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Make Your Life a Joy Bomb + Live Shamelessly with Heidi Clements · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
0:13
Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
0:20
Speaker 2: In a culture that glorifies youth, embracing your age is
0:23
Speaker 2: kind of a radical statement. As a nineties and two
0:26
Speaker 2: thousands kid, I remember being bombarded with messages about aging,
0:31
Speaker 2: particularly from women. Do you remember Regina George's mom clinging
0:36
Speaker 2: to her youth in Mean Girls? Or Rachel Greene's emotional
0:40
Speaker 2: thirtieth birthday party and friends. A lot of us have
0:43
Speaker 2: been taught that our age isn't just something we need
0:45
Speaker 2: to hide, but a yearly reminder that the clock is
0:48
Speaker 2: ticking on our life. But today's guest is helping us
0:52
Speaker 2: completely rethink all of that. Heidi Clements is an author
0:59
Speaker 2: and screenwriter whose career is currently in the midst of
1:03
Speaker 2: a reinvention thanks to her refreshingly honest social media account
1:07
Speaker 2: at Welcome to Heidi. She's a former entertainment news producer,
1:12
Speaker 2: which is how we initially met, and now Heidi is
1:16
Speaker 2: focused on telling her own story. She shares nuggets of
1:20
Speaker 2: wisdom from her more than six decades of being a human,
1:24
Speaker 2: all while showing off her very unique sense of style
1:28
Speaker 2: and self. What's amazing about Heidie's account is the vast
1:32
Speaker 2: majority of her hundreds of thousands of followers.
1:35
Speaker 1: Aren't women in their fifties and sixties. They're women in
1:39
Speaker 1: their twenties and thirties. And I think that's proof that
1:42
Speaker 1: as we age, as we look at the often daunting
1:45
Speaker 1: road ahead, many of us want to feel better about it.
1:50
Speaker 1: We're trying to deprogram the messaging we learned when we
1:53
Speaker 1: were young that we expire, and quite honestly, I think
1:58
Speaker 1: that messaging was met to scare us, because as I
2:01
Speaker 1: look at the women in my life, as they age,
2:05
Speaker 1: they get happier and they get better. Today, Heidi is
2:09
Speaker 1: telling us her story through the decades, her twenties, thirties, forties,
2:15
Speaker 1: fifties and beyond, and before she declares sixties as the
2:19
Speaker 1: most joyful time of her life, from grief to heartbreak,
2:24
Speaker 1: to financial ups and downs, toxic workplaces and sobriety. Heidi
2:30
Speaker 1: is going there with us today as living proof that
2:34
Speaker 1: aging is full of beauty, complexity, and wonder and so
2:38
Speaker 1: often that means the best is still yet to come.
2:49
Speaker 1: I want to kick off with your twenties, because I
2:52
Speaker 1: barely remember my twenties.
2:53
Speaker 2: I feel like I blacked out. Do you have a
2:57
Speaker 2: good memory of your twenties? Started in New York. Yeah.
3:01
Speaker 3: I was twenty one when I graduated from Emerson College,
3:07
Speaker 3: and I moved home for a year and my dad
3:12
Speaker 3: built me an apartment in the bottom of their house,
3:15
Speaker 3: so I had like my own apartment, but it was
3:17
Speaker 3: still under their thumb. And I worked in advertising, and
3:23
Speaker 3: I would take the Staten Island ferry every day and
3:26
Speaker 3: two subways to get to my job. It was nineteen
3:29
Speaker 3: eighty three, Yeah, nineteen eighty three, and so it was
3:35
Speaker 3: really popular to wear your work outfit but wear stockings
3:39
Speaker 3: and then white anklets and tennis sneakers and then switch
3:42
Speaker 3: into your pumps. And I was like, fuck that, I'm
3:45
Speaker 3: wearing my pumps all the time the whole time, which
3:48
Speaker 3: I've always now I'm only in sneakers. But yeah, I
3:50
Speaker 3: was like running in high heels since I was twenty
3:53
Speaker 3: one years old. So most of my twenties were really
3:56
Speaker 3: about just finding my initial independence. I moved into the
4:01
Speaker 3: city after about a year at home, and it was
4:03
Speaker 3: my first New York City apartment, and it was really
4:06
Speaker 3: just about like becoming a person. You know, I was
4:10
Speaker 3: under my parents' guidance and very very strict British parents
4:15
Speaker 3: for years, and it was just about discovering like who
4:19
Speaker 3: I was and what was fun. And it was a
4:23
Speaker 3: wonderful time to be in your twenties. There was no
4:25
Speaker 3: social media. You had no idea if you were winning
4:28
Speaker 3: or losing or passing or failing. You were just living
4:32
Speaker 3: your life and all of these clubs were opening, and
4:36
Speaker 3: you know, it was the eighties. It was just magic.
4:39
Speaker 2: Is there a word that's defined that, Like in hindsight
4:42
Speaker 2: has defined your twenties?
4:44
Speaker 3: Just fun, free, fun, fun, fun, fun and free. I
4:49
Speaker 3: was so free.
4:51
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned social media because you've had
4:53
Speaker 2: this sort of new life happened in the last year
4:58
Speaker 2: or two with social If you look back at your
5:01
Speaker 2: twenties and there was social media available, do you think
5:04
Speaker 2: it would have been very different for you?
5:06
Speaker 3: Oh, it would have been awful. Because I've been able
5:09
Speaker 3: to grow up not thinking that people are thinking about me,
5:14
Speaker 3: or saying anything about me, or focused on me at all.
5:17
Speaker 3: And so I've lived my life unapologetically without worrying what
5:21
Speaker 3: people think about me. Because they would have had to
5:23
Speaker 3: physically come up to me and tell me, and nobody
5:26
Speaker 3: did that. So there was such a freedom to growing
5:31
Speaker 3: up in the eighties and seventies and eighties and sixties
5:35
Speaker 3: that I feel badly for people that, you know, it's
5:39
Speaker 3: that comparison is the death of joy. Like you just
5:43
Speaker 3: all you do is look at what everybody else is doing.
5:46
Speaker 3: I didn't know what people were doing. I was getting
5:48
Speaker 3: a summerhouse in the Hampton's with my friends, and I
5:51
Speaker 3: was going out every single night, and I was working
5:54
Speaker 3: crazy jobs, and I was, you know, living in New
5:58
Speaker 3: York City. I was living, you know, fucking Carrie what's
6:02
Speaker 3: her name, Bradshaw. I was Carrie Bradshaw, just like wearing
6:06
Speaker 3: Betsy Johnson and going to clubs and drinking and making
6:09
Speaker 3: out with boys and bars, and it was just amazing.
6:13
Speaker 2: I love that you say Carrie Bradshaw because when I
6:15
Speaker 2: was reading about it, that's that's the first name that
6:18
Speaker 2: came to my mind. But I know you kind of
6:21
Speaker 2: hate that show.
6:22
Speaker 3: I hate, and just like that I hated so much.
6:25
Speaker 3: And the truth is I went back and watched Sex
6:28
Speaker 3: and the City a few times, and the truth is
6:31
Speaker 3: it veered off of what was so wonderful about it,
6:34
Speaker 3: which was women, you know, growing up and coming into
6:37
Speaker 3: their own And yes it was about sex, but it
6:40
Speaker 3: was about not the physical act of sex. It was
6:43
Speaker 3: about your sexuality and finding who you loved and dating
6:48
Speaker 3: and being in the workplace. And it was about so
6:51
Speaker 3: much more than just getting late. And the news show
6:54
Speaker 3: is so like, yes, older women are still having bets.
6:59
Speaker 3: Like what ever, no one cares about it. Nobody over
7:03
Speaker 3: fifty gives a shit about sex. Maybe like one out
7:05
Speaker 3: of twenty. Really, I don't think so.
7:08
Speaker 2: So wait, I'm going to save that till you till
7:10
Speaker 2: the fifties.
7:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually problem. Okay, So I was having a
7:15
Speaker 3: lot of sex in my twenties for sure.
7:17
Speaker 2: I didn't know your parents were strict and it's making
7:20
Speaker 2: me laugh because you're such a wild child.
7:23
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. They were British and both British and did
7:28
Speaker 3: not understand Americans at all.
7:30
Speaker 2: What was your self esteem like in your twenties.
7:33
Speaker 3: I think I liked myself. I don't really remember, but
7:39
Speaker 3: I think I thought I was pretty cool and fun
7:42
Speaker 3: to be around. I think I don't think I thought
7:46
Speaker 3: that I could get any guy I wanted. I definitely
7:49
Speaker 3: did not feel confident about men, which you know.
7:54
Speaker 2: In your book you say that you're not good at relationships.
7:58
Speaker 2: Yeah no, But do you feel like, knowing what you
8:02
Speaker 2: know now, any of those twenty year old relationships would
8:04
Speaker 2: have been different.
8:06
Speaker 3: Well, I will probably, you know, so many of them
8:09
Speaker 3: were forged in alcohol, so that was a problem. And
8:15
Speaker 3: I would not put up with any of the shit
8:18
Speaker 3: that I put up with in my twenties, Like, no
8:22
Speaker 3: way would I have done that. But you know, we're
8:25
Speaker 3: taught that you're supposed to get married and you're supposed
8:28
Speaker 3: to have kids, and so you put up with so
8:31
Speaker 3: much fucking bullshit just because you think a guy's cute.
8:34
Speaker 3: And I mean, I would love to go back and
8:36
Speaker 3: repeat some of those motherfuckers as I said, and punch
8:39
Speaker 3: them all in the face. So I curse a lot.
8:42
Speaker 3: Sometimes I feel.
8:44
Speaker 1: The anger because I actually when I think back on
8:47
Speaker 1: my twenty one year old self and how I dealt
8:50
Speaker 1: with men, I get angry too, like I can't believe
8:53
Speaker 1: that I have allowed certain things.
8:55
Speaker 3: I get the oh my god. Yeah, I mean there's
8:57
Speaker 3: one guy I just would like to just would literally
9:00
Speaker 3: run him down with my car and going to jail
9:04
Speaker 3: for murder just I think the judge would let me
9:07
Speaker 3: off if I told him what he did. But yeah,
9:10
Speaker 3: I just the disrespect, and you know, in general, the
9:15
Speaker 3: disrespect for women. Just growing up in the workforce in
9:18
Speaker 3: the eighties was just a shit show, you know. And
9:21
Speaker 3: I was pretty tough, so most people did not mess
9:25
Speaker 3: with me. But it was it was a lot. It
9:28
Speaker 3: really was a lot.
9:29
Speaker 2: Did you have women at work that were supportive of
9:31
Speaker 2: you or what.
9:32
Speaker 3: Was that they were worse? I mean I've had some
9:34
Speaker 3: of the worst female bosses man, I mean, notorious, legendary,
9:41
Speaker 3: hideous women, and I was like just fucking you know,
9:47
Speaker 3: catnip to them, like ooh, let me take down this
9:50
Speaker 3: chick that thinks she's tough. Hmmm.
9:53
Speaker 2: It was all break you.
9:55
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've felt that from men and women though.
9:59
Speaker 3: You know, if you're a strong confident person, people want
10:03
Speaker 3: to break you down because it makes them feel less
10:06
Speaker 3: confident in themselves. You know. It's always like I always say,
10:09
Speaker 3: if someone's telling you something they don't like about you,
10:11
Speaker 3: just hold a mirror up to them so that they're
10:14
Speaker 3: actually speaking to their correct person, which is themselves. Like
10:17
Speaker 3: I just bring out a lot of things in other
10:20
Speaker 3: people that they're afraid of, which is hilarious because it's
10:23
Speaker 3: not like I'm walking around going I'm amazing like me, Like,
10:28
Speaker 3: I definitely don't feel that way, you know, I'm winging
10:32
Speaker 3: it like everybody else.
10:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you have this like strength or I don't
10:37
Speaker 2: know what the word is, but you are so forcefully
10:40
Speaker 2: yourself and I think people like I talked to a
10:44
Speaker 2: rabbi and he said that on people's deathbed, their biggest
10:47
Speaker 2: regret is they didn't live their authentic life they live
10:50
Speaker 2: have Your parents are for somebody else, and you really
10:53
Speaker 2: live for you.
10:54
Speaker 3: I do, And I think that's what I preach the most.
10:57
Speaker 3: And I think the thing that's made it easy easier
11:00
Speaker 3: for me as you know, people say that I am
11:02
Speaker 3: unapologetic about how I live, but I think I'm shameless
11:06
Speaker 3: about how I live, Like I refuse to have shame
11:10
Speaker 3: for being different, for not doing what everyone else tells
11:14
Speaker 3: you that you're supposed to do, you know, get married,
11:17
Speaker 3: have kids. I think there's so much joy in all
11:21
Speaker 3: the shit that I went through because I came out
11:24
Speaker 3: the other side, you know. And I think I always
11:28
Speaker 3: say that the most important thing to me is to
11:30
Speaker 3: leave here better than I came, and I definitely think
11:33
Speaker 3: I will.
11:34
Speaker 2: Were there moments or are there still moments where you
11:37
Speaker 2: find yourself tending towards the norm in any way? Like
11:40
Speaker 2: do you feel that pressure still?
11:42
Speaker 3: No nobody cares about you once you hit fifty, They're like, yeah,
11:45
Speaker 3: she's done, stick a fork in her, she's done.
11:48
Speaker 2: Do you really feel that way?
11:49
Speaker 3: You don't need to pay attention to her anymore. It's
11:51
Speaker 3: not how I feel, it's how it is. It's one
11:53
Speaker 3: hundred percent how it is in this country, in this world,
11:57
Speaker 3: women are dead after fifty. They become invisible. They are
12:02
Speaker 3: told that they are worthless because you know, you are
12:05
Speaker 3: only judged or valued for your sexuality, and you're no
12:10
Speaker 3: longer considered sexual after fifty, and women have to fight
12:15
Speaker 3: their way through a decade of feeling invisible and undervalued.
12:20
Speaker 3: Like it hits you at fifty like a light switch.
12:23
Speaker 3: It's weird, and then you know you get to sixty
12:26
Speaker 3: and you're finally you have no fox left to give
12:29
Speaker 3: and you're finally like the person you were meant to
12:32
Speaker 3: be all along.
12:34
Speaker 2: I'm screwing up my outline for this interview because you're
12:38
Speaker 2: you're so interesting, but go backwards, Well, to just take
12:42
Speaker 2: it back to your twenty for a second. What's the
12:45
Speaker 2: one thing that you wish that Heidi in her twenties knew.
12:50
Speaker 3: Confidence, just full like that everything's going to be okay
12:54
Speaker 3: if you just be you, just be you, okay, live
12:59
Speaker 3: your life. Okay.
13:00
Speaker 2: So in your thirties, wait, actually, moisturize.
13:04
Speaker 3: I didn't moisturize enough.
13:06
Speaker 2: Any specific moisturizer that we should be using.
13:08
Speaker 3: I just moisturized your body. I took care of my face,
13:11
Speaker 3: but not my body, and my skin's so dry still. Yeah,
13:14
Speaker 3: I don't know. I got a lot of moisturizer tips,
13:17
Speaker 3: but yeah.
13:18
Speaker 2: What's the one where that would define your thirties drunk?
13:21
Speaker 3: Sadly?
13:23
Speaker 2: Oh, Heidi, I didn't know that.
13:25
Speaker 3: Hmm. Yeah. It was the decade that I got very,
13:30
Speaker 3: very very drunk and buried all of the things that
13:35
Speaker 3: I think I didn't know about my childhood or didn't
13:40
Speaker 3: I guess I knew, but I didn't know, and so
13:44
Speaker 3: I got You know, I was a very functioning drunk.
13:50
Speaker 3: But I always say I was too busy being drunk
13:53
Speaker 3: to get married or have like a real relationship because
13:56
Speaker 3: I was burying everything in booze. And it started out
14:04
Speaker 3: as fun. But by the end of my thirties, when
14:06
Speaker 3: I had moved to Los Angeles at thirty six, it
14:10
Speaker 3: was a disaster. And it was a disaster for four
14:14
Speaker 3: years before I finally quit just six months before my
14:18
Speaker 3: fortieth birthday. Well, you know, I was supporting myself my
14:22
Speaker 3: whole life, and so I was a very functioning drunk.
14:25
Speaker 3: I would go to work and I always work was
14:27
Speaker 3: everything to me because it was my passion. It wasn't
14:31
Speaker 3: just like, oh, I'm going to go clock in at
14:33
Speaker 3: the soda shop. You know, it was writing and creating
14:36
Speaker 3: and producing. At the time when I was here, I
14:39
Speaker 3: was at Access Hollywood and I was the head writer.
14:42
Speaker 3: And I got up one morning, you know, we had
14:45
Speaker 3: to be in at like six am, And I got
14:47
Speaker 3: up one morning at five thirty and I decided to
14:49
Speaker 3: have a drink and I got drunk, and I was like, fuck,
14:56
Speaker 3: I can't go to work. I can't go to work drunk.
15:00
Speaker 3: Although I probably had many times before, like had a
15:03
Speaker 3: level of hangover that was close to being drunk, but
15:06
Speaker 3: it terrified me. And let me tell you, there were
15:10
Speaker 3: plenty of moments before that that should have been the bottom,
15:14
Speaker 3: like getting pulled over by the cops, having the cops
15:17
Speaker 3: show up at my house when I disappeared one night
15:20
Speaker 3: getting thrown off an airplane, like there were many things
15:23
Speaker 3: that should have made me quit, and I didn't. And
15:26
Speaker 3: so I realized, like, well, now my job is in
15:29
Speaker 3: jeopardy and I'm fucked. If I lose my job, that's it.
15:33
Speaker 3: I lose my home, I lose everything. And so it
15:37
Speaker 3: was a Thursday, I continued to get drunk. I called
15:41
Speaker 3: every person that I was close to and cared about,
15:45
Speaker 3: including my parents, who I knew would not like this news,
15:49
Speaker 3: and my sisters, and I said, I am an alcoholic.
15:54
Speaker 3: I need to quit drinking, and I just hope that
15:58
Speaker 3: you'll support me. And I got drunk through that weekend,
16:02
Speaker 3: and that Monday morning I started my journey into sobriety.
16:07
Speaker 3: I think I went to one AA meeting not for me,
16:11
Speaker 3: and so I just white knuckled it. And it's been
16:14
Speaker 3: twenty three years. Whoa be twenty four years in June?
16:18
Speaker 2: I've never heard that. That's really interesting.
16:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I just did not like AA. It
16:24
Speaker 3: was all like hand this over to God. And the
16:26
Speaker 3: thing about being an alcoholic for me was I felt
16:31
Speaker 3: like everyone was so ashamed of their alcoholism, you know, like,
16:35
Speaker 3: keep it quiet, don't tell anyone alcoholics anonymous. And I
16:39
Speaker 3: was like, I want to tell everybody. It's not my
16:43
Speaker 3: fault I became an alcoholic. I didn't molest me when
16:46
Speaker 3: I was a kid. I didn't rape me when I
16:50
Speaker 3: was drunk at thirty six, blackout, drunk in my apartment
16:53
Speaker 3: like I didn't. I wasn't the person who didn't nurture
16:57
Speaker 3: me as a child. Like, it's not my fault. So
17:00
Speaker 3: I handed the shame back to the people that deserved it.
17:03
Speaker 3: And I went about getting my life together for me
17:06
Speaker 3: so that I could live my life sober and solve
17:10
Speaker 3: my problems rather than bury them in shardenay. And I
17:13
Speaker 3: was like, if God has time for my chardonay problem,
17:18
Speaker 3: we've got bigger problems, you know. And people in AA
17:23
Speaker 3: were giving these speeches and I just thought, guys, just
17:26
Speaker 3: pull yourself together, just stop fucking drinking. And so it
17:30
Speaker 3: makes it I'm a little tough on people who drink,
17:32
Speaker 3: because you know, they because of this and because of that,
17:35
Speaker 3: and everyone has a lot of excuses. Just quit drinking, Yeah,
17:39
Speaker 3: do it.
17:40
Speaker 2: I often hear from people who struggle with addiction that
17:44
Speaker 2: it gets really lonely. Was that true for you at all,
17:46
Speaker 2: because it sounds like you got sober without a community
17:49
Speaker 2: around you.
17:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't. I didn't let it take me out.
17:53
Speaker 3: I went out every night and I drank mocktails, and
17:57
Speaker 3: I drank you know, they tell you not to drink
17:58
Speaker 3: non alcoholic beer water, I don't know. It didn't make
18:01
Speaker 3: me drunk. So I drank non alcoholic beer or I
18:04
Speaker 3: had somebody make me a mocktail. And then when it
18:06
Speaker 3: got to the point in the night where people were
18:09
Speaker 3: getting wasted, I left. I went home. And you know,
18:15
Speaker 3: there have been moments throughout the years. I think when
18:18
Speaker 3: I worked on Baby Daddy, on a set where I
18:21
Speaker 3: had a lot of fomo, you know. But the truth
18:24
Speaker 3: is nothing good happens after midnight, and nothing good happens
18:29
Speaker 3: when you are just so drunk you can't even remember
18:33
Speaker 3: your name. And I think people are afraid that they
18:39
Speaker 3: won't be themselves without booze, And the truth is, you're
18:42
Speaker 3: not yourself with booze. You've just developed this new personality,
18:46
Speaker 3: and you'll get back to who your real personality is
18:49
Speaker 3: without booze and be fun and all of your problems disappear.
18:54
Speaker 3: Because you actually face them and deal with them when
18:57
Speaker 3: you're sober, and you can drive yourself anywhere. And I
19:01
Speaker 3: became so much more curious about life when I got sober.
19:05
Speaker 2: Say more about that, What do you mean?
19:07
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that has kept me
19:09
Speaker 3: young is that I'm so curious about life. Like I
19:13
Speaker 3: see something on the internet, I'm like, Ooh, I want
19:15
Speaker 3: to try that. Oh I want to go do that.
19:16
Speaker 3: Ooh I want to go eat there. Oh what's that about?
19:18
Speaker 3: And you know, when you're drunk, you're just going out
19:20
Speaker 3: with your friends, getting hammered and going home. You're not
19:23
Speaker 3: curious about anything in life except what's in your drink
19:26
Speaker 3: and what boy can you make out with? And there's
19:29
Speaker 3: a lot more to life than that, you know. And
19:32
Speaker 3: I think being a curious person is just the best
19:35
Speaker 3: thing that you can be. And it's okay to do
19:38
Speaker 3: things alone. You know, you can go on vacations alone,
19:42
Speaker 3: you can go to the movies alone, you can go
19:43
Speaker 3: to dinner alone. I think take the stigma off of that,
19:47
Speaker 3: and you know, become your own best company. And I
19:50
Speaker 3: think that happened sober, so that aloneness made me sort
19:55
Speaker 3: of date myself. So I didn't look at it as lonely.
19:59
Speaker 3: I looked at it is I have a whole new
20:01
Speaker 3: person to hang out with me.
20:03
Speaker 2: I really like that were you, because everybody on the
20:07
Speaker 2: internet is obsessed with how you dress.
20:09
Speaker 3: It's such a.
20:10
Speaker 2: Part of who you are. Did you have that style
20:13
Speaker 2: in your thirties?
20:14
Speaker 3: I think I don't think I had. I think I
20:17
Speaker 3: always loved fashion, for sure, but I don't think I
20:20
Speaker 3: started thinking about style until I was forty, until I
20:26
Speaker 3: really soaked into Sex and the City and I started
20:29
Speaker 3: watching Jenna Lyons, who had taken over at Banana Republic.
20:32
Speaker 3: And I still learn every day from other people on
20:36
Speaker 3: the internet. You know, it's all about I realized it
20:40
Speaker 3: wasn't about the clothes so much as the confidence and
20:43
Speaker 3: you know, making sure that you are wearing your clothes
20:47
Speaker 3: and your clothes aren't wearing you.
20:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Because I grew up in the Midwest with like
20:52
Speaker 2: parents who were like things don't matter, I never really
20:55
Speaker 2: thought about style. And then when I moved to LA
20:59
Speaker 2: I had to learn because of my job. Yeah, and
21:02
Speaker 2: recently I met a Vogue writer, Rachel Besser, who put
21:05
Speaker 2: it in a way that I finally felt comfortable with.
21:08
Speaker 2: And she was like, you know, when you walk into
21:12
Speaker 2: a room, you're telling people about yourself. You're saying something
21:16
Speaker 2: with your clothing, with your sunglasses, whatever, it is, the
21:19
Speaker 2: way that you would with your words or your warmth. Yeah,
21:23
Speaker 2: and so I think that's what you do. Like so
21:26
Speaker 2: much of your personality is to me. I get to
21:30
Speaker 2: know you a little bit, and so much of that
21:32
Speaker 2: is conveyed in your belts and your cool skirts and
21:36
Speaker 2: your socks and all the things that you mix and match.
21:40
Speaker 3: I feel that way about my tattoos also. I think
21:42
Speaker 3: that's why I got, you know, full sleeves basically starting
21:47
Speaker 3: at fifty years old, because I wanted them to speak
21:51
Speaker 3: for me when I went somewhere. I wanted them to say, like,
21:55
Speaker 3: she's cool, She's okay, Yeah, even though she's older, she's cool.
22:00
Speaker 3: You can hang out with her. Because you do become
22:04
Speaker 3: so invisible at fifty, I wanted to do something that
22:07
Speaker 3: made me stand out a little bit more. I didn't
22:10
Speaker 3: start them till I was fifty, so I think it
22:14
Speaker 3: was your first tattoo. My first was a Tarot card
22:19
Speaker 3: temperance on my arm because it used to come up
22:23
Speaker 3: in my readings all the time. With my psychic this
22:25
Speaker 3: and she's like, this is your spirit temperance. Temperance and
22:28
Speaker 3: I didn't know what that meant, but it means to
22:30
Speaker 3: abstain from alcohol, which is insane. And so I had
22:33
Speaker 3: temperance tattooed, the whole tarot tattooed on my arm and
22:37
Speaker 3: it was huge, and I was like, oh shit, wow, okay,
22:40
Speaker 3: well I've done it now, and then I just kept
22:43
Speaker 3: adding to it. I added a lot. It's the one
22:46
Speaker 3: tattoo I don't love that much because it's very rudimentary,
22:48
Speaker 3: even though it's exactly what I asked for. And now
22:51
Speaker 3: I sort of surround myself with flowers and butterflies and birds,
22:55
Speaker 3: and I just, you know, so that I can just
22:57
Speaker 3: hug myself as in a garden, my own garden.
23:01
Speaker 2: We skipped over or skipped forward a little bit. But
23:04
Speaker 2: to finish out your thirties, yeah, it's something that you wish.
23:08
Speaker 2: Heidi in her thirties.
23:09
Speaker 3: Knew stop drinking. It's not drunk, is dumb, it's poison.
23:18
Speaker 3: It is poison. Get high on life.
23:21
Speaker 2: I like that.
23:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:23
Speaker 2: There's this Jane Fonda quote that you brought up on
23:25
Speaker 2: your Instagram. She said life is separated age wise into
23:30
Speaker 2: three acts. In the third act, you go back to
23:33
Speaker 2: your first act, your girlhood, and you become all the
23:35
Speaker 2: things you were supposed to be, because at the time
23:37
Speaker 2: you never really knew who you were because you were
23:39
Speaker 2: too busy trying to be who other people wanted you
23:42
Speaker 2: to be. I want to know, with what you know now,
23:46
Speaker 2: what would you not waste your time on in your forties?
23:49
Speaker 3: In my forties, God, I mean, I guess it would
23:54
Speaker 3: have to be worrying about what other people think about you.
23:58
Speaker 2: Interesting that you had none of that in your twenties,
24:00
Speaker 2: but you felt it in your forties.
24:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, when did social media start? I don't know, interesting
24:09
Speaker 3: to start then, Facebook and all that. Probably the reason
24:13
Speaker 3: I think I thought about that then is because I
24:16
Speaker 3: was newly sober, and I was just a giant, raw,
24:20
Speaker 3: open wound that I always likened to like I was
24:24
Speaker 3: dancing on the head of a pin at all times,
24:27
Speaker 3: and so you constantly thought about what people were thinking
24:31
Speaker 3: about you, because oh god, they all know that I
24:34
Speaker 3: was drunk because I'm sober now and they're all talking
24:37
Speaker 3: about me. And so I think I thought more. I
24:40
Speaker 3: was just more aware because it was I wasn't drunk
24:43
Speaker 3: and so I was more aware of people and opinions
24:47
Speaker 3: and things that were happening. So yeah, so I think
24:50
Speaker 3: just that just I mean, that's a life thing too.
24:53
Speaker 3: But I really thought about it more for sure in
24:55
Speaker 3: my forties than I did in my thirties.
24:58
Speaker 2: Did you enjoy your forties?
25:00
Speaker 3: They were wroth because I was just discovering who I
25:03
Speaker 3: was for the first time in twenty years. I always
25:07
Speaker 3: had good jobs, I didn't have to worry about that,
25:09
Speaker 3: and places to live, and made good money and had
25:13
Speaker 3: good friends. But I just think I was I don't
25:17
Speaker 3: know that I was like checked into anything in particular.
25:20
Speaker 3: I was just sort of going with the flow.
25:23
Speaker 2: When you say checked in, do you mean the way
25:25
Speaker 2: I take it? At least? Was I felt like at
25:27
Speaker 2: like twenty eight, And then at thirty I had I
25:30
Speaker 2: was like a sleep and I kind of had this
25:32
Speaker 2: awakening that I had been sleep walking a little bit
25:34
Speaker 2: through life. Is that what you mean by.
25:37
Speaker 3: I just mean? I don't know. I think I just
25:40
Speaker 3: mean like checking into the concept of living, you know,
25:46
Speaker 3: And it was so free and easy in my twenties
25:50
Speaker 3: and thirties, and now I was just much more aware
25:53
Speaker 3: of things like, oh shit, I didn't have kids? Should
25:56
Speaker 3: I do that? Do I need to do that? And
25:59
Speaker 3: I went to a guy ecologist and found out like
26:02
Speaker 3: how difficult it was going to be, and I was like, okay,
26:04
Speaker 3: fuck it, I guess I'm not having kids, And then
26:06
Speaker 3: coming to GRIPS with that the idea that I was
26:08
Speaker 3: never going to be a parent, and just checking into
26:11
Speaker 3: all the life markers that you're supposed to hit that
26:15
Speaker 3: I didn't hit, and that people still reminded you like, oh,
26:19
Speaker 3: you're single. I can't believe you never got married. You're
26:22
Speaker 3: so pretty, like that's the reason why you don't get married.
26:25
Speaker 3: So I was still in I was, you know, I
26:29
Speaker 3: hadn't hit fifty yet, so I was still like saveable.
26:31
Speaker 3: I still could have led a real life according to society.
26:36
Speaker 3: And so I think I was just more checked into
26:39
Speaker 3: the societal rules and markers that I was not hitting
26:42
Speaker 3: as far as marriage, kids, buying a home and all
26:47
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff.
26:48
Speaker 1: Did the kid stuff hurt No, not at all. Because
26:52
Speaker 1: you you said like you had to come to GRIPS.
26:55
Speaker 2: What is that mean?
26:56
Speaker 3: I mean, I just you know, So I went to
26:58
Speaker 3: the gynecologist and she said, okay, well, if you want
27:00
Speaker 3: to get pregnant. You know your forty it's geriatric now,
27:03
Speaker 3: so here's it's not gonna be easy, and you're gonna
27:06
Speaker 3: have to do this and take this and go here
27:08
Speaker 3: and shoot this. And I was like, I don't want
27:10
Speaker 3: to do any of that, and I was it was
27:12
Speaker 3: a very quick, easy decision, like, Okay, I guess I'm
27:15
Speaker 3: not gonna have kids. I'm okay with that.
27:17
Speaker 2: Do you have any romantic relationships in your forties that
27:21
Speaker 2: you felt were like something that no?
27:24
Speaker 3: So sadly they tell you that when you get sober,
27:29
Speaker 3: you should not have a relationship for a year, okay.
27:33
Speaker 3: And I made the mistake of getting involved with a big,
27:37
Speaker 3: fat liar about six months into my sobriety, and it
27:44
Speaker 3: wrecked me. It just absolutely wrecked me and just reminded
27:49
Speaker 3: me that I was not strong enough for heartbreak again.
27:54
Speaker 3: And it was a big mistake. And I haven't had
27:57
Speaker 3: a relationship since, to be honest with you, it's been
28:00
Speaker 3: twenty some odd years. And I just realized that I
28:06
Speaker 3: just needed to have a relationship with somebody who cared
28:08
Speaker 3: about me, and that was me.
28:10
Speaker 2: Did you can I ask more about that anything you want?
28:15
Speaker 2: What about that one wreck? Do you like, was it
28:17
Speaker 2: that you gave it, you really gave of yourself to
28:20
Speaker 2: him and you trusted him, or what about it.
28:22
Speaker 3: So it was somebody that I was working with and
28:25
Speaker 3: he was moving to la and he was enamored with me,
28:32
Speaker 3: and he was, you know, my girlfriend, I have a girlfriend,
28:35
Speaker 3: and she was supposed to move here with me, but
28:37
Speaker 3: I am so madly in love with you and I
28:40
Speaker 3: can't wait to start a life with you. He love
28:42
Speaker 3: bombed me to have sex, and it was probably one
28:47
Speaker 3: of the only times in my life that I can
28:49
Speaker 3: remember that I had sober sex and it was a
28:53
Speaker 3: completely different type of sex than any sex I had
28:56
Speaker 3: ever had before. And then right after that happened, he said,
29:02
Speaker 3: my girlfriend's actually moving here and we're moving in together.
29:04
Speaker 3: It was just a lie to get me, and I
29:07
Speaker 3: just couldn't believe. I didn't know what love bombing was
29:10
Speaker 3: at the time, and I just it just made me
29:14
Speaker 3: not trust anybody, including myself, and I was just like,
29:17
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna take a little break. I'm going to
29:20
Speaker 3: take that year that they say you should take. I mean,
29:23
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful it did not ruin my sobriety it
29:27
Speaker 3: should have, And I still hate him the most out
29:30
Speaker 3: of anybody, and like, I have friends that work with
29:33
Speaker 3: him still and he's famous and on TV, and it
29:37
Speaker 3: drives me crazy because he just really could have ruined me,
29:42
Speaker 3: you know. One year turned into two, turned into three,
29:45
Speaker 3: turned into well not that interested. Yeah, And I don't
29:51
Speaker 3: talk about that a lot because I think people think, like,
29:54
Speaker 3: if you haven't had sex in a certain amount of time,
29:57
Speaker 3: people think there's something wrong with you, and how how
30:00
Speaker 3: can you actually live your life and be out there
30:02
Speaker 3: walking around on two feet and oh no, wonder why
30:06
Speaker 3: you're so angry because you need to get laid and
30:09
Speaker 3: all of it. Oh god, that's a very popular expression
30:14
Speaker 3: from my forties.
30:15
Speaker 2: That's so mean.
30:16
Speaker 3: That's a very popular And I always say, like, your
30:18
Speaker 3: penis is not the hug that I need, trust, trust
30:21
Speaker 3: and believe. So yeah, I just that was it.
30:27
Speaker 2: So I had a big, fat liar too.
30:30
Speaker 3: I've had a lot, but that one was first one. Sober.
30:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough.
30:36
Speaker 3: You weren't you engaged? No, you were living in Chicago
30:40
Speaker 3: with someone though right when I met.
30:43
Speaker 2: I met you when I lived here in la and
30:45
Speaker 2: then I moved to Chicago for a morning show gig,
30:47
Speaker 2: and when I moved back. I moved in with a guy.
30:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, and he was a big, fat liar
30:54
Speaker 2: and exactly, I still like, I'm so over Itctually, I'm
31:00
Speaker 2: at the point where I wish him well. But when
31:02
Speaker 2: I think about it, I have like this physical reaction
31:05
Speaker 2: in my chest. It just when somebody makes you not
31:08
Speaker 2: trust yourself, it hurts me badly.
31:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I've had that experience many times because
31:17
Speaker 3: of the person that I am. I think I am.
31:21
Speaker 3: I've said it in one of my stories, like I'm
31:24
Speaker 3: such a narcissist magnet, and I'm sure you're the same way.
31:29
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, a narcissist sees a tough girl
31:31
Speaker 3: and they're like, ooh, that's a challenge. I'm going to
31:34
Speaker 3: take that one down.
31:35
Speaker 2: Is that what? I didn't know that?
31:37
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they love a challenge.
31:40
Speaker 2: Interesting, they want to break you.
31:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they love it. I've had that happen so
31:44
Speaker 3: many times. Oh my god, and I don't know how
31:46
Speaker 3: I didn't fucking learn.
31:48
Speaker 2: Do you recognize it now?
31:50
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
31:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the good part, right, like you see
31:53
Speaker 2: it right away.
31:54
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, I mean, I think that's why it's so
31:56
Speaker 3: hard for me. To date now because you have to
31:58
Speaker 3: be of goddamn, I'm not, but you have to be we.
32:02
Speaker 2: Do Wait, did we pick a word for our forties?
32:08
Speaker 2: I forgot.
32:09
Speaker 3: I think terrified. Honestly, I was just so raw. I
32:13
Speaker 3: would say raw, you know, just trying to figure it
32:17
Speaker 3: all out.
32:19
Speaker 2: So coming into your fifties, this is where I get
32:22
Speaker 2: really excited to talk about your life. Is there a
32:25
Speaker 2: word that you think to find your fifties.
32:27
Speaker 4: I guess maybe it would be like reborn. Yeah, I
32:35
Speaker 4: like that one because it was yes, you become invisible,
32:42
Speaker 4: but in the invisibility there's so much power. When you
32:47
Speaker 4: realize that people aren't paying attention to you anymore, you
32:51
Speaker 4: are just one hundred percent free to be yourself. And
32:56
Speaker 4: I think the fifties is when I started giving less
32:59
Speaker 4: far about what people thought about me. I mean everyone
33:02
Speaker 4: thought like, oh, you don't care what people think about it,
33:04
Speaker 4: But I mean, of course you do, like they tell
33:06
Speaker 4: you constantly. So not only was I feeling more powerful,
33:12
Speaker 4: but I got my dream job as a scripted writer,
33:16
Speaker 4: and so everything was just exactly where I.
33:20
Speaker 3: Wanted it to be. You know, I owned a home,
33:23
Speaker 3: I bought my first house. I was becoming just like
33:27
Speaker 3: who I wanted to be. I felt really free about
33:31
Speaker 3: being who I was. I was working this magical job.
33:35
Speaker 3: It was just a really great time. And you know,
33:39
Speaker 3: I think the hard part about being fifty for a
33:42
Speaker 3: lot of women is dating. And so I was so
33:45
Speaker 3: grateful that I did not care one iota about men.
33:49
Speaker 3: I never really have cared about relationships. They just pulled
33:53
Speaker 3: me in. They all found me, sucked me into it
33:56
Speaker 3: when I was younger, but I was never someone who
33:59
Speaker 3: judged them whether or not I had a boyfriend, I
34:02
Speaker 3: didn't whatever. Yeah, I think it was just such a
34:05
Speaker 3: great rebirth of who I was. You know, I was
34:09
Speaker 3: ten years sober. It was great.
34:13
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the magical job, but I
34:15
Speaker 2: think for people to appreciate the magical job, we have
34:19
Speaker 2: to go back to the non magical ones a little bit. Yeah,
34:22
Speaker 2: because you write all about toxic workplace culture in your book,
34:27
Speaker 2: and that's actually how I got introgued when we met.
34:30
Speaker 2: Then I went home and read your pink cover and
34:32
Speaker 2: your book. I ordered it on Amazon and I was like.
34:34
Speaker 3: Holy shitt, oh my god, Yeah I was. And actually
34:41
Speaker 3: I turned fifty and went to I took a bunch
34:46
Speaker 3: of friends to London and Rome and my most toxic
34:50
Speaker 3: boss crashed the trip and she's one of the chapters
34:55
Speaker 3: in my book. And she was the tail end of
34:59
Speaker 3: the toxic workplace for me. Yeah, I worked with just
35:03
Speaker 3: insane people and television back then, tabloid TV and news
35:09
Speaker 3: and entertainment news was so toxic, like nobody would get
35:15
Speaker 3: away with what they got away with. And in my book,
35:17
Speaker 3: I write about that last boss and the head of
35:20
Speaker 3: the network read that chapter and said, is she really
35:24
Speaker 3: like this? We need to get rid of her immediately,
35:26
Speaker 3: and they fired her finally.
35:29
Speaker 2: And that's how it happened.
35:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's still trying to assume me. Probably she hates me,
35:33
Speaker 3: but whatever. Yeah, and that was I think. You know,
35:38
Speaker 3: that's the one thing I really regret about that time
35:41
Speaker 3: in my life is that. And I spoke up to
35:44
Speaker 3: these women. I did, but I wish I fought harder
35:49
Speaker 3: to take them out.
35:51
Speaker 2: You know, it's so hard at work because in large
35:54
Speaker 2: corporations like I don't even know how you take someone out,
35:57
Speaker 2: Like there's so many like legal steps, yeah and all
36:00
Speaker 2: that nonsense.
36:01
Speaker 3: Well, I went to HR after this last boss. You know,
36:04
Speaker 3: we were at the Royal wedding in London, and she
36:07
Speaker 3: was so abusive to the first Royal wedding, and she
36:10
Speaker 3: was so abusive to me that I called HR from
36:13
Speaker 3: London and said, I am literally with like an abusive
36:18
Speaker 3: boyfriend who won't let me break up with them, and
36:21
Speaker 3: I need out and you need to get me out
36:23
Speaker 3: and I am not going back to that job when
36:25
Speaker 3: we get back, and I'm never showing up again. And
36:29
Speaker 3: they helped me get out, but they knew that she
36:32
Speaker 3: was a problem. They were like, yeah, we know she's
36:35
Speaker 3: got it, but they didn't care because she made money
36:37
Speaker 3: for them.
36:39
Speaker 2: You write in your book, every day at work was
36:41
Speaker 2: an adventure in insanity. This boss actually loved to scream
36:45
Speaker 2: and yell at people, and the bigger the crowd that
36:47
Speaker 2: was watching, the better.
36:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. She fed off the energy of just hate and anger.
36:54
Speaker 1: How do you make this pivot into screenwriting because you
36:58
Speaker 1: start working for Baby Die?
37:00
Speaker 2: Do you say in so many interviews that this was
37:02
Speaker 2: your dream job?
37:03
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I always wanted to be a scripted writer.
37:07
Speaker 2: Nonscripted, unscripted. It's so like, it's very hard to make
37:11
Speaker 2: that leap.
37:12
Speaker 3: Very it's impossible.
37:13
Speaker 2: Women do it.
37:15
Speaker 3: It's impossible, And you know, people ask me all the time,
37:17
Speaker 3: how can they do what I did? And you can't
37:20
Speaker 3: because it was such a unique situation, you know, I,
37:24
Speaker 3: while I was at entertainment tonight, I had been writing
37:26
Speaker 3: scripts for ten years on my own. I had no
37:29
Speaker 3: schooling or I didn't know what I was doing. And
37:32
Speaker 3: I had been writing for ten years. And I had
37:35
Speaker 3: a best friend and we would pass scripts back and
37:37
Speaker 3: forth to each other. And when I was at entertainment tonight,
37:40
Speaker 3: he was coming in to pitch something at Paramount, which
37:43
Speaker 3: was on the same lot. And I had written a
37:46
Speaker 3: script called Psycho about a couple, Sydney and Colin, and
37:51
Speaker 3: the first half was all female and the second half
37:55
Speaker 3: was all male. And you would answer one question, they
37:58
Speaker 3: would act out like how men and women see things
38:01
Speaker 3: one statement, how they hear it totally differently. And I
38:05
Speaker 3: think the first episode was like, you know, do you
38:07
Speaker 3: want to come back to my place? And girls think,
38:10
Speaker 3: you know, do you want to come back to my place?
38:12
Speaker 3: And boys think, do you want to have sex? He
38:15
Speaker 3: pitched his three ideas, two of his and mine, and
38:18
Speaker 3: mine was the one that they bought. And so we
38:21
Speaker 3: went to the CW and we cast it, and we
38:24
Speaker 3: cast Nick Lache they made us cast Nickolache, who I love,
38:27
Speaker 3: and Lindsay Sloane, and we shot it on the Paramount
38:30
Speaker 3: lot and I never left Entertainment Tonight and I would
38:32
Speaker 3: run back and forth between running ET and running the show,
38:36
Speaker 3: and the night before the upfronts Les Moonvez decided that
38:40
Speaker 3: Nick Lache was not a star and they didn't pick
38:43
Speaker 3: up the show, and so I never left Entertainment Tonight.
38:46
Speaker 3: And then when things hit the fan at Entertainment Tonight,
38:49
Speaker 3: I went back to Extra with another boss I had
38:52
Speaker 3: had problems with, but we made up, and while I
38:56
Speaker 3: was there, the guy that I Dan, who I had
38:58
Speaker 3: done my first show with, sold Baby Daddy and asked
39:01
Speaker 3: me to come work on it. Wow, so that shit
39:05
Speaker 3: doesn't happen.
39:06
Speaker 2: Did this change your financial security in any way?
39:10
Speaker 3: Oh my god. I made a fortune from I went
39:14
Speaker 3: from making you know, ten thousand dollars a week, which
39:17
Speaker 3: was great salary, to well, actually, at Extra, I was
39:20
Speaker 3: making five thousand dollars a week. I stepped down from
39:23
Speaker 3: my giant I gave up a giant salary at ET
39:26
Speaker 3: half a million dollars a year, which I saved none
39:28
Speaker 3: of because I lived in an eleven thousand dollars a
39:30
Speaker 3: month home crazy person. I went from five thousand a
39:34
Speaker 3: week to twenty six thousand dollars a week, and that
39:36
Speaker 3: was the low salary for a writer. You don't get
39:39
Speaker 3: those anymore either, thank you Writers Guild. But yeah, I
39:42
Speaker 3: made a ton of money and I was so happy
39:46
Speaker 3: and it was such a great job, and I met
39:48
Speaker 3: people that are still like my closest friends and family
39:54
Speaker 3: because we worked together for one hundred episodes and it
39:57
Speaker 3: was just the greatest job ever. I loved it so much.
40:02
Speaker 1: I noticed that during this time of your life you
40:05
Speaker 1: had all these intergenerational relationships, like you two have girlfriends
40:09
Speaker 1: in every decade, twenties, forties, fifties, sixties. I still do
40:14
Speaker 1: you have friends that are older than you?
40:16
Speaker 3: A couple. Yeah, a couple, and only more recently, and
40:21
Speaker 3: only because I feel confident being around women that I
40:26
Speaker 3: thought were so much more powerful than me, that would
40:29
Speaker 3: look at me like, oh, you know, because I was
40:32
Speaker 3: always kind of like the black sheep, you're too loud,
40:35
Speaker 3: don't say that in front of people, you know, kind
40:38
Speaker 3: of a person, and women would look at me that way.
40:40
Speaker 4: All.
40:40
Speaker 3: I get judged a lot by women my age, because
40:43
Speaker 3: you know, we grew I don't blame them. We grew
40:45
Speaker 3: up differently. We grew up not supposed to be like
40:49
Speaker 3: I am, but more, you know, demure and quiet. And
40:52
Speaker 3: so I think now I have more friends that are
40:56
Speaker 3: older than me because I feel confident enough to share
40:59
Speaker 3: my true self with them.
41:02
Speaker 2: I feel like this was a pretty happy decade for you.
41:04
Speaker 2: But is there anything that you wish you could tell
41:07
Speaker 2: fifty year old Heidi?
41:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, stop worrying about your weight, Stop looking at the scale,
41:14
Speaker 3: stop dieting. Jesus Christ, that took a long time.
41:18
Speaker 2: That's a big one.
41:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that took till sixty something to throw
41:24
Speaker 3: my scale out. But I spent a lot of time
41:27
Speaker 3: in my fifties, like not wearing shorts because I hate
41:31
Speaker 3: my legs, not wearing bathing suits because I'm fat, getting
41:35
Speaker 3: my boobs cut off because they're too big, which I'm
41:38
Speaker 3: grateful for that one, but just worrying about what I
41:41
Speaker 3: looked like, you know what I ate? And just stupid.
41:45
Speaker 2: What's a word that defines your sixties so far?
41:49
Speaker 3: Fucking joy? Really? Just joy? Ah, the sixties are my
41:57
Speaker 3: I could cry. I will cry.
42:03
Speaker 2: I'm so happy that you feel that way. I really
42:07
Speaker 2: earned it.
42:09
Speaker 3: I try to show that to people because it's like
42:13
Speaker 3: a switch went off when I turned sixty and I
42:17
Speaker 3: just completely accept myself, my flaws, my failures, my successes,
42:26
Speaker 3: Like I just get it now, and to be able
42:30
Speaker 3: to go through life just getting it is just such
42:34
Speaker 3: a blessing. Like is it perfect? God? No, But I
42:39
Speaker 3: just I'm just so much happier and I and a
42:42
Speaker 3: lot of that has to do with the fact that
42:44
Speaker 3: I left LA and left a job that made me miserable.
42:47
Speaker 3: But right now, this time in my life, I can
42:50
Speaker 3: tell you I am just so happy.
42:54
Speaker 2: Can I can I drill like, can we drill into why?
42:58
Speaker 2: Like what what switch? Because you had a moment after
43:02
Speaker 2: Baby Daddy ended. I could tell you were frustrated and
43:08
Speaker 2: not feeling that kind of joy. What happened?
43:11
Speaker 3: I think I just realized, like, you know, yeah, listen,
43:15
Speaker 3: I'm still trying to sell scripts about women in their fifties,
43:18
Speaker 3: and I've been doing that since I was fifty. I
43:21
Speaker 3: think I just sort of realized, like, you know, what
43:25
Speaker 3: if Baby Daddy is it? What if that's the only
43:28
Speaker 3: show I get to write? Well, I should be proud
43:31
Speaker 3: of that, because a lot of people don't get that opportunity,
43:35
Speaker 3: and I just sort of took the pressure off of
43:39
Speaker 3: all the things that people tell you you're supposed to feel
43:43
Speaker 3: and just really got more present in life and really
43:51
Speaker 3: just leaned into the small things in life, Like I
43:55
Speaker 3: love that I'm surrounded by trees and nature, and I'm
43:59
Speaker 3: so black that my friends gave me this opportunity to
44:02
Speaker 3: move into their guest house and just get out of
44:05
Speaker 3: la and get out of a job that I really
44:07
Speaker 3: did not like.
44:08
Speaker 2: Now you're toos match your surroundings.
44:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, And I just am so grateful to get
44:18
Speaker 3: to know who I am. That's what makes me cry,
44:24
Speaker 3: Like people don't get that opportunity to just get to
44:28
Speaker 3: know who they are and be happy with who they are.
44:31
Speaker 3: And I feel so I feel so blessed on this
44:36
Speaker 3: social media journey that I'm on because I get the
44:39
Speaker 3: most remarkable messages from people, and I feel like it's
44:46
Speaker 3: so rewarding what I'm doing. Just being me has become
44:51
Speaker 3: so rewarding to other people, Like who gets that.
44:56
Speaker 2: Towards the end of COVID, you started posting like, let's
44:59
Speaker 2: get dressed right, and you're beautiful writer, so you would
45:04
Speaker 2: share these life lessons while you would get dressed.
45:06
Speaker 3: And I.
45:08
Speaker 2: See all these young women in their twenties and thirties
45:12
Speaker 2: on your page. I think that's like, probably is that
45:14
Speaker 2: your main audience.
45:15
Speaker 3: Ninety percent is under thirty five.
45:18
Speaker 2: What do you think you're giving them? Because they're I mean,
45:22
Speaker 2: they're coming by the droves.
45:23
Speaker 3: What they tell me is that I've made them less
45:26
Speaker 3: afraid to get old and that I feel like a
45:31
Speaker 3: safe space for them. And that is a remarkable gift
45:35
Speaker 3: because my goal was to change the way the world
45:38
Speaker 3: looks at women over fifty, and I think I do
45:40
Speaker 3: that every day. And to be able to give girls
45:45
Speaker 3: because I didn't have that, To be able to give
45:48
Speaker 3: young women a reason to live their lives, to not
45:52
Speaker 3: feel judged by what society tells them they're supposed to do,
45:56
Speaker 3: to just get out there and just be present in
45:59
Speaker 3: their own life and not beat themselves up is just
46:03
Speaker 3: a fucking joy bomb for me to know that I'm
46:07
Speaker 3: actually doing some good with the crazy life that I led.
46:11
Speaker 2: I want to go into your sixties a little bit.
46:14
Speaker 2: I saw you right that you're terrified on a daily
46:16
Speaker 2: basis and that you're actually a massive failure at life.
46:20
Speaker 2: I was so surprised by that, and I'm still surprised,
46:23
Speaker 2: especially after our conversation, because you talk about self acceptance
46:27
Speaker 2: in such a resonant way. Have you redefined what success
46:34
Speaker 2: and failure quote I hate that word failure, but what
46:36
Speaker 2: success or pivoting looks like for you?
46:39
Speaker 3: You know, this stuff that terrifies me on a daily
46:42
Speaker 3: basis is almost always the same thing, and it's usually
46:46
Speaker 3: and it's the one thing that I said that I
46:47
Speaker 3: have been a failure at, which is financial because I'm
46:51
Speaker 3: trying to monetize this social media world that I live in,
46:54
Speaker 3: and I refuse to promote Amazon stretch pants, and so
46:58
Speaker 3: it's more difficult to get brand deals when you are
47:02
Speaker 3: screaming at the world. So I am terrified about that normally.
47:08
Speaker 3: And I also, you know, it's not a terrified on
47:11
Speaker 3: a daily basis could mean, you know, for five seconds,
47:14
Speaker 3: like no one's perfect, No one's life is perfectly happy
47:17
Speaker 3: all the time, and if it was, you wouldn't even
47:20
Speaker 3: you wouldn't even know what happiness was, if you were
47:22
Speaker 3: happy and joyful all the time. But I'm terrified of
47:27
Speaker 3: things like that, of you know, like again not leaving
47:31
Speaker 3: better than I came of, you know, fucking up a
47:34
Speaker 3: relationship here or there, of not giving people the right message,
47:37
Speaker 3: that's saying the wrong thing, of being Jewish, and what
47:41
Speaker 3: is going on in the world. You know, there's always stuff,
47:46
Speaker 3: but I always come back to the fact of, well,
47:48
Speaker 3: at least I love myself.
47:50
Speaker 2: This is something that I'm personally looking at. So I
47:55
Speaker 2: am asking you, almost asking for a friend. But you
47:59
Speaker 2: opened up about losing your mom in a really beautiful post,
48:02
Speaker 2: and you talk about really missing her and saying that
48:05
Speaker 2: your relationship was not perfect, but you know that she
48:09
Speaker 2: did her best and that you actually blamed her for
48:12
Speaker 2: a lot of your problems. I've noticed I'm starting to
48:15
Speaker 2: do this daily show, and I noticed that I talk
48:17
Speaker 2: about my mom a lot, and sometimes in a way
48:19
Speaker 2: that's maybe like hypercritical. She deserves it. Yeah, I don't
48:25
Speaker 2: talk about my dad that way. When did you start
48:28
Speaker 2: to gain a new perspective on your relationship with her?
48:31
Speaker 3: After I got sober, I realized that my parents never
48:36
Speaker 3: said I love you to me, and so I started
48:41
Speaker 3: ending every single phone call with the words I love you.
48:45
Speaker 3: It took them ten years, I would say to say
48:47
Speaker 3: it back, and I mean I said every phone call,
48:51
Speaker 3: and so that helped it shift and then I when
48:55
Speaker 3: I was sober and was more proud of who I was,
48:58
Speaker 3: and my mother couldn't like look at me and roll
49:00
Speaker 3: her eyes at you know, my pink hair or my tattoos,
49:04
Speaker 3: which she hated all of it. But I didn't care
49:06
Speaker 3: so much what she thought. And I you know, my
49:11
Speaker 3: sisters went to my mom and told her how they
49:15
Speaker 3: felt about some stuff she had done to them, which
49:17
Speaker 3: was really bad, and she said, I'm too old to change.
49:21
Speaker 3: And I think that registered with me of like, okay,
49:24
Speaker 3: well then I'm just gonna live my life and realize,
49:28
Speaker 3: like this is who you are. And then I read
49:31
Speaker 3: that quote somewhere that you know, remember it's your mom's
49:34
Speaker 3: first time here too, and I realized, like my mom
49:37
Speaker 3: got married at nineteen, like she didn't even have a
49:41
Speaker 3: chance to know who she was, and she grew up
49:43
Speaker 3: in a time where you weren't allowed to really be
49:45
Speaker 3: a woman. And you know, there's a lot of good
49:48
Speaker 3: things that she obviously instilled in me, because look at me,
49:53
Speaker 3: and she obviously gave me a lot of confidence or
49:57
Speaker 3: defying her gave me confidence whatever was. And so but
50:02
Speaker 3: what really changed was when my mom had a heart attack.
50:05
Speaker 3: I guess we think it is. And I saw her
50:07
Speaker 3: on her deathbed and I realized, like, oh wow, it's over. Sorry,
50:14
Speaker 3: it's okay, Like just like that, it's over. And now
50:19
Speaker 3: I can't have a relationship with her, and all the
50:24
Speaker 3: things that I felt just don't matter, just don't matter
50:29
Speaker 3: because she's not here now, and it's just stupid to
50:35
Speaker 3: carry dumb shes She didn't do anything bad to me,
50:38
Speaker 3: she didn't abuse me, and you know, it's just so
50:42
Speaker 3: dumb to carry this stuff because they're gone. And I
50:49
Speaker 3: know my mom knows everything that I'm doing now, and
50:52
Speaker 3: I know she's with me every day because the night
50:56
Speaker 3: that she died, I had flown back to LA and
51:01
Speaker 3: my sister called me and said, you know, Mom's gone,
51:05
Speaker 3: and I started crying, and when I hung up, I
51:08
Speaker 3: yelled for my dog. I said, Daisy, come here, and
51:12
Speaker 3: my Google radio clicked on and said and said, I'm
51:15
Speaker 3: already here. And so I've known that she's been with
51:22
Speaker 3: me since then, And like I know, people that know
51:26
Speaker 3: my relationship with her would think it was crazy that
51:29
Speaker 3: I would get this upset, but you know, to your mom,
51:32
Speaker 3: your mom is your mom, and I'm more in the
51:35
Speaker 3: relationship that I wish we could have had. And I
51:38
Speaker 3: think people have good relationships with their moms where their
51:41
Speaker 3: moms are their best friends. Are the luckiest girls in
51:43
Speaker 3: the world, because I would kill for that.
51:47
Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing that. I'm sorry to make you cry
51:52
Speaker 2: on a Sunday.
51:56
Speaker 3: Crying is very healthy. I didn't cry till I did ayahuasca.
51:59
Speaker 3: So they literally did not cry until I was in
52:04
Speaker 3: my fifties.
52:05
Speaker 4: Really no, never more drunk, and I don't think so
52:11
Speaker 4: oh my god.
52:12
Speaker 3: No. I was raised like you don't cry emotion, you
52:16
Speaker 3: don't and then you go to work you don't cry.
52:18
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't think I cried till I was
52:20
Speaker 3: fifty and I haven't stopped crying since.
52:23
Speaker 2: So you say that social media in many ways is
52:25
Speaker 2: your therapy. Yeah, what do you think has been the
52:28
Speaker 2: most helpful lesson that you've learned by sharing so many
52:32
Speaker 2: of your stories?
52:33
Speaker 3: Just to love my body a little bit more, you know, Yeah,
52:37
Speaker 3: daily struggle. I mean I still wake up and think, ooh,
52:41
Speaker 3: I got to lose like five pounds like every day,
52:46
Speaker 3: and showing myself is part of my therapy.
52:49
Speaker 1: You know, you're still in your sixties, so we can't
52:53
Speaker 1: do a hindsight. So I want to know what you
52:58
Speaker 1: want and wish for Heidi sixties.
53:01
Speaker 3: Rad I hope I get to sell a show about
53:03
Speaker 3: women in their fifties and sixties because we deserve it,
53:07
Speaker 3: and you know, real Housewives on Bravo shouldn't be the
53:11
Speaker 3: only place that we can see real women in their
53:14
Speaker 3: fifties and sixties living their life. And again, I just
53:17
Speaker 3: I want to change the way the world looks at
53:19
Speaker 3: women over fifty. You know, we're not Grace and Frankie yet.
53:23
Speaker 3: We're just starting our third act and there's a lot
53:27
Speaker 3: of things to do.
53:28
Speaker 2: If we were to put a word on it, my
53:31
Speaker 2: word for you would be liberated. What would your word
53:34
Speaker 2: is joy for sixties? Yeah, yeah, No, liberated is a
53:39
Speaker 2: good word. I feel liberated from society, and I think
53:42
Speaker 2: social media has done that for me because these young
53:47
Speaker 2: people are telling me, you know, like I walk around
53:49
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara and people come up to me like crying like,
53:53
Speaker 2: oh my god, You've changed my life. Like I get
53:56
Speaker 2: recognized all the time now, and it's never like, oh hey,
53:59
Speaker 2: I follow you, it's oh my god, You've changed my life.
54:04
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you make me happy to get old.
54:07
Speaker 2: Like it's just these affirmations that people don't say to
54:11
Speaker 2: each other, and so I think that's what's making everything
54:15
Speaker 2: so wonderful. Not to get to therapy here, but when
54:19
Speaker 2: as you're saying not, I'm thinking, like all the affirmations
54:24
Speaker 2: and love that you didn't get in your childhood are
54:26
Speaker 2: kind of coming around now, which is so interesting.
54:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. I am nurtured on a daily
54:32
Speaker 3: basis by the people who follow me.
54:35
Speaker 2: So cool.
54:36
Speaker 3: I hope I'm nurturing them. I mean you are.
54:39
Speaker 2: You're nurturing me virtually, and I'm they So I know
54:42
Speaker 2: how people feel when they watch you and listen to
54:44
Speaker 2: your words. Okay, rapid fire. The only thing that you
54:48
Speaker 2: used to take for granted that you don't anymore, My mom,
54:52
Speaker 2: If you could revisit one specific age for just one day,
54:56
Speaker 2: what would it be?
54:58
Speaker 3: Probably somewhere in my thirties. Yeah, somewhere in my thirties,
55:04
Speaker 3: Like I would definitely be like somebody who broke my
55:07
Speaker 3: heart that I would want to go back and tell
55:10
Speaker 3: them that they're not gonna You're not going to ruin me.
55:13
Speaker 3: I will survive.
55:15
Speaker 2: What is the best gift that you've ever.
55:18
Speaker 3: Given given my time? My heart?
55:25
Speaker 1: Yeah?
55:26
Speaker 2: Honestly, how about the best gift you've.
55:28
Speaker 3: Received friendship, especially from the people that are are putting
55:34
Speaker 3: me up right now. They also paid my rent during
55:36
Speaker 3: COVID for two years. They are the greatest, most wonderful
55:41
Speaker 3: friends in the world, Dan and Kevin, and they have
55:43
Speaker 3: just saved my life regularly.
55:46
Speaker 1: What is a book that should be required reading, something
55:50
Speaker 1: that you think everybody should read?
55:52
Speaker 3: Well, I think the movie Origin should be required viewing
55:55
Speaker 3: for everybody quite frankly right now. But a book, I
55:58
Speaker 3: would say The Midnight Library. I don't know if you've
56:02
Speaker 3: read it, but it's a story of a woman, you know, basically,
56:06
Speaker 3: who doesn't want to be alive anymore, who has the
56:08
Speaker 3: opportunity to go to a library where all of the
56:14
Speaker 3: lives she could have led live and she jumps in
56:18
Speaker 3: and out of those lives.
56:20
Speaker 2: Oh, I have to read that.
56:22
Speaker 3: Harry Mulligan narrates it, so if you wanted to, it
56:25
Speaker 3: was a great audiobook, and she's going to make the movie.
56:28
Speaker 3: It's a spectacular book.
56:31
Speaker 2: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
56:34
Speaker 3: Heidi moving to Santa Barbara right now?
56:41
Speaker 2: I would say I have one last question.
56:44
Speaker 1: Okay, question everything card game, Because we're virtual, you tell
56:47
Speaker 1: me when to stop stop. Okay, wow, this is an
56:54
Speaker 1: interesting one for you after our conversation.
56:57
Speaker 2: Do you fall in love easily? What is your love language?
57:01
Speaker 3: I do fall in love easily. I would say my
57:06
Speaker 3: love What are the love languages? I think it's what
57:10
Speaker 3: would be the one equivalent to like being heard?
57:14
Speaker 2: Ooh, words of affirmation maybe.
57:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably, which could also be love bombing.
57:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends. There's a thin line.
57:23
Speaker 3: I just be You know, women, it's something interesting about
57:28
Speaker 3: women in their fifties. You know, they've spent their whole
57:30
Speaker 3: life not being listened to, and now they're really not
57:33
Speaker 3: being listened to. And I think that being heard is
57:39
Speaker 3: you know, you watch The Golden Bachelor and you watch
57:42
Speaker 3: these women just like, oh my god, nobody's looked at
57:46
Speaker 3: me like this, nobody's spoken to me like this in
57:49
Speaker 3: deck in years, and you know, we're all out here
57:53
Speaker 3: just trying to live authentic lives and be heard. And
57:56
Speaker 3: so if someone is having a conversation with me and
57:59
Speaker 3: they're actually listening to me and asking me questions about
58:03
Speaker 3: my life, like I'm in I fell madly in love
58:06
Speaker 3: with Eddie Cibrian when I worked with him on Baby Daddy.
58:09
Speaker 3: I mean, I was in love with him from a
58:12
Speaker 3: movie that he had made years earlier with Holly Hunter
58:15
Speaker 3: and it's so hot. How you the nicest man? And
58:20
Speaker 3: so is his wife Leanne. But Eddie was on Baby
58:24
Speaker 3: Daddy and I just remember him sitting with me and
58:28
Speaker 3: he was like, tell me about your life. It's so fascinating,
58:31
Speaker 3: tell me everything. And I was like, how is Eddie
58:34
Speaker 3: Cibrian sitting here talking to me at sixty years old?
58:37
Speaker 3: Like I just I love him so much and that
58:41
Speaker 3: kind of person that just is interested in what you
58:43
Speaker 3: have to say, because most men are not interested in
58:46
Speaker 3: listening to women.
58:47
Speaker 2: Are you open to a relationship in your sixties? Do
58:50
Speaker 2: you think?
58:51
Speaker 3: Yeah? But he'd have to like fall out of the ceiling, Yeah,
58:55
Speaker 3: onto your mind. Yeah, I'm not. There's no online dating happening,
58:59
Speaker 3: but I see people all the time and I'm like, whoa,
59:01
Speaker 3: they're hot. I'd go out with them.
59:03
Speaker 2: That's cool.
59:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it never happens, but it could.
59:08
Speaker 2: It could.
59:09
Speaker 3: I never give up never saying ever.
59:11
Speaker 2: You know when did you stop dyeing your hair?
59:14
Speaker 3: Like three years before the pandemic? And everyone told me
59:18
Speaker 3: I was crazy? Why because I'm going to look old?
59:24
Speaker 3: And how am old? Who cares? Why is old a
59:26
Speaker 3: bad word? Like old is a good word? I earned this.
59:31
Speaker 3: You know you get here. It means you're living. What's
59:34
Speaker 3: the opposite?
59:37
Speaker 2: Okay? My last and final question for you is what
59:40
Speaker 2: is one thing you think I need to hear right now?
59:43
Speaker 3: Live your life for you, Trust your gut. Make decisions
59:49
Speaker 3: that you know will make you happy, because happiness breeds
59:53
Speaker 3: more happiness, and the only thing that matters in life
59:55
Speaker 3: is being happy. If you can float in a sea
59:58
Speaker 3: of joy and happiness, you will be in the flow
1:00:02
Speaker 3: of what you're supposed to be doing in life, and
1:00:06
Speaker 3: which could be helping people or you know, there's just
1:00:10
Speaker 3: no better place to be and just live your life
1:00:14
Speaker 3: unapologetically and without shame. Thank you, Heidi, I give you permission.
1:00:19
Speaker 2: M thank you. Okay.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: You know what time it is. Today's a good day.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week.