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Why Would I Do That to Jennifer Lopez? | The Mistakes Series · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: This guy calls me like seven in the morning, like
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Tommy was South.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, the head of Sony Music,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Tommy Mottola called the rap producer IRV Gotti at the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: time God. He worked with jay Z, Ja Rule, Ashanti,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: DMX in the hip hop world of the early arts.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: He was at the top of his game.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: He's like, Yo, I need you to make a record.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: And I said what he said, make a record with
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: j Lo and put jaw on it and make it
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: a duet. And I say, yo, I need total creative
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: at TIMS. I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Tommy
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: was like, you could do whatever the fuck you want
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: as long as it's a duet with Ja Ruhl and
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: j Loo.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Mattolo wanted Gotti to do a remix if I'm Real,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a single off Jaelo's second album. The first time around,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: it had been a generic ballad. Matola thought it could
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: be reinvigorated God. He went to work and started to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: make a demo with John Ruhl and Ashanti.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I said, yo, I got the record it, so I'm Real.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Him and his wife Talia come to the crackhouse, my
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: studio and solo and it's funny because the freight elevator
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: used to always go out. So him and Talia walked
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: up six flights of stairs.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: He gets upstairs, he said, this fucking record better be
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: fucking good.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: So I played I play real form. Him and his
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: wife go crazy. They're like, oh my god, it was
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: a one listen. They listened and it was like, it's
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: the biggest record.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: So he puts me.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: On a private jet. I fly to La record the
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: record with j Lo. Next thing you know, the record
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: comes out.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: It's all over the radio.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about maybe a couple of days after we
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: recorded it, it's.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: All over the radio.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: A few months later, God, he made another remix from
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Jalo's album Ain't It Funny? The same thing happened.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: You don't even understand. Those records was colossal, not just
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: in the States, on the planet Earth. I don't give
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: a fuck if you went to Germany, Australia, Africa. That
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: shit was in the heavy rotation. Look, those are the
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: two biggest records. And for me to do, i'mral and
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: in staid. Fuck it and Ain't It Funny? It was like,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: at that point in my life, I was like on
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: top of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: It was a feeling of I could do whatever the
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: fuck I want. To portray who I was at that moment.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: That's that's who I was. I'm from the hood. I'm
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: making all of this money. I'm producing records for everybody.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: All of them are working and going number one, and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: money's raining from the sky. I could do no wrong.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: It was at this point that Irv God he made
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: a mistake. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: is the third episode in our mini series inspired by
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Michael Linton and Josh Steiner's book From Mistakes to Meaning Will.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The authors sit down with a wide range of people
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and try to make sense of their biggest screw ups.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: One of their interviews was with IRV Gotty, just before
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: God he had a stroke and died at the age
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of fifty four. I listened to the interview and I
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: found his story so moving that I asked Steiner and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Linton if I could include it in this series because
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: in his story, I think is a really important lesson,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: not about the person who makes the mistake, but about
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the people around the person who makes the mistake. The witnesses.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Man I grew up, Oh, man, I grew up. Let
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: me let me describe. I'm the youngest of eight kids.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: This is Gotty talking to Litten and Steiner about his
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: childhood and growing up in Queen's We.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Have no money. We live in the home. I sleep
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: in the attic. You ever slept in the attic of
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: a house in the summertime.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: There's no refuge. It's a hundred change.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Yes, you wake up every every day, you wake up
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: in a puddle of sweat, like I had.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: That was my life. That's it was a lot of love.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: My family, the most loving family. But we had nothing.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: So when you talk about the ship, you told me,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: I'm not I don't give a fuck. Yo, I'm getting money.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Oh I'm gonna I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: my ass off and get it. I don't give fuck
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: what comes from it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: He was blunt, reckless, ambitious, and hugely talented. His rise
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: in the music world was swift. It was no accident
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: than Buttola called Gotti to work with Jennifer Lopez, then
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: well on her way to becoming one of the biggest
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: celebrities in America, and when the two of them met
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: at Gotti's recording studio, Gotti from Queen's Jayla from the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Bronx to click. Just so you know what to expect,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: We're giving you the unfiltered Gottie.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So I had like thirty hood niggas in the studio
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and in walks j Loo, and she was straight Jenny
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: from the block.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: She had on some sweat pants and the tank top.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: And if I tell you, she got in that studio
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: and she had every one of my guys fall in
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: love with her. She worked and talked to everybody and
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: houses like, Yo, she's just so dope. You know what
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, Because she could have been on some I'm
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: a big star boogie shit.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: But she was a total opposite.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: The biggest sex symbol, biggest superstar, got on some sweatpants.
• 6:23
  Speaker 6: Her as was looking fucking phenomenal. She worked, She literally
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: worked the whole home. Like when she left, every guy
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: was like, Yo, she's dope. I think she liked me.
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: I'm like, yo, dog, she's she worked us. Yeah, she
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: she worked the fucking rouge. But I thought it was
• 6:41
  Speaker 6: so dope of us and me and her specifically.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yo, we hit it off. Benny Medina, Her manager, Benny
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Medina was like HERV you're gonna be like the Quincy Jones.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: To her Michael Jackson, she was like, We're not doing
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: nothing musically unless you're involved.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: A year later, Ellen Magazine decid I to do a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: cover story on Jennifer Lopez. It was for their Sex
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and Body issue June two thousand and two, headline Big Letters.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Jlo on fashion that song and Puffy. Puffy referred to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Puffy Combs, the infamous rap impresario who she'd just broken
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: up with, and that song referred to Ain't It Funny?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Because Gotti's reinterpretation of the song turned it into the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: story of someone coming out of a very problematic relationship.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: The writer asks her, is that song about Puffy? She says, no,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: it's not. Then the reporter calls gotty. Jlo says, ain't
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it funny? Isn't about Puffy? What do you say? And
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Gody says, oh, It's absolutely about Puffy, and Jlo knows it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Here's the exact quote from the l magazine article, which
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: by the way, is nearly impossible to find.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: My producer had to get someone at the New York
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Public Library to unearth the issue from an off site
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: storage unit. I ain't gonna lie. We was thinking of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: effing with Puffy because that's what the world wants to hear.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And God, he tells the reporter a story about running
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: into Puffy before Ain't it funny came out and playing
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: him the demo. He says, you know the four Seasons
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: on Dohaney in LA I pull up and Puffs out
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: there with his security and I say, Puff, come listen
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to the new record I did with your old bitch.
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: So boom.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: He gets in the car, so I'm blasting the record
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and when it gets to the second verse, he jumps
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: out of the car, screaming, gotty, you bastard, this is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the second verse.
• 8:48
  Speaker 7: Listen, you never had to be this well, you should
• 8:52
  Speaker 7: have never played the game to play now see and
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: that you can.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: He calls Jelo's ex boyfriend into his car and says,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: come listen to the new record I just did with
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: your old bitch in a very public way. God, he
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was essentially saying Jennifer Lopez wasn't being honest. He called
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: her credibility into.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Question when I read it in that magazine.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: J Lo quote, those records are not about puff Daddy
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: end quote. It was.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Because I say that to say because j Lo, Benny Medina,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: they was friends.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: They loved me, they love me like I was a
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: writer for them and.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: I would do things for them that probably no one
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: else could do, and I would get done for them, and.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: She was my friend.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Like, why the fuck would I say that? Why the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: fuck would I say that?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: But God, he didn't stop there. He kept going right.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: So I went on to say other damaging things, like
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: how would she know? She didn't write the records. We
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: made the records and wrote the records.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: She just did what we said, so she don't know
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: who the fuck we was talking about. And yeah, we
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: was talking about Diddy. And then I said some more
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: damaging shit. I was like, guys like me, we didn't
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: listen to Jay, we don't listen to Jalo's music. I
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: made guys like me listen to j Loo's music. I said,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: before then we just hit the mute button and looked
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: at her ass. Yeah.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: God. He reflected on this with Michael Linton and Josh
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Steiner when they spoke, wow.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And you can pull all this up in the L
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: magazine is there? Those are vivid quotes.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Those are like supreme asshole quotes. That wasn't warranted. And
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: when I look back, I was like, what did you
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: do to your friend?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: So, needless to say, needless to say, I ruined my
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: relationship with j Lo. I apologized, I sent to Candy
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: and flowers and apologized a million times, and I was high.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: That's no excuse, you know what I'm saying.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I apologize for us, and she accepted my apology, but
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: it forever damaged your relationship.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: You know, superstars like j Loo, they have a small
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: circle of people who they could trust.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And I think I was in there for a second
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: and I totally ruined it. Right, So I'm an asshole.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Well you were in that moment.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: I'm totally in the wrong, and I'm a complete idiot.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Make sure you say that that I said that I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: a complete She didn't warrant that, she didn't warrant nothing
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that I said. She was my friend, And why would
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I do that with the biggest thought and the most
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: beautifulest person. Why how did I do that with Jalm.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: One of the themes we've tried to explore in this
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: series is that mistakes have roots. They aren't random events.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They come from somewhere. They arise out of a context,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: but the context often isn't obvious, not to those around
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the mistake maker, and often not even to the mistake
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: maker themselves. In Gotty's case, the context was a telephone
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: call had been on just before the reporter called. It
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: was with a prominent music industry executive God. He asked
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that the man's name not be used, so we're gonna
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: bleep out every mention of his name. All you need
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to know is that the executive is white, and God
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: he was black. The two of them had an argument.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: One of God's artists had played a part in a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: hit song and was in the music video, but had
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: been left out of the radio version, and God he
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: was unhappy about it.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: So I was like, yo, you kill him my artists.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: You got him on the video, but on radio he's
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: not there. It's and then like mixed signals, why are
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: you hurting me?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Their argument got heated. The executive said it wasn't his fault,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the decision was someone else's at his label, a black man.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: He was like I told that fat nigga not to
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: not to put this out.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But when he said the N word, Oh, that's when
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I weren't crazy.
• 13:58
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 13:58
  Speaker 9: I said, what the fuck you say? I said, you
• 14:01
  Speaker 9: just call Cory Roon and nigga. I said, when when
• 14:06
  Speaker 9: this nigga see you, I'm gonna fuck you up. I said,
• 14:10
  Speaker 9: how about that?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And he was like irving it and we arguing, Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: but he said he used the N word on some
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: racist shit. He said, I told that fat nigga not
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: to put the record out or put him on it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but when he said nigga, I went, that's that's
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: that's the anger.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not a volatile person. I'm not a pop off.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: I would describe myself as a cool guy, level headed.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: But it's something about when a white person like uses
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: the word.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Nigga to me, m Oh, I'm ready to kill because
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: it's like.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: You start thinking of all of the fucked up shit
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: that black people have been through when you got the
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: audacity to say nigga in front of me.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm gonna show you a nigga. Now you know
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Like I used to always say, like
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: people would that ask me.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: How would you be able how how would you think
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: you would be able to operate in those times of racism?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: And I always answer, I would die.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, because I couldn't take the
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: racism that would have been bestowed upon me. I would
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: have killed me a couple of white people and they
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: would have hung me and killed me, and my life
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: would be over.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I couldn't take.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Them doing something to my mother or you know, hanging
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: my father and I'm living life.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Nah, you're gonna have to kill me too. So these
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: are the thoughts that's in my mind.
• 15:50
  Speaker 10: Yeah, have you experienced that before where you had white
• 15:53
  Speaker 10: people say things?
• 15:54
  Speaker 8: Would you?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: A lot of my white friends to say, Yo, that's
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: my nigga. But I'm not mad at that.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, use it when they say that's my nigga.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It's in I gg A.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: He said, Yo, I told that fat nigga, that's n
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: I G g e R. It's a big, big difference,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Like I couldn't I couldn't believe that he just used
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: the N word to me.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: That's what made me so volatile, And it was so weird.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: It was like as soon as I hung up with
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: the phone, rang with l It wasn't like a five
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: minute It wasn't even like a five minute.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Cool off period.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: No, hung up, man, Yo, this is that old magazine. Dude,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: what the fuck y'all want? I'd like saying hello a
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: little different, can I ask?
• 16:50
  Speaker 8: So, what do you think it was that made you?
• 16:52
  Speaker 8: You think you were just gonna lash out at anybody
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: who showed up in that moment?
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, within that five minutes, Yeah, they was gonna.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Get the exact thing vibe, what the fuck you want?
• 17:06
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it just so happened.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: It was magaz Be, not one of my boys.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I said what the fuck you want? And
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: he was like, oh, oh, I see you.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Like as soon as he heard that response, he immediately
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: cut to the chase. He said, oh, oh, I'll just
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: get right to it. Uh you know, Jlo said.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: That the records, I'm really made it funny and not
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: about puff daddy ex boyfriend, and I was like, what
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: that bitch is lying?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: This was thereve Gotti's mistake. It changed his life. There
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: was a version of the next twenty years where he
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: could have been a creative partner with one of the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: biggest stars in the world. He had ideas from movies collaborations.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Jaelo was at once in a lifetime opportunity. That's why
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: this was a mistake. It had consequences. But there was
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a point in Gody's interview with Steiner and Linton that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get out of my mind.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Listen, how quickly did you realize that you'd made a mistake.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize quickly.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: I was so angry and mad when I got off
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: the phone with that magazine. I thought nothing of it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: It hit me when they sent me like the transcripts
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: of what they was gonna plant.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: How long after that was that? Uh, couple a week
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: or so? I would say, all right, And when you
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: did you realize it right away?
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: I was like, don't print that. They was like it's
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: too but they was like it's too late. Yeah, they
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: loved it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: They loved it, and they said it was too late.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: And I was trying to get them not to print it,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: but they wasn't. They like, hey, buddy, you said it. Yeah,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: did you get me try to did you get me
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: help to try? I get them not to do it?
• 19:10
  Speaker 9: Or and you just let it go?
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: Let it go.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I gave it myf look after my fitt I just
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: let it go.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: He realized he'd made a mistake, that in his anger
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: at one person, he had said something he didn't mean
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to another, and when he tried to prevent his mistake
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: from having consequences, from turning into a serious mistake, he
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: was told, hey, buddy, you said it. It's too late.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: After Linton and Steiner's book came out, I interviewed them
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and I brought up their chapter on Gaudy. So, who's
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the villain of the story. Not every story has to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: have a villain, No, but tell me who the villain
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of the stories?
• 19:54
  Speaker 10: So don't Michael, don't fall for this like this is okay,
• 19:57
  Speaker 10: this look at this is why he's so good.
• 19:59
  Speaker 8: But don't fall for his trap.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Like okay, you can say not everyone.
• 20:02
  Speaker 8: I got to keep the conversation going. I would argue,
• 20:04
  Speaker 8: this was the executive who used the N word.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Josh, here's a villain of the story.
• 20:09
  Speaker 10: Here's what I think that guy acted terribly. There is
• 20:11
  Speaker 10: no villain in the story. And I think an important
• 20:14
  Speaker 10: piece of what we tried to describe is that there
• 20:19
  Speaker 10: isn't always a villain. There isn't always some outside danger.
• 20:23
  Speaker 10: There isn't always some consequence that has been derived from
• 20:26
  Speaker 10: a villain. That these things are deep rooted in ourselves
• 20:30
  Speaker 10: and we're not villainous, and so that aspect of our
• 20:33
  Speaker 10: personality doesn't make us bad. This isn't a morality test.
• 20:37
  Speaker 10: This is an opportunity to explore oneself and come to
• 20:40
  Speaker 10: terms and acceptance of the fact that we're flawed and
• 20:43
  Speaker 10: the way to get hopefully healthier and better to talk
• 20:46
  Speaker 10: about it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Who do you think the villain?
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Is?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: A man who has a very close relationship to the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: biggest rock star in the world, a relationship that has
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: resulted in extraordinary commercial success, is called by a reporter
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and has asked a question about that relationship, and in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the course of answering that question, the man says, Oh,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: she's a liar. Who's the villain in the story?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's erv.
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: Now it's the reporter, But the reporter does no, no,
• 21:13
  Speaker 8: no no.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: This is a crucial, crucial point, Michael, and I think
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: this is because it's about when mistakes are made and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: they are as deeply rooted as you suggest they are,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they're not what's your The whole argument of the book
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: is a mistake can come out in the spur of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the moment, but it's not something that's coming out of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the spur of the moment. It's something that has roots.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And what does that require of those who are observe
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and are part of the process in which the mistake
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is played out. It requires some degree of grace and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: forgiveness and understanding. So the reporter, here's some IRV God,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: IRV God. He say something that is completely out of place. Right,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it makes the reason the reason that story. So that story,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: what you didn't what is important detail is here is
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it goes. It's all across the country. It's like it's huge.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That's why it blows up so much. Everyone seizes on this.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Her longtime collaborator called j Lo a liar. Right, if
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you are the reporter in that instance and someone says
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: something they shouldn't say, your obligation is to say, why
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: did you say that? And if they can't give you
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a satisfactory answer, your obligation is not to use it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's not to use it. You're not, You shouldn't.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: You can't make someone. The reporter turned that from a
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: nothing into a destruction of someone's career because they had
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: not the slightest concern for his well being or his reputation,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and they if they had an ounce of self understanding
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: or of general understanding, they would have understood that he
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: didn't mean to say that. They should at the very
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: least have said, did you mean to say that?
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: That's your responsibility, and the reporter failed in that fundamental
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Why do people hate the press Because because in an
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: interview like this, where we could talk for three hours,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and you say one thing out of place because you
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: have to be irritated about something else, and a reporter
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: runs with that one thing that's about practice. Why is
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: this person getting a pass? That's terrible. I'm sorry, I'm
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: really upset about this. I was upset about this because
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: you can't do this if you're a journalist. The whole
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: profession works on an implied contract. Somebody grants you the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: gift of their time and attention and thoughts. They make
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: themselves vulnerable, and in return you pledged to respect that vulnerability.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: You're not a stenographer. You've entered, for the duration of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the interview into an intimate relationship, and intimate relationships have rules.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But then I went home after that interview at the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: why after I had called the reporter a villain and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a disgrace to our profession, and I realized, I don't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: even know who this person is. And then I thought
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to myself, Oops, now I've made a mistake. So I
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: decided to track the reporter down. That's after the break.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: What do you remember about that interview?
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: It's funny you're asking this something that no one's ever
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: asked me, because I remember that interview quite well.
• 24:34
  Speaker 8: For a few reasons.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: This is Carter Harris. He wrote the l profile. He's
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: now a screenwriter teaches at NYU, and one of the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: reasons this article he wrote twenty five years ago, sticks
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: out is the reaction a god, particularly from Jlo and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: her manager Benny Medina.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I actually remember being in a car with Benny Medina
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, and I can't remember why we were
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: in a car, but he was telling me how disappointed
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Jalo was, and he was because it seemed like a
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: negative interview.
• 25:06
  Speaker 8: I wasn't negative at all from my perspective.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: At some point, his profile of Jaelo completely disappeared from
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the Internet, and he always wondered if Jelo and her
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: manager had something to do with it? Was Gody upset
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: during the call, Yes he was, Harris remembers he seemed
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: like he was in a state. He mentioned something about
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: having just gotten off the phone with someone. He thought
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Harris was a fashion writer and god, he seemed relieved
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to learn that Harris had been an editor at The Source,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the magazine that was the bible of rap at the time.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: They talked about Puffy Combs and I'm real, I ate
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: it funny, And then Gody said that bit about Jlo
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: not telling the truth when you heard it when you
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: were reviewing him and decided to use what you were using,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: did you did you think that you might be jeopardizing
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: his relationship with Jaeloh.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: No.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: And maybe that was naive of me, But what I
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: thought was in the moment was Wow, that was honest.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: She might be a little bit irked vexed by one
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: or two of the quotes, but I never imagined that
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: it would be such a big deal for her or
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: for him.
• 26:26
  Speaker 8: I mean I thought she'd be vexed.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, when you say, you know, I gave her
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: more hood credibility, that's going to be like, come on, dude.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Or when you say it was really about Diddy and
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: basically you're you're accusing her of not being honest. You know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: yeah that I totally understand why she was vexed, And
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: I even at the time, I was like, oh, she
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: might be a little ticked off about this, but I
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: figured they'd air it out either publicly or privately, that
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: she'd be like, come on, he overstepped on this one,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: and maybe he comes back and says, yeah, all right,
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: I was on Molly, which she was willing to say
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: back then.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Is it weird to hear someone say twenty five years
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: later the biggest mistake they made in their life was
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: something they said to you in an interview.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, that made me feel very strange. When I heard that,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: I was, I was, I was. I was very surprised
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: and very I was a little disturbed too, because that
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: when I heard that then I did have feelings. Then
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh shit, what did I do wrong?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: It was like, was I responsible for this? Somehow?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Did he run the quotes by Godi and tell him
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that it was too late? You said it? No, that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: would have been the fact checker. That's the way things
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: worked in the magazine world of those years.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: If he had called me and said I was in
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: a state, can you take those quotes out?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: I probably would have worked with him on that, but
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: I never got that call. Nobody ever asked me about
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: those quotes, So, you know, what, what can I really do?
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I certainly felt weird about it. I mean,
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't take any any joy in being
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: a part of anyone's biggest regret.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Carter was frank and thoughtful. I liked him. He was
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: talking about a decision he made many years ago when
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: he was much younger, and he said that he wouldn't
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: necessarily do the same thing today. I understand that you
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: have to make a certain number of mistakes to understand
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: what a mistake is.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: It's really interesting because if I had been in the
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: gym and somebody had told me this story, and I
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: was not the reporter and I was not Gotti, I
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: probably would have had the exact same response. I'm pretty
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: sure I would have been, like what they said, what
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: they messed with Gotti?
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: Like and they screwed up a relationship with Jalo and Gotti?
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: You know, this is bullshit.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: This is like the media, you know, they do this,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: especially l and these corporate magazine and you know all that,
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: so I'm not surprised to hear that that was your response.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: That probably would have been my response. But to the
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: larger point, I think we all do this in our
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: own way, in lots of different contexts. We jump to conclusions,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: mistaken conclusions, and I certainly do in my life. And
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: if I've learned anything it's that I have to check
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: myself sometimes and say, wait a minute, I'm.
• 29:44
  Speaker 8: Human like everybody else. I'm jumping to a conclusion.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: I should go look and see if there's more to
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: this story. Doesn't necessarily mean my conclusion that I wanted
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: to jump to is wrong, could be right, could be
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: worse than I thought it was. But I do think
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: that that's the thing to take from this is like, hey, everybody,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: each of us can check ourselves. You know, we all
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: have the ability to check ourselves and say, hey, maybe
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: I should look into this a little bit more.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: We can all check ourselves a little bit more on that,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I have to agree. Revisious History is produced by Nina Bird, Lawrence,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Lucy Sullivan, and ben A daph Haffrey. Our editor is
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Karen Shakerji. Fact checking by Angelie Mercado. Our Executive producer
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: by Luis Quira, sound design and mastering by Marcelo diela Vera.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Godwell, coming up on the next episode in
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: our Mistakes series.
• 30:58
  Speaker 8: This is madness and yeah, and it was just jaw
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: on the floor. I just never experienced anything like that,
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: and I didn't see a coming