Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Boss Babe Atoosa Rubenstein Chats with Rachel About Seventeen Magazine, CosmoGirl, Motherhood, Life After Divorce

Transcript

Boss Babe Atoosa Rubenstein Chats with Rachel About Seventeen Magazine, CosmoGirl, Motherhood, Life After Divorce · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I remember being in a small town in Italy, struggling
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  Speaker 1: That's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash P-O-D. Start your journey to
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  Speaker 1: real conversations in a new language today. Welcome back to Misunderstood.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm Rachel Yucatel, your host. Our next guest today founded
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Cosmo Girl Magazine and was the youngest editor-in-chief ever at
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Seventeen Magazine. Do you remember these magazines? They were amazing
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: at the time. She shocked media when she decided to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: leave the high-profile fashion industry by taking on another tough job, motherhood.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Why did she do it? How did she do it?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: It's going to be so interesting to hear in her
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: own words. She's been incredibly open about the obstacles in
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: her personal life, such as her difficult divorce and recent
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: cancer diagnosis. But through her struggles, she has found peace
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and purpose. I can't wait for you guys to hear
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: this episode. I love her so much. I respect her
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: so much. And I think you guys will really enjoy
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the show. Her name is Atuza Rubenstein, and you are
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: going to be so impressed with her story. So Atusa,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me. I just wanted
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to tell you that I have a place on my
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: podcast where people could write in and tell us the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: kind of guests they want. And I got more than
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a handful of people that mentioned your name and said,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear her story. I would love
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to hear her talk. So I'm so happy that you
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: took me.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Up on my offer. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And it's so nice to meet you. So fun.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So tell me how you would... explain who you are
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to people at this moment?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: At this moment, I would say that I'm the mother
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of three children. And I'm a writer. And I'm really
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: very much living in the I don't know. You know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I at one point had a very big career that
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: was very public. I walked away from that to kind
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: of find myself. And I feel like I've been almost
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: on a pilgrimage. And I like, Through that time, I
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: got divorced recently. I'm actually not divorced yet. It takes time,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I guess, for some people. And I feel very pregnant
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: with something. But I guess it's not time to give
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: birth yet. So I'm just kind of gestating with my family.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I'm writing. I have a substack that I write called
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Intusa Unedited. And when I was working, I had this
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: very role model kind of vibe of this very young
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: person who became very successful. And I had it all together.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: But there was a lot happening behind the scenes that
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: nobody knew about. And so that's been a big part
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: of what I've been talking a lot about recently is
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: what was actually going on in my life. Right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: So I think your story is really important for a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: lot of people because I think that so many people
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: are chasing something, looking for something to fill whatever's going
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: on inside, whether they get a powerful job or a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: powerful man or whatever it is for them that fills that,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and they feel like that's their identity. But I think
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: your story is really important because it shows no matter
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: what you have, whether it's those things and money included
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and everyone is putting you on a pedestal, It really
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: matters how you feel inside about yourself and about, you know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: what's important to you, your purpose or your happiness. Because
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: otherwise all of that will implode, explode, whatever it is
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: for that person. So I want to tell people that
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: may not be familiar with your story who you were
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: back when.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: If you can start with your childhood too because I
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: think that's really interesting.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting because when you talk
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: about– and we hear a lot of people say, right,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: it's how you feel inside. It's not about the stuff
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: on the outside. But when you don't have the stuff
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: on the outside, that sounds like wah, wah, wah, like
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: easy for you to say. Like you went to like
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the top high school for girls in Manhattan and you
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: have this incredible career. So I would have said the same.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Long Island and– It's interesting because
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: my mom is from a very wealthy family, but we
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: lost everything when we moved to America. So I'm from
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Iran originally, and I came when I was very little.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: And my dad went from being a mayor of a
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: town in Iran to driving a yellow cab. to being
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a security guard at JFK, to really doing whatever he
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: needed to do to make ends meet. Because at a
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: certain point, we could not get any money out of Iran.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I just got chills. That's kind of amazing.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And so I had a mom who had a fancy
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: handbag like you, but was living as a very poor person.
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  Speaker 2: And to her credit, that woman who had never worked
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: a day in her life, got a job. Sometimes she
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: had to work two jobs, including jobs that were not
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: particularly dignified. And because at a certain point, my dad
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: got very sick and he died. Oh, wow. And so
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: it just was like kind of a mess. And I
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: would be this little girl who would see my mom struggling.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And she never showed the struggle, but you can tell
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: times are tough. And I remember saying to her as
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: a little kid, like, I'm going to take care of
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: you one day and we will have a different life.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And so that became my sort of mission in life.
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  Speaker 2: And I was dyslexic. So, you know, it wasn't like
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: my siblings are very smart. My brother is just a
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: brilliant political scientist. My sister was a doctor. And I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: this dyslexic kid who.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Wasn't doing well in school. And so it just like,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: it seemed like there were a lot of things stacked
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: against me, including I was being sexually abused. So as
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: with many immigrant families, um, you know, when the first family,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: which was us, moves to a country, other people come,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: they stay with you until they kind of make their way.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And there was a relative that stayed with us who, uh,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: was molesting me for a long time.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And, but you know what?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: It, gave me a lot of positive, like it gave
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: me a lot of resilience. It also made it very
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: easy for me to leave my body, which sometimes it's
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: very helpful. Other times, not so. In the long run,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: it's not healthy. But so I just did the most
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: with what I could. When I left high school and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: went to college, I went to college in Manhattan. I
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: went to Barnard College. And I didn't know what I
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: wanted to do or be because, again, my mom wasn't–
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: it wasn't like I could necessarily look to my female
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: role model. But I loved magazines. You know, when I
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: was growing up and when you were growing up, we
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: didn't have the internet. Right. Exactly. So those magazines were
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: our portal. Yeah. And for me to be able to, like,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: have this one life at home and then see– The
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: beautiful girls that were so normal and like going to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: parties and just doing things in this other way. It
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: was always so mesmerizing to me. And there was a
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: moment actually in college where I remember like somehow a
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: 17 got into my dorm room and I was flipping
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: through it. And I saw this article about cutting. I
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: was a cutter.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I had no idea anybody else in the world was
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: a cutter because we did not have the internet. No
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: one's walking around like, I'm a cutter. Are you a cutter? Right.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my God. There is somebody. There
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: are other people doing this thing that I thought was
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: only my thing. And then in reading the article, it said, like,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: different reasons people might cut. And incest was in there. Wow.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: And again, we didn't have the internet. So I was like, incest?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: What exactly is that again? And I went to my
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Webster's dictionary and I looked it up and I was like, oh,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that happened to me. Wow. And like having this moment,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you know, that was seniors, 11th senior year in college.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I had been very unconscious about that part of my life.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: That had been something I left in the past. And
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: to see that maybe that actually had a hand in
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: how I was living my life. And what I mean
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: by that is I was a party girl. By that point,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I turned hot, right? Like I had a hot body.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I had like the hair and I had the fashion.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: You know, I kind of learned through probably the incest
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that my sexuality had some power and I used it
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: in college. And I would cheat on my boyfriend. Yeah,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I just was kind of a little bit of a drama.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I just left drama in my life always. And I
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: started to kind of think, oh, this could be connected.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: And I remember I went and I went to the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Karen Horney Clinic because they did sliding scale. I wanted
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: to get therapy and to talk about this. It was $ 20.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I couldn't afford that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: So I went for one session and I was like, oh,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I wish I could get that $ 20 back because I
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: can't keep giving it. But then from there, I started...
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I started... That made me think differently about magazines, much
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: more seriously, and that that could be a career path.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: And so I started interning. I interned at Sassy Magazine.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I interned at a magazine called American Health. And I
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: did that in college.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And how did you get those internships? Because those were
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: hard to come by.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were. It's funny. It's funny. The first internship
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: I got was at Rolling Stone. And I had gotten
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it through the college, like, career services office or whatever.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And so I called them to confirm, like, you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: the Friday before the Monday. And the guy who was
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: my point person was like, actually, I was about to
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: call you. The owner's, like, nephew or niece or somebody, like,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: took your spot. Oh, wow.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: And I was like, what?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Jesus. And I was in a sorority. And a girl
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: who was in another sorority who had graduated had told
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: me about a PR intern at a company called Lang
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Communications and that they were looking for someone. And she
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: made that connection. And so I ended up doing that instead.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And so it was PR. It was at a magazine company.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: But it was the magazine company that owned Sassy. Okay.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And so I was a very hard worker. That's how
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I really connect with you in that way. Like, I
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: feel like you're a hustler. You work hard. And I
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: was that way, too. Yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I like it, which I know
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you like it, too. And you're good at it.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: It also rubs people the wrong way because it's not
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: very feminine quality.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: But you know what? Somebody once said about me that
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like a man in a woman's body, and I
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: think you are too.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: That's what I say about myself.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why I've always just felt
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: this kinship with you. Yeah. Okay, let's get started. Are
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: you first-time buyers?
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's our first time.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: So it's your first time here?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: No, it's first-time buying.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Did you say no for first time buying?
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: No, wait, hold on.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, please hold. What?
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: No, no, I told you to hold on.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: You're viewing homes, not mortgage advisors. So find your nearest
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: branch at ebs.ie to get a dedicated mortgage person throughout
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: your mortgage journey. EBS, the mortgage people. Lending criteria, terms
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: and conditions will apply. EBS DAC is regulated by the
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: Central Bank of Ireland.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And so I remember on my first day of my
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: internship in the PR department, I hung up on Gloria Steinem.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: That was like the first thing I did by accident.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I was just like horrified. I was like, please don't
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: let this be an indicator of my future. She was
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: not happy. But I did say to my boss, like,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I will do anything you want. I will work so
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: hard for you. But I want to work at Sassy
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: one day. Can you, if I do a good job
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: for you, can you put in a good word for me?
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: And she did. And so then by fall of that year,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that was the summer, by fall, I was working at
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Sassy as an intern. Unbelievable. And then I had to
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: pay for school because I was on financial aid. I
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: was working at clothing stores on Columbus Avenue. And in
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: order to give that up, I needed to get a
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: paid internship too. So I simultaneously worked at a company
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: called American Health, which was owned by a magazine called
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: American Health, owned by Reader's Digest. They paid. So I
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: had one paid internship there. I did it for free
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: at Sassy. And what kind of things were you doing
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: in your internship? It could be anything at Sassy from
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: like opening boxes, steaming, ironing. Could be taking back their
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: library books. Doing research, I'd interview dermatologists because it was
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: beauty and fashion. Do credits, fact check things. Sassy was
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: all beauty and fashion. At American Health, I also wrote
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: articles or researched articles. That was much more buttoned up
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: in terms of learning the real nuts and bolts of
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: how the magazine comes together. I would be their model editor.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: They gave me a lot of responsibility.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So I think it's important to have people understand, though,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: how important it is for yourself to be at the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: bottom at one point, like get in at the bottom.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And even opening those boxes or just being around those people,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: whether it's in the mailroom for some people working at
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: William Morris or whatever, those are kind of the best
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: things that you learn because you have to know everything
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: about the company to be able to be at the top,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in my opinion.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: 100%. And I worked at Bloomberg.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Television in the news department and I started on the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: assignment desk and I had to go in at 4.30
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in the morning. My shift started at 5. It was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the best job I ever had. I learned everything from
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: how to get a cup of coffee properly to how
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: to research and how to have an educated conversation with
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates or whatever it was, you know, all the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: way through the gamut because you have to know, you
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: can't just start at the top. And I think so
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: many people Nowadays, young people think that jobs like that
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: are below them. Right, a sense of entitlement. Yeah, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's really important to know every bit about
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the business and know about respect and all those things.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So I think it's great that you started at the bottom,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: ended up on the top. I was just so excited
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: to breathe the same air as those editors. So to me,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I felt I did not have a sense of entitlement.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I felt just so honored to be there.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: But also, when you start at the bottom... It's appropriate.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: And you can really aim to do an excellent job.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And when you do an excellent job, even if you're
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: at the bottom, it's a fantastic feeling. And I knew
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: what that felt like. I wanted to always have that
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: feeling of I can do an excellent job and then
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: be in really good relationship with those who I saw
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: it as serving. Like if they said to me, go
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: get my dry cleaning, I'd be like, absolutely. You know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: where do you want me to drop it off? No problem.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And then as you move up, you know you've really
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: earned it and you know you deserve to be there.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And you never asked for a promotion ever in my life.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Wow. Not once. I'd always be surprised. Yeah. But I
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: think that to your point, when somebody is working like
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: that and they don't have that sense of entitlement, you
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: don't want to lose them.
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And so you're kind of promoting them before they even
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: get dissatisfied. Yeah, right.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So remind people what kind of magazines were popular back
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: then or which ones were your influence?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Well, when I think of my influence, I was I
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: think a senior in college when Liz Tilberis' Harper's Bazaar
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: came out with Linda Evangelista, you know, with her hand
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: up in the air so beautifully. You know, certainly that
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: was a time of like Steven Meisel at Vogue and oh,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: but you're going to laugh about this. This is something
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I feel like you're much more sophisticated than I was
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: as a younger person because you're from the city. But
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: are you ready for this? When I was in college,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: like sophomore year before I started interning. I would send
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: letters to everybody like to hire me, including Steven Mizell.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: So I sent Steven Mizell a letter and I asked
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: him to do a test shoot. Like I would like,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I can be your stylist for test shoots. He's like
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the biggest photographer in the world. I just had no idea.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that to some extent, because I was
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: from Long Island, like not from a ton of privilege
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: or– and also there was no internet, so I didn't
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: know who was big, who was not. I just thought
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: he was an amazing photographer.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't it be great to work with him? Of course,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: he never responded. But I always knocked on doors. I
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: never stopped myself because I thought something was above me.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: And I think that was ultimately good because more doors open,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the more you knock. Right, right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So you're at graduation. You're graduating from college. How do
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you get your first job?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: That was such a good setup. I feel like you
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: know the story. So I will tell you for your listeners.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: One of the things about magazines that's different than working at, say,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: a finance firm is that there has to be an
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: opening in order to get a job. So like my
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: friends at Barnard and Columbia who were going to Goldman Sachs,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: you know, there were 20 people that were hired every year.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And so you were vying for those positions. But in mine,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: it was just kind of like, A, magazines have notoriously
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: been a breeding ground for very wealthy people. girls. That's
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: who has always been almost like a finishing school. And
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: here I am, you know, really fought tooth and nail
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: to be able to pay for college, mostly, honestly, on
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: financial aid. I just had to pay for my own expenses.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So I was definitely not that. And So I was–
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: American Health, the nice folks who were paying me, they
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: did offer me a job. They said I could be
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the assistant to the editor-in-chief. They really liked me. They
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: paid me well. There was benefits. But I was kind
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: of bummed because, I don't know, I was like very fashion-y.
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Was kind of fast, you know? And I was like, okay,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I could work at American Health. I should be grateful
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: because I definitely need the job. And that was my plan.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: But I was a little kind of disappointed. What did
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: you major in? Political science, but only because... It was–
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: my brother was a poli-sci PhD and I never went
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to class.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, no, I get that. But so was
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: it– were you much better at writing? Were you good
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: at fashion? Like what did you think set you apart
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: or did you think it was because you had these
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: internships so it was a little bit of experience?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I had the experience, but, man, I had the thirst
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: and the desire. I fucking loved it. I loved it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And I was passionate. I didn't know what set me
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: apart from the others. You know, I had no idea.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: I was such an ignorance is bliss kind of person.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I just, I didn't know. And so, but when I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: was at the internships, I'd always like write handwritten notes
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to everybody I met and blah, blah, blah. And so
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: graduation day, as I'm like packing up my room with
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: my mom, the phone rings. And I assume it's like
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: one of my friends, like to make plans for where
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: we're all going to meet later. And it was, hi,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: this is So-and-so, I'm the beauty director at Seventeen Magazine.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I heard amazing things about you. I'm looking for an assistant.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, my God. Because, like, you know, again,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: as a teenager, essentially, Seventeen was like, that was it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So I was very excited about that. And so, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: we set up a time to come in for an interview.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And then 10 minutes later, the phone calls, rings again,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: and it's Cosmopolitan, fashion director of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Oh, my gosh.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And Cosmopolitan is just so big. I mean, today, you know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the whole magazine industry has been decimated. So to young people,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean anything. But there was a time at
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: which Cosmopolitan was the number one magazine in the world.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And so although it wasn't my magazine, I just couldn't
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: believe it was Cosmopolitan. And so I went on that interview, too.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And I did them both. And then I was like
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: the waiting game. And I remember being at American Health
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: at my job, and I got a phone call from Cosmo,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and they offered the job. And I was so excited,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of course, to get a job. I accepted it on
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the spot. I didn't even think because I'd rather work
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: at 17. That was more my thing. I didn't even
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: think to say, can I get back to you? I
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: just said yes because I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Right, right.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: You felt so honored to be given the opportunity. Yeah,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: not to have to be at American Health. And so
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: then I called 17 to tell them that I, you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to take me out of the running. And they were like, no, no, no.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: We were about to offer it to you. We'll give you,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: it was like $ 1, 000 more or something like that, which
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: is not a lot. But at the time I was like,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: but a lot back then. Or it felt like a
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: lot to me, you know, because I'd never had that
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: kind of conversation with anybody. And they were like, please reconsider.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You can just call them back. And I just felt
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Something in my gut, A, I didn't feel comfortable calling
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: them back. Like that felt like on an integrity level
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: just didn't feel right. And I'm so glad I didn't
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: because there's no way. What ultimately happened is I was
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: at Cosmo for five years starting as a fashion assistant.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Within five years, I created a magazine called Cosmo Girl
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: that I was editor-in-chief of. And within five years after that,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I was editor-in-chief of Seventeen. Mm-hmm. So there's no way
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that less than 10 years later I'd necessarily be the
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: editor-in-chief of Seventeen if I had started there as an assistant.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: You know, people always are looking for something from the outside.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: So ultimately it all really worked out. Right, right.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Talk to me about starting a magazine. What was that like?
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: How did you do it?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it was really hard because when you're a fashion editor,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and people probably don't even think about this, but like
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: there's no reading or writing involved. Like you're just going
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: to fashion shows. You're going to showrooms. You're pulling things
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: together for shoots. There's certainly a lot of hard work,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but there's almost zero reading or writing. Got it. And
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I'm a dyslexic.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: And so– and I also– like the fashion department– I
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: don't know, do you know a lot of people at
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: magazines and stuff over the years?
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, over the years.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Like the fashion department is like its own country. It's almost,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: we used to like have the door closed, candles on,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: smoking cigarettes in the fashion department. Like we were just
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: like smoking nonstop. That is not allowed in an office building.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: But like when you're in the fashion department, like you
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: do whatever you want.
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: They think you're done for the day, but they don't
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: know about the drawer. The drawer.
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: Just the one square before bed. Or two, you know.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: Nobody's watching.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: You deserve a treat.
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: With eight flavours to choose from, you can choose the
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: flavour you favour with Cadbury Dairy Milk.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And like all those other people just seemed like very nice,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: responsible people who work at the magazine. I don't know
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: what they do. I don't know.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I know the managing editor is the really annoying person
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: that's always hassling me about my cell phone bill. You
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? Or like trying to get me
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to spend less on this or that. But like I
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: just didn't know anything about them. And so I– but
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I had to hire a whole staff.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And I remember at one point the editor-in-chief of Cosmo
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: at the time, Kate White, said to me, you know,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of sour grapes about the fact– because
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I was very young. We didn't talk about that. I
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: was 26.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So that was– today, 26-year-olds do a lot of big things.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Back then, almost unheard of. It was crazy. And she said,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of sour grapes over you getting this job.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of much older, more senior people who
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: thought they'd be in line for the next editor-in-chief job.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: So why don't you tap into them, ask their advice
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: on who to hire. It'll make them feel good, like your,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you know, respect and value their opinion. And I said, sure.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: So I sent an email to two of these people
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and one of them responded back to me. Oh, look,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the fashion girl needs a grammarian. Yeah. She didn't mean
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: to send it to me because she like ran into
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: my office. This is the early days of email. And
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: she's like, oh, I accidentally sent you an email. You
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: don't even have to read it. You can just delete it.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: You can just delete it. And it was so– and
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I had already read it. I was like, okay. I
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: never said anything to her. But I was like, okay,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: got it.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So you knew how people felt about you.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: There were some people who felt that way. Yeah. And
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: so from there I just kind of– It was very hard. Again,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: in the beginning, I was like, we don't need a
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: managing editor. That's the annoying person that's always hassling everybody.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: short order we were working like 48 hour days because
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: we had no infrastructure because we had no managing editor
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: so like I kind of learned everything the hard way
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: but it was hard it was like I said a
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: lot of 48 hour days but amazing people we feel
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: you know felt so connected to each other and to
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: what we were doing it felt not like you know
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I used to always say this can't be a pile
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of papers that we're sending to her house like this
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: girl needs us and we are there to help her
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: right and About the reader, you mean. About the reader.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And who was I talking about? I was talking about me.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: And so me as a teenager who was being molested,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: who was, you know, sort of going through the things
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I was going through, I felt I saw myself in
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: every reader and I fought as though I was trying
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: to save a life. And so in some ways that
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: fueled me. It made it very intense to work with
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: me because I just didn't have that like, wee, we're
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: in a magazine. There was plenty of that because that's
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: just the nature of that industry and that business. But
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I was very, very, very kind of serious about the reader.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: And how did you come up with the topics and, well,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I'll put aside the covers, right, for right now. But like,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: The topics that you said influenced you when you were
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: reading it. How would you even come up with that
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: kind of thing?
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It's so funny. So again, prior to creating Cosmo Girl,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I was a senior fashion editor. I had just like
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: come back from Milan shows and I was planning the
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: next season's shows. I was kind of a vapid person
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: to be honest. I was only interested in fashion. I
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: remember this moment that I can't get out of my head.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting on the ground of my apartment and my then,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I think, fiance was on my bed and I'm looking
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: in the mirror, putting on my makeup. And I was like,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: I don't understand how these busted girls go out not
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: looking perfect. And I was just like, my face was
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: like a doll face. Like everything was in place. And
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: that was me. Like I really believed that. I was
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: so into like external stuff. And I think it's because
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: all of the internal stuff was completely unprocessed.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Because you were young at that time?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Because I was young, I had not yet really talked
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: or had any– certainly had not had therapy. I hadn't
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: processed the incest. Like there were other things that happened.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Like my dad– one time my dad had a heart
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: attack and I was 12. I was the only person
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: with him. I was like holding him up against a
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: tree with my body. Wow. And I blacked out. I
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: don't know how he got to the hospital. I don't
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: know how I got home. A lot of things like
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: that had happened. Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like you became an adult very quickly
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: at a very early age.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And I didn't have support, like emotional support, because my
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: parents were immigrants. My dad was very sick. My mom
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: was really struggling to make ends meet. I don't fault
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: them for it, but there was really no space for processing.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Like when my dad died– No one told me. I
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: was 16. And, you know, because your daughter is almost
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: that age, like anything happens, we sit down with them.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: We talk to them. Like, you know, we make sure
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: they feel the feelings. My dad died and I kind
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: of just figured it out because they were planning a funeral. Oh, wow.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: You know, and nobody told me he died.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Because they were so enwrapped in their own stuff or
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: they wanted to protect you?
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: No, nobody's trying to protect me. They're wrapped in their
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: own stuff. And honestly, like I was– and it could
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: be a cultural thing. There was no parenting. It was
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: just like I was a child. I was not a
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: planned pregnancy. So my siblings are much older than me.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: And so I was kind of feral. Wow. You know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: so I just took in whatever I took in. I
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: took the SATs because I knew when the dates were.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I would take the checkbook to my mother and say,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: sign here. Other children in different families, like our families today,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: like we'd say to our children, have you– well, let's
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: sign you up for an SAT tutor. And when is
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the SAT? You know, it's like there was no scaffolding
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: for me, which ultimately was a good thing because it
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: made me very strong. But yeah, so I was just
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: very unprocessed, not in my body. I was attractive. So
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: I kind of just went with that, you know, like.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And also it seems like you were getting these jobs
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: very early on and to ask for help or to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: ask for guidance probably didn't probably make.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Psychological help, you mean? Yeah. Or didn't make sense.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Internal help didn't make sense because you had
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to carry this persona that you were moving up and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: you were mature and you could handle it.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I wasn't even thinking that far. Right. Like that's my point.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: But maybe looking back. I think I was really like
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: a reptile. Like I was just doing what was in
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: front of me. I didn't even have– because I wasn't
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: in my body, I wasn't even self-conscious about it. I
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: remember at one point I went on Paxil because after college,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: my college boyfriend broke up with me. And I just
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: really like I could not attend. I couldn't show up
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to work. Like I was so upset.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: And I needed to be able to function. So I
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: went to, you know, whatever the insurance suggested to some
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: shrink on 57th Street. I walked by that office all
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: the time and got a prescription and that helped. Yeah.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: So I didn't get the other kind of support. I
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: didn't process, like, why am I going off the rails? Yes.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: You know, why is this hitting me so hard? I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: totally am familiar with that. I remember also in my
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: early 20s. breaking up with somebody who I thought was
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: my everything, couldn't function. I was put on Zoloft. And
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I remember, I mean, now I can look back and say,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't deal with the situation because the medicine just
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: muted me.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Just erased it. Yeah, exactly. Totally.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And I think in those days, that was kind of normal.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: That's how you dealt with it. You just moved on.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know. Like I just felt like I
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: needed to show up to my job. So that helped me.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: And then I was like, okay, everything's okay now. And
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: then I met my– who ultimately became my husband shortly thereafter. Right.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: How did you meet him? I was at– so like
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: I said, I went to Barnard and my cousin went
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: to Barnard too. And she had a crush on this
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: guy who I was friends with who went to Columbia.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And he was bartending at some place and she was like, oh,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: just come with me. If you come with me, he'll
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: talk to you. And then I could talk to him.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, and you remember this, like it
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: was on the Upper East Side, which now we're happy
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: to live in, hang out in. But when we were younger,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: that was very uncool. Right. Right. So I was like, oh,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I only go to the tunnel. I only go to flowers.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: I only go to whatever. And so I put on
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: my fashiony outfit and I go with her to this
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: place on the Upper East Side that my friend was
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: bartending in. And his friend was also bartending there. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: he came over and talked to me. He was very nice.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: We knew somebody in common. And I did not think
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: he was right for me, but I thought he was
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: a really nice guy and I could connect him with somebody.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And ultimately, after a lot of phone calls, I went
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: out with him. Right. Amazing. Yeah.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: So just going back to the question I asked you,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you guys had great stories within the magazine.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, so this is what I was going to tell you.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: So I was this totally vapid fashion girl.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And then I get this opportunity to create a magazine.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: And part of creating a magazine is you have to
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: create three tables of contents. So you have to create
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: what are the columns, what are the stories, what are
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: the ideas. And for somebody who's only into fashion, I
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: was kind of like, oh, what am I going to
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: write about? And that night, when I was sleeping, in
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: the middle of the night, I wake up and my father,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: who had been dead for a long time by then,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: is like at the bottom of my bed. And I
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: like close my eyes, open my eyes three times. He's there.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I go back to bed. The next morning, everything just
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: gets like whispered in my ear. And I just was like,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: all these ideas. I don't know where it was coming from, columns, topics, everything.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And that was kind of how I operated for the
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: rest of, actually probably the rest of my life, is
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: it almost like it opened a portal that the creativity
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: just would come in. It wouldn't be from me. I
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: saw myself as just like the secretary and the executor.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that would help me
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: get into that zone is every morning myself and I
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: would make my staff as well for 30 minutes. We
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: wouldn't start working until we read 30 minutes of readers'
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: letters just to hear their voice and to really get
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: into their shoes because here we were, although we were
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: very young, we weren't 13, 14, and 15. Yeah. And, uh,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I wanted us to always edit and create with them
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: in our heart. Um, and so that actually the New
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: York times, I remember did a piece on that, on
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: that system of, of, um, of, of reading before we,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: before we create.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And really getting to know your, your listener, your reader.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: And not just get to know her, like almost like
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: create for her like you read enough that it becomes
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: one big powerful voice right right and you are always
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: on top of and creating trends right not just in
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the fashion world but in ideas what people were.
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: Thinking they think you're done for the day but they
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: don't know about the drawer the drawer just the.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: One square before bed or two you know Nobody's watching.
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: You deserve a treat. With eight flavors to choose from,
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: you can choose the flavor you favor with Cadbury Dairy Milk.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't think of it like that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: I saw it as like we were serving her. And
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: so we did things that ultimately were new and but
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: we weren't doing them to be new. Like I remember
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: at one point at 17, I created a faith section,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: which was about all different religions. And that was just
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: something that, and not religion in like the old fashioned way,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: but in a newer sort of more spiritual way. And
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: that was just something people were not doing. And I
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: was bringing people, this is a long time ago, like
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Don Miguel Ruiz, who wrote the four agreements and all
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: like Marianne Williamson, like people who were Very kind of esoteric,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: but bringing them in for a teenage audience. Right, right.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And how did Cosmo Girl do at the time?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it did okay. Like, when it first came out,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you know, when you're at these big magazine companies, they
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: invest a lot of money into making you successful. So, yeah,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, we did great in that it got greenlit
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: and we moved forward. But it was very hard to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: slug it out with, like, industry– industry sort of celebrities
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: like Seventeen and YM and Teen that had been around
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: for so long, such established brands. And so when Sarah
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Michelle Gellar, who, you know, was Buffy at the time,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: which was like a big dealer, Katie Holmes from Dawson's Creek,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: would be doing a cover, they'd go to the big,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: one of the big guys, not like the new unestablished title.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So we would get people that were like, like the
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: third rate celebrities. And that's just, that was a tough
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: game to win at. And then this really funny thing
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: happened one day. I have a friend who's a psychic.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: She was a very famous psychic in the fashion industry.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: And she had actually predicted the Cosmo Girl thing for me.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: She predicted like my whole life actually when I was
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: like 19. And she came just for a visit at
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the office. And I was telling her like, oh, like
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: we're just like really slugging it through. Like we need
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: a break. And she goes, I see boys. And I
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to what? And she's like, I
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: see boys holding puppies. And that day we were shooting
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: a kind of new band called NSYNC. Oh, wow. But
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: we were not shooting them for the cover. We were
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: just shooting them for something on the inside. And I
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: called the art director on the shoot. And I was like,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: get some puppies on the set now. and shoot it
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: as a cover. And sure enough, then they blew up.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: And then we had this cover of NSYNC holding these
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Sharpay puppies. And it was a big breakthrough for us.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: And that kind of pushed us into a whole nother
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: stratosphere for sales. So from then on, we were definitely
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: on the up and up.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: So speaking of covers, what was your favorite cover that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you ever did?
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Gwen Stefani. Like we were the first cover for Gwen Stefani.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: We were the first cover for a lot of people
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: at Cosmo Girl that were like Shirley Manson from Garbage,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: like people that I really, like the first cover of
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: like a teen magazine, so to speak. But Gwen Stefani,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: far and away, because I really, I just loved her.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I thought she was so special. I remember the people
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: in circulation, you know, people at magazines, who create them
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: are mostly women, but the men in suits, it's all
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: men in suits in the, you know, the business part.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: In the background. Yeah, in the background. And I remember
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: this one guy was like, why are you putting a, like,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: pink-haired freak on your back to school because that's the big.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: And he just made me, like, he tried to shame me.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, all right, you know, let's see.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: And it sold like gangbusters because it was so unusual. Right.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: So that was definitely my favorite Cosmo girl. Right. Okay.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: So you end up being editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine. And
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: also your popularity kind of grows. You're on Charlie Rose.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: People are putting you on skits in SNL. What was
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: that like?
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Well, it was amazing. You know, for the little girl
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: who felt very unseen, I felt great. But there was
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: also the proliferation of sort of social media gawker. And gawker,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: who I'm sure loved you too at a certain point,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: loved me. And they would write about me every day.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And it could be like I'd go to, let's say
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I'm coming off of doing the Today Show and I
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: just go pick up a sandwich on my way to
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: the office for breakfast. Somebody would see me. If I
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: see somebody do this, I know, oh, fuck, they're going
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to write to gawker. And they'd be like, oh, a
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: two-sail looking like a drag queen or You know, like
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: she'd been up all night and it's like, okay. So
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: that part was really unsettling, the gawker part. Mostly because
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: I still, like my foundation was still not super solid.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: At that point I was in therapy, but I still,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: you know, like I was having affairs and You know,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: there were things about my life that people didn't know.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: And to be under that kind of surveillance, particularly from Gawker,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: like if they knew what I was really doing, you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: they're talking about, oh, she looks like a drag queen. Okay.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: But they don't know I'm doing X, Y, and Z
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: or that I'm pregnant with like somebody's baby who works
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: at my company, you know, like, ah.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: And so that was very unnerving. Right.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: So let's get into that part of it. So talking
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: about what's going on internally, you mentioned you had some affairs.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: You had been married at this time. How long do
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you think you were married before you started to stray?
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: A few months. Oh, wow. And was that– well, you
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: tell me why you think that was. I think that
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: my introduction to sexual relationships had a secret component because
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: of the incest. Yeah. So secret sex, I think felt okay.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: There was always like an, a hint that not more
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: than a hint that my father was somebody who strayed,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: that that was kind of part of, that was part
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: of the dynamic. I married somebody who I really, really
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: loved and was my best friend and my, true, like,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: safe place, but we were not sexually compatible.
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: And for me. And that was, you know, I just–
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't know– I don't know. It's like– it wasn't
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: like I was, like, wracked with guilt. Again, partially because
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I was kind of raised feral. Yeah. I wasn't thinking
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: about it. And I'm not in my body. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I wasn't one of those people that's like wracked with
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: guilt about it. I just was kind of like went
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: with the flow. Right.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's so important for people to really hear.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: So there are people that get married for security and safety,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: but they are missing that sexual component or that intimate
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: component that makes them feel excited and better about themselves almost.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: But they don't want to lose that, you know, closeness
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: with somebody. And it's almost like I don't want to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: say a parental figure, but someone that just creates this.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Family. Yeah, family.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: And someone you don't want to hurt or lose, but
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the person you want to have sex with.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: And it could be, in my case, that having sex
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: with a safe person was not part of my wiring
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: because of the incest. Yeah. And there's other components on
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: his side that's his story to tell. Right. So I
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: think that in many ways he was the perfect partner
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: for me and I was the perfect partner for him.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Did it affect your marriage? I mean, clearly you were
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: able to stay married for many years. We were very,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: very close. We were very, very close. And I wasn't
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: necessarily losing myself in these other things.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: You weren't falling in love.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I was, but like I'm in love with you too.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I'm in love. You know what I mean?
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Like I'm in love.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Like I'm in love with everybody. Like it wasn't the
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: kind of thing that I was just floating above it all. Right.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I wasn't. Today, after all the things I've learned and
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: gone through and sort of worked through, I actually wouldn't
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: do that. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: not do that. I would not do that because it's wrong.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that because it doesn't feel good. Yeah.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: It's not the right thing to do.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it wouldn't feel right because I feel things now.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I am in my body. But back then it was
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: just like, oh, yeah, let's go out. Yeah, let's do this. Yeah,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: this is fun. I'm going to be in LA for
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a week on a shoot. Like, yeah, of course, obviously. Like,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: that's going to be more fun than– Yeah.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: So you had not had kids at the time, but
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: you did get pregnant with someone else's?
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. I terminated that pregnancy. And that was actually the
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: beginning of the end. Right. Like when that happened, that
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: was somebody I was in a relationship with who was
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: also married. And I definitely loved him. But again, I
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: wasn't lost in it. Yeah. You know, I didn't need
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: to be lost in it. I had a wonderful husband. And...
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: When I got pregnant, I was like, oh, shit, this
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: shit's real. Like this isn't actually just playing around because
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: it just felt like playing around before. And when I
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: got pregnant and I had to terminate the pregnancy, that
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: felt heavy. You know, I didn't terminate it like I
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: was getting my nails done. I was like, oh, this hurts. But, yeah,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: it needed to be done. I was at the height
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of my career at that point. In fact, one of
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the most sort of famous pictures of me that people
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: always use to illustrate me when they're talking about that time,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: I was pregnant. And I would say within months, I resigned.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So what you said, it was the beginning of the end.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And this is what I want to get to here
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: because it's so important. How could you go from having
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: it all kind of Which obviously was a big part
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: of your identity at this point too, which I really understand.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: How do you say, wait a minute, I have to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: take care of myself when you kind of haven't been
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: for your whole life?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a really good question. And the very honest
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: and true answer that I don't think most people would
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: say is it's not about necessarily one magical moment. It's
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: about following my instinct in baby steps. So it wasn't
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: like when that happened, I was like, I have to
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: leave everything. I was, I felt something isn't working about this.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: And how my intellect explained it to me and how
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: my ego explained it to me is I'm too big
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: They think you're done for the day, but they don't
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: know about the drawer.
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: The drawer. Just the one square before bed or two.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: You know, nobody's watching.
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: You deserve a treat. With eight flavors to choose from,
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: you can choose the flavor you favor with Cadbury Dairy Milk.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: 17 Magazine. Now, at the time, I don't think anybody
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: knows this. I don't think I've actually talked about this publicly.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: But Hearst was courting me to go to Herbert's Bazaar.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: And I didn't want to go there. And I didn't
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: want to go there anymore even though it had been
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: my dream because I kind of– you could see the
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: industry was changing. And they were under a lot of
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: financial stress. And I remember asking them, can this be
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: art or does it have to be commerce? Because to
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: me to be back to the what i thought was
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: the best part of bizarre you have to spend a
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: lot of money and stop worrying about you know and
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: just make it gorgeous and they were like of course
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: everything is about commerce and i was like all right
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: i don't want to be the asshole that fucking kills
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: bizarre so um i was just like i'm too big
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: to be I thought I was such a big deal.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: And so I got Kevin Huvane at CAA. I got,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: you know, top literary agent, Jim Luke Janklow, all these
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: like big macha men. And I was like, I'm leaving.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: And they were like, can we have a piece of
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: what you're going to do next? And I was like, no.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: And they were like, we'll give you this amount of money.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no. But really, I was saying
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: no because I knew I needed to detach. That's where
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: I can say in retrospect– A part of me knew
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I needed to make a break, but I wasn't ready
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to be like, now I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. Right.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: And now I'm going to just get cupcakes smashed in
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: my face by my kids.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: It wasn't that or like I used to joke, I
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: used to be the shit. Now I am shit, you know,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: because my kids would be like taking a dump on
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: me all the time. But– But I wasn't ready to
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: make that. So I just said, I'm going on my own.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: But then every deal they'd bring to me, and they
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: were great deals, including book deal, a television deal, I'd
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: say no. So I'd go right up to the final line.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: When it comes time to sign, I'd say no. And
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: they were annoyed because that's how they make their money. Right.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: And the agents– and I remember saying to my husband,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: you understand why if they don't do the beveled golden-edged
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: pages in the book, why I wouldn't sign the deal.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: That's my vision. And he was like, actually, if somebody
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: wants to write a book and they have a great
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: book deal, they sign the book deal. They don't not
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: sign it because they can't get beveled golden edges. And
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: he's like, it doesn't sound like you want to be
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: in business. Right. And that was a very important conversation
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: because I was like, I think you're right.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And at this time, too, we haven't talked about it,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: you had your own show on MTV, right? Or had
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: that completed already?
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: That had completed.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: That was a reality show where you were offering somebody
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: an internship.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: And to be on the cover of a magazine. At
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: the time, the reason I did that, at the time,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: reality shows were new. The Osbournes and Jessica Simpson show
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: were very, very big and had brought two brands that
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: kind of had been dead back to life. And 17
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: had been killed by Cosmo Girl and teen people. And
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: our company bought it. And it was in very bad
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: shape when I went over there. And it's hard to
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: turn an actual magazine around just by doing good content.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It takes time. Yeah. And I wanted to do something fast.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Because you have to build readers. Yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm also like, I'm like a fast, I'm not
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: a typical editor. Like, The typical editor-in-chief is somebody who's
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: coming from a features background and really smart like that
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: fabulous Katie Rossman who wrote the piece on you.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She's the best.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Can't be smarter, right? Like that is a sharp, incredible
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: writer and editor. Yeah. I wasn't that. I just was
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: a girl with a lot of guts and like crazy ideas.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: So I wasn't going to finesse 17 with my excellent whatever.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: pedigree to being number one again. I had to do
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: something fast and sexy. And so that was my idea.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I was watching the Osbournes. I was like, well, if
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: this old dude can be like the hottest thing in
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: the world, maybe we can do that for this. And
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: we got the same team, MTV greenlit it, and it
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: was very good for us. In fact, that year, although
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: the show wasn't nearly like as big as the Osbournes
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: or whatever, it brought a tremendous amount of revenue. So
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: it was like our– I think it made the most
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: revenue of all of the different lines.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: And in terms of being a reality show, how did
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: you feel about it? Was it real? I mean, did
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: you find someone you really liked?
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, she's like– I love her. The person who won–
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: many of the people who were the finalists I still
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: am in touch with and I adore. Yeah, it was great.
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: Was it real?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: That's not what I do. You know what I mean? Like,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: it felt very forced to me. They had a character
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: they wanted me to play.
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: I was doing it for the magazine. That wasn't my thing. Yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: But it was successful for us. And then the next
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: year when we saw the ways in which it was successful,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: what I did instead that was much better use of
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: my time because it also took a lot of time
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: of myself and my team, we did a deal with
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: America's Next Top Model. Right. And then we put that
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: winner on the cover of we would be part of
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: X number of episodes. It was much more contained.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: So we can actually work on what we do, which
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: is making the magazine. And we were able to still
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: bring in the ad dollars attached.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: So you have all these things going on and finally
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: you say, I'm done. Take me through that like moment.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Of when I resigned?
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Of the actual resignation where you had nowhere to go
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the next day.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, that was actually– so the resignation, but then
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I had all the agents. And so I did a
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: year of all that dog and pony show of what's
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: a Tuesday going to do next. Once I start– then
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I got pregnant. And that was what– that was kind
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: of like how I– I've always been– my best friend
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: David says this about me. I am such a brave person,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: but sometimes when it comes to making big changes, I
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: make it so that the change is inevitable. As opposed
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: to being like, I'm doing this other than the time
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: when I left Hearst. For instance, I hated firing people,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: but I would make it so uncomfortable for them. And
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I'd have a plan. I'd be like, all right, we've
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: got to turn up the heat. That means we've got
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: to get them to quit. Wow. That's how I would
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: do it. And even with my marriage, rather than saying
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: I want a divorce, I didn't sleep with him for
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: five years.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: To make it his decision.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: To make it his decision. And ultimately– It was my
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: decision to actually divorce, but, you know, he wanted to first, like,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: open the marriage, you know. But it's almost like it's
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: too scary for me sometimes when it comes to my safety. Right.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: So with this, again, like, I got pregnant. And then
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: I just kind of let all the other stuff go.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And you took that seriously? You loved– Having a child?
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: I did. I mean, I took it seriously because you
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: can't not when they hand you that human being.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: But I mean, that became your focus for the moment
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and you were okay with that. You didn't sort of
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: have your ideas to go back into some sort of
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: business and leave home life.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't think, yeah, no. I was not thinking that.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: There was a moment at which they called me for
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Cosmo after my daughter was maybe like almost four. No,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: she's like three. And literally the day after I found
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: out I met with them, I found out I was
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: pregnant with twins. Oh, wow. And they were just like, no,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: thank you. Naturally. I remember saying to my doctor, I
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: thought this only happens if you do IVF. Right. And
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: she was like. Or also when you're getting older, because
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: I was 39, she was like, your eggs start dropping.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: And if you hit it on the right day, you
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: get two. Oh, my gosh. And that was such a
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: blessing because the kids have all in different ways really
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: been– have been my almost– my compass deeper into myself.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: So I've learned a lot through parenting them. And– And
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: just watching them and being home and focusing on the
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: inside and all of that stuff.
• 57:10
  Speaker 6: Right, right.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of what I just want to get
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: to with you for a second is you had it all.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: You decided to leave. You decided to put your emphasis
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: in you.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, were you happy that you did that?
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. And talk about why. Because I think so
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: many people may not know that that's what they want
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to do or need to do. And are too scared
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: to do it because they're like, how will I make money?
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: How do I find an identity then? It's just me
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: standing on my own. I don't even like myself. I
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: think that's really hard for people.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: 100%. And brave of you. Well, and also– well, and
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: I kind of– what's interesting is I think that most people,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: myself included, don't even know what's on the other side.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Which to me, more than– Because also we were– like
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: my husband is a very successful finance guy. So got
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: the Perkins at the 92nd Street Y and the house
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah. We had it all.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: So that must have made it easier so you knew
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: you didn't have to support yourself with this income.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Well, one would say I manifested. So like when I
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: was working, he was not able to be successful because
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: he was always kind of supporting me. And then when
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I stopped working, he became much, much more successful. And
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I was supporting him, meaning supporting him emotionally and just
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: to have a home base so that he can be
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: out in the world the way that I was out
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: in the world before and supporting him financially. And so
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: in some ways, I manifested this ability to be able
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: to feel comfortable to go do this deep work.
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: But it was.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Also, the other thing you said, like, well, what was
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: like that first day? Nothing is ever that binary because
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: we do it all gradually. I think everybody's always waiting
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: for this one huge moment to happen. like a big
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: floppy bird is going to come and catch you as
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: you're falling out a window. But it just doesn't– it's gradual.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Like I remember when I first stopped taking all the
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: CAA meetings and looking at other projects, I just was like,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have a great summer in the Hamptons.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: And I was at like every– fundraiser and just seeing
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: people and just socializing and just relaxing and learning what
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: it's like to sleep late. And, you know, and I
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: was just like, oh, I don't know what this is,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: but this is great. And then we did, you know,
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: like it would be these little steps toward it. And then,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: of course, things get, when you have a baby, it's faster.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: But what's on the other side of having it all
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: is peace. And like when you're fighting so hard to
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: have and to grab and to be whatever it is
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: in your head you think you should be there's a
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: real unease inside of you and anxiety and to let
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: that go and to be the other pieces being a
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: rich person was really interesting people don't really talk about
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: it but like When you have money, you can avoid
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: all discomfort pretty much, like common discomfort. Like somebody meets
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: you at the airport, you don't have to wait on
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: any lines. You go fly private. But there is this sameness,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: like you're in a vat of vanilla ice cream drowning.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why some of the ladies drink
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: a lot during the day or do other things. And
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: there's no contrast. And like you have to have some
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: discomfort to have joy. Like you have to have pain
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: to have joy. And so that was kind of interesting
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: to learn too. But today, like I just feel generally,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: like I feel a lot of freedom. I feel a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: lot of peace. I feel a lot of joy and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: very comfortable in myself.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: So talk about who you are today, what you're doing today.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Because someone with your personality and mine, I know for me,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: it's hard to not have something to look forward to
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: or a project that you're working on. Or, I mean,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I have a daughter who's 11 essentially right now and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: she is my everything. But at the same time, I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: know I need to find something that also I'm doing
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and not just putting everything into her, especially as she
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: gets older.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and my twins are the same age as
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: your daughter and I have an older one too. Um,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: I think that what I'm most focused on is learning
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: really about myself and how I can have the deepest
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: love and commitment to myself because I feel like that
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: is how I show up best in the world. And
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I also think that is ultimately my body of work.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: And so what I'm living right now, for instance, I'm
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: going through a divorce. It is so hairy and ugly.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm not angry. Like, I'm in a really great relationship.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: He's actually in a great relationship for him. But yet
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: there's still a lot of anger on his side. And so, like,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: how do I deal with that? And, like, how can I,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I get reactive. And how do I
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: be not reactive and be responsive? And, like, I don't know. Like,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: just going through life. fully conscious and allowing yourself to feel.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Like I have breast cancer. So I was recently diagnosed
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: with breast cancer. And going through that really consciously and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: feeling it and not, I don't drink. So I don't like,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: I don't have like a glass of wine. I don't,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: allowing myself to just feel the grief When it comes
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: about whatever it comes up about and processing it through.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I'm just like learning a lot. I feel that it's
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: actually the creation of my next body of work. I
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: don't put the pressure on myself. And you must create
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: that body of work because I feel like I'm pregnant.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: And just like a woman who's pregnant and wants the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: baby out, baby out, baby out, like that's just a
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: form of anxiety. And it will come out when it
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: needs to come out. And if it doesn't come out, well,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: that was my life, you know? And so how can
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: I be in every moment and just present with what is,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: knowing that what I think ultimately I will want to
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: communicate to people is this ability to just be be
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: here now and just be present. And the great peace
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: and freedom that comes with that and with not always
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: wanting something.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Else in the future.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: And be present. That's such a good lesson. I was
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: going to ask you what you think your legacy is,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: but I think you just said it. I mean, I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: think that's really important. And how is your health right now?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I'm good. I mean, we live in New York.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: We have great health care. So I am in the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: best hands. I don't, for whatever reason, some people have
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of medical anxiety. I'm not one of those people.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: When I first found out about it, I was very
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: surprised because I'm very, very healthy. And I know that's
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: a common thing with cancer. People will be like, well,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: I'm a vegan and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I had
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: like a moment of grief because I really am having
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: so much trouble with my co-parent and his partner. Yep.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: And I was like, holy shit. Like what if my
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: girls have to be raised by her? And to go
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: through that like grief of that might be a reality
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: and how can I really forgive, you know, forgive her
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: and forgive– these wrongs that I perceive that really get
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: to me and just to also feel those wrongs and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: just be in these places that are so uncomfortable. That
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: didn't last a long time. I find that when you
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: allow things to really be as heavy as they need
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: to be without anesthetizing yourself, they flow through yeah um
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: and so I've been doing a lot of that and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: like when you say like what do you do every
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: day like I have two best friends and these two
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: people are so important to me and like I prioritize
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: them um I obviously prioritize my children before anything but
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: I have I go for a walk with my one
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: best friend like not like a power walk like a
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: he's a chaplain we talk about life you know, almost
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: every day. The other friend is a therapist. We talk
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: for like an hour and a half and we're talking
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: about real stuff. Like, I don't know what extracurricular activities
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: her kids do and I don't care. But we're talking
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: about like the real hard feelings of life and big questions.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: And so that's all I do. I love it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: That's great. And it sounds like for you that's really
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: getting it out kind of. It's like, internalizing it. You've
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: internalized things for a long time, your marriage or why
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: things fail or your health and how that's going to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: turn out. And it sounds like it's really good to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: feel it and be in the moment with that. I
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: talk a lot about in some of my podcasts before,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's very important for people to feel feelings
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: like a pendulum, like to the extent you can really
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: be in the pain, the grief, the sorrow, whatever it
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: is for you that's a negative. To that same extent,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: you feel it on the other side, the happiness and
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: the joy and the success. But so many people don't
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: want to feel what's on the other side or they
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: talk about it in a negative way or they do
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: all sorts of things that, you know, get themselves to
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: not be in that moment. I think you have to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: hang out in that moment because you learn from that
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and it makes.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: You who you are. And if you don't, it just continues.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: And a lower, like– It just– it affects your life
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: in a negative way. I totally agree. And that's really
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: the only way I think that you can experience joy
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: and freedom.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I also think it takes the fear out
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: of being in a bad place. I mean, it's okay
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: to struggle.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: You're not going to die. Right. Right. Like, it's not
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: going to kill you. It just needs– it might feel terrible.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: And that's the other piece. Even like talking about it
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: in a detailed way of that this is a physical
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: sensation that feels good. terrible. It does feel terrible. But
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: we are so quick to anesthetize ourselves. My form of
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: anesthesia is food. I'll be like, I need a sandwich
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason. Sandwiches are my thing. And it doesn't
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: serve me. And I still do it, especially with the cancer.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: I've gained weight. You look amazing. You're so sweet. For
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: people that are not watching this, you should know she
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: looks unbelievable.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: I'm 20 pounds overweight, but not at all. But that's okay.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: But my point is I don't judge myself. Like I'm
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: going through kind of a terrible divorce. I have cancer.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: I'm a single mom. And like, all right, so I
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: have like a couple too many sandwiches a week.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: You can handle it.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: It'll be okay. Do you think you are happy now? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, happy is such a, again, like a binary word. Yeah.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: Like I have so much joy. I have so much gratitude.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of pain. Like the other day
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: I had a really bad day with the ex of
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: just like the back and forth, like crying. And then
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: I got wrapped into it. And that was hard. But
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: absent that, you know, like you said, you have to
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: take both. It's like the bitter and the sweet. Right.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: But you don't feel like you're still searching for your
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: purpose or your happiness, like you're okay with you right
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: now and where you're at.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: I don't need to be anything. If I do nothing
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: ever again, that's fine as long as I have the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: present moment. And this whole idea of like, I don't know. Like,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's ahead and that's okay. Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: That's called mystery. Another, a reframe on that is mystery. Right.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. There are a lot of people that want to
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: know where to find you, where to listen to your stuff.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: What you talked about having a sub stack. Tell people
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: what a sub stack is. Yeah.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: So sub stack is this.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: Great online community that allows writers to just build their
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: own little communities. So a lot of People will probably
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: even subscribe to Substacks without knowing it's a Substack because
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: it almost feels like a white label, like a white box.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: But atusa.substack.com is where I write pretty much weekly. Because
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: of the cancer, it's been a little bit more sporadic,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: but almost weekly. And I'm on Instagram, just my name,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: Atusa Rubenstein. And I'm just kind.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Of like, And you're always giving great insight. And whether
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: or not it's about something that is for others to hear,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: it's a lot about what you're feeling. But I've found
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: that it resonates with me, you know, a lot of
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: the things you say. So I think people will be
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: really interested too.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I feel like if I focus on me, it might
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: be helpful. Yeah. If I'm trying to help you, like,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like there's something like I'm not a know-it-all.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not an expert. I can only share what I've learned. Right, right.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me. I wish
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: you the best of luck in everything and with your health.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: And I can't wait to hear what's next.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast, Misunderstood
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: with Rachel Yucatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: show and give us a five-star rating and review if
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you like what you hear. You can support the show
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: by joining our Patreon at patreon.com. Do you have ideas
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: for the show or guests that you want us to
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: reach out to? Please email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast at gmail.com.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and I can't wait to see
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: you next time.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: Don't miss a minute of United Soccer League action. The
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: USL Championship and USL League One are on CBS Sports
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: and ESPN platforms. all season long with additional coverage on
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: Sirius XMFC channel 188 and select matches available in Spanish
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: on 2DNA. It's your time to take part in building
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: what's next. Visit uslchampionship.com or uslleague1. com for complete listings. Find
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: your local club and be part of what's next.