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You're listening to a

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Mama Mia podcast. Mama

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Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and

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waters that this podcast is recorded on. Mama

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Mia Out Loud. Hello

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and welcome to Mama Mia Out

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Loud. It's what women are actually talking

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about on Wednesday, the 3rd of April.

0:19

I'm Holly Wainwright. I'm Mia Friedman. And

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I'm Jessy Stevens. And on the

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show today, Beyonce does not want

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you to forget that she got cheated on.

0:29

And we can now create AI versions of

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lost loved ones to keep part of them

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with us forever. So should we.

0:37

And Rebel Wilson is burning a whole

0:39

lot of bridges with her new memoir

0:41

and the latest person sent plunging to

0:43

the icy waters is Adele.

0:46

But first, Jessy Stevens. In case you

0:48

missed it, think twice before uploading anything

0:50

to the cloud. Over

0:53

the weekend, it was reported that

0:55

at least one relationship has ended

0:57

after a Brisbane Lions player synced

0:59

his WhatsApp chat to the cloud,

1:01

meaning that his partner, who was

1:04

at home, could access what has

1:06

been described as compromising content. So

1:09

what happened? The Brisbane Lions, they're an AFL team.

1:12

They went to Vegas after the AFL season wrapped

1:14

up last year for a trip. Feels like not

1:16

a good idea straight off the bat. Yeah, well,

1:18

it was it was a real holiday, like it

1:20

was irrelevant to the football, but they went during

1:23

the trip. One unnamed player pressed

1:25

a button and he synced

1:28

his chats to iCloud. His

1:30

partner had access, therefore, to all his

1:33

WhatsApp messages. And when she saw them,

1:35

she reportedly sent them on to the wives

1:37

and girlfriends of the other players. Reports

1:40

indicate that teammates have been having

1:43

some tough conversations as a result.

1:46

To be clear, we do not know what

1:48

was accessed, but the general manager of the

1:50

club, Danny Daly, said no policies were breached

1:52

and the issues are of a personal nature.

1:55

Mia, is this why you turned on disappearing

1:57

messages? Yes, do you know what? This

1:59

is actually. highly relatable, maybe not the

2:01

vaguest part, but I've got

2:03

a few WhatsApp groups with mothers of

2:06

my kids friends and

2:08

it turned out that in one

2:11

of the WhatsApp groups one

2:13

of the kids had access to

2:15

a device that showed all our

2:17

messages. Oh!

2:19

So we've had to go dark now we

2:21

don't know how to communicate. Technology

2:23

just screws up them in a relationship path. It's too

2:26

hard. Because we don't really understand how it works. No,

2:28

no one understands the class. I want me to think

2:30

this. I'm like sure. And

2:32

then look what happens. What happens in

2:34

Vegas did not stay in Vegas. It

2:37

went to the cloud. It did not.

2:39

I've got a friend who is divorced

2:41

and during the time of her separation

2:44

she still had access to all her

2:46

husband's messages and emails

2:48

through the cloud. It's like

2:50

no one understands this is

2:53

Holly's worst nightmare because

2:55

her dream is to be in witness protection with no

2:57

one knowing her identity or how to find her. So

3:00

the internet has made cheating on her car

3:02

a lot and also getting caught a lot

3:04

more likely. Can I ask a quick question?

3:07

Right. So you're sitting at home, your partner's

3:09

overseas and something pops up

3:11

on your computer and you realise that their chats

3:13

have been synced. I want to

3:16

know do you open them and read them? Do

3:18

you read the WhatsApp messages, Mia? No. Oh

3:21

you're thinking about it. Holly doesn't because

3:23

she has a weird privacy thing. Holly's

3:25

a spy. I'd have a glance.

3:27

Yeah I would. Of course. Not because I don't

3:29

trust him but because I am. And look

3:32

like curious. I'm very nosy but I learned

3:34

many years ago that when you go snooping

3:36

you never find out anything you want to

3:38

know. We

3:52

will never know if the reason that Beyonce knows

3:54

that Jay-Z cheated on her with Becky with her

3:56

good hair is something to do with synced WhatsApp

3:58

messages. It's the cloud. Maybe it was.

4:00

Becky with the good hair and the leaky

4:02

cloud. Exactly. But

4:05

anyway, here we are. Unless you've been trapped

4:07

under something heavy, you probably know that Beyonce

4:09

released an album this weekend. It's called Cowboy

4:11

Carter and it goes for an hour and

4:13

a half, which is much too long, even

4:15

though it's glorious. Why can't anything be short?

4:17

I mean, it's very long. That's what a

4:19

lot of reviews are saying is it's just

4:21

a little bit long. But how long is

4:24

the normal album? Like not an hour and

4:26

a half. There's 27 songs on it. It's

4:28

never even occurred to me to think about

4:30

how long an album is because it's not like going

4:32

to a movie where you have to like sit still.

4:34

Well, that's the thing, right? It's like no one's making

4:36

you sit down and listen to it in one go.

4:38

Listen to it over months or don't. The limit for

4:40

an album used to be 79 minutes.

4:42

That's how much they could fit on a final

4:45

record. This goes beyond that.

4:47

Anyway, it is great, but we're not here

4:49

to talk about that. We're here to talk

4:52

about Beyonce's take

4:54

on the Scorned Women trope.

4:57

So she's rerecorded Dolly Parton's

4:59

classic Jolene, which is a banger from

5:01

1973 in which

5:04

Dolly begs a really, really hot

5:06

woman not to nick her husband. I'm

5:08

sure you know it. We're not going

5:10

to play it to you, but a

5:12

couple of other things. No, no, I

5:14

think everyone knows it's fine. No, no,

5:16

no. In that song, she says, I'm

5:18

begging of you. Don't take him. Your

5:20

beauty is beyond compare. Your smile is

5:22

like a breath of spring. Your voice

5:24

is soft like summer rain. And I

5:27

cannot compete with you, Jolene. He talks

5:29

about you in his sleep and there's

5:31

nothing I can do, blah, blah, blah.

5:33

She's very downtrodden, Dolly. And that is

5:35

not where Beyonce took it. You

5:37

will be surprised to hear Beyonce's

5:39

song is like, yeah, sure, you're beautiful.

5:41

But she says it takes more than

5:44

beauty and seductive stares to come between

5:46

a family and a happy man. And

5:48

she basically warns Jolene away as well

5:50

as giving her a good this. She

5:52

says there's a thousand girls in every

5:54

room that act as desperate as you

5:56

do. You're a bird gone and

5:58

you're a bird. sing your tune

6:01

Jolene. So on the album Dolly introduces

6:03

Jolene and this is what she says.

6:30

You're a real gift from Southern women.

6:32

Like if you say bless her heart, that's

6:34

like fuck you and the horse you rode in.

6:36

Really? Yeah. If you don't remember

6:38

the frenzy around Becky with the good hair from 2016.

6:40

It was a big 2016 moment. A

6:46

very quick reminder Beyonce released a little

6:48

album called Lemonade. That was an outstanding

6:50

album. That was about her processing the

6:52

fact that Jay-Z had

6:54

cheated on her which we

6:56

suspected after we saw the leaked

6:58

video of her sister

7:00

Slange kicking him in a lift.

7:03

It's gone into the canon of

7:05

things we know about Beyonce and

7:07

Jay-Z. It's not a lot. We don't know enough.

7:09

They are very private. They don't give interviews but

7:11

they put it all in their music. And in

7:14

the song Sorry Beyonce told the world that he'd

7:16

been cheating and that she left him for a

7:18

while. The line that let everyone lost their mind.

7:21

He only want me when it's

7:23

my last. You better call Binky

7:25

with the good hair. Cue

7:30

thousands of pieces of speculation

7:32

about who Becky might be. Rita

7:35

Ora and fashion designer Rachel Roy

7:37

actually had to release official statements

7:39

saying that they were not Becky.

7:43

Nobody listened. It was

7:45

a wild time. So why would you bring

7:47

it back? Because today

7:49

Becky chat is all over the

7:51

internet again. Beyonce is stepping

7:53

into that wronged woman status and

7:55

going hard in a very un-sisterly

7:57

fashion against all the women who

8:00

want her man. And my question is

8:02

why? Why would Beyonce, with

8:04

her millions and millions and her

8:06

unassailable status as being a legend,

8:09

so happily want to talk about this?

8:11

Why did she want Dolly to reference

8:14

Becky with the good hair, cover a

8:16

song about cheating, and bring all this

8:18

back? Are we trying to

8:20

flip the script of what being a

8:22

wronged woman is about? Or is she

8:24

just really, really pissed off

8:26

at the Beckys of the world? I

8:28

reckon there's a few reasons. The first

8:30

is that a few years ago, I think in 2022, Dolly

8:34

Parton went on The Daily Show and

8:36

said, I would love for Beyonce to

8:38

do a cover of Jolene. Wouldn't

8:40

that be killer? I think she's fantastic and

8:43

beautiful and I love her music. I would

8:45

just love to hear Jolene done in just

8:47

a big way kind of how Whitney did

8:49

my, I will always love you, just someone

8:51

that can take my little songs and make

8:54

them like powerhouses. So that would be a

8:56

marvelous day in my life. So I think

8:59

that when Beyonce went, all right,

9:01

I'm going to do sort of a remake

9:03

of Jolene, in order to do

9:05

it authentically, she obviously had to draw on an

9:07

experience that she had, but

9:10

the spin is so, so

9:12

Beyonce and it was reclaiming the

9:14

idea that you are a victim

9:17

or that you are powerless. So what

9:20

I read into it was that it

9:22

is a total power inversion. In

9:24

Jolene, Dolly Parton sees herself as

9:26

subservient to this beautiful woman. She's

9:28

saying, please, please, like don't take

9:30

him. And she kind of wants

9:32

him even though he's obsessed with

9:34

someone else. Yes, yes, exactly right.

9:36

Whereas what Beyonce is doing is

9:38

putting her down and she's putting herself on

9:41

a pedestal. Now, like a few of the

9:43

criticisms have been, I'll be honest, they misunderstood

9:45

Jolene. I'm like, oh, I think she understood

9:47

it. I think she just took it to

9:50

a new place. But I also

9:52

think there's a cultural reading here that

9:54

it's sort of the same story expressed

9:56

in culturally different ways. So I was

9:58

reading a few analyses by Black women

10:00

who were saying that cheating and

10:02

infidelity is talked about

10:05

and experienced differently in Black culture, which is

10:07

something that I thought was probably worth. And

10:09

that's the whole point of Beyonce doing this.

10:11

She's not, you know, meant to

10:13

be singing like a white woman. She's meant

10:16

to be going in Black culture. It's about

10:18

rejecting the idea that you're kind of a

10:20

long suffering person at the hands of a

10:22

man. Like that's not what she's

10:24

standing for, which I thought was really cool and

10:26

also relatable. Well, she's also making the point in

10:29

this song, she's changed the lyrics to be about

10:31

the depth of their marriage and that they've been together

10:33

for 20 years and they've got kids and all that.

10:35

And so you can try and get him, but you're

10:37

never going to understand that, which again is

10:39

a very different kind of take. Yes.

10:42

And even monogamy, this writer was saying in

10:44

Black culture holds really

10:46

special significance because of

10:49

the reading by American culture. It's always the

10:51

Black man who walks out and leaves the

10:53

kids. So Beyonce has always been

10:55

someone who's really held on to monogamy. That's

10:57

one of her core values and principles. So

10:59

that's why that song is significant as well.

11:02

There's a few different ways to read

11:04

this because I agree, Ho, I'm intrigued

11:06

by the fact that Beyonce very deliberately

11:09

brought this back into the conversation

11:11

because she could have covered Jolene without the

11:13

reference to Becky and the Good Care. Do

11:15

you think she could have? Yeah,

11:18

she could have just had the song on there.

11:20

Yeah, but putting Becky in it by name in

11:22

the Dolly intro has been a great thing. It

11:24

brought back a conversation that had actually died out.

11:27

There was no subtext. There was no sub tweet

11:29

there. It was very overt. You know, like I'm

11:31

going to join the dots for you in case

11:33

anyone's forgotten that Jay-Z cheated on me with Becky

11:35

with the Good Hair. Rita Ored

11:37

does have really good hair, by the way. I'm not saying

11:40

it's her. I just was thinking about her hair, but there's

11:43

a few different ways to read it. So

11:45

part of it is just the trope of

11:47

the wrong woman and infidelity is

11:49

a huge theme in country music.

11:53

Even that she's being true to the

11:55

genre. And also that song is

11:57

probably the best known country song of all

11:59

time. One of the greatest songs of all

12:01

time that was written by Dolly Parton.

12:04

And fun fact, I think Dolly Parton wrote that and I

12:06

Will Always Love You. On the same day. On

12:09

the same day. That woman, International Treasure. She said it

12:11

was a good writing day and I was like, yeah,

12:13

no shit. Yeah, no shit, that was a good writing

12:15

day. She certainly deserved a little treat after that. But

12:18

clearly Beyonce hasn't finished grinding that axe

12:20

with Becky. So some

12:22

things happened. She hasn't got

12:24

closure over that. Do you think something's

12:27

happened or do you think we all

12:29

always hate Becky with the good hair?

12:31

Because I hate Becky with the good hair from my

12:34

relationship four relationships ago. It's just interesting

12:36

that she's chosen to revisit it. The other

12:38

thing is that it could be a warning

12:40

shot to Jay-Z again. Beyonce

12:43

doesn't have accidents. You know what

12:46

I mean? There's nothing that she

12:48

does that's not incredibly considered. She's

12:51

a meticulous artist and

12:53

she doesn't give in to you anymore. She

12:55

speaks entirely through her work and

12:58

she's someone who I agree

13:00

is pretty private. So given

13:02

that the Lemonade album and

13:04

the very clear

13:06

unmasking Jay-Z as a cheat

13:09

was punishment meted out that he

13:11

swallowed to both him

13:14

and to Becky. Because holy

13:16

shit, if you were Becky, you would

13:18

be freaking out. Also

13:20

it's not just- The Beehive are coming after you.

13:22

I actually think also Becky is actually a symbol

13:25

for a lot of women. I don't know that

13:27

Becky is actually a person because

13:29

Jay-Z has said Lemonade

13:31

was like therapy and at the time- I paid

13:33

him for him. He wrote an album

13:35

that addressed his side of the story and he basically

13:37

said, yeah, I did cheat. So

13:39

Becky is a cohort. Quite possibly Becky

13:42

is a cohort or Becky is a

13:44

symbol. I also wonder if

13:46

there's something in it that's a bit for relatability.

13:48

I'd say it's at a level now where

13:51

some of the criticism I've read of this album

13:53

already, because obviously all the hot takes are out. It's

13:55

like, how are we going to

13:57

listen to a country album from someone who's one of

13:59

the richest- most privileged, most famous, most everything

14:01

person in the world. We don't want to

14:03

hear a moaning about things. But

14:06

there is an enormous amount of

14:08

relatability about infidelity because most women

14:10

have a story, whichever side of

14:13

it they're on. Even though

14:15

we know intellectually it takes two

14:17

people to cheat and don't blame the woman,

14:19

blame the man and all those things and

14:21

I always sit very firmly in that seat.

14:24

We all feel, as you pointed out

14:26

Jesse, like an antagonism towards the Beckys

14:29

of the world who are maybe flirting

14:31

with our guy or whatever it is,

14:33

like if that's the situation. And

14:35

so that is a piece of real relatability that

14:37

you can still have with Beyonce even if you

14:39

don't have the mansions and the ventilis

14:42

and all of those things that

14:44

they have. And it's interesting because

14:46

when I listen to her work

14:49

there's so much inversion of that idea

14:51

that you're pathetic somehow if these things

14:53

happen to you, which is what we've

14:56

all internalized, is that if somebody cheats

14:58

on you it's because you're lacking, you're

15:01

wanting, you're sad and also that you

15:03

must immediately end that relationship and there

15:05

can be no future. These

15:07

people have been together all her adult life.

15:10

They've been together since she was 18. So

15:13

they do have this deep history and

15:15

she's representing something that maybe quite a

15:17

few people can relate to in

15:19

a very Beyonce way. Dolly, by the

15:22

way, thoroughly approves of the rewrite. She

15:24

tweeted, wow I just heard Jolyne Beyonce

15:26

is giving that girl some trouble and

15:28

she deserves it. Have you seen all

15:30

the memes about Jolyne who's like, I've honestly been copying

15:33

it for a very long time. Oh

15:35

my God, several lifetimes now. The

15:44

most unbearable and disorienting part of

15:46

grief is its finality. There

15:48

will never be another shared experience or another

15:50

conversation after you've lost someone you love. But

15:53

what if there could be? In the

15:55

New York Times Modern Love column last

15:57

week, Madeline De Figuereto

16:00

has written about how she recreated the

16:02

voice of her husband Eli, who

16:04

had died in a hiking accident the year

16:06

before, aged just 26. And

16:09

she wrote, while I'm often in the grip of

16:11

grief, I wanted to find a way to take

16:13

the reins and confront the control it has over

16:15

me. I wondered, what if

16:17

I could recreate Eli's voice? What

16:20

if I could have a final conversation with

16:22

him? So on what

16:24

would have been his 27th birthday, she began

16:26

to look into how she might be able

16:29

to use AI to hear his voice again,

16:31

and even have a conversation about him. She

16:33

did some research and she found an AI

16:35

voice cloning program. She

16:38

wrote, there were so many things I wanted and

16:40

needed to tell him. Three days after your funeral,

16:42

Eli, I found out I was pregnant and later

16:45

miscarried. Your sister got into medical school. I moved

16:47

to Houston. You would hate it here, but I

16:49

never want to leave. I'm in a new relationship

16:51

with someone I love, but I often wonder if

16:54

you would like him. She

16:56

found this program and it suggested that

16:59

you obviously have to have a fair

17:01

amount of audio samples of the person

17:03

whose voice you're trying to recreate around

17:05

20 to 25 clips or at

17:09

least 30 minutes of audio for an

17:11

accurate reproduction. And she

17:13

uploaded all these things, voice notes,

17:15

videos. She even had

17:17

audio of him snoring that she'd taken

17:20

to prove to him he snored. So

17:22

she just kept uploading and uploading and

17:24

uploading. And she then

17:26

experimented with two functions. One of them

17:28

was direct text to speech, where the

17:30

AI voice would speak words that she

17:32

typed into a text box. She

17:35

did that. She just typed in just a

17:37

regular email that he'd sent her when he'd

17:39

arrived somewhere and it read

17:41

it back. And even where he'd written

17:43

ha, ha, ha, it

17:45

laughed like, and it sounded like his

17:47

laugh. And she said, it sounded exactly

17:50

like him. And then she progressed to

17:52

having a conversation where she would type

17:54

a sentence or a question which

17:56

the AI voice of her dead husband

17:58

would respond to. So like a

18:01

vocalised chat GPT, but it's

18:04

oh, incredibly moving to read. So she says things

18:06

like, I miss you. I

18:08

can't believe it's been like a year. And

18:11

he's like, I miss you too. Yeah, it's been such a

18:13

long time. And she's

18:15

in this room. She's in a hotel room.

18:18

She didn't want to be at her house.

18:20

She was travelling. It was his birthday. And

18:22

she said, I felt as though I'd been

18:24

knocked into a different dimension that was simultaneously

18:26

disorienting and blissful. I wanted to linger forever

18:29

in its potential and immediately eject myself from

18:31

the self-deception. She said it was like purgatory,

18:34

this liminal space between two universes. In some

18:36

ways she said it was worse than reality.

18:38

And in other ways it was better. Would

18:41

you guys do it? I would like to

18:43

think I wouldn't. And

18:45

there is something that I

18:48

find deeply disturbing about

18:50

it. I understand the pull.

18:52

I immediately I don't think anyone knows

18:54

someone who's died recently and haven't gone back and listened

18:57

to their voice. It's really the thing of calling and

18:59

hearing a voicemail. She said she used to do that

19:01

all the time. But then even though she kept paying

19:03

the bill, and I know that's something that people really

19:05

agonise with, like I need to be able to keep.

19:08

So I can hear. Yeah. But

19:10

she said when it gets full, it wasn't

19:13

working anymore because the mailbox was full. So

19:15

she said even that was blocked from listening

19:17

to it. But even watching videos and

19:19

looking at photos, like that's what you

19:22

do. But I listened

19:24

to a podcast over the weekend with a

19:26

guy named Paul Kings North, who was a

19:28

really interesting story about how he was this

19:30

eco warrior and he turned into an orthodox

19:33

Christian. But the most interesting things he said

19:35

were about AI and how

19:37

we are trying to replace the

19:39

God shaped hole in our lives

19:41

with technology. I wasn't convinced

19:44

by that argument at first. And then he

19:46

quoted some guys from Silicon Valley.

19:48

So for example, in what way? A

19:50

Google engineer was asked, do you think God exists?

19:53

And he said, not yet. And

19:55

the idea is that AI as

19:57

this thing that can immortalise. that

20:00

we see as some kind of

20:02

moral arbiter in some way. That's

20:05

all-knowing, all-seeing. All-knowing, all-seeing. There

20:07

is a god-likeness to this technology,

20:09

and it's also something that Silicon

20:12

Valley in particular believe in.

20:15

This idea of progress and development as

20:17

a religion or as a structure of

20:19

thought and philosophy is something that a

20:21

lot of people are invested in. And

20:23

I looked at this and I went, it

20:26

seems like a god-shaped hole. That's what we're

20:28

then left with, is like, I don't know

20:30

where this person is, which is

20:32

the, you know, since the beginning of time, that's

20:34

been the grief of death. But

20:37

then to be able to still access them, I thought the

20:39

most telling thing in this whole piece was the use of

20:41

the word purgatory. Because purgatory is not where you want to

20:43

be. Purgatory is the place between heaven

20:45

and hell where it's like, this

20:47

person has to go to another place. That's

20:49

what it's all about. I entirely understand that,

20:52

and I'm sure that there'd be plenty of

20:54

people who'd say it's much healthier to move

20:56

on, and that slowly, slowly you'll stop calling

20:58

the voicemail messages and slowly and slowly. But

21:01

also for people who've had a really profound

21:03

loss, they're already in purgatory. You know what

21:05

I mean? Like, if you've lost a child,

21:07

you've lost a partner, you've lost somebody who's

21:09

so close to you, it's

21:11

not like you're not there. You know what I

21:13

mean? It's not like you're not swimming in that

21:15

every single day. And if you

21:18

can get some relief from feeling even for

21:20

a moment, like they're still

21:22

around and they're still with you, I mean, is

21:24

that very different from going to psychics and getting

21:26

people to... You know what I mean? I think

21:28

we've been trying to find ways to connect with

21:31

people who've gone forever. And

21:33

this is like the latest version,

21:35

the high-tech version. Because

21:37

it's interesting about the God-shaped hole, Jesse,

21:39

because also AI is being used to

21:41

fill connection holes. I was listening

21:43

to something recently where I was saying, a guy

21:46

has created an AI mom because his mom isn't

21:48

around and she isn't very caring. So he has

21:50

an AI voice mom who's like,

21:52

have you eaten today? Maybe you should think about going

21:54

to bed now, or whatever it is. How

21:57

is your day-to-day, darling, that makes him feel

21:59

like somebody... cares. It's

22:01

all taking us further and further away

22:03

from reality. But when you're in the

22:05

depths of grief, you'll

22:08

do anything for that relief. But I think what

22:10

this woman said, which I think is so

22:12

true, is that it wasn't the

22:14

relief she was expecting. That thing of us

22:16

all wanting that last conversation, especially with a

22:18

sudden death, right? Is you go, I

22:21

would give everything I have to have

22:23

one conversation with this person. She was

22:25

given that opportunity and she didn't want

22:27

it because it wasn't real. Well,

22:30

she did want it at first, but you're right. When

22:32

she got it, she knew that she was

22:35

standing on the edge of some kind

22:37

of abyss and that

22:40

it was him, but it really wasn't him.

22:42

And she writes, I would

22:44

still trade anything to have just one more

22:46

conversation with real Eli, my Eli. I don't

22:49

think that will ever change. His imaginary voice

22:51

and running commentary continue to fill my days.

22:53

But for now and hopefully forever, that voice

22:55

will remain in my head because what she

22:57

did after just

22:59

a short experience,

23:02

she decided this was really dangerous

23:04

for her and purged

23:07

everything. She forced it to

23:09

regurgitate every file. She deleted

23:12

all of those files from not from forever

23:14

because they were his actual voice, but from

23:17

inside the system. She deleted the program.

23:19

She blocked herself from re-accessing that website

23:21

because she didn't trust herself. I

23:24

understand the desire of course, and it

23:26

was such an interesting comparison, this idea

23:29

between psychics and

23:31

AI. The limit to

23:33

psychics is financial and opportunity.

23:36

So you can only afford

23:38

to pay so much and you can only go

23:40

and see someone so many times. With

23:42

this, it has the potential to

23:44

completely disrupt the natural progression of grief. That's

23:47

what she recognized. She's like, I want

23:50

to bridge that gap between where I

23:52

was when he died and

23:54

where I am now. It feels too painful

23:56

to leave him at that point when my

23:59

life has moved. and there are things that he

24:01

doesn't know. And in a way that feels

24:03

like a betrayal of the person who's died, that you've got

24:05

all these things to tell them. But

24:08

she recognised that this way madness lies.

24:10

Well, and also eventually you would recognise

24:12

that it's empty. But the thing is,

24:14

is that maybe she needed to do

24:16

it for that time. Because

24:18

when you're going through grief, everybody's trying to

24:21

hurry you along. Like they are.

24:24

People are always trying to hurry you along. They're like,

24:26

oh, it's been three months. Like, are we still talking

24:28

about this? You know, like, I don't mean people very

24:30

cl- but you know, or it's been a year.

24:32

Aren't you over this yet? Like, and for

24:35

so many people, it takes as long as it

24:37

takes. And it's the wallowing phase,

24:39

and I know that's not the right word,

24:41

because it's sort of pejorative. But

24:43

if there's a time that you need to sit really deeply in

24:45

that sorrow and you'll try all kinds of

24:47

things, maybe this is one

24:50

of those new things people will try. And so of

24:52

course it might not be healthy in the long term,

24:54

but we're very quick to rush people down this path

24:56

of, let's be over it. Let's get over it. And

24:59

it's, you know, I don't think

25:01

it's like that. I think all that people do is they

25:03

feel shameful to talk about it anymore or

25:06

connect with it in a public way, so they just bury it deeper,

25:08

but it's still there, you know? Yeah. And I

25:10

think that it proves as well that we don't have

25:12

anything to do with grief. If you're

25:14

someone who's an atheist or who maybe isn't

25:16

spiritual, you're not left with

25:18

anything to do or like any ritual.

25:21

And this Kings North guy said that

25:23

what's going on with this technology is

25:26

that it's all about fulfilling the most ancient

25:28

human dream, which is to become gods. And

25:30

in that moment, she almost became

25:32

a god because she was able to

25:34

recreate, she was able to bring someone

25:36

back. And I don't know, there are

25:38

a lot of stories and prophecies about

25:41

how that is a dangerous path. Mamma

26:00

Mia! Out Loud just for Mamma

26:02

Mia! subscribers. Follow the link

26:04

in the show notes to get your daily dose

26:07

of Out Loud and a big thank you to

26:09

all our current subscribers. Friends,

26:17

we need to talk about three revelations

26:19

from Rebel Wilson's new book, Rebel Rising.

26:22

It was officially released this week and there are

26:25

three stories making headlines and we're going to go

26:27

through them one by one. The

26:29

first, apparently Adele hates her. Allow

26:32

me to explain. When

26:35

I saw this story because last week

26:37

we spoke about she's not happy with

26:39

Sasha Barricone, called him an asshole, said

26:42

his behavior on the set of one of their

26:44

movies, the things he asked her to do, allegedly

26:46

inappropriate, she wasn't happy. Then

26:49

she talked about the

26:51

Australian TV show she was on, didn't like

26:54

that either. And I thought maybe that was

26:56

the end of the Rebel Wilson's. Oh no,

26:58

Adele, she's gone for Adele. She

27:00

writes, some actresses would get offended if I

27:02

called them plus size in this book, so

27:04

I have to be careful with what I

27:06

say. This is why I think Adele hates

27:08

me. I was like, please expand. She

27:11

writes, to be fair, I've never asked her, but

27:13

she says there was a moment when she was

27:16

bigger and some people would confuse us for one

27:18

another. She said that at events she

27:20

would go to approach Adele and then Adele would quickly

27:22

walk in the other direction. And Rebel

27:24

writes, as if my fatness might rub off

27:26

on her if I were near her for

27:28

more than 30 seconds. So basically

27:30

she says that Adele didn't like that people

27:33

would confuse them and be like, oh, weren't

27:35

you in Pitch Perfect or whatever? And Adele

27:37

would be like, stop confusing me with fat

27:39

Amy. That's what she writes. What

27:42

do you reckon? Do you think that Adele

27:44

is going to respond to this? I think Adele

27:47

would be like, please take me out of this

27:49

narrative. I do not wish to

27:51

be here. It's really

27:53

hard when you are

27:55

projecting or assuming or

27:57

guessing feelings that someone else It

28:00

has about you and putting them

28:02

in a memoir familial, a minimum

28:04

wage, and really characterizing something as

28:06

though it actually happens when that

28:08

might have been how Adele felt,

28:10

but it also might not be

28:12

given. years ago Lena Dunham told

28:14

a joke she sat next to

28:16

a yeah, i'm a black guy

28:18

at a basketball game or something

28:20

and she made this. Joke.

28:22

About how he looked at her and

28:24

thought like what do I do with

28:26

it A played into a really unhelpful

28:29

tribe about black man and kind of

28:31

bank predatory towards white women. A wasn't

28:33

what he thought she thought she was

28:35

about of the jokes but when I

28:37

saw this I kind of when you

28:39

have no idea what adele things and

28:41

you costa del to be close at

28:43

as you could have suggested that see

28:45

hated being mixed up with you because

28:47

she hated being plus size again we

28:49

don't know if that's what he actually

28:51

thinks she is. Really interesting in talking

28:53

about this book. about the whole

28:55

light stuff, right? Because Rebel says

28:57

herself that the stories about her

28:59

weight, if you added them all

29:02

up, vastly outweighed the stories about

29:04

anything else about her and maybe

29:06

see is hyper sensitive to that

29:08

and other people and that when

29:10

she was something of a. Plus.

29:12

Size Pin up. See.

29:15

Sense that other people will. I will

29:17

that you don't put me in. Our

29:20

case, a meeting. on to weight loss because

29:22

she does right about this in the books

29:25

he writes. Basically no one apart from my

29:27

mom wanted me to lose what people thought

29:29

I'd lose my pigeon hole in my career

29:31

playing the fat funny character and they wanted

29:33

me to continue in. That I feel strongly

29:35

that young women shouldn't try to obsess over

29:37

looking like Victoria's Secret models. They should just

29:40

look like themselves. I know that my relationship

29:42

with food is complicated and have a year

29:44

of health and. Twenty Twenty and Wilson says

29:46

that she worked out for two and

29:48

a half hours a day. She also told

29:50

the Sunday Times during this press to out

29:53

that she used weight loss injections for

29:55

short period of time to maintain the white

29:57

loss but doesn't use them anymore. Holy you.

30:00

Speaking about this on Dec Shepherd and

30:02

she was brilliant about this. Actually, she's

30:04

so interesting because. It's

30:07

that I'm a vibe that complicated feelings

30:09

about Fat Amy everybody does about the

30:11

idea that See was portraying big A

30:13

women in a certain kind of way

30:15

and was that a inclusive way or

30:17

an exclusive way But she says that

30:20

she went to Hollywood with a very

30:22

specific mission and said she sent them

30:24

an agent's all the advice that she

30:26

was given his don't do the of

30:28

silencing of talking yourself down. Towards self

30:30

up. That's what you gotta do it

30:32

America Americans Yeah, that's so sad. A

30:35

nurse said I'm the female Jonah Hill

30:37

put me in all the funny movies

30:39

and I will be the female Jonah

30:41

Hill. They said don't come to America

30:43

and say he can do everything cause

30:45

then you'll get nothing is gonna specifically

30:47

pigeonhole yourself And that pigeonhole was the

30:49

seamount and a hill cause then he'll

30:51

have been in someone's other. Belgium

30:53

Movies. And was really popular

30:56

says they go you've got a So yourself

30:58

in a very small pigeonhole and that's what

31:00

I'd size even though I'd done some Shakespeare

31:02

and things in Australia son and I forget

31:05

about that. See I see the One Avenue

31:07

and that she made said loads of money

31:09

out of that for period of time on

31:11

Dec seven nothing's is in her book. One

31:14

year her most successful yes you may twenty

31:16

million dollars in Ireland and that was by

31:18

playing that part And then she says she

31:21

decided she really wanted have a baby and

31:23

she was thirty nine and she went to

31:25

have it get her eggs frozen and the

31:27

doctor said to her you need to lose

31:29

weight see says that was the trigger for

31:31

her to decide on her year of health

31:33

as she refers to at night and she

31:35

says that everybody told her not to do

31:37

it as as said you'll lose your career

31:39

and she said to her it was a

31:41

clear choice between her career and motherhood and

31:44

she chose motherhood which is. wilds

31:46

to seek out there was a cr

31:48

not just some people on the internet

31:50

but also from my team that if

31:53

he'd lose weight you lose that pigeonholed

31:55

eve so carefully crafted see yourself new

31:57

i make the millions of dollars anymore

31:59

and was a pretty serious

32:01

thing. Yeah. Okay, thanks guys, but

32:03

I think in my heart it is

32:06

better to be healthier and

32:08

try to go after that and freeze

32:10

my eggs. And so I ignored pretty

32:13

much all their advice and did what I wanted

32:15

to do. Yeah. Does she say it affected her

32:18

career? Well, her career is not the same since.

32:20

No. But the thing that's really interesting is she

32:22

said it might not have been good for her

32:24

career, but in other ways she said suddenly after

32:27

she'd lost about 30 pounds she says

32:29

and it was noticeable, people began to

32:31

treat her differently. So I started noticing,

32:33

I mean, the first 20 pounds someone

32:35

at the Oscars goes, you know, oh,

32:37

oh geez, she's looking all right. And

32:39

then 40 pounds and then

32:42

people like, oh, and then I

32:44

posted like a picture in a bikini in my hot

32:47

tub and then an executive at the movie

32:50

studio who I'd been wanting to call me

32:52

back for months called me back. Weird things

32:54

started happening like at the Gelson's people

32:56

would offer to carry my groceries

32:59

to the car. Really? You're

33:01

getting hot girl privilege. Yeah. Or

33:03

hold doors open for me in New

33:05

York City. And she said it was like

33:07

having the scales lifted from her eyes and

33:09

being like, oh, this is how

33:11

hot people are treated. And now I'm moving

33:14

towards hotness. Everybody is

33:16

treating me differently, which is a really

33:20

interesting observation that many, many women who have

33:22

changed the way they look will tell you

33:24

it's true. She was sort of criticized for

33:26

how she began posting on Instagram. I guess

33:28

what people would call first traps where she

33:31

would pose in a certain way and then

33:33

get a whole lot of positive feedback. And

33:35

then she was saying in that interview that

33:38

that wasn't something she'd ever received before. No.

33:40

And so of course she was addicted to

33:42

it, which I entirely understand. People are so

33:44

judgy. I've had the tiniest face of this

33:46

myself, but when you lose weight, everybody

33:49

praises you. All of a

33:51

sudden they're like, you look great. You look

33:53

amazing. You should try wearing this. You're more

33:55

like this. And everybody says, wow, wow, wow,

33:57

wow, wow. Now, if you have never. in

34:00

your life. As Rebel Wilson said she made a

34:02

lot of money out of being in on the

34:04

joke about her own body, but she was never

34:06

played the hot girl. She didn't lose a virginity

34:08

till she was in her mid 30s.

34:10

She never dated. She was entirely career

34:13

obsessed. And then suddenly she's getting this

34:15

kind of feedback that she'd

34:17

never got before. Of course she liked it.

34:19

Like of course for a period of time

34:21

and then that becomes its own trap. But

34:23

I entirely understand that. I entirely get it.

34:25

The last story is one that you just

34:27

touched on, which is that she revealed that

34:30

she lost her virginity at the age of

34:32

35. She said that

34:34

as a teenager she would actively avoid the

34:36

topic of sex out of embarrassment and

34:38

that later in life she lied to a friend

34:40

just to avoid the questions by saying she'd had

34:42

sex at 23 to get it over with. And

34:45

then as she got older she said that she would just

34:47

leave the room whenever the topic of sex came up. Mia,

34:50

whenever we've written stories on site about

34:52

women losing their virginity, say post the

34:54

age of 30, they

34:56

go viral. Why do you think that is?

35:00

I think it's because this idea

35:02

with sex positivity, I mean it's

35:04

ironic isn't it, but you've

35:06

got to be just the right

35:08

amount of sexually active. Like too

35:10

late and it becomes, people

35:13

raise their eyebrows too early and

35:15

people raise their eyebrows. Too many

35:17

partners and people raise their eyebrows.

35:19

Not enough partners. Why

35:21

do you think we do raise our eyebrows? Because we

35:23

don't like a slut. We don't like a slut, but

35:26

we also don't like a prude. And do you think

35:28

that there's this thing of like, is

35:30

there something wrong with you? Yeah. If it's

35:32

something that you've put off or that it's

35:35

the side of yourself you don't explore, there's

35:37

like, yeah, sex positivity alienates you in a

35:39

new way. Yeah, because now there's this idea

35:41

that sex is easy to get. There's not

35:43

a lot of judgment if you've had it.

35:46

So why wouldn't you have it? Oh, it

35:48

must be because nobody wants

35:50

to have sex with you. And that

35:52

is deeply shaming. So

35:55

to admit that it was 35 and I assume

35:58

I was a little bit confused when I was a little bit confused. I read

36:00

the headlines about this because I know

36:02

she's now engaged to a woman and so

36:04

I don't know whether the idea of when

36:06

you lose your virginity is also really what

36:08

does that mean? Like does

36:11

it mean P and V sex

36:13

as people call it now because

36:15

what if you are with women?

36:17

Is that what she was referring to? Had she maybe been

36:20

with women but she'd only

36:22

been with a man when she was

36:24

35? I don't know and doesn't matter

36:26

like the idea of losing your virginity

36:28

I don't know if she gave someone a

36:30

blowjob if you lost your virginity like what does

36:32

it mean? I think it meant all sex because

36:34

when you listen to Rebel Wilson talking what you

36:37

realize is she's a very, she's

36:39

not boring right? There are lots of boring celebrity memoirs

36:41

out there right? And this is not one of them

36:43

and the way she's going out promoting it and as

36:45

we said at the beginning Burning Bridge is left, right

36:47

and centre tell you that and

36:49

she says that when she realized that she wasn't dating

36:51

and she had no personal life shortly

36:53

after the year when she made 20 million dollars she

36:56

set herself a challenge to go on 50 dates

36:58

in a year so she joined Raya

37:00

the famous people app and her rule

37:02

was that she had to say yes

37:04

to every single request for a date

37:07

unless the person was in prison. That was the

37:09

boundary. Wow. And so

37:11

she went on all these dates right and she

37:14

lost her virginity to a man and

37:16

then down the line she said the first relationship

37:18

she had with a woman was a real eye

37:20

opener and she was like oh maybe this is

37:22

it but she is very honest

37:24

about it. I think it's really interesting

37:27

that we have quite a

37:29

lot of feelings about Rebel Wilson. I'm

37:32

interested to know what her game plan

37:34

is after this because you

37:37

would say this memoir is pretty scorched earth

37:40

to antagonize people like Sasha

37:42

Baron Cohen, Adele, Lord knows

37:45

who else to pretty much come out and

37:47

say I don't get many parts

37:50

anymore because my body's changed shape. Probably

37:53

people won't be rushing to hire her after

37:55

this. What do you

37:57

think her strategy is for

37:59

the next- next part of her career. Maybe she

38:01

doesn't want to be an actress or a famous person

38:03

anymore in that way. I don't know,

38:05

does she have businesses? You know how famous people

38:07

have businesses now? I think she does. She's not

38:10

trying to sell us anything. We are very confused

38:12

about this. I think maybe she's like, I've made

38:14

my money, I've got my big house, I've got

38:16

my family, she's going to make plenty of money

38:18

off this book. Maybe she's like,

38:20

I don't want to be part of that machine

38:22

anymore. But then even in the promotion of the

38:24

book, she knows what she's doing. What she has

38:27

done is elevated her

38:29

profile astronomically. So I think

38:31

that if she wanted to fade into oblivion and go,

38:33

all right, I'm kind of done with this same thing,

38:35

I think she'd like to be a serious actor. Or

38:37

go back to stand-up comedy. Plenty of

38:40

controversial people, Phil Stadium still. I don't know

38:42

if she was ever a stand-up comedian. She

38:44

sees herself as comedy though. I watched a

38:46

rom-com that she did where she

38:48

was, no reference was made to

38:50

her size. That was

38:52

one of her more recent projects. Yeah, and I

38:54

don't think it did very big box

38:57

office. Because she

38:59

sort of falls in between,

39:01

she's not a character actor. She's almost too famous

39:04

to be a character actor in the way she

39:06

was in Bridesmaids. And also her weight

39:08

was a joke and same with in Pitch Perfect.

39:11

So now her weight's not the joke, but

39:13

she's not A-list skinny, but

39:16

she's not a punchline anymore because of

39:18

her size. So that middle

39:21

ground. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with that.

39:23

Hollywood does not know what to do with those

39:25

women, which is... I

39:27

think she doesn't want to play that game anymore. Yeah,

39:30

and understandably. It's

39:32

been Easter. I went out one

39:34

time. I went out out one time.

39:37

I don't go out a lot. It made me realise how

39:39

little I go out. How often do you go out, Jessie?

39:41

I mean, you've got a baby at home, so how much

39:44

did you used to go out before you had a baby

39:46

at home? I would easily go out two or three nights

39:48

a week, I think. And now

39:50

I try and do one

39:53

or two. It's a little bit like asking someone how

39:55

often they have sex. Because

39:57

it's like there's a little bit of shame

39:59

in how... much you meant to go out. I mean

40:01

we all go through phases. Anyway there's

40:03

someone who goes out every single

40:05

night and has done I think

40:08

for about the past 18 months. Her

40:10

name's Emily Vernon. She came into the

40:12

pod studio to talk to us about

40:14

an article she wrote for Mum there.

40:16

Here's a little taste of our conversation.

40:19

I live alone. I'm single dating and I

40:22

go out every single night. Like seven nights

40:25

a week. Pretty much yes. They're not all

40:27

dates. Most of them are actually just having

40:29

dinner with my girlfriends or dinner by myself

40:31

out. What? Yes. So

40:33

after the pandemic I really

40:36

struggled liking being in my

40:38

apartment because I was just there all the time and

40:40

I started to really resent it and stay home. So

40:42

I was talking to my therapist and she's like why

40:44

don't you just push the time later when you go

40:46

home after work and I was like that's a good

40:48

idea. I'll link to that episode where we talk about

40:51

how much we all go out will be in the

40:53

show notes. Speaking of how often you go

40:55

out during the week. What you need to do sometimes is

40:57

make a stand. Maybe have

40:59

some margaritas before. You don't have to but a

41:01

little drink before make a night of it and

41:04

hang out with your girlfriends or come solo

41:06

whatever you feel like doing because we have

41:09

our live show Mum Mia Out Loud Live

41:11

presented by Nivea Cellular. That is coming up

41:13

if you want to come along and see

41:15

us in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Best girls

41:17

night out. Head to the link in the

41:19

show notes to grab your tickets. So on

41:22

Thursday's you know what Thursday's called? Fake Friday.

41:24

Come out for Fake Friday. Thank

41:27

you for listening to Australia's number one

41:29

news and pop culture show. It was

41:31

produced by the marvellous Emmeline Gazellis, assistant

41:33

producer Tali Blackman and we've had audio

41:35

production by Leah Porges and we'll see

41:37

you tomorrow. Bye. Shout

41:40

out to any Mum Mia subscribers

41:43

listening. If you love the show and

41:45

want to support us as well, subscribing

41:47

to Mum Mia is the very best way to

41:49

do so. There is a link in the episode

41:51

description.