"The Bachelorette" & ABC + Oprah & Kristin Cabot + Sheriff Nanos

Hello to my Substack people. Hello to my YouTube people. Hello, hello, hello. This week, wow. If there has ever been a week that just highlights my work perfectly, it is this one. Hello everyone. Um, you know, so let me start off here. Uh, also in the chat, tell me. Give me your choices for, let's think about why we follow people, why we buy from companies, why we do what we do. Who broke that social contract with you? Which company? Which brand? Which celebrity? Which whatever? Who broke your trust this week? Let me know. It doesn't have to be personal, but let me know. Tell me. This is a week that I think absolutely highlights what I do for a living and why I do it for a living. And it really comes down to this. I will, one, and I think anyone who knows me well will tell you this. I think my guy Greg will tell you this. I think my kids will tell you this. I think a lot of people will. I love following stories, but not for the narration part of it, though I love a good story. I'm always looking for any type of through line that's the real story. And how you can tell what the real story is, is looking at the human behavior. And I'm not looking for fault to call anyone out. That's not what I am in my work, and that's not what I really want to do in my content either. Anyone who hires me knows this. I am their advocate. And if we are official clients and there are contracts drawn, I am their confidential advocate that goes along with it. But there's always going to be, there's going to be a reason, a reaction, a turning point, a trigger. Something is always going to reveal what's actually going on. And it doesn't matter if it's a story that you see in the news or— I was having a conversation with my son this week who was in Dublin. He's studying abroad and he was telling a story with his buddies. And even there, I tell the exact same type of lessons. So these stories that we're gonna highlight this week, there's 3 of them. I wanna know from you if you're following anything else. Andrew's saying King Charles. I mean, could we just put the royal family On every week of the year. I think that would, I think that would qualify. Wouldn't you agree? But what are your big stories of the week, you know, that you're following? Now, the 3 that I want to highlight, one took, actually all 3 of them I'll call viral. They all went viral at different times. The first one I'm going to jump on is one that was absolutely as viral as viral can be in February. It was huge. It was competing. Against the Olympics. That was one story. The other— one other story was the biggest viral story of 2025. I don't have the numbers on it, but I just know it, and I think you'd all agree with me. And then the other story that kind of blew up last night, uh, involving a television network and a very, very messy problem. So I want to start with the, with the first one. Carla, Kristin Cabot is an interesting one. She was definitely prepped for it. Carla, we, we, we, we are going to talk about that. That's going to be one of the stories. It's going to be Oprah and Kristin Cabot. It's going to be ABC and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And this is not about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. It's not about this, but it's about the statements that have been going back and forth. But I can't let this one go because at the beginning of the week, the first one that we're going to start with, I have the numbers for this one. So I told you about when I look at these stories and I drive through these stories, like what draws me to them? Oh, Crystal Rebel. Oh, Rebel's kind of Rebel Wilson. That shades into the Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds story, doesn't it? Yes, it definitely does. Oh, so there was an interview. With Rebel Wilson. Oh my goodness. I have to be honest, I don't know about the interview, but oh, it's going to be a lot. I bet there are a lot of great nuggets that we could pull out of there. But the 3 we're going to talk about today, the first one is, is kind of dry now and no one, no one talks about it anymore. It's the very tragic story of Nancy Guthrie. Of course, it was a bigger story simply because, uh, you know, of her daughter Savannah Guthrie on the Today Show who, and Savannah's still not back there yet. So now we're already in March. This peaked right at the Olympics and now it's, it's moved down a bit. Now I've done some content around it because I'm always focusing on the one person who I think, who I think highlights, I mean, is what I do. If there's anything that encapsulates what I do well, it's Sheriff Chris Nanos. So the story happens. All right. We're all watching it. But I was sitting here one day and I, I feel like it was a Thursday, something like that. Oh, we're going to talk about The Bachelor. Um, and, and all of a sudden it pops up that there's this live press conference for Chris Nanos. Now what I want to talk about, not the case, not the true crime, but let me tell you about the moment. Every single crisis that you see, and crisis is such a hard word. I hate even saying it, but whenever there's a story that's big that has a negative connotation for it. My definition of a crisis, just the Molly McPherson definition, is simply this: it's the moment trust breaks. Now, for most people, and this has been decided somewhat by the news too, when the news decides it's a story, the public decides, oh, I'm gonna follow this story. And when the public decides something's a story, the news follows the public. That's a transaction, okay? That goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. But what I'm looking at is what the headline is, but what happened before the headline. That's, that's the story I'm looking at. And that's the story that I'm following. So in this press conference, uh, with Chris Nanos, I just want all, we're going to, we're not going to spend this much time on them, but I have the numbers on it to prove what I'm talking about. So that's why I have to add it in here. He did this press conference in February. I stopped what I was doing. I went on Substack, as a matter of fact, and we all started talking about it, which was great. And Clayton Sandell, who's in our group, he's also on Substack. He's a former producer for ABC News, producer and journalist. So he reached out to me after the fact, and he and I talked about it, and I brought him on, and we did two interviews together to see what we looked at, what we were both seeing. In that press conference, what I could tell immediately is, one, the public affairs officer that they have there, Uh, she was doing a great job. She was highly stressed but getting everyone corralled because it's not just national or it's not just local reporters, it's national and in some cases probably international there too. So high coverage. But then this sheriff comes out and he does not have the look of someone who has the confidence to run it. He looked disorganized, he spoke disorganized. There really wasn't a lot of news to report. I think one news item was that there was a there was now going to be a reward. So that was newsworthy. But the whole time I watched it, I thought, why are we having this press conference? There's no reason. Every single thing that he said could have been put in a statement, in a media statement. And then they brought in the special agent in charge from the FBI. And so Nanos is at the bank of mics saying, talking, talking, talking, talking, and then punted over to the FBI and then comes back to him. Well, then he starts, and whenever— so here's also a tell. Whenever someone at— in these pressers, and now it's usually state or local, so I'm thinking even back to the Texas floods when that happened last summer over the Fourth of July and all those girls tragically died and many other people in the Hill Country in Texas. What do they first do when they're under pressure? Whenever someone gets to a mic and they're representing, like they're a public official, And they scold the press. Always look for that when they scold the press. What that tells you is they do not have control of the situation. That's exactly what Chris Nanos did. And then beyond that, what he did, which was a mistake, is he kept showing up in the press. He kept doing interviews and it was never an interview about the department. He never had a second person do an interview. It was always Chris Nanos. That's the other tell as well. It tells me, one, there's an ego there. Two, he wanted to control the narrative, and he really thought he was able to control the narrative. Carl is saying his ego got the better of him. I completely agree. Then he shows up at the basketball game, and he got a lot of flack for that, rightfully so. He needed that because from an optics point of view, it looked absolutely horrible. So what I want to show you real quick is I just want to share with you the numbers. And this is not to crow that I know what I'm talking about and see, I can prove it. But you know what? It's not about me, but it is about public relations crisis management theory, but also my experience because I've done this so much and I've worked with so many people on the inside. You could spot it a mile away. So I knew this was happening. So this is— I'm using Muck Rack as my partner. They're my media. Database partner. And it's great. I love playing around. And actually, Lexi from Muck Rack helped me with this because she gets excited looking for these stories as much as I do. But look at this. There was a story this week that went out, and my Substack people, I'm sorry that you can't see this. You can see this over on YouTube. But there was a story this week about a recall effort against Nanos. Now, granted, it's coming from someone who's trying to optimize himself off of it. You know, there's, there's politics involved. I mean, definitely there. But a big part of the work that I do is organizing. It's when people organize against a brand or they create a Facebook group or they suddenly there's a viral TikTok video. That's where I spend a lot of my time. But if you look at this, so this is just the recall story. The fact that there is a recall story about Chris Daniels tells you He never had trust to begin with. And that's the bottom line in all of this. In any type of, in any type of public crisis, it all comes down to, do you have trust? The people who have goodwill, they have, they have it in a reservoir and a deep reservoir. They're going to allow you to get through it. But if you're not there to begin with, and let's just say at the beginning of this investigation for Nancy Guthrie, he lost it right from the get-go. So look, all this red is sentiment. So right here, just in general. So we're looking at Chris Nanos not mentioning the recall effort, his handling of it, and positive. Even the numbers up here, article comparison, only 124 articles saying that he positively handled the, the, uh, investigation sentiment. Look at the overwhelming negative sentiment. Sentiment comparison, this next one. Uh, we're looking at from this, this here, this chart, this is where Chris Nanos mentions not mentioning the mishandling of the case. You get a little bit more green there, a lot more neutral. But look at here, mentioning the recall. So it's one thing to report on a recall, but look at all that negativity here. Share of voice. These are all the news articles that have come out in the last week about Chris Nanos. They are all negative. Now look over here in this word cloud. We have Nanos in the middle. We have law enforcement, but right up here, embarrassment. That is a part of the Chris Nanos, uh, word cloud. What that shows you from Muck Rack, and I absolutely love having the data to back up what my gut's telling me and what the public is sharing as well. And that's the sentiment that you see happening online. Now, this is going to segue into our second story. I am always a big defender of the public. Anyone who's on this chat with me right now, I consider you my people, but I also consider you part of the rational, reasonable, makeup of the public. Okay. At least everybody who keeps coming into our vault community here on Substack and in my community, we all can see kind of the same patterns that happen. But when I work with clients too, in the middle of a crisis and recently last week today, so it's been a week today that I was dealing with someone going through a viral crisis and it was bad. It was really, really bad. And when I first start speaking with them, I, I tell them about the benchmark of reputation is trust, how much trust you have and what's happening now and how much will it break. So when you have the numbers that back it up, so from the numbers I'm showing you from Chris Nanos, Chris Nanos will be fired from this. He will be let go. He will be removed, whatever it is. Chris Nanos will not keep moving on as Chris Nanos. Okay. So just like, uh, Greg Bovine with the ice, maybe the ice commander, they had to pull him. He would have the same red. So I quickly want to move on to the Kristen Cavett story. Now, a couple of you mentioned this about Oprah. What do we think about Oprah? Tell me your thoughts on Oprah right now. I will share with you. Do I have it? Oh, I'm going to share with you all as a Gen Xer. I'm always a fan of Oprah. Uh, her book with her trainer. Oh my gosh. Who remembers her trainer's name? Bob? It's not Bob Harper. He was Extreme Makeover, but, uh, oh, it was Bob something. Anyway, um, but I love the Oprah days, the television, all of it. But now we, and then we had this Oprah, GPL1 Oprah, Ozempic Oprah, but we didn't know it was, well, the public knew it was Ozempic Oprah, but she didn't want to tell us it was Ozempic Oprah. Manny? Is bringing up Maui. That, that was revealing. That was very revealing. Bob Greene. Thank you, Heather. Bob Greene. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Uh, Bob Greene. Yes. And it was that book. Her book with Bob Greene inspired me or helped me get through a marathon when Oprah, because honestly, I said, if Oprah Winfrey can run the Marine Corps Marathon in the pouring rain wearing leggings, the whole thing, she looks so hot. I said, if Oprah can do it, I can do it. So I give her credit for it. Carla, Oprah is giving guru energy, right? We just had our chat on Wednesday about gurus and self-help. Oprah was around the fringes of that. If you want to check it out, it's in the membership. So it's up right now. I even, I edited the video and I added some clips in there as well. But let's just talk about Oprah for a moment and then segue into Kristen Cabot. I love Oprah, even though she's not perfect and has had some problematic experts on her show. I mean, honestly, let me set it for me too. I think I'll always love Oprah because I just did. I love how she came up. She started, you know, as an anchor, as a reporter, as an anchor in Baltimore, you know, gets to Chicago. Nobody was rooting for her. And then everyone was rooting for her. It's wonderful. She syndicates, makes millions. She's great. But now what's interesting is, you know, we had a little masking on those Olympic things. She didn't want to tell people. The problem that I have, it's not because she didn't want to share that she was on Ozempic or a GLP-1. Fine. That's fine. But when you're not admitting it, like you're saying, oh, it's diet and exercise. And then she's, uh, has ownership in Weight Watchers and Weight Watchers is now going to sell it. Mm. Trust. So Oprah Winfrey is someone who has a lot of trust, right? Lots. As far as brands go. Oprah is like one of the deepest trust reservoirs, if you think about it. But that, for me personally, and I think for a lot of people in the public, oh, you remember her from Baltimore? Wow. You go way back. Um, she lost a lot of it then. Okay. Then Maui happens where she has a huge home in Maui. They have the wildfires. Uh, it comes dangerously close to her property. She kind of opens up part of her property. Okay. That's good. But then decides to start like a GoFundMe and she wants the public, the people to contribute to it. She ropes in Rock, The Rock, to do it as well. Massive blowback on that. And then Oprah, so loses trust. Then she makes a mistake. And then instead of just admitting like, oh yeah, that was a bad look, I should not have done that. She blames other people for bringing her down. When we see that move. So when I'm talking about turning points, that's the move that I'm talking about. And I, and I knew, I'm like, she's not going to recover from this. She's just going to move on and keep being Oprah. She has a lot of, so there is goodwill there. There's also a lot of money there. She can do whatever she wants to do. Right. But now it's this interview. So now she's on the podcast. So I said this, I said this on Wednesday, Oprah's green Mike era. This is my least favorite Oprah era because Oprah now, instead of just taking money and either putting it towards something good, like someone had mentioned the African schoolgirls, we don't hear about them anymore, right? We don't hear that. Oprah isn't a part of a value system anymore. That's where I think she's losing trust quickly. What, what are Oprah's value system? When she had a show, we kind of knew it. So now she's a podcaster just like anyone else, just like me. Oprah and I are in the same medium, which is crazy, but she's interviewing. She has the same business model. We talked about this on Wednesday as Mel Robbins. We're just going to interview people with followings and people, and I've had clients who reach out to Oprah and they're so excited. And me, I always go, uh, because I get it. It's Oprah, right? Like, I get it. But, and I tell them, like, you understand this is transactional. Like, she wants your followers. You know, that's, that's what it is. Now, is it wrong to do that? No, it isn't. I'm not going to judge her for what she does, but we want to look at it from the trust. Okay. So the only thing that where we've seen Oprah show emotion recently is when Gayle got in the spherical phallic Amazon mobile up into space. And then they cut to Oprah while Gayle is in space next to Katy Perry, who's announcing her album as her marriage is coming to an end. And then we have Lauren Sanchez of it all. And there's Oprah. And then they have to cut to Oprah because that's all part of the pre-production there. And she's, do I want to say the Erica Kirkus of it all? Like, so she's crying because, because Gayle, so this era is not a good era. Oprah has become incredibly transactional and why it's so off is she doesn't need to be. She's one of the wealthiest women in the world. A lot of people like, you know, like, like a lot of influencers or people who I work with and clients, they get caught into these frays and the crosshairs. Because of that transactional piece. And I have to, you know, I have to let them know, like, you know, that might have been questionable, like merch or Mel Robbins or, you know, it's just the social contract. But when you're Oprah, so anyway, yes. And also people, the Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz of it all, right? But did she know? Did she know? I mean, we have to give her a little bit of grace. But what can we say? One, all right. Two, three-ish, it becomes a pattern. But now Oprah has this podcast. When she lost me on this podcast is when she had Mel Robbins on the podcast. And she said that Mel Robbins' book, oh God, I didn't have time to actually pull the quote. I was looking for it when she said this. It was either a line or the book. This is one of the most transformative books of my life. Oprah, from Oprah's Book Club, the woman who brought like Maya Angelou to the forefront and all the things that she used to talk about. And Mel Robbins' book of an idea that she's trademarking that she stole from someone else. Is the book that changed your life? Are you freaking kidding me, Oprah Winfrey? So when that happened, this is just me, and Oprah Winfrey does not care at all or even know anything about me, though I did have a client once who was very close in that inner circle. So I will admit, I know like a little bit of how the brain works there in terms of the machinations going on right there. Uh, but so when she did that, that's when her, that's when the pattern was clear. It's like, she's just a podcaster and she's and she's just clamoring for relevancy. And you know what? Fair. But now we have to judge Oprah on that scale. And that's the piece of this Kristen Cavett interview. That's one of the multiple things that bugs me about the, the green mic Oprah era and this Kristen Cavett thing. Now, uh, her— her Oprah show ended in 2011. New generations don't really know her. You're right, Herb. That's a really good point. She, yeah, she's lost on a lot of people. And I remember working with a publisher and we were talking about Oprah's book club and bringing in Reese's book club at the time. And now we have Jenna Bush Hager's book club. And they showed me the numbers from Oprah's, you know, Oprah's impact in the publishing industry compared to Reese Witherspoon and the whole machine behind it. Like, oh my gosh, there's such a machine there. It was startling, like, wow. So to be a Gen Xer and see, ooh, like Oprah is not what Oprah used to be. So this is a really good point. Oprah now does not have that '90s, that '80s, '90s goodwill anymore. She is fighting in the same pool as everyone else, which would explain why Kristen Cabot ended up in the chair across from her. Now, Kristen Cabot. If you follow me, you know the Astronomer story is one that I follow. I have been very interested in the story from the beginning. If you've seen any of my content about this, I said when this happened, my phone blew up. If we go back to Astronomer, if we— oh, Manny, you like Jenna? I'm noticing Jenna is getting— The Reddit group does not like Jenna Bush Hager, like the Today Show people, but her book stuff is really starting to take off, that is for sure. But when this astronomer thing happened in the summer, you all remember last July, I know you— I bet there isn't anyone here who did not see the video of it or subsequent memes from the video. I'm convinced of that. But when it happened, my phone blew up, not just from people who normally I wouldn't hear from, but Almost, I would say literally, like every single news outlet, all the traditionals, all the networks, entertainment shows, everybody reached out to me. And there were two reasons why I did not want to go on the air and do it. Because I remember looking at my phone and I was saying to Greg, like, all this is going on, all this is going on. One, I did have Novocaine in my mouth, so I really couldn't speak very well. But two, because it was Boston, I one, I didn't want to say much because I felt like, oh, there's going to be like a 2 to 3 degree separation on these two, the Coldplay couple. I don't want to do it. But also, I just felt in my gut it wasn't what people assumed it was, like an affair that was exposed. And I thought, I don't want to be the person because nobody really knows what's going on about it. No, we did not talk about The Bachelorette. That will be our last thing. So tell me if anyone— tell me here. If you guys saw the interview with Kristen Cabot, or if you've seen clips of it, um, at all with Oprah, oh, and someone bringing up Harry and Meghan as well. I'm going to say like Meghan and Harry, I'm going to put them in the same category right now as Kristen Cabot. Uh, and I'm going to tell you why. So she interviews Kristen Cabot. Now we have a new view of Oprah, right? The, the green mic era Oprah. Is now clamoring for relevance. She's a podcaster like anyone else, and she's bringing on someone who is known for an infamous moment. And so what, and why is she doing that? It's clout chasing. It's click chasing. Carla's saying, I've seen the clip. She was well prepped and probably well paid too. Oh, interesting. The monetization. I think, I don't know if she was paid, to be honest. As someone who's seen the contracts for appearing on Oprah, I don't think she was, but I don't know. I don't know. She could be. But when all that happened, we all knew what went down at Coldplay. So we don't, we don't need to go into that. But this, Kristen Cavett does an interview. In December with the New York Times. In that interview with Lisa Miller from the New York Times, we had the photos and they're really nice looking photos. Like, she had the same shoes that I had and I was looking at her and I'm like, you look good. I think she even might be the same age as me, but I read it and what I did not like about it, 'cause when we're looking for those tells that I'm telling you, when you know where the trust lies, if our metric for a crisis is trust. And we have to determine how much you have, how much you don't have, like what, how much of there is a reservoir. For Kristin Cavett, she's not a known figure, so she really doesn't have any public trust reservoir at all. No one really kind of knows her, but then she goes viral. So I think people are looking at her. Oh, we'll get into Gwyneth Paltrow. We'll definitely get into that. But when you, so when you look at her, I, she's just a public figure who became infamous. Okay. So Oprah, uh, interviews her and what I don't like. So in the New York Times, the whole article was bent on blaming the public. She talked about people threatening her life, uh, threatening her kids, uh, like she would go places and people would yell at her. She talked about the personal cost. Of that viral moment and what it did to her. Fair, understandable. Look at our culture right now. Look at our leadership right now. Like calling people out and what you think and saying crazy, outrageous things. It's not surprising that someone would judge a Kristin Cabot for being exposed at a Coldplay concert. So that would be awful. And personally for me, I have empathy for her on that. I really do. There's no doubt about it. But that became the angle of the article. Now, I don't know if she's working with someone or a friend. It feels like she's working with either a friend or has hired someone who thinks they know crisis management. That's what my gut is, because in my business, I cannot tell you how many times I have to navigate the publicist or the lawyer or someone who's giving counsel or the social media manager who's giving counsel. No shade on all of them. They're all good at their jobs. And what I ultimately end up telling people is pay your lawyer to look for legal issues and legal liabilities, not reputational. Same with your social media person. They know social media. They can follow a crisis, but they haven't studied this and they don't have expertise in it. Same with publicists. A publicist's job is to give you press. It's not to protect you in the press. There's a difference. That's my skillset and that's why I could see it. So I feel that someone has been giving her horrible advice. She hasn't been able to find a job. It's been tough for her. Totally get this. So I, so I got two calls, one from NBC, one from CBS to do an interview. The only reason why I did the CBS interview is because I felt sorry for the producer because Barry Weiss took over and I thought it must suck. To work at CBS. So I told the producer, that's the only reason why I'm doing this. And it aired on CBS Morning with Gayle King. Um, and what I said was, and they kept asking me questions because the narrative, we're supposed to feed into the narrative that Kristin Cabot is saying, that it's, it's the public's fault for shaming her. And why does the woman get shamed? I said, it's not. So I'll hold on what I said and come up to Oprah. She sits down for the Oprah interview. The Oprah interview is a little bit different. So now Kristen Cabot looks even better. Oh my goodness. Her hair looks fantastic. It is flat ironed out. She's got great jewelry. She's wearing a total Molly outfit. The navy top and the cream pants. She looks really, really good. She looks great. And my instinct when I see her is never shame or eye roll. It's honestly, it's, I feel empathy for it. Like I want to pick up a phone. Now, after I was on the CBS Morning Show in December, uh, some of Kristin Cavett's friends reached out to me, uh, not personally, but they reached out on my DMs. Now, did they do it to say, hey, you know what, thanks for your advice. That you gave in that interview and in your social media where you explained who really is the villain in this story. But no, they're telling me the same narrative that Kristen's going with, that how miserable, how miserable it is. You saw her glow up as well. Accurate. That's what I— very good. It's a glow up. Well done. I like that. Um, so they're coming at me. I didn't reply because again, our worlds are, we're very close and they're going to get closer. I'm going to tell you in a moment. Um, so now on Oprah, and here's the, here, here are the issues that I have. So in general, if you have not seen the Oprah clip, her argument still, Kristen Cabot's argument is that the public has judged her without knowing the whole story. She spent a little too much time explaining she has older kids from a different husband. Um, Andrew Cabot was her new husband, but they don't share kids. And then Andrew was the CEO. They all have the same name. Um, so it's a little confusing. And then Oprah's really pressing her to say, you know, she was saying the reason why she had shame at that concert is she was worried that her husband, who was soon to be divorced, was going to see her. But Oprah said, but he was there on a date. Why would that bother you? And she kept pushing her on it. So it was a narrative that, that Kristin Cabot is using, but it doesn't hold water. And so someone told her that that's like a good narrative and it wasn't working anyway. So Kristen's doing what your best friend does when they tell a story, when they spiral detail after detail after detail after detail, and you're listening to the story and in your head you're saying, that has nothing to do with the story. It has nothing to do with the story. The high noons where Oprah had to explain to Gayle what a high noon was. I mean, if you ever really wanted a moment to know that Oprah and Gayle, live in such a different stratosphere as everyone else. It's that moment when Gayle King is like, what? A high noon? Now, the high noon was in the New York Times, and now the high noon is in the Oprah interview as well. Kristin Cavett's the new Bachelorette. Actually, she could be a golden bachelorette. There is something to that. And here's the problem with Kristin Cavett's narrative again, and she's going to appear at a crisis conference coming up. Why? I don't know. Well, I think we all kind of know. So the entire interview is about these excuses, excuses, excuses. And then it's the framing. Well, Andy Byron, the CEO, nobody criticized his looks. Everybody criticized my, my roots. And then they went after my hair person. They criticize my jewelry. They criticize this and da da da. Yeah, that's the internet. Okay. And there are people who are assholes on the internet. You know what? And there are, there are people who are assholes in the world. People who run in higher office are, you know, these people exist, but I'm going to argue that most of the people, like you guys tell me, why did you watch the astronomer? Coldplay video when it happened? What made you watch it? You guys share that in the chat. Tell Manny, tell everybody, why did you watch last July that Coldplay video when it came, when it came out? Why did you watch it? What drew you to it? So tell me in the chat. I am almost certain no one on this chat is going to say because we hate that woman, or I wanted something bad to happen to that woman. I think a big part of it is there was schadenfreude. Sure. People like, just human nature, to see some downfall or embarrassment, whatever. It's a dopamine hit. I think a lot of people looked at it as like, ooh, there by the grace of God. Like, that could have happened to anybody. Like, how awful. Getting caught face, the reaction. Exactly. It was— you were curious. Coldplay called him out. The shock of it all. Louise saying the reactions were hilariously wrong. Exactly. Catherine, to see their faces, and it was hot gossip. That's exactly it, you guys. Why were you drawn into it? It's because of how they reacted on camera. And you knew it was a PR moment. It was a PR moment, but it's because of how they reacted. If they just stood there, none of this would've happened. Now, do you blame them for reacting, like him ducking, which that was a tell, definitely him ducking and all. Do you blame her reaction? No, you don't blame it. But she spent so much time in this interview explaining to Oprah, well, I did it because my husband was there. My husband was there. Her husband there. That just maybe for a micro moment that might matter, but it doesn't matter. But you never hear that. Oprah doesn't bring it up. It's such a footnote. So anyway, so then we move on and then the Oprah again is focused all about the shaming and the public and blaming us. So, right, Chris, it was self-inflicted. Honestly, so many people would have done the same thing. But now here are where the mistakes pile up. And we're not gonna blame them, but this is why the trust reserve was lost here. And this is why she needs, this is why she's getting really, really bad advice. Alex is pointing this out, yes. Here are the couple things that happened why it went viral. When it happened in the middle of the week, if you all remember, and it was going viral. By Thursday, it was crazy, crazy viral. And in that absence, or as it was going viral, there was no statement from Astronomer, the company they both work for. None. The secondary story, um, everybody was going after Andy Byron's wife. We all found out what her name was, what she did on Facebook. We knew everything about her, uh, which was a shame. So now she is brought into this, and I'm going to tell you something that I learned when I said I was worried about being on the inner ring. I'm going to tell you something about that. So, uh, now she's brought into it, which is horrible. His wife, Andy Byron's wife, had no business being in that. Okay, so all of the kvetching that Kristen Cavett is talking about her kids and what she went through and what her kids had to deal with— where is a conversation about Andy Byron's wife and their kids? She was far more exposed and she had nothing to do with it. She had nothing to do with it. But nobody talks about her. Nobody talks about her. That's another trust point of it. There was no statement from Astronomer. There was no statement from Andy Byron, who's the CEO. And there's no statement from Kristen Kravitz. Granted, she's the HR person, but at any point she could have done that. She says in the interview that her soon-to-be estranged husband called her and said, just so you know, this thing is starting to spiral and go viral. She made the choice not to say anything or do anything. So all the people who are telling her, giving her advice now, I'm curious what they told her then. Something should have been said. She claims that she was allowed to keep her job. Fine. If that was the case, so let's say that was the case. It was up to the job astronomer, the company. They should put out a statement. Kristen is staying in the job, da da da da da, to control it. But they didn't want to do that. And the reason why, the other turning point The interim CEO, who's also the founder of Astronomer, he's the one who let it go ultimately. Okay, let it go. And the board, they did not change the misinformation and the narrative. And meanwhile, not only did it suck for Kristen Cabot and Andrew Byron, no doubt about that, but think about Andrew Byron's wife. Think about the kids on both sides. Think about them. No one is correcting the narrative for them. This is a very selfish story. And in a crisis, that's what often happens too, is when it happens to us, everything is about me, me, me, me, me. It is really difficult. And I know this from working with CEOs or leaders or influencers. When you're in a crisis, you only think about yourself. That's understandable. But my job is to get you to think about your stakeholders and other people. Everybody in this astronomer crisis thought about themselves. And so this whole shame narrative is the thing that bothers me. And I've always said this from the beginning. So the fact that Kristen is still doing that, so eventually what she goes on and talks about is how Andy Byron turned out not to be a great guy, wasn't necessarily that honest to her. So speaking for trust, she lost the trust of Andrew as well. Um, Kristen, so exactly that, this is what I didn't like in this interview. So this is from one of the comments. Kristen is the victim and she said he lied to her. Doesn't make sense because she said She was working really close all the time. I'm going to tell you, but his wife and kids were hurt. That weekend, I think it was that weekend or the next weekend, uh, I think I put a post up from Martha's Vineyard. I was in Martha's Vineyard with my girlfriends, uh, and we were chatting about it. Obviously it was a big story. So we go to lunch where we always go to lunch when we get off the ferry and, and we're chatting about it. And one of my friends mentions, and I'm not even going to say how or the inner circle. But about Andy Byron. So what Kristin Cabot was revealing that she found out after the fact, we already knew that at lunch. We already knew that. And I think a lot of people could have suspected this too. So this is where I feel sorry for Kristin again. I think she got played a little. The high noons. I don't want to say anything more about that, but I'm just saying I feel sorry for Kristin Cabot. Now let's wrap this up in a bow. She is still using this narrative. She is speaking at a conference, a crisis conference that I spoke at last year, to talk about this again. Now let's quickly go to Oprah and Gwyneth and Ryan Reynolds. When this happened, they did not put out a press release. They did not— the company did not correct the narrative. What did they do? So Andrew Byron's gone. Chris and Cavett's gone. She's claiming in this Oprah interview that they both decided to resign. I don't know. I think it was inevitable both of them were going to be gone anyway because the trust issue here. So let's start with them. It is the head of HR's trust to be a responsible advocate for all the employees. You're the chief people person. That's what's missing from the narrative. It's the professional trust. It's the professional trust that's lost. One, it was her moral decision. She chose to blur the lines with her CEO. If you are the head of HR, you know you should not be doing that. You know that. And she is saying on Oprah that her and Andy Byron were going to go to the board to announce that those two were going to be dating. That doesn't wash with the interview, and it doesn't wash what I heard on the down low about Andrew Byron's sitch. Because I know people who know him. He— there's no doubt about it, his timeline is murky at best. So that's where I feel, feel bad for Kristen. But I do not believe this narrative that she's saying the two of them were in, were in cahoots to go to the board. There is no way that man, who's a CEO, fintech firm, that they're gonna say, oh yeah, we're dating. No way. There's no— and then she ended up finding that out. So, but then There's the professional contradiction of what her job is in HR. She is there as the HR leader. It creates legal liabilities, governance liabilities, like the board has decisions to make there. And then also that power imbalance. That's the CEO. Nowhere in anything that she's talking about does she bring that up. And then you hear soft stories off to the side like, well, we discussed it in this. It doesn't wash. And this is where I want her to take accountability. That's if she wanted to get through it, that's how you do it. As the head of HR, um, I overstepped. I did it. Uh, that's why I resigned. Done. You put that statement out and then you move on. There's a lot of people that would say, would give you grace on it because they get it. They absolutely get it. But she's trying to imply that High Noons made her judgment foggy. Yet those two ended up at Coldplay before High Noons. So anything. So then the fact that she becomes the woman who did this doesn't wash and it doesn't wash with me. And that's why the person who's giving her advice is giving her bad advice. But also, uh, and I'll, and I'll wrap this here, her narrative from the beginning, and think about this with any crisis that you see out there, any narrative that you see in the news or even in your own life, Oprah, Kristen Cabot, and the New York Times, they're all making the narrative about you, about the public. Following it when what it was was a viral story. What brings viral infamy? Like, how do you get viral? The algorithm, right? The algorithm happens. How did Oprah become big? She had viewers. What does Oprah want? She wants views for her podcast. She wants listens on her podcast. Why did she put Kristen Cabot on the chair there? Because she's such a deep thinker? Because she's sharing some benevolent program? No, Viral infamy. Oprah wanted the clicks. The hypocrisy of those two women in that chair. That's the piece. That's where I live. That's where I live. And at that crisis PR conference, if I were moderating it, that's what I'd be talking about. And New York Times, they want the click. It's the same thing. Then for the owner of Astronomy. Stronemer. They allowed all that to happen. Kristin Cavett has no one to blame but herself for making bad decisions with Andy Byron, making bad decisions believing Andy Byron and what he fed her, and also being an HR person and using High Noons as the reason why it blurred between the lines. And then also now continuing to blame the public and that she was only shamed and covered her face because her husband was there and she'd be embarrassed, but her husband was on a date anyway. That's the hypocrisy, and that's why Oprah's trust, I think, is moving rapidly in the wrong direction. So Oprah, in my mind, is going to keep chucking down, down that list. Gayle King, I don't think she's long for the CBS morning show either. And you know what, there's plenty of money there. Those two can have a great life, uh, if they want, and they can be fine. The last piece of that story is Ryan Reynolds, the interim CEO who's the founder of Astronomer. Instead of sending out press releases, he admitted in a quote he loved, loved all the press mentions. He loved the fame that he was getting for it. So he wanted to find an opportunity to make it even bigger. Contacts Ryan Reynolds' company and Maximum Velocity, Maximum something, you guys will tell me. And then they do this ad with Gwyneth Paltrow. Allegedly, Gwyneth Paltrow was told by Ryan Reynolds that Kristen Cabot signed off on that. Okay, could we believe it? Maybe. Still doesn't wash with me. You're a woman and a woman is shamed like that. You wouldn't like double check on that. And also you would say, I don't want to be in an ad where a woman is shamed even more. So I judge Gwyneth on that one too. But Ryan Reynolds, maximum effort. Thanks, Louise. Ryan Reynolds is the one that created this ad that also shamed her as well. So what Kristen Cavett needs to do is she needs to find a friend or a crisis person or listen to this live. And I'm telling you, Kristen, just shut it down. And if you want, I will share with you what to do as your next step because you do have a path forward. But whoever is telling you to do this is the wrong path forward. Ryan Reynolds, everyone in my community knows from all our live chats, that is a problematic man. He, it is no surprise that he would put an ad together where a woman gets shamed like that. There should be no surprise as well. So Oprah is swimming in the same waters, wants the same clique. So the hypocrisy of this narrative is falling. Don't forget the Gwyneth book was out at the same time as the ad, so the girl code went out the window. You're right, Carla. I know the author of that book. It's actually a really good book because the author really kind of highlights like why Gwyneth is Gwyneth. Like why she is who she is. And honestly, reading the Gwyneth book, Gwyneth doing this ad, this astronomer ad, tracks. It really does track. It does. So moving on, let's talk about— yeah, Ryan Reynolds should be a big ick. We will come back for Ryan and Blake. We will definitely come back for that. Okay, so now let's move on. To ABC and Taylor Frankie Paul. How many of you watch Mormon Wives? How many of you watch the show? Okay, I'll let you know. I'll do my set right now. This is where I reset what I do. I don't watch a ton with them. Oh, so is Byron still with his wife? That's an interesting— you know what? I gotta ask. I gotta ask my person. I can't say. But you know what? Here's the thing. Andy Byron, who could or could not be a complete douchebag, right? He's at least smart enough. He's got a job. He has a new job. He's at least smart enough to just— and she's right. She says, why does he not get criticized? Why does he get to go on and get a job and I can't get a job? Kristen, you can't get a job because you're in the New York Times and now you're an Oprah and you're an HR person. So why is someone gonna hire you in HR for that? But anyway, so the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Hulu. Do I watch it? I have watched it with my daughters. I'll say that. I'm not a huge reality young person show. I don't have patience for it. But this one I did watch with my daughters. And Kate, my daughter Kate, wrote to me this week, what's the Hulu password? I want to watch the show. Well, that's a bad— I shouldn't say that. That's not how she talks at all. But I got the text from Kate. And then right after, I got an email from— and a text from a network. Covering the story and they wanted me to do an interview like immediately. And I had a call plus I, I just, I went, no, I don't wanna jump into this because of the video and the domestic violence of it. I thought this is not something I just wanna chime in about. But then yesterday the video, now the video is out, it's released. When I saw that Disney commented on it and there were statements going back and forth And that, and that Taylor spoke to Good Morning America and NBC. I thought, okay, now I'm gonna jump in on it because let's look at it from the, let's look at it from trust. Okay. So like I said, the metric, the measurement that I used is as soon as that trust breaks, you know, that's, you're in a crisis. So who's in our crisis? Taylor Frankie Paul, definitely in a crisis. Uh, she, She's been on the Mormon show for a while. She was picked to be on The Bachelorette for this season. So we have her, we have Dakota. Uh, she has, she has fathers from kids and this is the current one. They have a child together. Uh, and this video came out in 2023, I believe, but it was released now. And then we have Disney. So we have a bunch of reputations on the line there. Now I read this morning that. from TMZ, they were saying that it costs $2 million an episode to produce one episode of The Bachelorette. Whenever I, I were working through a crisis with a client, I'm always looking, you know, what's at stake, what's the cost, you know, what are we looking at here? You know, if, like, if you have to get through it, if we have to get you through, I want to know why we have to get you through and where's the cost. Like, is there an actual cost? Is it your job? Is it your reputation? How much investment in there? So from ABC point of view, it's $2 million. And also the trade-offs with the brands because they fly places and they go to games and they do all this stuff. So all these other brands. So there is so much money involved, uh, in this show. Uh, and so there's already one. We have heard from one of the bachelors has already gone on Instagram this morning. And sent goodwill to Taylor. And then I spoke to my daughter Rory this morning about it. And I said, you know, and here's just like, just first from Taylor's point of view, that one I feel sorry for. And that's what Rory and I were talking about because this video, and it is a traumatic video. This is like a trigger warning video, especially for women who particularly for women or anyone who's dealt with any type of domestic violence, but also if you have dealt with someone who is so manipulative and so awful to you that they literally made you crazy, that you exploded. And the fact, so there's a lot of focus on how she acted and the arrest and all this, but the fact that he picked up the phone to film it tells you something. He triggered something in her. She exploded and he picked up the phone and filmed. And now it comes out now. So yes, she was on the Oscars carpet. ABC, ABC brought her there. She was also, uh, on, I just saw this before I got on the live. She was on Kelly— what is Kelly and Mark now? Live with Kelly and Mark. And Kelly Ripa is talking to her about the show. And Taylor's saying that she was at the Oscars. Kelly and Mark syndicated, Buena Vista, owned by ABC. It's all ABC. So they bring in a Taylor because they have to promote the show. They edited, at least when this video that I saw, they edited out the piece where the story was starting to kind of leak out again. It got edited out. So ABC has been trying to control this narrative and save it as the week has been progressing. But we can't lose sight of the fact that Dakota leaked the video. Now let's look— now let's look at trust, and you guys let me know, where does your trust fall in a story like this? Where does everyone fall? Where's ABC? Where are the Bachelor producers? Where's Taylor? Where's Dakota? In all of it, apparently the Mormon girls, which I guess one of them, the husband filed for divorce today, I guess. I don't know. Trying to catch the news wave on it. Um, but there's a lot of things going on back and forth. Louise, I don't trust any of them. Um, also a tactic to be calm when filming. I don't condone her action because it was reactive abuse. Of course, right? I agree with you there. No one condones what she did, of course. And you want to know what, who would say that probably first is Taylor. But if you watch, so I watched this show with my daughters and the, and the episode that we watched, that one of the episodes we watched was Taylor going back home and how her parents treated her and how her mother treated her. And I said there on my couch, and Rory and I talked about this this morning, I said, There is so much damage, psychological damage in Taylor's brain right now because of how her parents treated her. So there is no surprise that her relationship goes from one trauma bond to another trauma bond to another trauma bond. It's not surprising, but here's where the trust factor comes in. ABC had to have known something that millions of people Or young women and their moms knew that she had no business whatsoever being a bachelor. No business being a bachelorette. None. This is all on ABC. 100%. What Taylor did at that moment, at least my take, was wrong. I mean, it was very wrong, but she wasn't in her mind. You know that. Because that's what abuse does. That's what long-term abuse, not just with one person, but if you've had it your entire life, people have been doing that to her her entire life. And she snapped. And then the guy she trusted picked up a phone. That's the personal piece of it. And now her reputation is destroyed because why did he do it? He did it to destroy her because she was getting more relevance going from Hulu to Disney. I mean, from Hulu to ABC to a network program. And so he said, oh yeah, not on my watch. And then all that got leaked out again. And now all this is happening. So I did post something last night and, um, about it just because, you know, talking about the statements that were out there. Um, and, you know, ABC's first statement was one that was just very— like I said it yesterday, it was almost clinical. And essentially, it— what, what they said was, is we're, we're pulling the episode, um, so we can, we can focus on the family. And I guess that means their family, we don't know. Uh, TMZ said she was on probation but said the case was dismissed, which is true. And ABC is, you know, was making sure that, okay, we have a dot here and we have a line here. So let's cross this T and let's dot that I. So legally, was it okay for, for Taylor to do the program? Sure. But was it morally the right thing to do? How many viewers knew that this was a bad decision to put someone in that position in there? Talk to how many 23-year-old women out there. They would be smarter than ABC executives by putting her in that, in that, in that place and everything that came from it. I put that on ABC. So ABC is paying for it right now. Millions, millions of dollars. They're going to be out. And honestly, there should be a reputational blowback against that program. There should be based on, cuz we all know like reality television, like, okay, we get it. We know the game. Like we all understand it. Again, trust. Do we trust reality programs? Do we trust? No, we don't. We kind of don't trust the people who choose to go on them for one. Right. But we also don't trust how they're treated because they're being exploited. We, we all kind of know that, right? But even we have the common sense to know that Taylor was being especially exploited in that. So now Disney distancing themselves. Even in the statement, they didn't even say anything about what was happening on that video. They didn't want to talk about the legal. They didn't want to touch it at all. Disney could not get more distanced by it. But I think Disney needs to be dragged on this. I think Taylor needs help. She should get it. She should get away from Dakota, and she just needs help. I— okay, um, what do you all think? Like, if this were— or do we have any Bachelorette watchers here in any of this? Taylor, right now, she pled guilty and also went on a podcast and said she was the aggressor. Okay, Alex, so I, I did not know. Like, I have read about things that, that happen. And, and here's the thing, right? I don't spend the time I was mentioning this morning again with Rory. I want to keep this in my lane of looking at the metric of trust, relation, relationships, the relationship between the, the trigger point, the, the pain point, when it turns, like, and what's happening, what the statement says, what the statement's doing. What's behind it? Who's showing remorse? Who's showing accountability? Like, those are the things that I'm looking for. Picking apart, like, every single detail. One reason why I don't like doing it is because the people who pick apart things like that usually are the ones who are trying to back away from something, à la Kristen Cabot on Oprah, like chewing up 25 minutes of that interview just to explain, well, no, technically, well, well, then I did this. Well, Technically, like, no, like details, no details are always like one of those warning signs for me. But also we don't know the whole story. We don't know everything. And I know that's what gets narratives going on TikTok. And it's fine that people do that. This is just the lane that I stay in. So not to be callous, but not to be for ABC, but do you think it will ever get shown, the forbidden fruit? I don't know. I don't know, Chelsea. That's a really good question. I don't know. Dakota gets paid to tip off. ABC gets paid in hype and can sell it down the road. ABC paid in trust. I, I don't know, Chelsea, like technically could ABC air it? I mean, technically they could, but they only filmed, there's only one episode in the can. And I guess the second episode of The Bachelorette was being produced. So in order to show the first episode, you kind of have to show the rest. Right. Um, I honestly don't see it because the story really isn't about The Bachelorette anymore. The story's about, uh, about abuse, right? Or sell to Hulu. I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't think so. ABC cannot touch this because what they need to do right now, they need to recover the viewers' trust in the franchise, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. That's what they need to do. And the Golden Bachelor and the Golden Bachelorette, which someone mentioned, that's what Kristin Cavett should do. I think I could co-sign on that. I think I could. I think I could on that. Um, I thought the ABC statement was bad and Taylor's was worse. Okay, so I'll wrap here. Let's talk about Taylor's statement. What Taylor was doing. So Taylor does have a spokesperson. I don't know if it's someone with Hulu or ABC or someone on her own. I honestly don't know. They wrapped filming on the Mormon cast. Well, the Mormon cast apparently is distancing themselves from Taylor as well. So they're kind of in, in the ether as well in all of this. But, um, but, uh, what would she— basically what Taylor is coming out and saying is, is which I said yesterday, she said the truth will be revealed. You know, in other words, She's saying, I can't really speak about it right now. But yeah, so here. So according to People, none of the women want to be associated with her. Everyone's distancing themselves from Taylor, which could you imagine? That would be really hard. Like, my goodness, could you imagine like going through this if you were her? That would be really, really tough. But she's basically saying The truth is going to come out. She also called him out for being manipulative and destructive, uh, and, and he was just jealous and wouldn't let her move on with his life or her life, which probably there's some truth from it, but all she's putting out just a holding statement that kind of pauses on it. And because she, if she wants to come back in some aspect, she has to take accountability for what was shown on that video. And I know she did before when it originally happened, she did. But this resets the clock. You have to do it again because this is what everybody's talking about now. It's attached to The Bachelorette. It wasn't before. So if she wants any path forward, she has to come back and show to the public and everyone else that she understands the gravity of the situation and then own it, explain it, promise it. Then you can explain the context. People love context. And then whatever the next step is. So she can do that, but she's just putting a pause on it right now. Which I don't blame her. That's actually a good move because you also have to see where everything is kind of shifting. And right now it seems online a lot of it is shifting back on ABC, which is frankly where I think it should go. Frankly, I thought this Taylor lady was Ruby Frank. Yeah, I know, uh, that would be a different, uh, Mormon situation, I believe. Okay everyone, uh, I'm just gonna wrap this up now. I want to thank all of you for joining. So many things happening at once. It's incredible. But come back next Friday. I think we're going to have to do it all over again. I mentioned to some of you last week in the chat that I'm in the process of writing my crisis doctrine, which will eventually be a book. And every week I'm tackling an area of it. So this week, if you can't tell, was all about trust because that's where we start. That's the foundation of a crisis. And next week, I'm talking about the crisis that appears before the headlines, what was really going on before the headlines. And in all three of these stories, that's really kind of what we did anyway. So that's just the overarching theme that we're going to have for next week. So we're going to take whatever story breaks next week, because there will be. There's so much going on right now, so there will be more. We need to acknowledge we do not understand the trauma and damage to this Jens Mormons. Well, I think we all need to say that we don't understand all the Duggar arrests. Oh my gosh, talk about more reality television. Wow. We all have to understand that we do not, that we do not understand everything that's going on in all these stories. I will say that myself. I only get from what I see online and in the news, what's published in statements, but also What I see from my experience doing this, uh, a long time. All right, y'all, I want to thank you so much for joining me, uh, this week. I will let you know, uh, if you want, if you want to join the membership, we did a deep dive on self-help influencers. We talked about the two Robins, Tony and Mel. We talked about, uh, Peter Attia, you know, why people have problems with self-help influencers. And I uploaded two checklists that I use as an effect. It was a checklist that I used previously with someone who went sideways in the self-help space and I was giving them. So I just sharing it with you. So if you want to, if you want to check that out, that post is pinned in the membership right now. And then there's two downloads as well. You can just snap it, put it on your phone. And that's how you can rate anyone that crosses your path. If you wanna know like, hmm, are they the real deal? There's your checklist right there. All right, everyone, I will see you all next week, hopefully next Friday. Hope everyone has a great weekend. This is certainly March Madness all the way around. All right, you guys, bye for now.