Latest / The Iconic Midlife with Roxy Manning / Investigative Journalist Allen Salkin: Richard Gere and the Hollywood Rumor That Won't Die

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Investigative Journalist Allen Salkin: Richard Gere and the Hollywood Rumor That Won't Die · The Iconic Midlife with Roxy Manning

• 0:00
  Prime version of the rumor is Cedars Sinai, a few miles from here, hospital on the edge of Beverly Hills, that Richard Gere showed up there with a gerbil lodged in his rectum that he had inserted for sexual pleasure
• 0:12
  and he had to have it removed.
• 0:14
  Why do you think he hasn't dispelled it?
• 0:15
  Why do you think he has not just said, no, this did not happen?
• 0:18
  Do you think that there is in fact some truth to it?
• 0:21
  Kid Homer has heard, you know, is asked about it.
• 0:24
  So this is a curse upon his entire family and it probably will be for many generations.
• 0:28
  If it does turn out that he didn't do it, then maybe what we're doing is creating a vaccine that finally kills this now four decade old virus.
• 0:40
  How does a rumor become something everybody knows when nobody can tell you how they know it?
• 0:46
  My guest today is investigative journalist Alan Sulkin, who spent six years chasing one of Hollywood's most notorious stories, the unproven Richard Gere Durable rumor.
• 0:58
  His podcast, Gerbil from the Hollywood Reporter, investigates where it came from, how it spread, and why we're still talking about it decades later.
• 1:09
  Today we're getting into celebrity gossip, reputations, and those stories we all repeated before anyone thought to ask, wait, did that actually happen?
• 1:18
  Alan, welcome to the iconic midlife.
• 1:21
  Welcome to the iconic midlife.
• 1:23
  Alan, how are you today?
• 1:25
  Awesome.
• 1:25
  Glad to be here.
• 1:26
  Awesome.
• 1:26
  Well, great.
• 1:27
  Well, I have been obsessed with your podcast.
• 1:30
  I've been listening nonstop and I feel for us Gen Xers and like people of our generation, this was such an interesting story because it's like the story that never died.
• 1:42
  Right?
• 1:43
  Right.
• 1:43
  It went on and on and on, and it's really taken a life of its own.
• 1:47
  It's endured, endured, endured.
• 1:49
  But for those who might not know the story of Jerubal and Richard Gere, can you tell our audience?
• 1:57
  Well, what's funny is, I mean, to make it simple, there's a rumor that Richard Gere showed up at an emergency room.
• 2:05
  The prime version of the rumor is Cedars Sinai, a few miles from here, hospital on the edge of Beverly Hills, that Richard Gere showed up there with a gerbil lodged in his rectum that he had inserted for sexual
• 2:18
  pleasure and he had to have it removed.
• 2:20
  Yes.
• 2:21
  And I remember being in middle school and hearing this rumor.
• 2:24
  Now, I didn't hear the specifics of the hospital.
• 2:27
  I didn't know it was Cedar Sinai, but I definitely.
• 2:29
  Where'd you go to school?
• 2:30
  So I grew up in Dallas and I remember it just spread like wildfire.
• 2:35
  It was like One of those stories, I mean, I could, like, I can still see it was like a game of telephone.
• 2:40
  Like it just went, went, went.
• 2:41
  It is.
• 2:41
  You know, it's funny, there's a, In a later episode, you haven't heard yet, there's a.
• 2:45
  A woman who was about 22 or something, and she came to LA with her girlfriends or, you know, young women friends from Dallas, and they were at a bar in like Santa Monica or something.
• 2:59
  And she tells the story of meeting some young guys who said they were surgeons or whatever at Cedars Sinai.
• 3:06
  And that they told them, probably trying to impress them, that, oh, we know about Richard Gere having had this procedure at the hospital.
• 3:14
  And then Elise, my friend who's telling me this story, says we flew back to Dallas and started spreading it there in like 89, 90, 91.
• 3:24
  That's what she says.
• 3:25
  Now, everybody, what's funny, in the podcast, you can hear the story's not just about did he do it?
• 3:32
  Or just to retell it for prurient reasons.
• 3:35
  And also, I just want to say off the top, I'm not out to harm Richard Gere.
• 3:38
  He is a spiritual, beloved figure in Hollywood, generous, politically minded, and in a way, maybe this podcast frees him from this.
• 3:48
  And so I'm not trying to hurt Richard Gere, but the way that it spread, it does to our brains, why we believe it and why somebody might be proud even to feel like they were early on it and
• 4:02
  to have brought it back to Dallas.
• 4:03
  That is almost part of the story I'm telling.
• 4:06
  It's like the lore.
• 4:07
  You're right.
• 4:07
  It's like, who did you hear it from?
• 4:09
  And like, what was the method that you heard?
• 4:11
  You know, it's really interesting.
• 4:13
  What was the method you heard?
• 4:14
  It's interesting because it really seems physically and impossible in a lot of ways.
• 4:21
  I mean, I guess there are certain tools and things that could make it easier to do, but that was the part of the story that always, like, didn't click for me.
• 4:32
  I'm like, okay, let's say, let's say it was true and it did happen.
• 4:37
  Just to even make it happen seems like a task in and of itself, you know, I mean, is it physically even possible?
• 4:43
  Well, it's one of the questions that I asked because when you look at the history of the gerbil rumor, a lot of people have said, well, it can't be true because no, nobody has ever gerbiled.
• 4:53
  That's the term for it.
• 4:54
  Gerbiling or gerbiled.
• 4:56
  And is it possible?
• 4:57
  Could you do it.
• 4:58
  And it is possible.
• 5:01
  And the lack of emergency room reports about it does not rule it out because not every emergency is reported.
• 5:10
  It doesn't necessarily have to have gone through an emergency room.
• 5:13
  It also doesn't have to ended up in the hospital.
• 5:16
  Arguably, if you do gerbiling right, you don't end up in the hospital.
• 5:21
  See, I would think the opposite.
• 5:22
  I would think, like the thrashing of the animal and could, you know, lead to cuts and abrasions and things where you would need.
• 5:30
  Who's still watching this?
• 5:33
  The more you want to know, is this a joke?
• 5:35
  Is this the Onion?
• 5:36
  Is this guy pretending to be a journalist?
• 5:39
  Well, this is the thing, too.
• 5:40
  Who is this guy?
• 5:41
  Who is this guy?
• 5:42
  Who is this guy?
• 5:43
  Alan?
• 5:44
  I'm an investigative reporter who've been doing this like three decades.
• 5:47
  I work for the New York Times and Vanity Fair, and I've been in a bunch of documentaries, and I'm for real.
• 5:53
  Yeah, no, you're definitely for real.
• 5:55
  But the part that was also interesting to me is from, you know, we've all heard this story, but when.
• 6:02
  What part of it made you say to yourself, this is a podcast, or this is something more?
• 6:07
  Well, I was filming a documentary called Bad Vegan, which was made by director Chris smith.
• 6:12
  He's done 100 foot wave.
• 6:13
  He worked on Tiger King, many hours, working on Agassiz documentary now.
• 6:17
  And this was early Pandemic.
• 6:19
  And we were sitting around my kitchen table, having done a second interview for the Bad Vegan was a thing about a woman who had basically run a vegan restaurant in New York and been brainwashed by a con man
• 6:31
  to give her all of her money and drain her successful restaurant to support his gambling habit.
• 6:37
  And among the things that he seems to have made her believe is that he could make her dog immortal, her pit bull immortal.
• 6:44
  So you start to wonder, how can that happen?
• 6:47
  Right?
• 6:47
  And we're all seeing this with the Theranos, with the.
• 6:50
  You can see everything Doc.
• 6:51
  Like, what is real?
• 6:53
  What are the lies?
• 6:54
  What's the con?
• 6:55
  And so how do our brains work?
• 6:57
  Are there flaws in our brains that certain people can exploit?
• 7:00
  And so these questions of how does the brain work?
• 7:03
  Sort of leads this conversation that I'm having with Chris Smith, the director afterwards.
• 7:08
  Gasoo.
• 7:09
  You know, we worked well together.
• 7:11
  Whatever.
• 7:11
  I was a good talking head for him on Bad Vegan.
• 7:13
  What else can we do together?
• 7:15
  And so what about that gerbil rumor?
• 7:18
  Right?
• 7:18
  And because what happens is you.
• 7:20
  You heard it in, you know, middle school, which is a common.
• 7:23
  It's Funny, you were kind of a prime, like 89.
• 7:25
  90 is a good time and a peak time to have heard it, but many people remember it as middle school, even though they were too old or too young to have first heard it then.
• 7:35
  Now you don't say to yourself, ooh, how weird.
• 7:39
  Or you know, I can't believe he did that.
• 7:43
  What you say is, that's my impression of your brain.
• 7:46
  Okay?
• 7:47
  What you say is, how did I ever believe that?
• 7:52
  Why is that in my head?
• 7:54
  And I think for me, that's what happened.
• 7:56
  I was like, wait, huh?
• 7:58
  What is going on in this brain inside here?
• 8:01
  Am I also capable of being led to believe that a pit bull could be made immortal?
• 8:08
  Or in my case more likely that somebody who I'm in a relationship with is always telling me the truth or whatever?
• 8:14
  Like, you know, we all like, our perspectives constantly shift through life as we go back and look at stuff.
• 8:19
  So that, and if I have a specialty as a reporter, I mean, I've done many, many things.
• 8:25
  I've written a book on the Food Network, I've written about Festivus, but I've written some many trend stories.
• 8:31
  But I think what I do is I put the smart.
• 8:34
  I find the smart in the stupid, right?
• 8:36
  I find the significant in things that seem insignificant.
• 8:40
  And so this thing seemed to just line up with like exactly what I do.
• 8:45
  How do we take this thing that, by the way, is it self viral?
• 8:48
  Right?
• 8:49
  The rumor is viral.
• 8:50
  And if I tell a story about it, I'm probably going to get some attention, which is important and maybe even do some good because that's the, in the first episode, that's the struggle.
• 9:00
  Should I even do this?
• 9:03
  And then I think, well, if this is a viral rumor, what we know about viruses, whether you believe in vaccines or not, the theory behind a vaccine is that it is an attenuated version or it creates an immune
• 9:15
  response to a virus that can then kill the virus.
• 9:19
  And if maybe I can make a podcast, and by the way, I leave open throughout the podcast, did he do it?
• 9:25
  Because I think it's an important lesson in journalism to see.
• 9:29
  Well, how do you pursue that question?
• 9:30
  But if it turns out by episode 12, and I do have a conclusion, if it turns out that, and I'm not saying if it does turn out that he didn't do it, then maybe what we're doing is creating
• 9:41
  a vaccine that finally kills this now four decade old virus because it rides on the form of the virus to get attention.
• 9:49
  But then it turns it around and says, hey, look Again, Hmm, that's interesting.
• 9:54
  I mean, if your show does it, that would be amazing because now we're going into what, four decades of this rumor being, you know, being abundant, like, everywhere.
• 10:04
  And, you know, Richard Gere himself has been very elusive about it.
• 10:08
  So it's not like he's killing the rumor, you know, by coming out and just saying, you know, no, this.
• 10:13
  Well, you know, speaking of Gen X, we remember when movie stars weren't.
• 10:17
  Did not have social media and were really hard to get.
• 10:20
  And Richard Gere was especially, especially hard to get.
• 10:23
  I mean, There's a famous 1968 magazine piece in Esquire called Frank Sinatra has a Cold, in which the writer basically writes an entire article about them not making Frank Sinatra available to him.
• 10:35
  And Richard Gere was, especially early in his career, really hard to get an interview with.
• 10:41
  He's pressed shy.
• 10:42
  Right.
• 10:43
  I mean, is it like his personality.
• 10:46
  It's his personality and he feels violated.
• 10:48
  And he didn't like, you know, he wanted to be a movie star, but he didn't want people to point at him in restaurants and stuff.
• 10:55
  And it's an interesting.
• 10:56
  He liked the acting, I guess, of.
• 10:57
  It, but can you actually have that without the other.
• 11:00
  I mean, I don't think that Richard Gere has necessarily.
• 11:04
  It's hard to say this because what a career.
• 11:06
  Right?
• 11:06
  Right.
• 11:07
  And still going.
• 11:08
  Right.
• 11:08
  We see he's going to be in asymmetry, which is coming out.
• 11:11
  But it does look to me like he didn't do the job of a movie star, at least as people do it now.
• 11:17
  Even Tom Cruise, who was very elusive because there's questions he might not have wanted to.
• 11:21
  ANSW has figured out how to open up a little more now, and Richard Gere has now become much sweeter.
• 11:28
  But still there's a certain hostility, even in the way that he.
• 11:33
  I have a little clip from an episode that's coming soon from his first Instagram video where he's like, this is me.
• 11:39
  This is my real place.
• 11:41
  You know, and it's like, yeah, he's tired of the attention.
• 11:45
  And it's like, anyway, I think he has not.
• 11:49
  My argument is he has not done himself any favors.
• 11:52
  It's easy to say, well, don't justify or don't give it any credence by talking about it.
• 11:58
  Just let it die.
• 11:59
  It hasn't died.
• 12:00
  That is not the playbook Crisis Comms now, which has been refined over the years, tells you, don't just let it sit out there.
• 12:09
  Go do something.
• 12:10
  I saw Glenn Close the other day, right.
• 12:12
  Because There was those videos of her having stills taken, but she was walking with a cane.
• 12:19
  Glenn Close is on a cane.
• 12:20
  So then she goes on, says, I had hip replacement.
• 12:22
  I'm fine.
• 12:24
  You know, so she.
• 12:25
  She addressed it straight to camera with a frowny on which I didn't even know there was a.
• 12:29
  Oh, yeah, the.
• 12:30
  Thing that kind of makes your.
• 12:31
  It goes flat.
• 12:32
  Yeah.
• 12:33
  Now.
• 12:34
  Now we're in your area.
• 12:35
  Right, right.
• 12:36
  Anyway, so.
• 12:36
  So he didn't.
• 12:38
  He has not followed the playbook that I think.
• 12:40
  And I'm arguing because he's never said that.
• 12:44
  I can find.
• 12:44
  He's never said, I didn't do it.
• 12:46
  He said a few things like, this is ridiculous, or this doesn't bother me.
• 12:51
  Which, by the way, I know is not true.
• 12:53
  I know it does bother him.
• 12:54
  I've had enough people around him tell me that it bothers him.
• 12:57
  So why do you think he hasn't dispelled it?
• 12:59
  Why do you think he has not just said, no, this did not happen?
• 13:02
  Do you think that there is, in fact, some truth to it?
• 13:05
  You know, I entertain the possibility that it could have even been because there's this.
• 13:12
  People don't remember that Gere really played with an androgynous image early in his career.
• 13:18
  He was photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe and other.
• 13:22
  Herb Ritz and other.
• 13:23
  You know, so he was kind of a gay icon.
• 13:25
  He's like.
• 13:26
  If you look at photos of Richard gere from, like, 1979, 1980, he looks like Calvin Klein ads from the 80s.
• 13:33
  And in American Gigolo, he talks about doing gay tricks as a prostitute.
• 13:39
  He was in a play.
• 13:40
  I think it's also important to say I'm not homophobic.
• 13:44
  The podcast of anything, I think, is an attempt to show the homophobia of the rumor.
• 13:50
  The reason I'm talking about this now is because there's always a possibility that somebody almost, like, did something to Richard Gere.
• 13:59
  You know, I entertain that possibility.
• 14:00
  Like, was something crazy done that he doesn't want to talk about?
• 14:04
  I think it's unlikely.
• 14:06
  I think his strategy is just, oh, let the ridiculousness and the low stuff pass.
• 14:13
  Don't give it credit.
• 14:15
  I'm above all this.
• 14:16
  I'm better than this.
• 14:18
  Let the rabble do the crap that they do.
• 14:21
  I think that's.
• 14:22
  He has a sense of intellectual superiority.
• 14:26
  The more you look at him, the more you really think about what he's done.
• 14:30
  And if anything, also, the podcast is a sort of biography of Richard Gere.
• 14:34
  Let's look at his career from the very start, all the way through and examine this public figure who actually there's no documentary about him.
• 14:42
  There's one sort of.
• 14:44
  Okay, biography that was written in 1993.
• 14:47
  So that's three decades ago.
• 14:49
  Yeah, that was around the time of Pretty Woman or maybe right after that,.
• 14:52
  Which is, of course his peak time.
• 14:54
  You know, it's when with the movie still he's most identified with.
• 14:57
  So I think he's just not glorified it.
• 15:00
  He thinks that's the right strategy, but I.
• 15:02
  Clearly he's wrong.
• 15:04
  Right.
• 15:04
  Well, I think after listening to your podcast, what most people don't know and what actually I didn't know after working in this business for 20 years.
• 15:13
  Is that the rumor?
• 15:14
  Actually, if you really trace it back, it actually started in Philadelphia with Jerry Penacoli, the entertainment newsman.
• 15:22
  Jerry Penacoli was the.
• 15:24
  Which Right.
• 15:24
  He.
• 15:25
  In la, we know he's known as working for Extra.
• 15:27
  Extra, right.
• 15:29
  And he's a very revered.
• 15:30
  You know.
• 15:31
  He is.
• 15:31
  He is.
• 15:32
  And yet most people don't know the name Jerry Penacoli.
• 15:37
  He's a entertainment journalist who was on a big show.
• 15:40
  Sure.
• 15:40
  But in Philadelphia in the 80s, everybody knew who Jerry Penacoli was.
• 15:47
  And you know, this question of would you rather.
• 15:49
  Sounds like a question you would ask.
• 15:51
  Okay.
• 15:51
  Would you rather be like a super famous local celebrity who every restaurant gives you free meals?
• 16:00
  You're just like people want to, you know, selfie with you.
• 16:03
  You're the biggest man in town in Philadelphia, which is not a small town.
• 16:08
  Or would you rather be just like the 12th most important person on Extra?
• 16:14
  I mean, big man on campus does have an appeal to it.
• 16:16
  I mean, that there is something.
• 16:17
  But because it's your quality of life.
• 16:19
  Right?
• 16:20
  It's right.
• 16:20
  It's day in and day out.
• 16:21
  Who are you?
• 16:23
  Yes.
• 16:23
  And he was that in Philadelphia.
• 16:25
  And by the way, being a star in Philadelphia means you're probably going to get a tryout on the Today show right up, you know, the next big city in New York.
• 16:33
  And he, you know, Jerry is a tall, handsome guy who.
• 16:36
  With a great voice and a lot of appeal, especially presence back then.
• 16:40
  Yeah.
• 16:41
  So unfortunately, he is the first, and I think I proved this pretty convincingly, he is the first specific person attached to a gerbil rumor.
• 16:50
  So why did it start with him?
• 16:52
  Why him of all people?
• 16:53
  Well, I mean, Jerry's out now.
• 16:55
  He's married to a man.
• 16:56
  They have a child, you know, so at the time, you could not have a successful career in news in Philadelphia and be out as gay.
• 17:04
  It just.
• 17:05
  That's how the 80s were, you know, you were there.
• 17:07
  Right, right.
• 17:08
  Well, it was also coinciding with the time of the big AIDS cases, too.
• 17:11
  Right.
• 17:11
  Yeah.
• 17:12
  So what we've seen throughout time.
• 17:14
  Because Jerry Penacoli and Richard Gere are not the only people attacked with a gerbil rumor.
• 17:20
  There's other newsmen who were attacked, weirdly.
• 17:22
  So a lot about news guys.
• 17:23
  Yeah.
• 17:24
  Is that so?
• 17:24
  It's been before?
• 17:26
  Yes.
• 17:26
  After, Since.
• 17:27
  Oh, since.
• 17:28
  And there's a guy in one episode who actually I do name who does.
• 17:33
  Rich Siegel in Texas.
• 17:35
  And he actually did an interview with me and talked about the impact it had on his life.
• 17:39
  And saying about someone that they gerbiled is a way of saying, and at that time, they're gay.
• 17:47
  And also, remember, because it was the time of aids, which was a death sentence pretty much back then, or we thought.
• 17:53
  So it's a way of implying the sort of infectious, dirty quality of what the public perception is, you know, rodents, gay sex.
• 18:05
  You know, this is.
• 18:06
  And this is what the.
• 18:06
  This is the stuff in the brain, deep in the brain, and the prejudices that people carry.
• 18:11
  And this is what I'm examining, like how.
• 18:13
  Yeah, exactly.
• 18:14
  What Weird.
• 18:16
  You know, and there's more to come, by the way.
• 18:18
  There's more to come in later episodes about exactly why.
• 18:20
  Because the other thing is Penacoli, the rumors, starts in this fall of 85.
• 18:27
  And it's weirdly important to figure out when this happened because it tells you why.
• 18:31
  And you can trace it by.
• 18:33
  The timeline is extremely tight.
• 18:35
  In fact, an episode just dropped last night in which I really hammer down the six months in which I think the rumor starts about gear.
• 18:46
  Like, this is the period and where and how.
• 18:48
  And I'm talking about Penacoli now.
• 18:51
  Even I get lost in my own sentences in 85.
• 18:54
  It started in 85.
• 18:55
  Right.
• 18:55
  That was the pivotal time for his rumor to start, basically.
• 18:59
  Yeah.
• 19:00
  And, well, anyway.
• 19:01
  Oh, that's right.
• 19:02
  So it starts in 85.
• 19:03
  And it runs.
• 19:04
  It, like, really is intense.
• 19:06
  85, 86.
• 19:07
  Okay.
• 19:08
  But he's not fired until he's.
• 19:11
  He's not forced to leave the market.
• 19:12
  His.
• 19:12
  His contract is not renewed until I think it's 89.
• 19:16
  So it's a few years later.
• 19:18
  It may even be 90.
• 19:19
  And then he comes.
• 19:20
  He moves across the country, and he comes here and he starts working at X.
• 19:22
  He's like, get me the out of here.
• 19:24
  Right.
• 19:24
  Like he's other side of the country.
• 19:25
  Right.
• 19:26
  And.
• 19:26
  And you can see to this day, just like the pod starts with me saying the Word gerbil.
• 19:30
  And people say Richard Gere.
• 19:32
  And like whenever you post, like the Hollywood Reporter, which is releasing this podcast, the first post they did about Richard Gere and the rumor, you can see some of the comments.
• 19:42
  It wasn't Richard Gere, it was Jerry penacoli.
• 19:45
  Really?
• 19:46
  Oh, 100%.
• 19:47
  Oh, wow.
• 19:48
  Still, still, still wow.
• 19:51
  Because I mean, I'm middle aged and I had never heard of the Jerry Gill.
• 19:56
  You're a very attractive young lady.
• 19:57
  Oh my.
• 19:57
  You're very sweet.
• 19:58
  Thank you, thank you.
• 19:59
  Flattery will get you every.
• 20:02
  But I was curious, have you ever interviewed Richard Gere?
• 20:04
  You ever see him on a red carpet?
• 20:06
  Okay, so it was a very limited, limited, you know, this is what it is, you know, and it was one of.
• 20:11
  That's what I've had for me, like looking, you know, as a, as a red carpet reporter, looking at him, you know, like the vibe I got was, okay, he's serious, obviously he's a little dry.
• 20:21
  I think it was just really quick.
• 20:23
  It was for one of his films.
• 20:25
  This was pre pandemic.
• 20:27
  Was it the homeless one?
• 20:28
  What year was that?
• 20:29
  Like 19, maybe 17 somewhere in there, maybe even 14.
• 20:33
  It was some of the.
• 20:34
  I think it was at the Pickford Theater.
• 20:35
  It was where the premiere was.
• 20:36
  It was, you know, in that small kind of room.
• 20:39
  So it wasn't like a ton of reporters, you know, but handsome, handsome, you know, well proportioned.
• 20:45
  Well, there you go.
• 20:46
  Well, like our movie stars are like, everything is just exactly like the ideal.
• 20:50
  It's interesting.
• 20:51
  Yes.
• 20:51
  I mean, I could definitely see why he is who he is.
• 20:54
  You know, I mean, he's got the thing.
• 20:56
  He's got the it factor.
• 20:57
  Of course, course.
• 20:58
  But yeah, you know, I think maybe that added on to, you know, the rumors or the like none of it does justice.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  Also reporters.
• 21:04
  If you're a dick to reporters.
• 21:07
  What we're not going to necessarily, you know, it's not going to help.
• 21:11
  Why are they dicks?
• 21:12
  Like, why like you're in this business, like everyone has a job to do.
• 21:16
  We're all trying to make it happen for everyone.
• 21:18
  But if you're an.
• 21:19
  To a reporter, what do you expect, you know, can we get that question,.
• 21:23
  By the way, not only an asshole to reporters, but.
• 21:26
  But also as on the record as hating Los Angeles.
• 21:30
  It's another one.
• 21:31
  This is all like when you put together what would it take to create a rumor that would last this long and also pre Internet, which actually gives it more of a chance to survive because it has time to
• 21:43
  incubate and Perfect itself.
• 21:44
  You know, that was one of the things.
• 21:46
  Cause I was like, okay, this is also pre Internet era.
• 21:49
  The fact that it spread like that is wild.
• 21:52
  Cause I mean, there was no social media back then.
• 21:54
  It's another reason I wanted to do this because I think there was no social media.
• 21:58
  There was some like early dial up bulletin boards which were all like these almost like, Like a chat room or something.
• 22:06
  Yes, Reddit, sort of.
• 22:07
  And you would, you know, and you put your phone down on the thing, like in War Games or whatever.
• 22:12
  Right.
• 22:12
  And.
• 22:13
  And I actually look there for the earliest mentions.
• 22:16
  And what.
• 22:17
  When is it and what does it correspond to in Richard Gere's life?
• 22:20
  And so I think we're really looking at viruses, which we've all learned a lot about.
• 22:26
  And if a virus has some time to create variants, it can survive challenges.
• 22:34
  And so now the vectors that spread memes and viruses on the Internet are perfected.
• 22:40
  Right.
• 22:41
  We can boom.
• 22:42
  But they also go.
• 22:43
  Even though it's sort of a meme.
• 22:45
  The Coldplay couple.
• 22:46
  Oh, yes.
• 22:47
  That was what, 20 years ago?
• 22:48
  Except it was six months ago, like literally.
• 22:51
  Yeah, right.
• 22:52
  So it's like it was perfectly.
• 22:56
  The little moments of the video.
• 22:57
  You could remember it.
• 22:59
  It's exactly what it takes for something to go crazy.
• 23:02
  But this one, I have a guy talking about durability, which form of the virus, how does it evolve so that it's durable?
• 23:10
  And so if the kids in your school added something to it that was better than the one that came into.
• 23:17
  Your school, like an extra detail, an extra something layer.
• 23:21
  Because some people, the common version is he used a toilet or a toilet paper rol.
• 23:26
  Or a paper towel roll to insert the gerbil.
• 23:29
  But you're like as Dan Savage, the sex columnist says to me, that's not how butt stuff works.
• 23:36
  I'm glad you had him on to like dance.
• 23:38
  Fantastic.
• 23:38
  Yes.
• 23:39
  We need extra.
• 23:40
  This is the thing, if you're gonna look at it.
• 23:42
  Yeah, right.
• 23:43
  What?
• 23:44
  Would the gerbil survive?
• 23:45
  Would you get injured?
• 23:46
  How do you do this anyway?
• 23:48
  You did your homework.
• 23:49
  You did your homework on this.
• 23:51
  Maybe six years.
• 23:51
  I mean, wow.
• 23:53
  Yeah.
• 23:53
  Insane.
• 23:54
  There's something wrong with me.
• 23:56
  That's okay.
• 23:57
  Or something very.
• 23:58
  Right.
• 23:58
  Because let's see where this goes, you know.
• 24:01
  So how does the virus jump from Penacoli to gear?
• 24:04
  How does that.
• 24:05
  That is a.
• 24:06
  That's a good question.
• 24:07
  And I recommend people listen to episode seven, which just everywhere.
• 24:12
  You listen to podcasts and.
• 24:13
  But I will say it looks like Officer and a Gentleman, big hit movie, 1980.
• 24:18
  Two, this is why the timeline and Gere's career is so important.
• 24:21
  After Officer and a Gentleman, he makes Stinker after Stinker.
• 24:24
  Now you may like his version of Breathless was not a hit.
• 24:28
  He's then in considered certainly the worst movie of his career in the 80s.
• 24:33
  King David.
• 24:33
  I don't think I'd even see it.
• 24:35
  Big budget.
• 24:35
  Don't see it.
• 24:36
  Okay, don't see it.
• 24:36
  I mean, he's basically wearing a giant diaper and like throwing spears and it's just melodramatic crap.
• 24:43
  And in fact, the director tried to get rid of him before they started shooting.
• 24:48
  No, I've heard he's notoriously difficult to work with.
• 24:50
  Is that something you.
• 24:52
  He insists on?
• 24:53
  You know, it seems like he's always trying to get in there and change the script.
• 24:57
  Okay, now you and I are sitting here in a very nice office on Melrose Avenue.
• 25:02
  But like we're not movie stars, so like it's hard to say, you know, but we are critics, right?
• 25:07
  So.
• 25:08
  And we've been around, right?
• 25:09
  So we can see.
• 25:10
  So if you look at Pretty Woman, that was a movie called 3000 originally in which it was really more about the John.
• 25:18
  And the John did not have a lot of personality.
• 25:21
  And Gere in that case insists on rewrites.
• 25:24
  And he's right because you can't say anything went wrong about Pretty Woman.
• 25:28
  It's an all time perfect classic.
• 25:30
  Right.
• 25:31
  I even have one of the producers talking about how nobody can name the plot of Pretty Woman, but you had to have it.
• 25:37
  And remember, it involves Jason Alexander and some money that needs to be transferred.
• 25:41
  Oh, right.
• 25:41
  You don't remember any of that?
• 25:43
  No, you don't.
• 25:43
  You remember like, you know, Julia Roberts on.
• 25:46
  On the piano and like in the bathtub.
• 25:48
  Right?
• 25:49
  In the bathtub, right.
• 25:50
  And she was, she's.
• 25:51
  The more you watch the movie, she's.
• 25:53
  You see, like that's what a movie star looks like when they're ready to be a movie star.
• 25:57
  It's incredible movie.
• 25:58
  But anyway, so his meddling, you know, I'm sure in some cases it makes movies worse.
• 26:02
  In that case it made it better.
• 26:03
  But yeah, he's not liked in the 80s, especially in LA, in Hollywood, he's not playing the game.
• 26:09
  Mike Fagas, who directed Leaving Las Vegas and also directed Gere in the Terrible Mr.
• 26:15
  Jones, which was that really seized from.
• 26:18
  It's a whole Hollywood history there, that film.
• 26:19
  But the great Internal affairs, which was Gere's kind of comeback film that was shot in 89 and comes out in early 90 so there's like an eight year fallow period of Gere making bad movies but focused on political
• 26:34
  action.
• 26:34
  The Dalai Lama starting the Tibet center in New York, even showing up at the unveiling of the AIDS quilt in New York in 87.
• 26:42
  That's big.
• 26:43
  Yeah.
• 26:43
  Yes.
• 26:44
  So he's always been really on doing good politically and at least trying to, depending on what your beliefs are.
• 26:50
  And so the.
• 26:52
  Why does it transfer to gear?
• 26:55
  If you look at his downtime in his career and exactly where he was and his proximity, because he really lives in New York to Philadelphia and then something that appears in National Lampoon magazine, that's a sort of very
• 27:12
  random mention of Gere and gerbils together is a kind of leading theory, at least at this point in the podcast, of how it starts.
• 27:20
  And even though most people, a lot of people, if you went out here and you asked them, they would say, oh, Sylvester Stallone started it.
• 27:26
  Sylvester Shalon.
• 27:27
  So he gets roped into this too then.
• 27:29
  Isn't it funny that all of their books are coming out at the same time?
• 27:32
  Michael Douglas and Stallone, these guys all ran together.
• 27:35
  So they.
• 27:35
  Are they all friends in life?
• 27:37
  Yes, they were all running around together.
• 27:39
  Except.
• 27:40
  And this is what Mike Vegas talks.
• 27:42
  Talks about.
• 27:42
  Like, Gere wasn't going to Vegas and partying with these guys.
• 27:46
  Oh, he was not a partier.
• 27:47
  No, actually, no.
• 27:49
  I mean to say.
• 27:50
  No, he was in Studio 54 in the 70s.
• 27:53
  He did whatever he did, but he wasn't part of that scene in la.
• 27:57
  Okay, okay.
• 27:58
  So he stuck to New York.
• 27:59
  He did his New York thing.
• 28:00
  Interesting.
• 28:01
  Okay, so the article kind of bridges.
• 28:03
  That gap between the gerbil and timing is very interesting.
• 28:06
  That's interesting.
• 28:07
  Right at the end of the 80s.
• 28:08
  And there's also another guy who's kind of like us, who I interview, who since passed away.
• 28:12
  His name is Peter Goddard and he was a great music writer and film critic for the Toronto Star.
• 28:18
  And he was one of the first calls I made because he had an article I'm going to spoil.
• 28:23
  I don't want to spoil it.
• 28:24
  I'm just going to say he wrote something very early about mentioning gear and gerbils.
• 28:28
  That was.
• 28:29
  That set a certain timeline for it.
• 28:32
  That was fascinating.
• 28:33
  And I interviewed him before he died.
• 28:34
  Thank God.
• 28:35
  Oh, good.
• 28:36
  So you have it like it's part of the podcast.
• 28:38
  Okay, so have you reached out to Gere or his people, his camp?
• 28:42
  What is that?
• 28:44
  You know, I was.
• 28:45
  There's a great podcast called Dead Eyes in which Conor Ratliff, he is basically fired before he can even film a scene from Band of Brothers.
• 28:54
  And supposedly Tom Hanks was the one who fired him and said, I can't have this guy on the show.
• 28:59
  He has dead eyes.
• 29:00
  And so Connor does 30 episodes of a podcast trying to figure out how this ruined his life and what acting is all about and the town and everything.
• 29:08
  And eventually his goal is to get Tom Hanks to talk about it.
• 29:13
  And the way he does it, he tries to do it, is he just creates a welcoming environment for, you know, where Tom Hanks can feel he can come safely and talk about it if he wants to.
• 29:25
  And I did interview Connor, like, okay, how am I going to land Richard Gere for this?
• 29:30
  That would be the case.
• 29:31
  Just like you.
• 29:31
  You would know who to call.
• 29:32
  You figured, but would he do it?
• 29:34
  Right?
• 29:35
  And probably not.
• 29:36
  But how, if you want to.
• 29:38
  And it's not jump out at a red carpet, because I try, you know, figure out where he's going to be, where's the premiere?
• 29:45
  It's like, it's not what the podcast is about.
• 29:47
  I'm only gonna interview him if he wants to talk about it in a serious way.
• 29:52
  I don't need him going, leave me alone, kid.
• 29:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:56
  What was your experience like with him on the carpet?
• 29:58
  Cause you said you interviewed.
• 29:59
  I had one thing.
• 30:00
  I saw him at a food festival in East Ham or Bridgehampton or East.
• 30:04
  Wherever.
• 30:04
  It was somewhere in Long island once.
• 30:06
  And I was writing my book about the Food Network, and he was just there, and I was like, well, I'll get a quote from Richard Gere.
• 30:11
  Right.
• 30:12
  And I just literally wanted to ask him, what are you doing here?
• 30:14
  Or like, how's the salmon?
• 30:16
  You know?
• 30:17
  And as soon as I had gotten into it, Mr.
• 30:18
  Gear.
• 30:19
  And then somebody steps forward.
• 30:20
  Mr.
• 30:21
  Gear is not answering.
• 30:22
  It's like, can we just talk about the salmon?
• 30:24
  Like, yeah, it's really not that hard.
• 30:26
  And then another one was the film where he plays a homeless guy, and it's at the.
• 30:30
  At a film festival out there.
• 30:32
  And I look at the article, and I don't remember if I asked him the question or not, but I was close enough to him that he answers it and I quote him.
• 30:40
  But it was the same thing.
• 30:41
  It was very limited.
• 30:43
  He's always.
• 30:43
  It's just.
• 30:44
  You can't really get a clear shot at him.
• 30:46
  Yeah, he has a lot of people around him.
• 30:48
  Right.
• 30:48
  Like, it's just.
• 30:49
  It's almost like a protection.
• 30:50
  Like.
• 30:51
  Yeah, because it's always like, you're, you know, I know you're a dick.
• 30:54
  He's saying to you, yeah, I know you're gonna do so.
• 30:57
  And by the way, what question would he not.
• 31:00
  Why would he need such protection?
• 31:02
  Yeah.
• 31:02
  Like what?
• 31:03
  What possible question could he not want to hear again?
• 31:06
  Right.
• 31:06
  Did you stick a gerbil up your ass?
• 31:07
  Yes.
• 31:08
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  And what I know is, every time from my own experiment, if you just say Richard Gere, the first thing, one of the first things.
• 31:15
  Pretty Woman, you think about things, but you also think about gerbil.
• 31:18
  Yeah, gerbil.
• 31:18
  His kid.
• 31:19
  I know his kid, Homer has heard, you know, is asked about it.
• 31:22
  So this is a curse upon his entire family, and it probably will be for many generations.
• 31:27
  So I feel for him.
• 31:28
  I do.
• 31:29
  Do you think in some ways he.
• 31:31
  Not that he enjoys it, but he doesn't mind the attention, the attention that it brings.
• 31:35
  No.
• 31:36
  You don't.
• 31:36
  You don't.
• 31:37
  I don't think at all, no.
• 31:38
  Because it does keep his name, you know, people still talk about him.
• 31:40
  You could argue that it has given him a certain immortality, Right?
• 31:44
  You know, and he's still a movie star, right?
• 31:46
  So maybe, you know, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
• 31:49
  That's what they say in Hollywood, don't they?
• 31:51
  You know?
• 31:52
  Okay, so I wanted to go through some other famous rumors, and you tell me what you think or what you've uncovered.
• 31:58
  Okay.
• 31:59
  First one is, I.
• 32:01
  I'm sure you.
• 32:02
  I mean, the subject could be interchangeable because I've heard different variations, different singer,.
• 32:07
  But gonna say Rod Stewart.
• 32:09
  Yes, I was.
• 32:09
  Good.
• 32:09
  But I've heard Jordan Knight.
• 32:11
  See.
• 32:11
  Okay, so for.
• 32:12
  I don't even know who Jordan Knight is.
• 32:14
  He's the New Kids on the Block, one of the singers.
• 32:15
  So he's younger, right?
• 32:17
  He's younger.
• 32:18
  But tell everybody what that rumor is.
• 32:19
  The stomach pump.
• 32:20
  Well, the rumor is.
• 32:22
  I'm.
• 32:22
  Okay, I'm gonna make you do it, Alan.
• 32:25
  The rumor is that Rod.
• 32:27
  Because we all heard this at the same time, right?
• 32:29
  Rod Stewart was admitted to the hospital because he had so much semen in his stomach from sucking off sailors that he had to have his stomach pumped.
• 32:38
  Okay.
• 32:39
  That's it?
• 32:39
  Yeah.
• 32:40
  You want me to tell you what I know about it?
• 32:41
  Yes.
• 32:41
  What do you know about it?
• 32:42
  Here's what's the most interesting thing about it, is Rod Stewart has answered this.
• 32:46
  Rod Stewart writes in his memoir about exactly who started the rumor, why they started it, and a complete and absolute denial of it.
• 32:55
  Now, it hasn't stopped people from repeating it, and it comes up all the time.
• 33:00
  So maybe there is no inoculating yourself by commenting on it directly.
• 33:04
  What else can you do?
• 33:05
  And what Rod has said.
• 33:07
  And I actually interviewed Kenny Jones, who was a drummer, who was with the who at one point, but worked with Rod Stewart early in his career.
• 33:14
  There was a publicist who got fired because Rod says he was having sex in the same room as Rod's sleeping toddler or something.
• 33:25
  And in revenge for firing him, he supposedly sends out a fax.
• 33:32
  If anybody remembers what fax machines are saying that Rod Stewart.
• 33:36
  That this happened and that that's.
• 33:37
  And then.
• 33:38
  And so Rod Stewart explains it.
• 33:39
  This guy is dead now, that publicist.
• 33:42
  And he says, I didn't do it.
• 33:44
  And by the way, then you also, you can look at it journalistically, like how much semen.
• 33:50
  If each man produces, let's say a tablespoon, how many?
• 33:54
  You'd have to.
• 33:55
  And your stomach would probably digest it faster.
• 33:58
  And then you have to think about, well, okay, what is it?
• 34:00
  How does it work?
• 34:01
  Is he sucking them or somebody else doing most of the sucking and they're just finishing.
• 34:05
  Finishing with him.
• 34:06
  Like, how do.
• 34:08
  Also, you look up and I did this.
• 34:09
  I did all this.
• 34:10
  I looked up stomach pumping, right?
• 34:12
  Okay.
• 34:12
  You don't stomach pump from having a full stomach.
• 34:15
  You stomp.
• 34:16
  And it's very, very rare and dangerous.
• 34:18
  It's something that people love.
• 34:19
  He had a stomach pump.
• 34:20
  Yeah, right, right.
• 34:22
  You have your stomach pumped if somehow they find you within a few minutes of you having ingested poison or something.
• 34:29
  And even then, that might not be the best solution.
• 34:32
  Right?
• 34:33
  So you're not pumping anyone's stomach from semen over consumption.
• 34:38
  Okay, so that's.
• 34:39
  I mean, just by also good to know.
• 34:41
  Yeah, good to know.
• 34:42
  Just a little fact to know.
• 34:43
  I mean, for those who want to know out there.
• 34:45
  Well, and then I guess the virus, as you were saying before, kind of mutates and then jumps to Jordan Knight.
• 34:50
  Right?
• 34:51
  Because what does it also say, right?
• 34:52
  These are all about sex.
• 34:54
  And they're also a little bit about gender and sexual orientation.
• 34:59
  Because Rod Stewart is straight, just like Richard Gere is straight.
• 35:03
  But if you look at, you know, his Persona, especially in the 70s, like in 80s, do you think I'm sexy?
• 35:10
  And he's like slithering around, like, shirtless, kind of hairless.
• 35:14
  Yeah, he looks, you know, you could see somebody going, oh, that guy, you know, he says he's straight, but no, you know, so it's a way of saying there's something weird about him or something gay about him.
• 35:27
  So that's where it's coming From.
• 35:29
  Okay, now also, I was saying that because this.
• 35:32
  Whoever this person is from New Kids on the Block that you're saying.
• 35:34
  And by the way, this isn't the only person associated with it.
• 35:36
  Again, it's like, I'll bet there's some question of, like, you know, who does he like going down on?
• 35:43
  Let's jump to Marilyn Manson for a second.
• 35:45
  Again, please tell everyone that rumor.
• 35:47
  I mean, it all has to do with sass.
• 35:49
  Does anybody who's watching this.
• 35:50
  Is anyone still watching?
• 35:52
  No.
• 35:52
  Do they not know their Marilyn Manson rumor?
• 35:54
  Because obviously that one is.
• 35:57
  And this also is other people associated.
• 35:59
  Okay, so it's not just him, but.
• 36:01
  Originally him is the first version.
• 36:02
  I heard he had a rib removed.
• 36:06
  Huh.
• 36:07
  So he could autofilate, you know, bend over and suck his own penis.
• 36:11
  I mean, right?
• 36:12
  Like a dog.
• 36:13
  Sure, sure.
• 36:14
  Why Marilyn Manson?
• 36:15
  Well, obviously androgynous Marilyn.
• 36:18
  But he's a boy like Manson.
• 36:21
  That's weird.
• 36:22
  It's as simple as that.
• 36:23
  In the brain.
• 36:24
  Ah.
• 36:24
  So they're trying to put him in some sort of.
• 36:26
  Right.
• 36:27
  He must be a pervert.
• 36:28
  Yeah, yeah.
• 36:29
  That's like the thinking behind it.
• 36:30
  And it's also also think about even more specifically if you think deeply.
• 36:35
  So Marilyn's a female name, and Marilyn's also a name associated with one of the most famous movie stars who died young.
• 36:41
  Manson is a murderer's name.
• 36:43
  So Marilyn Manson, a female name and a male name.
• 36:49
  So what would such a creature do?
• 36:51
  They would suck their own genitals because they're both.
• 36:56
  So this.
• 36:57
  I think this is like these weird associations in the brain is like it's trying to, like, struggle with Marilyn Manson.
• 37:05
  Yeah, weird.
• 37:06
  And then they see the visual and they're like, yeah.
• 37:08
  What is that?
• 37:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:10
  You know, it's fascinating.
• 37:11
  It really is psychology.
• 37:12
  I mean, basically, you know, if you get down to the bottom of it,.
• 37:16
  This is what we're doing.
• 37:16
  Yeah, I was going to have the.
• 37:18
  I didn't use this, but I was going to say, you know, the.
• 37:20
  The tagline was like, gerbil, colon, going deep.
• 37:25
  Oh, my God.
• 37:26
  That's a tagline there.
• 37:28
  There's the colon part.
• 37:29
  Yeah, I mean, the colon.
• 37:30
  I mean, that.
• 37:30
  That's another thing.
• 37:31
  I mean, if you think about.
• 37:32
  I don't.
• 37:33
  There's just a lot of biology there.
• 37:34
  A lot of biology.
• 37:35
  So I didn't know if you've heard of this rumor, because I hadn't heard this one.
• 37:39
  But this one has to do with Clara Bow.
• 37:41
  Do you know Clara Bow?
• 37:42
  Clara Bow is an old 1920s movie star.
• 37:44
  Yeah, movie star.
• 37:45
  There was a rumor apparently that she slept with the entire USC football team.
• 37:51
  Right.
• 37:51
  Had you heard that one before?
• 37:52
  Well, no, but.
• 37:53
  Okay, but yes, I have.
• 37:54
  And it's.
• 37:55
  It's.
• 37:55
  But again, here, they're all sexual.
• 37:57
  Right, but what is that?
• 37:58
  Okay, so Clara Bow is a attractive woman in an era, the way before women's liberation or wherever we want to call it, awakening and the idea of equality.
• 38:13
  And yet a movie star, one who's paid well, so she is crossing over into male territory as a culture at that time.
• 38:23
  That is a weird figure.
• 38:25
  And also, movies are young.
• 38:27
  They're just starting.
• 38:28
  We don't even understand what a movie star is, so.
• 38:31
  And also, these are people who come into our houses and our minds on the screen, which, again, remember, movies were.
• 38:39
  Are only really about 100 years old.
• 38:41
  And talkies are used just about that time now, isn't it?
• 38:44
  Yeah.
• 38:44
  So she has to be castigated, you know, in the sort of collective unconscious.
• 38:50
  There's something wrong with her.
• 38:52
  And she's showing her body on this now.
• 38:55
  She's.
• 38:55
  I'm sure she was not showing much of her body in that era, but she was still like.
• 38:59
  Like moving.
• 39:02
  You probably could see her ankles.
• 39:04
  And she was attractive.
• 39:06
  So we weren't used to this as a culture.
• 39:09
  You and I aren't that old.
• 39:10
  But in the 20s, America's not used to this.
• 39:12
  The world isn't.
• 39:13
  There's a woman on screen who we can stare at and she's not going to know, and she's moving, so she's an object that's almost pornography in that era.
• 39:24
  So, of course, let's brand her as something we can understand.
• 39:29
  Right.
• 39:30
  She's the kind of woman who would do this.
• 39:33
  And then the person who's, you know, can feel better about themself, who's spreading the rumor.
• 39:38
  Only a monster would take on that role that she has.
• 39:42
  So who do you think started that rumor?
• 39:44
  Well, see, no, that's the question.
• 39:46
  This.
• 39:46
  Who.
• 39:48
  Right.
• 39:48
  Who starts any of them?
• 39:49
  Who starts any of them?
• 39:50
  No, I actually think Rod Stewart's wrong, to be honest with you, about who starts his rumor.
• 39:54
  He could be right.
• 39:55
  Who does he say he started?
• 39:56
  His publicist, who he fired?
• 39:58
  The ones fired.
• 39:59
  Okay, but this question of, did Sylvester Stallone start the gerbil rumor?
• 40:03
  Who starts it?
• 40:04
  I don't know that it has to have a person starting it.
• 40:09
  I think certain things hit the brain a certain way and they spur an idea.
• 40:15
  And it is the game of telephone.
• 40:17
  Right.
• 40:17
  So it could literally be I saw Clara Bow leaving the Culver Hotel to make an old reference.
• 40:25
  Yes, right.
• 40:27
  With a guy who.
• 40:28
  A cameraman on the movie.
• 40:30
  Okay.
• 40:31
  Oh, she's.
• 40:32
  You know.
• 40:32
  So that person tells.
• 40:33
  You know, they tell one friend, then that friend tells two friends.
• 40:37
  And then somebody says, oh, I heard she was with.
• 40:39
  She must have been with the camera or a joke.
• 40:41
  Or maybe it was the cameraman and the sound guy.
• 40:44
  Okay.
• 40:45
  And it passes on and everybody adds something.
• 40:47
  And the more.
• 40:48
  And then each one has their.
• 40:49
  And so four people know and then they're spreading and each one may add a different.
• 40:53
  Different aspect.
• 40:54
  Or just one person adds something or they hear something wrong.
• 40:56
  Well, I heard it was a gang bang.
• 40:58
  Right.
• 40:59
  Well, which story's more interesting?
• 41:02
  She fucked one guy in the Culver Hotel, who may even be her husband or I don't know what.
• 41:07
  Or she had a gang bang with the US and also football, pretty young sport.
• 41:12
  Then usc, right?
• 41:14
  Their football teams, a lot of early success.
• 41:16
  So they're in the news.
• 41:17
  So they're in people's minds.
• 41:19
  Oh, look, there's these pictures of these young, healthy guys running around.
• 41:22
  So I think this is what happens.
• 41:24
  The collective unconscious takes this in and then so a receptivity is given.
• 41:30
  There's a curiosity in the mass brain.
• 41:34
  We know there's young guys who play football and they hit each other and they slap each other on the ass and they hand each other a ball that looks like a seed.
• 41:43
  I mean, there's a whole.
• 41:45
  Is football a homoerotic exercise?
• 41:47
  There's a lot of academic papers on this question.
• 41:50
  So there's the sexuality around football.
• 41:53
  Contact.
• 41:54
  It's not baseball, it's a contact sport.
• 41:57
  And they're piling on each other.
• 41:58
  Piling on.
• 41:59
  Tackling.
• 42:00
  Yeah, tackling.
• 42:01
  Laying on top of each other, groups tackling.
• 42:04
  So now you have one person saying, I saw Clara Bow fuck the cinematographer.
• 42:09
  They didn't even call it that then probably.
• 42:12
  And then.
• 42:12
  And somebody says, well, and then somebody spreads it.
• 42:15
  And it's like she had sex with three.
• 42:16
  And then it's like, oh, but maybe that us.
• 42:18
  And this is how I think.
• 42:20
  And then enough people repeat a version of it, and then the superior version, like a virus, like the Omicron variant of Clara Bow virus is the one that escapes the lab or the few people talking about it.
• 42:33
  And then that one runs.
• 42:35
  And then somebody adds something else to it because somebody says, well, I.
• 42:38
  Clara Bo.
• 42:39
  I don't know.
• 42:39
  But she would deny it because she would say she was in Iowa, but no.
• 42:43
  And it would adapt and it will Evolve.
• 42:45
  And this is.
• 42:46
  The viral rumors behave exactly like viruses.
• 42:50
  They all follow the same kind of.
• 42:52
  Trajectory in a way, and they evolve.
• 42:54
  And in this case, it's almost always about sex.
• 42:56
  And the question of, like, is somebody normal?
• 42:59
  Ah.
• 43:00
  Because they don't know where to place these people.
• 43:01
  They don't know where to place them.
• 43:02
  They're like, where are these?
• 43:03
  Okay, what about this one?
• 43:04
  What about the Janet Jackson rumor that she had a baby at, I believe, at the age of 18 with one of the DeBarge brothers, like her first husband?
• 43:12
  Have you heard that one?
• 43:13
  I never heard that.
• 43:14
  Okay, there's that one that's gone on that she had a secret baby that I don't know.
• 43:18
  I.
• 43:19
  But you can feel, can't you just feel in your body the logic of it?
• 43:22
  Yeah.
• 43:22
  Right.
• 43:23
  You can.
• 43:23
  Yeah.
• 43:24
  It's.
• 43:24
  You know, this is.
• 43:25
  Stephen Colbert talked about truthiness.
• 43:27
  That sounds.
• 43:29
  There's a logic.
• 43:30
  No, I don't.
• 43:30
  It probably isn't true, but it.
• 43:32
  You're.
• 43:33
  You're looking at somebody and you're like, what makes sense?
• 43:37
  What lie?
• 43:38
  And this is what we see in politics now, right?
• 43:40
  What lie makes sense and will have an impact?
• 43:44
  So that I can take down.
• 43:45
  And this is part of the agenda of the podcast, so I can take down my political opponent.
• 43:49
  We see it happening right now in Texas.
• 43:51
  Right.
• 43:52
  They're trying to make you think that James Talarico is a little light in his loafers.
• 43:57
  And they, oh, let's make a little reference here.
• 43:59
  And then it goes, oh, well, he is kind of thin, Right.
• 44:03
  Don't gay guys like to keep themselves in shape?
• 44:06
  And he's so religious.
• 44:07
  Haven't we seen religious guys lying about.
• 44:10
  There's news today about a dead senator.
• 44:12
  Supposedly there's gay prostitutes who are now coming out and saying that he hired them.
• 44:16
  This happened while you were taping a previous episode.
• 44:18
  Oh, my goodness.
• 44:19
  Oh, is this literally breaking news?
• 44:21
  Okay, so what senator was Lindsey Graham.
• 44:24
  Oh, I don't know if this is true, but this is what's spreading now.
• 44:28
  Okay.
• 44:28
  Okay.
• 44:28
  So this is.
• 44:29
  And there's guys saying I'm the guy he hired.
• 44:32
  But I'm just saying, like, I'm not saying whether that's true or not or anything.
• 44:36
  What I'm saying is the idea that we know there's senators who.
• 44:40
  The one who.
• 44:41
  I mean, there's many, many stories.
• 44:42
  Yeah.
• 44:43
  So if they're just going to try to win an election by saying something that seems like it could be true and that changes enough votes, I don't want to, you know, there's still enough homophobia around, and it could
• 44:55
  work.
• 44:55
  It could work.
• 44:56
  You know that.
• 44:56
  With Lindsey Graham, though, do you think that there's, like, a modicum of truth in there?
• 45:01
  Do you think that there's.
• 45:02
  Don't you.
• 45:03
  I mean, there could be.
• 45:04
  There could be.
• 45:04
  There absolutely could be, I guess, you know.
• 45:07
  Sure, sure, sure.
• 45:08
  I mean, there.
• 45:08
  You know, when I.
• 45:09
  When I worked at the New York Times for a while, and there was an old thing there.
• 45:12
  It's like, we don't go into the bedrooms.
• 45:14
  We don't let people do what they're gonna do.
• 45:16
  I kind of wish we were there again.
• 45:19
  Not that, you know, if people wanna talk about it, go ahead, but, like, should we.
• 45:24
  Should journalists be snooping there and implying things?
• 45:27
  Probably not.
• 45:28
  But how do you also put the genie back in the bottle at this point?
• 45:30
  It's all over everywhere.
• 45:31
  You know, how would you go back?
• 45:34
  What is the way to go back to that?
• 45:36
  Well, you know, it's decency.
• 45:38
  Have we lost it, though?
• 45:40
  Things travel in cycles.
• 45:41
  I have hope.
• 45:42
  Okay, so you think it could come back?
• 45:44
  What we're doing now is not working right.
• 45:47
  We're all running around.
• 45:48
  We don't know what's true.
• 45:50
  It's going to accelerate.
• 45:51
  It's accelerating now.
• 45:52
  With AI, we can't tell what's real and what isn't.
• 45:54
  We don't really know where this is all going.
• 45:57
  We know that we're pretty close to a time when we can't trust what we see or hear at all, even in real life.
• 46:05
  There are screens that they could put on the street here that would look like we were seeing a crime, and we wouldn't be able to tell if it was just a 3D thing or real, literally.
• 46:15
  So then you say something has to change in the.
• 46:18
  In the human heart is old and has been doing the same thing for a long time.
• 46:21
  But we're still young as a species and a civilization.
• 46:24
  So maybe the only solution becomes just be nice to everybody because you don't know what's real and just.
• 46:30
  Let's just, like, one at a time, be kind.
• 46:33
  I don't know.
• 46:34
  I know there's a little.
• 46:35
  Because what's worked, what we're doing isn't working.
• 46:38
  Yeah, but how does that change you as a journalist?
• 46:41
  Like, is that making you do your job different?
• 46:44
  Well, I'll tell you this.
• 46:44
  Like, I.
• 46:46
  This is.
• 46:46
  I'm calling this podcast based on my masterpiece.
• 46:48
  I was not ready to do this younger.
• 46:50
  And I would.
• 46:51
  I remember when I would interview, for instance, even whatever, 13, 14, years ago, I was interviewing a lot of food celebrities, like chefs and everything.
• 46:59
  Yeah, I did a book on the food history of the Food Network.
• 47:02
  So everybody from Bourdain to, you know, canceled people, but Batali, and then also, you know, people are still around.
• 47:09
  Flay and.
• 47:10
  And Giada and all of them.
• 47:12
  And I had this.
• 47:14
  My own sort of weakness or hunger for recognition.
• 47:19
  I remember talking.
• 47:20
  I wanted something from them.
• 47:22
  I was hungry for whatever to be around them.
• 47:24
  And even though I'd interviewed many, many famous people and I'd been on TV myself and various things, there's this almost desperate energy to be accepted into this world.
• 47:34
  As if any of them were any happier than the rest of us, which we know they're not.
• 47:39
  And perhaps even more.
• 47:41
  It's nice to be rich, it's nice to have power, but past a certain limit, we can see this boulevard is littered with bodies, right?
• 47:49
  So I think for me as a journalist, my own ability to kind of really treat even Richard Gere, to think, this isn't just a figure, this is a person.
• 47:59
  They're all people.
• 48:00
  Rod Stewart's a person.
• 48:02
  And they started not famous.
• 48:05
  They didn't.
• 48:06
  They just tried, like, we all try to, like, express themselves and do the best they could, and, you know, it worked for them.
• 48:12
  And so I guess, yeah, I'm trying to, like.
• 48:15
  I've always tried to be fair and not make things up, which is rare.
• 48:20
  And I.
• 48:21
  That's how I've always acted.
• 48:22
  It's how I was taught in journalism school.
• 48:23
  So I guess what I'm saying is, like, it took me six years to do this podcast because I was like, let's really figure everything out.
• 48:32
  And in a way, that's.
• 48:32
  The story that I'm telling is about journalism.
• 48:36
  It's about.
• 48:37
  This is what we do.
• 48:38
  We go to extreme lanes to tell the truth.
• 48:43
  And there's so many little mistakes in the Djirbil story.
• 48:46
  You see misprints in old articles that lead to misunderstandings.
• 48:53
  Gere himself talks about how in all these articles about him, they always say, well, he was raised and he grew up on a farm.
• 48:59
  Not true.
• 49:01
  His grandfather had a farm.
• 49:02
  Okay, he did not grow up on a farm.
• 49:04
  But he said he grew up on a farm.
• 49:06
  No, he never said.
• 49:06
  He never said it.
• 49:07
  Oh, this is the reporting, all these articles.
• 49:10
  And he does say at one point, that's what annoys me.
• 49:13
  Now, a reporter was asking him.
• 49:15
  They always ask him.
• 49:16
  They try to get cute with him.
• 49:17
  Is there anything you ever see about yourself in the press that is not true?
• 49:21
  That really bothers you.
• 49:22
  As if he's gonna say durable thing, right?
• 49:25
  Which he said a few things over the years, but not many.
• 49:28
  And so what he says is, yeah, this thing about, I grew up on a farm.
• 49:31
  I didn't grow up on a farm.
• 49:33
  Right?
• 49:34
  And then.
• 49:35
  So he's right, that's annoying.
• 49:36
  I get annoyed.
• 49:37
  There's an article about him and Cindy that their marriage.
• 49:41
  Cindy Crawford, who he's married to in the early 90s, that their marriage was a sham and that they were both gay.
• 49:47
  There's an article around in a French gossip magazine.
• 49:49
  He and Cindy have to take out a full page or do take out a full page ad in a London newspaper, $30,000 at the time saying, we are not gay.
• 49:57
  We are not gay.
• 49:58
  That's what it costs them.
• 49:59
  I try really hard to not write articles that anyone's going to have to question my facts about, because I believe this is like, you know, this is my religion.
• 50:10
  Maybe telling.
• 50:11
  Getting into reality is our solution.
• 50:14
  Like, what are facts?
• 50:16
  What can we agree on?
• 50:17
  You know, I saw Sasha Baron Cohen getting interviewed about his new movie, and he's like, this is what I'm trying to do.
• 50:24
  Can we agree on what's real?
• 50:25
  And so I do think it's God's work right now.
• 50:29
  Let's get us into reality.
• 50:30
  Let's not even.
• 50:32
  These small little asides that I chronicle.
• 50:34
  Like, there's a thing in Tig Notaro and May Martin's podcast where they.
• 50:41
  It's a great podcast.
• 50:41
  It is great.
• 50:42
  But they joke about the gerbil thing.
• 50:44
  And Mae is like, I think it's real.
• 50:46
  I think it really happened.
• 50:47
  And then Tig is just making this little joke at the end that.
• 50:51
  In which she says, because her producer looks at Googles, it looks it up, and people are always tangents, like, AI does not tell you the truth about this rumor, by the way.
• 51:00
  Doesn't know.
• 51:01
  It doesn't know what I know.
• 51:02
  Oh, it will know.
• 51:03
  The podcast is done because it'll listen and it'll feed it back out.
• 51:07
  But right now, it doesn't know as much as I know.
• 51:09
  So Tig Notaro says, isn't that funny?
• 51:12
  You Google Richard Gere and it comes up with Richard Gere, gerbil rumor and pictures of gerbils or something like that.
• 51:19
  It's like.
• 51:20
  Like, no, that's not what happened.
• 51:21
  That's not what your producer searched.
• 51:23
  You know, it's like, don't do that.
• 51:25
  Don't do it, because that's going to.
• 51:26
  Then put that out there.
• 51:27
  And this is where I get like mad.
• 51:29
  Don't do that.
• 51:30
  Right, right.
• 51:31
  You know, I even trace this little tiny thing.
• 51:34
  There's these old columns, if you remember the news.
• 51:36
  There was the news of the weird and these little funny columns that were in newspapers syndicated in the 80s and 90s.
• 51:43
  And one of them said, oh, there was a.
• 51:46
  There was a real surgical report of a declawed hamster found and you know, shaved declawed found in an emergency room in some town.
• 51:57
  Okay.
• 51:58
  And reporting it as true.
• 51:59
  And so then all of these through like letters and like it took forever.
• 52:03
  They had to write them letters and there was like books published and they were questioning each other.
• 52:07
  All these guys who wrote these news.
• 52:08
  Of the weird pre Internet guys.
• 52:09
  Yes.
• 52:10
  And finally the guy.
• 52:12
  I recant it, but it took like two years.
• 52:14
  And if you look now it's still there in little references on Wikipedia that this.
• 52:19
  There was a.
• 52:20
  It was a surgical report in the journal of whatever surgical blah blah blah that said declawed shaved gerbil.
• 52:26
  And I went all this took like a month down the rabbit hole to figure it out.
• 52:31
  I'm like, I'm going this one thing.
• 52:33
  Wow.
• 52:34
  I'm going to figure it out.
• 52:36
  So to your point, do rumors ever die?
• 52:42
  If I find that he didn't do it and this doesn't kill it and he comes on and says I didn't do it, he does what I ask him to do and I've shown everything I can show and I've
• 52:53
  given an alternative case of why this rumor has spread and that doesn't kill it.
• 52:58
  Well, you're giving up.
• 52:59
  That's it.
• 52:59
  That's it.
• 53:00
  The end.
• 53:00
  The end.
• 53:01
  I don't know.
• 53:01
  No.
• 53:02
  Maybe you'll go on.
• 53:02
  Maybe there are other rumors to dispose.
• 53:04
  Is there another rumor you'd like to go down the rabbit hole like, like, like in this way.
• 53:07
  Is there anything else that's like, you know, you really need to get to the bottom of celebrity rumor wise?
• 53:13
  No, because I think I actually I talk about the Marilyn Manson one in the podcast.
• 53:17
  I talk about the Rod Stewart one.
• 53:18
  I talk about even the star who supposedly intersex.
• 53:21
  All the old word was used.
• 53:22
  It was hermaphrodite.
• 53:23
  Who would that be?
• 53:24
  Come on.
• 53:25
  No, I don't know this one.
• 53:26
  I really don't.
• 53:26
  100%, you know, 100%.
• 53:29
  I'm having perimenopause and I can't remember who is it?
• 53:31
  Who is.
• 53:33
  Who is.
• 53:33
  Would I know?
• 53:34
  Is this person still?
• 53:35
  You actually know this?
• 53:36
  There's no possible way you don't know.
• 53:37
  Wait, are they very popular right now or was this, like, back.
• 53:39
  They're a movie star who's been popular for, like, 50.
• 53:42
  Everyone watching this knows.
• 53:43
  How do I not know this?
• 53:44
  I feel like I'm always up on.
• 53:46
  I don't mean I don't want to like, like, you know, outwise you on your own podcast.
• 53:49
  Okay, tell me the age, the age of the person.
• 53:51
  They were famous.
• 53:52
  They became famous for a horror movie in the 70s and then won an Oscar recently.
• 53:58
  Horror movie in the 70s?
• 54:00
  Like a slasher film?
• 54:01
  Yes, like Friday the 13th one.
• 54:04
  Just like that.
• 54:05
  Nightmare on Elm Street.
• 54:06
  I'm not.
• 54:06
  That's it.
• 54:07
  That's the one.
• 54:08
  No, no, that's not the one I'm saying.
• 54:09
  Oh, that's not the one.
• 54:10
  Halloween.
• 54:12
  No comment.
• 54:13
  I.
• 54:13
  I don't see a response.
• 54:15
  Yeah, I'm taking.
• 54:15
  It's a no comment.
• 54:16
  Okay.
• 54:16
  Halloween.
• 54:17
  Who was on Halloween?
• 54:18
  God.
• 54:18
  Now I have to go through the whole Halloween.
• 54:20
  You so know this.
• 54:21
  It's, like, weird.
• 54:22
  So how.
• 54:24
  But my point is.
• 54:25
  Anyway, you know what's funny about that one?
• 54:28
  That is one.
• 54:28
  That's a specific Jamie Lee Curtis.
• 54:31
  She was in Halloween.
• 54:32
  Oh, that's the one.
• 54:34
  That's right.
• 54:34
  Now it's starting to ring a flash.
• 54:36
  Okay, okay.
• 54:37
  Is that still.
• 54:38
  That one never died either.
• 54:40
  That's true.
• 54:40
  That one never died.
• 54:41
  That one.
• 54:42
  It's still going, right?
• 54:44
  It's not.
• 54:45
  There's no.
• 54:45
  It's still going.
• 54:46
  But it's a different kind of rumor, as I've thought about that one.
• 54:48
  Okay.
• 54:49
  Of course, it's a question of.
• 54:51
  Of a person with short hair.
• 54:53
  It's like, so simple sometimes.
• 54:55
  Oh, she.
• 54:55
  Something's wrong with her.
• 54:57
  She's a woman with short hair.
• 54:58
  Short hair.
• 54:59
  And she plays action characters and she's a survivor in a heart.
• 55:03
  The brain arithmetic is fascinating.
• 55:05
  But also hermaphrodite.
• 55:08
  That's a word that comes from the Greek gods Hermes and Aphrodite.
• 55:12
  Oh.
• 55:12
  Were.
• 55:14
  They were married for a short time in the Greek mythology and they had a child named Hermaphroditus.
• 55:20
  Okay.
• 55:21
  Who was supposedly, you know, both sexes because they were so.
• 55:25
  And, you know, it's very curious how this stuff from the God.
• 55:29
  The Greek gods were also really, like, weird.
• 55:31
  Did weird sexual stuff.
• 55:33
  Multiple partners.
• 55:34
  Oh, right.
• 55:35
  Zeus.
• 55:35
  Yes, all of them.
• 55:37
  So, anyway, I'm going deep on Jamie Lee Curtis or on this rumor right now, but I'm not.
• 55:43
  I'm not saying anything other than it adheres to her for much the same reasons as all the rest of them, but it also is a different one because it's a very specific thing about somebody's body.
• 55:57
  And also, not for nothing, the chances of a.
• 56:01
  I'm just gonna leave it there, actually, I don't wanna say anymore.
• 56:04
  Okay.
• 56:04
  Okay.
• 56:04
  Well, is this something you might explore further?
• 56:06
  Any public setting, like a podcast?
• 56:08
  I might already be in a future episode.
• 56:11
  Oh, okay.
• 56:12
  Okay.
• 56:13
  So we can definitely watch.
• 56:14
  So how many more episodes?
• 56:15
  But it's important.
• 56:15
  You know, I just.
• 56:16
  Like, I said this about Richard Gere, and you can't have more respect for anybody than Jamie Lee Curtis.
• 56:22
  Like, what an amazing Hollywood star with a long career and fantastic roles and causes that she supports.
• 56:29
  And just an amazing person.
• 56:31
  And I don't want to say anything to, you know, impute her in any way.
• 56:38
  In a way, in this case, I think repeating the Richard Gere rumor is interesting because of the way I study it and the depth.
• 56:46
  But there was something about this rumor about this star that does feel very personal and attacking of somebody's literally below the belt in that one.
• 56:59
  I have a lot of.
• 57:00
  I'm still trying to sort through exactly how I'm gonna handle it.
• 57:03
  Okay, well, I'm excited to hear about that.
• 57:05
  How many more episodes of the podcast do we have left?
• 57:07
  Seven have dropped and there will be 12.
• 57:10
  So there's five men.
• 57:11
  Thank you.
• 57:11
  Yeah.
• 57:12
  It's so good.
• 57:12
  I've listened to the first three.
• 57:14
  I think it's just.
• 57:15
  You really go in there.
• 57:16
  I mean, you're like, deep.
• 57:18
  I really do go in there.
• 57:19
  You lived it, you ate it, you breathed it.
• 57:21
  You can tell.
• 57:21
  I mean, it's all the things.
• 57:23
  Do you have more compassion now for Richard Gere than you ever did before?
• 57:26
  Yeah.
• 57:27
  And more respect for him.
• 57:28
  You know, here's a funny thing.
• 57:30
  Having watched nearly every Richard Gere movie, I'm actually the one I haven't watched.
• 57:34
  He is a bit player, but important in his career is looking for Mr.
• 57:37
  Goodbar.
• 57:37
  I'm actually going to have a sort of friends and celebration of gerbil.
• 57:41
  We're going to show it in somebody's backyard.
• 57:42
  But his sort of bravery at playing gay roles and working with this imagery of himself early is really interesting and admirable.
• 57:52
  And watching American Gigolo, it's not a great film as far as a plot or anything else, but the images in it and the beauty of Lauren Hutton in it and his beauty in it.
• 58:04
  It's just so interesting how Hollywood's.
• 58:07
  They didn't polish everything with a thousand studies back then.
• 58:11
  It was just these people's lives.
• 58:13
  Like they can get A movie made, they have beautiful people in it, and there's an auteur at the center of it who wants to say something in that case, Paul Schrader, the director.
• 58:22
  And they all like these very creative people who are very beautiful also all get together and do this interesting project.
• 58:28
  And it's just like it makes you long for sort of things that aren't great necessarily, but that are great.
• 58:36
  Whereas now it's like if a movie's a stinker, you know that probably it is bad because too many people got involved with it.
• 58:43
  That's not always the case.
• 58:44
  There's other reasons.
• 58:45
  But also, I was going to say I learned a lot about him.
• 58:48
  I have to.
• 58:49
  I've spent so much time with him mentally.
• 58:51
  But there's a movie in 2024 that very few people saw.
• 58:54
  It was a remake, I think, of an Israeli film, and it's called Longing.
• 58:59
  And he plays a guy who had a son that he never knew about, and his ex girlfriend from way back when we had the kid with who never told him, comes to tell him the son dies.
• 59:10
  And then Richard Gere, his character, goes up and sort of has an experience like kind of getting to know the son who he never knew.
• 59:18
  And it's fascinating.
• 59:19
  And honestly, I think it's his best role ever.
• 59:21
  I think he should have been nominated for an Academy Award for it.
• 59:24
  Because where I've learned about Gere is in a lot of ways, he likes playing, especially early in his career, bad guys, prostitutes, hustlers.
• 59:32
  But he's really like what we're talking about, this kind of.
• 59:35
  Of like understated, reserved.
• 59:39
  That's more true, probably, to who he is.
• 59:41
  A guy who would prefer to sort of stay in his apartment reading spiritual literature or something and meditating, hanging with the Dalai Lama, all those things, you know.
• 59:52
  And you see him in this film, really almost this quiet part that really suits how old he is.
• 59:57
  And it's just a beautiful film and he does it beautifully.
• 1:00:00
  So, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:02
  What would you want him to glean out of the podcast?
• 1:00:05
  Like, what would you want him if he was listening to it, what would you want him to take?
• 1:00:08
  Not all reporters are evil.
• 1:00:10
  Thank you.
• 1:00:11
  Thank you.
• 1:00:12
  That is very true.
• 1:00:13
  A lot of us are not evil.
• 1:00:15
  You know, I 100% agree.
• 1:00:17
  The next time someone says, everybody knows that, I'm going to need names, dates, and preferably a receipt.
• 1:00:25
  For more from Alan Salkin, listen to his podcast Durable from the Hollywood Reporter, wherever you get your podcasts and follow him on social media.
• 1:00:36
  AlanSalkin, what celebrity rumor did you believe for years before you finally questioned it?
• 1:00:44
  Tell me in the comments.
• 1:00:45
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• 1:00:53
  Subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow me on social media at theiconicmidlife and redcarpetroxy.
• 1:01:03
  Come back Thursday for Alan's Name Names Game.
• 1:01:07
  An investigative journalist, a few unfinished sentences and some very famous names.
• 1:01:12
  What could possibly go wrong?
• 1:01:14
  I'm Roxy Manning and this is the Iconic Midlife.
• 1:01:17
  See you next.