But I
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: tell people all the time like to be really, really careful.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: And what's hard is, you know, I've talked to a
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: lot of people who are, you know, like, I've engaged,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: people reach out to me on like direct message, right?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: And I've heard from people who, you know, this guy
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: whose mother is in a bad situation. And he sort of,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: the more he told me about it, I'm like, you know, okay, well,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: she's saying she's not going to go back to him,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: but she always does. Yeah, she is. And if she
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: says she's given him some money, it's probably worse than
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: you know. And she probably feels a huge amount of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: shame about it. And she doesn't want to admit it.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And like another woman told me about young her sister
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and the more she told me about this relationship her
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: sister was in the more I was like my alarms
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: are just screaming and she was worried that her sister
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: that the guy was going to take her sister out
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of the country and my advice which I was like
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I know this sounds extreme and like I'm no authority
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: like formally but I would go you know I would
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: go steal your sister's passport and I said I know
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: that sounds extreme but Like, in these situations, the way
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: people get out of cults, the way people get out
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: of these situations is some horrible, extreme thing. You know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I know a guy who now is a psychologist who
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: deals with this type of thing, but he got out
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: of a cult because he almost died in a car accident,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and then he kind of got removed. And in my case,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I was arrested, thankfully. Like, I'm so glad that that happened,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: because if I hadn't been arrested... Would I have just
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: been gone for years? I mean, that's happened to other people.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: They're just gone for years.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So that really opened your eyes.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, getting arrested physically pulled me out of
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: the situation, you know, and.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: And knocked some sense into you, probably.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Well, then I was away from him. And then all
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, like, you know, I was starting to
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: kind of come to terms with like what was happening.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: But it was still, I was still like in a
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: very like stunned state for a long time. But... you know,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: a woman who reached out to me recently who is
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: going to federal prison now in this like heartbreaking situation,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: just like mine. I don't know the specifics about like
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: precisely what happened, but like, you know, she's being punished
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: now after like having gone through hell and because the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: justice system doesn't quite understand it. And they think, you know,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: like you kind of naively think that like, well, How
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: could I have intended to destroy my own life when
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I didn't even benefit from it? It's not like I
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: wasn't arrested getting on a plane to Mexico with a
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: bag of cash.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Was in a hotel room with this separate rooms with
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: this guy that I clearly like was afraid of and
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: for what like why would I have destroyed what I
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: had which had so much potential and even you know
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: in the early times when I met him we were
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: making all this we were doing really well and that's
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: when I like went to jeffrey charterow and gave him
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: a check for 100 grand i was like really happy
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: to start you know to be paying him back he'd
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: given me all this leniency when times were hard he
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't holding me to our agreement that like i have
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: to pay him this amount every month yeah he knew
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: i intended to pay him back he knew i was
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: working really hard to make everything work and so when
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: things were were turning around and and we were doing
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: really well like 2011 2012 And I was able to–
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: I was like so happy to be able to go
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: give him these like sizable checks towards that debt. That,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: you know, I really– if Mr. Fox– you know, it's
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: like I just want to call him terrible names. But
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: when he– it's like if he hadn't been in my life, yes,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: I was overwhelmed. But I could have– like people were
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: coming– like big companies and people were coming to me
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: like saying, oh, I want to invest. Like famous people
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: were like, I want to– Itching. Burning. Soreness.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: When you know it's thrush, you want it gone. Treat
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the cause, not just the symptoms, with Caniston Combi. Ireland's
• 31:04
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• 31:06
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• 31:09
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• 31:13
  Speaker 4: at bayer.com.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Open a restaurant here. I want to invest. I want
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to invest. But things were just complicated and it was
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: really hard to get it together and I was just busy.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: But I could have then because we were making money.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I could have like I could have made it all work.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I could have sorted it out. It's not like I
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: was so desperate because, you know, the business was failing.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It wasn't.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: It was actually doing really well. It's just that he
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: was then siphoning all the money out, which is just
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: so gross. It's just so gross.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So, okay, just a couple questions to clarify a few
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: things for people. When you guys were finally caught, it
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: was due to Mr. Fox ordering a Domino's pizza, correct? Correct.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, which I didn't even know about. Okay.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Were you eating the pizza? A lot of people want
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: to know. I know.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: No, and, like, not only am I saying that, but
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the officers are, like, quoted in articles confirming that, and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I think they also confirmed it in Bad Vegan. They
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: were so nice. Like, love those guys because you know
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: how some people in law enforcement probably have, like, seen
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, so they sort of intuitively know, like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: so they, when they came into that situation, um, I
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: guess they'd, they'd arrested him first. I didn't even know
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: about it cause I was in a different room. By
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: that time I had Leon with us. So I was
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: in my room with Leon and, um, um, when they
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: came in, I was just like really stunned and just
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: out of it. And then I was immediately like, what's
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: going to happen to my dog? What's going to happen
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: to my dog? And, um, they were like, well, ma'am,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: he's gonna go to a local shelter. And I was like,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: He can't be put in a... I was like, please
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: don't take him to the shelter. Oh, my God. I
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: was completely, like, upset. And I was like, please don't
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: put him in the shelter. Like, he can't go to
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: the shelter. And I was so upset. And he... Leon's
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: such a good dog. He, like, loves people and he loves, like, dudes.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: So I'm sitting here getting arrested and Leon's, like, jumping around, like,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: as if these guys came in there to, like, play
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: with him, you know?
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And he's kind of like a dude's dog. He's like
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: a pit bull mix. And so... And they were like, fortunately,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: dog people. And so they kind of very quickly were like, oh,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Kevin will take him home. You know, they're like, oh,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: don't worry. And it was a woman at the hotel
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: who ended up taking him home because they all, the
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: people at the hotel, like they loved Leon.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And ultimately your dad came and picked him up.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: And then my dad drove all the way to come
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: to Tennessee and picked up Leon for me. So you
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: know what else I don't think was in Bad Vegan
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: is– Remember the homeless? My friend is also unfortunately with
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the name Anthony. But he had read in the paper
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: that I was arrested. I think he found out Leon
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: was there. He had a car at the time. Sometimes
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: he has a car. Sometimes he doesn't. I think he
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: was living in his car at the time. He had
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: like started driving to Tennessee to get Leon.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: And then somehow was like. I don't know how he
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: reached my dad, but somehow he spoke to my dad
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: and my dad was like, no, I'm going to get Leon.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And so. So he turned around. He didn't, but that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: was just so.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Do you still talk to that homeless man?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Is he still homeless? Uh, not at the moment. Oh, good. No.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: I love hearing that. Yeah. He's always, you know, sometimes
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: he's not, sometimes he is. Yeah. He's always doing different things, but.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But he's okay.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: But.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: He's still in your life. Yeah.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: He's okay. He's, he's not in New York right now.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: But you know, we're, we're in touch. Good. Um.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: And you still have Leon. How is Leon?
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Leon is, he's doing great. He did, like, have some
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: alarming issues. He was hospitalized a couple weeks ago.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: How old is he now?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Devastating. He's just over 13. Oh, wow. If I assume
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: he was born in March, which was kind of an estimate,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: but he was young enough when I adopted him that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: it's pretty accurate. So, yeah, he's over 13 years old. But,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's doing great. shape because i take really
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: good care of him and um people always think that
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: he's younger than he is but he did have some
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: issues and was hospitalized a couple of times last.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago which was really really rough
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: scary yeah but he's okay now yeah he's doing all
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: right good um and have you made any connections with
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the people that used to work for.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: You yeah i mean we were sort of a lot
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: of us were connected kind of very quickly once i
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: was out of um Because I'd been arrested and then
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: it took a little while because my, you know, it's
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: not like my parents are flush with money. So they
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: had to kind of jump through all these hoops to
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: get my very large bail sorted. So once I got out,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: you know, over time, also it was kind of, so
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: then I had to almost like hack back into my own,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: not hack, but I had to go through the hoops
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: with gmail to get back into my own email because
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: mr box had been in it the whole time so
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: i hadn't the entire time i was gone like my
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: phone number was gone but also wasn't in my email
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: at all so when i finally got back into my
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: email there were a lot of messages from people like
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: what's going on you know where are you are you
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: okay um and i remember like searching for you know
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: emails with Shane box. Cause he used that name for
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: his email. Even when I knew his name was something else. Um,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: and seeing that all those emails were gone, which was like, Oh,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: and he left one email for me. That was so gross.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And then, um, you know, like he knew what he
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: was doing. Yeah.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Like he knew that people would end up looking right.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And then, um, um, to make it.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Seem like you were in on it or you.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Were exactly, it was kind of like, Oh, I tried
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: to help you.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Um, um, Now, another question people would want to know
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: is are you in touch with Mr. Fox or when
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: was the last time you spoke to him?
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: It was like one of those recorded phone calls back
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: when bad– you know, I stayed in touch with him
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: to get those phone calls recorded and whatnot. And then
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: I think I had one call after that with him
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: where I sort of like– you know, Well, one thing
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I want to just go back to is when I
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: got into my email and then, you know, I sort
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: of saw a lot of the emails that had come in.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And then I went into my sent email folder and, like,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: wanted to die when I started looking at what was there.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Because he had sent emails from you?
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: He had been writing to people as me and, like,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: wanted to die. Right. Because he was writing to Jeffrey.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: He was writing to Alec Baldwin. He was writing to...
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the people that have reached
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: out to me, are you okay? Where are you? And
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: he would write back to them and be like, um, yeah,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: but I really need some money. And it was just like,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: oh my. And then a lot of times they would
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: be like, well, where are you? Can I call you? Well,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I really need to talk to you. And then like
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: that conversation would end. You know what I mean? And so,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: and then also in the back and forth with Jeffrey,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey keeps saying where, and heartbreaking because Jeffrey was like,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: clearly trying to help, like what's going on? Where are you?
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: And Jeffrey would say like, well, why can't you call me?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And then he would write back as me like, oh,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: my phone ran out. Like really terrible. Like just excuses
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: or like how can you not get to a phone somewhere?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Have you had the chance to call Alec or text
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: him or call Jeffrey and make them understand it wasn't you?
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I have spoken to them. And I think– In some
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: of those cases, it just took a long time because
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I knew how bonkers it was that, you know, it's
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: like me saying that wasn't me sounds kind of like
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: they don't even understand what happened. And it was just
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: so bonkers.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: And it's hard to say that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: It's so many people that like didn't know what happened.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: We're really confused. But, you know. a lot of the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: former staff, like they knew something terrible happened because they
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: knew me for, 10 years in some cases. And they
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: had seen me like, you know, all the stuff I
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: went through when things were hard with the restaurant and
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: all the stuff we all went through together, you know,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and sometimes it'd be like a crisis at the restaurant
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: and everybody would pull through. And so it's like, it
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: just didn't make any sense. So even if they didn't
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: understand what happened, they knew like something terrible happened. They
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: just couldn't really wrap their brain around it. So, um,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the only ones I think who I might've, you know,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: on social media had said bad things were like people
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: who hadn't worked there very long. Right. So they didn't
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: really know me, but, um, all of the ones from
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: way back, I mean, you know, I was, I was
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: living in Harlem and, um, Just walking down the street
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: one day, I ran into this guy who had been, like,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: a busser and then a bartender, and he'd worked there
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: for years. And it's like, if you look up those
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: old pictures of those, like, when they were all outside,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: he's one of those people, like, holding a sign.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Picketing and saying he was owed money.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And this was, like, when I was out on bail,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: and I just ran into him on the street. And, like,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: we just... immediately hugged and cried, you know, it just,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: they know, you know? And so, um, yeah, so I
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: have been in touch with a lot of them.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Do you have any plans to try and reopen a
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: new restaurant now that you're, you're back, you're living back
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: in New York with Leon?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Itching, burning, soreness. When you know it's thrush, you want
• 41:04
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• 41:07
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• 41:11
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• 41:13
  Speaker 4: Always read the label. Number one based on volume sales data.
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: To verify, contact info.ireland at bayer.com.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I did leave the city for a while to try
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: to finish writing my book. And it just felt, seemed
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: to make sense to kind of get away. I had
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: a bunch of reasons why I kind of had to leave. But, yeah,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I can't really talk about what I'm working
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: on because nothing's... yeah i can't really talk about it
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: yet but i'm just in this funny sort of like
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different things that i'm sort of working
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: on that um you know could repair the damage which
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: um you know which i take on as my responsibility
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: because i don't want to walk around like these i
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: don't care how much money people had or i just
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: want that money repaid right right so again like I
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: couldn't just kind of, you know, people sometimes are like, oh,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: why don't you open a food truck or why don't
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: you do like catering? And I'm like, that's not going to,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to earn $ 6 million.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: So I just kind of have to do these various projects, which,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: you know, could grow into something to, you know, return
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: the money.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: So you're concerned more about returning the money. But because
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: you are such a figure in the restaurant business and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: in the vegan restaurant business, I think a lot of
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: people would wonder if you would ever get back into that.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You would. In the right circumstances. Yeah. You know?
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But– And just out of curiosity, are you– how
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: do you eat now? What is your diet? Are you
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: a vegan? Do you eat raw?
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Do you eat meat? It's funny because I've been thinking
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: about like the whole vegan label sort of always kind
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: of– for the most part put on me because even
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: when early on I was very like raw vegan, I
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: was never like hyper strict. Right. Cause for me it
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: was more about, um, obviously it was about like health
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and eating well. It was about not, you know, wanting
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: to contribute to like the animal cruelty of like factory farming.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: It was about, um, you know, it's also like factory
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: farming is just environmentally destructive, all these reasons. Um, but
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: you know, also like I love restaurants and food. And so,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes like I would taste something. So I
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: wasn't very strict about it. Right. And in particular, like
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: if something's going to be wasted, you know, like, like
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: if somebody was like, you don't throw away like chicken
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: or something, it's just tragic to me. So either way,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: it's just, I don't have any like hard, strict rules
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: about it. And I felt like, you know, and there's
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: also a lot of like, I actually don't have an
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: issue with like hunting if you kind of go out
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: into the woods and, you know, if you were to
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: like shoot a deer, drag it home, eat the whole
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: thing or whatever. That's kind of like animals kill other animals.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: You know, you watch those nature specials. It's like heartbreaking when,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: you know, the gazelle gets eaten by the tiger. You're like, oh,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: my God. but it happens. And like that animal lived
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: free until that very moment.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of nature. Like I don't philosophically have
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: a problem with that or ethically have a problem with that.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Obviously hunting, if you're doing it, like some people do
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: where they go trophy hunting wild animals and they think
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: they're big and tough. That's, and then they pose with
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: the animal. Like that's just grotesque and horrible. But, um,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: And so I always felt like my lane was, you know,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: what we did was in a very like the opposite.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It was not preachy. So if you walked when you
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: walked into Pure Food and Wine, you would have no
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: idea that it was a vegan restaurant. You know, it
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: just didn't have that vibe. There wasn't like, I don't
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: know what would be a typical vegan restaurant. But if
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: you walked in, there's like no clues that it's a
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: vegan restaurant. So actually, hilariously, sometimes people did walk in
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: off the street like, oh, look at this beautiful space.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: And like, let me get a burger.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Or whatever, but they just thought, you know, and they
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: would sort of, they'd figure it out.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: But I always felt like my lane was to kind
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: of represent like a shift, right? So it's not about
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: the label, especially nowadays. It's like everybody's so polarized. Like,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: are you on team this or team that? Are you
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: red or are you blue? Are you this or are
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: you that? Like, why does it have to be one
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: or the other? And so I kind of feel that
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: way a little bit about the vegan label. Like, And
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: it also puts people off very often. You know, they
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: think like sometimes you hear people, oh, I tried going vegan,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: but I couldn't. So like, fuck it. Now I'm eating
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: everything again. Like if everybody just shifted to eating way
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: less meat and if everybody shifted away from factory farming and,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: you know, if we could shift away from it, that
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: would make a huge meaningful impact in the world. as
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: opposed to kind of trying to like, you know, browbeat
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: everybody into like, you must go vegan and like shaming
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: everybody into it. Like that's not, you know, there is a,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: there is a place for those sort of hardcore protests,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: you know, and I understand that like sometimes I've, you know,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: I could get sort of outraged and want to like
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: cover myself in blood and lay on styrofoam. Like I'm a,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't have those protests that are, I
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: understand that, but that's not, that's kind of not my
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: lane and I'm not that strict. And like Leon's not vegan. Um,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: you know, he gets eggs from the green market. Sometimes
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: I eat some eggs. Like I just, I'm not that,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not that strict about it. And, um, um, and
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: also like, I just think everybody's different. So from a
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: nutrition standpoint, some people do great being vegan their whole lives.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Some people don't, some people need to adjust. Some people
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: need to work on different supplements. Some people need to,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, it's just everybody's different. And I think
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: it really depends. So I'm not super strict myself. Okay.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: But I do very much, you know, very much stand
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: by like eating unprocessed foods, way more plant foods. You know,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: if you can eat almost all plant foods, that's great.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: If you want to still eat some other stuff, ideally,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: it's like, you know, something from a small farm.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: You know, the whole system is messed up. It's like
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: subsidies screw everything up. Because why is, you know, tragically,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: like our food was super expensive, which I don't like that.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: It sucks. But it sucks that a lemon and an
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: avocado are like more than, that cost more than, you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: a Big Mac or all this kind of crappy food.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Why is that? It's like subsidies. Why is that? Because
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: those industries have a lot of money and power. Why
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: is that? Because there's money in politics. If we could
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: just unwind Citizens United. Yeah. pull money out of politics,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: you could start to fix a lot of problems. But
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: now we're getting really like macro.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right. So my last question for you is
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: what do you think is most misunderstood about you? Or
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: another way to word it is what do you want
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: people to really know about you? What do you want
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: your sort of legacy going forward to be? Obviously, what
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you went through was something that happened. It doesn't define you.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw– a text or something that somebody
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: had written to you on your website in response to
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: your letter that you wrote, which I thought was great.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And I sent to you about you are so much
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: more than what happened to you essentially. And I think
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that that's so true. So what would you say is
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: something you want people to know about you or clarify
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: in this last minute?
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like I think more about what I would
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: want people to know that's useful for them as opposed
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: to like People can think what they want about me. Like, yeah,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: it sucks if they think terrible things. And it sucks,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: you know, like all these things about bad vegan were.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: upsetting more yes it's upsetting for people to call me
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: names and not understand who i am and and all
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: of that and also because it impacts what i can
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: do going forward if people like you know like a
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: agent or a I'm more concerned with like wanting people
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: to understand that even if it's really hard to understand
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: what happened, that like this is a thing that happens
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: and happens to, you know, intelligent people, happens way more
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: than people think because, you know, I don't know the total,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: but just so many, mostly women, sometimes men have written
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: to me, and have been through eerily similar mind-bending experiences.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: They're just not so public.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: And when you say this, just to clarify, you mean
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: people who are psychologically abused?
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. And abused in other ways, too, which was
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: another thing they left out of Bad Vegan, was, like,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: there was all this, like, really gnarly sexual abuse, which
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I was asked about. And, you know, I was told
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: by somebody who was there that, like, It's really, you know,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: because I was like, oh, that's I was probably like
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: ugly crying and it was really like hard to talk about.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: And somebody said who was there said like, you know,
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: that was so compelling, you know, and all along I
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't care if I'm embarrassed or if
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: I'm ugly crying. I just want it to be useful.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: So I felt like the biggest place where where that
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: series failed was. was allowing people to be confused allowing
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: people to come away and not understand how it happens
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: and that this is not like i'm a cuckoo person
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: or possibly a criminal and like isn't this crazy and
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: bonkers but like no no this is a thing that
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: happens a lot yeah and like maybe pay attention to
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: you know your sister your mom your friend anybody yeah
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: because what happens on the other side of it is
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: now it's like you almost have like a radar spidey
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: sense for it so you know it's like I'll see
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: people sometimes and I'm like, you get a vibe. Um, or, um,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: and also just, you know, if nothing else, it makes,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: I've heard so many, so many, like so many women
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: say to me that like, they feel less alone. They
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: feel less stupid, you know, because again, people think They.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Think it's only happening to me and it's too embarrassing
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: to talk about. But when they hear you talk, they'll know.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: And the people in their small orbit, because it's not
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: like this big public story, maybe they've been punished for it.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Like this woman I know who's waiting to go to
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: federal prison, which is heartbreaking. I want to try to
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: help get her out early or something. It's like everybody's
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: blaming you or they don't understand. And it's just such
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: an icky feeling. And She said to me what everybody says,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: which is like, it feels impossible to explain. And I
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: can't even think about it very long because it's like,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: it's just... Because it's even hard for... When it happens
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: to you, it's like... Not only can other people not understand,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: you kind of can understand. Yeah. Which is like if
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: your brain is kind of hijacked and manipulated, like by definition,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't understand how that happened. Yeah. Until like I
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: understand much better now because I've just spent these like
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: years reading, you know, watching other stories, hearing other stories,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: investigating cult psychology, you know, becoming friendly with people who've
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: been in cults, understanding cults. how they were manipulated because
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: it's very similar and it's to the point where you
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: feel like you know are these people all like using
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: the same how-to manual because the tactics are like eerily
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: similar um and and these personalities are eerily similar so
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: mr fox keith rain area of nexium larry ray from
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: the sarah lawrence story you know even the people like
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: um You know, like Jeffrey Epstein, I kind of got
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: very interested reading, you know, listening to all of that stuff.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: And he's got all those characteristics. You hear the same
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: things about them. Like, you know, the people, like, how
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: come this person gave him so much money? And they'll say, like, well,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: it was like he was under a spell. You always
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: hear that. It's like she's under a spell. That's very common.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: And because I think that's actually part of it. I
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: think part of the reason why I don't remember our
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: conversations when we were together is... people said that about
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: that guy, Keith Ranieri, they'd be like, well, I talked
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: to him for two hours and I don't remember. Because
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: there are ways to like, you know, do things that are,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like something called neuro-linguistic programming. You know,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of ways to manipulate people.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: And also, I think it's really hard for people that
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: have been in cults or in situations like yours, because
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: you don't have physical signs to sort of give people
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: you know, to say, see, look, I have a bruise here. Look,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: he stabbed me. Or, you know, it's very, it's invisible, right?
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And it's just how you feel. And so the fear
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: is people won't believe you, people won't understand you. You know,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: I went to a therapeutic boarding school that was based
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: on the Synanon cult, and it was a very similar thing.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: And at some point, you know, After my father died there,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I just resigned to be like, well, I've got to
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: get through this, so I better go along with it. Right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: You just kind of give in. It's like you give up.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And you almost– it's not like I liked it, but
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: it's like once you give in to it, it's easier
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to get through. And you know there's no way out
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: kind of, so you just go along with it. And
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: it didn't occur to me and I didn't find out for,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you know, almost 15 years that it was a cult,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you know. And it was– And then it all made sense,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: but it takes time and it's really scary when you're
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: in it because you can't scream for help because people
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: are like, this is like crying wolf. What's wrong with you?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Everything seems fine. He seems so great. We really liked him.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: He's so personal. Maybe it's you, you know?
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Right. And then also like, and again, like hearing you
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: talk about that in that episode, which was heartbreaking, you know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I knew that you would at least, you would understand
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: at least like The kind of mind manipulation part. Of course.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: And when people don't believe you and they don't understand
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: what's going on. And part of what they do is
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: like you feel like you're going– you kind of feel
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: like you've gone crazy in a way. Yeah. You know,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: it's like your mind is kind of broken in a way.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: And you have no center. You don't know– you can't
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: even like stand up for yourself because you don't even
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: know what you're standing up for almost, you know.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, it's like you don't see a way out.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: It's like you're trapped. And you're trapped in a way
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that other people can't see. Because, again, why didn't you
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: call the police? And anybody that's been in one of
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: these situations, they would never ask that question because they
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: know you're trapped. You're trapped. Right. I feel like there
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: was something else you asked me that I didn't answer.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: No, you did. I asked you a two-part question, but
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: it was the same question. So people that are listening,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: if they want to reach out to you, do you
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: read your DMs? Where could they find you that's a
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: place that they could reach out to you?
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Mostly on Instagram. So like I have Facebook, but I
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: never look at it. And I'm like weirdly half locked.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: I just don't have time. Like I'm not People assume
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: that like, oh, you're on, you know, you have a
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: bunch of followers. You must be like rolling in money
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: or I should be as if I should be able
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: to like monetize it somehow. And I'm just like, I'm
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: not really good at social media. I'm not good at
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: making reels and doing all this stuff and kind of,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: you know. So basically I have Facebook, but I don't
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: really look at it. Okay. And I'm actually kind of
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: halfway locked out of it. Like I'm on Twitter also
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: just because I've been on Twitter for a really long time.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: But yeah. uh instagram is is where i kind of
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: have the most interaction and early on i did not
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: i couldn't read my dms because it was just like
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: you know just a fire hose yeah and to the
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: extent that people wrote nice messages i feel bad that
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: i didn't see them yeah but what happens sometimes is
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: now that it's like slowed down to at least like
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: i i do at least read them all um but
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: And I try to reply to everybody that kind of
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: says something nice or if I feel like it can
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: be useful. There's a lot of just like dudes that
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: are like, hey, what's up? What are you doing? And
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, sorry, I don't have time. You might be nice,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: but like I can't. And no, I'm not going on
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: a date with you.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Let me pay your bills. I'm sure you're getting a
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: lot of that. All right. So people can reach you
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: on your Instagram. What's your Instagram handle? My Instagram handle
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: is my full name, which is very hard to spell,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: but there's only one of me.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Okay. So it's like.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Typing in Sarma, they'll find you.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: My Twitter is my first name, at Sarma. My Instagram
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: is at Sarma Melangilis with my last name, but it's...
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: And Leon has his Instagram too. He's one lucky rescue dog. Right.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Where you can catch up on everything going on in
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Leon's life.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, at some point I will
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: finish my very long book draft and I hope that
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: you know, I hope that it'll lead to helping people
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: understand that, that this is something that happens. And, you know,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: and again, it's like, if you think that somebody, you know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: might be in a situation like this, like, and, and
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: also if that person's pushing you away, it's like, don't
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: let them push you away. And kind of, if you
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: have a suspicion, just keep, keep checking and keep pushing because,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, I like that, that woman where
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: I said, Like, this might sound cuckoo, but I think
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: if I were you, I would steal your sister's passport
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: because she might be furious. That might. maybe that's you
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: know however extreme and cuckoo that sounds like that's better
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: than your sister getting taken away and it might save
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: her life she doesn't exactly and then she doesn't get
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: out of it and then she's dead because again that
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: also you know happens a lot in a lot of
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: cases where women get taken away and then it's like
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, they wind up dead or like arrested or,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: you know, in a horrible accident or something. Cause very
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: often it takes some, something really, really extreme to pull
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: people out. Right.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: So I think people will be very excited once your
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: book is finally done and comes out. And, um, I'd
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: love to have you back on when your book is
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: out and we'll talk about that, but thank you so
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: much for joining me. And I look forward to hearing
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: what happens in your future.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I really, I
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: knew that having been through what you've been through that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: you would understand. And I just felt like, again, if
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: I reach some listeners that it helps them, you know,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: it's worth it. It feels good.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: It is worth it.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Rachel Yucatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show
• 1:00:26
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• 1:00:28
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• 1:00:33
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• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: at gmail.com. That's spelled M-I-S-S understood. Thank you so much,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next time.
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