Top PR Crisis Winners & Losers 2025 with Molly McPherson

Hello everyone. Welcome to our chat. Today's a big day. Today we are going to discuss the top PR crisis winners and losers of 2025. Spend like a minute or two letting people come in before we get into the list. First, I want to thank everyone for joining us here today, for joining me as we roll out this list. I also want to thank you for your feedback, your choices, your thoughts. We had a great conversation in the vaults, our private member community on Wednesday with Dr. Abby Medcalf. She left us with such a cliffhanger. Mary Vault, Ms. Herb, I love that. But Kate, right, like Louise, right, like she left us with such a cliffhanger. We spent a lot of time talking about Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds. Then we went adjacent. Taylor Swift, Kelsey Travis, Kelsey, girl squads. We talked about so many different people. And at the very end, yes, Manny. I mean we were, we were a minute over and she drops like, I'm sorry, What was that, Dr. Abby? And we could have extended it, but I thought, no, no, Kim. Molly. I used to be obsessed with people, Meg, but you had become my people. Well, Kim, you represent one of my people as well. And speaking of people, I will say that the article that I participated in last Friday, I think is when I did it was a week ago. It's hitting the press this weekend about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. And then of course, if you happen to see on social media, I posted yesterday a reply to something I received two media requests to talk about. Kristin Cabot, the woman one half of the Coldplay couple that went viral over the summer and it aired on CBS Morning. And how I knew that. Well, I mean I did the interview yesterday. Obviously I knew it was, it was going to air, but I was this morning when I was dragging trying to get ready, my sister in law down in Miami texted me and said, I just saw you on television. I went, oh, that's right. I guess it aired this boring banker secret pop culture. I was found a tribe. I love that, Kate. I love that so much. And you want to know what? There should be no shame in our interest in this at all. Even though I do this for a living. It doesn't matter. It's culture. And no one should be ashamed about following who culture. So without any further ado, let's get into the list. The we need vault merch. I know, exactly. Believe me, we have great things coming next year. As many of you know, I have deann on my team, expanding my team and in other very necessary areas because I just can't do it all at Once. But, you know, I work. I work full time as a crisis manager. I guess for some people who are new here. You probably know, like what I do for a living, even though many people do. People see me online primarily on TikTok and Instagram, Facebook, social media, substack. Yeah. Talking and kind of breaking down these viral moments, PR moments culture, PR crises that we see. I do this work full time. I do with clients who just reach out to me. I have retainer clients, monthly clients who I work with every month. Some they just pay me as a just in case, break glass in case of emergency and I'm there. I have hourly sessions where people will book hourly sessions with me. Those are a lot of. Those are my content creator influencers. I'd say more of anything that's kind of that entertainment, bigger realm culture. Anything that we could talk about, like on Reddit or what we talk about in the vault. Those are the people who come at me for these hourly sessions. And don't think for a moment that there aren't times when I'm sitting there going into my monologue like, I can't believe I'm talking to this person about this topic. It's incredible. I love what I do. I love what I work hard. I work really hard at it, but I love every minute of it. And you guys make it great too. All right, here we go. Just pulled off to check in. We'll be in listen mode only as you drive to Hoosier. Oh, you're going home for the holidays. Going to back to the Hoosier state. Oh, that's right. I forgot you're a Hoosier boy. Okay, all right. So last week we discussed. It's a top 10 list of winners and losers. I, you know, most people have their top 10 PR crisis list. You know, a lot of articles out there. I was asked by a lot of people publications to chime in on their top list for the year number which I couldn't do for one reason is I was traveling. December's insane. It's insane crisis wise. But also hit me. I went, well, wait a minute, I's got my own list. I have my own list to put out there. Like, I don't want to contribute to other people's lists. I got my list, there's too many. And you guys are part of the list. So let's get to our list right now. Okay, Number. Okay, so we're going to do. Okay, I'm sorry. I still have Covid brain, by the way. This is where I just want to jump in. I. I'm no longer testing positive as of this morning. Okay. So it's been eight days, but I still have Covid. And my friend Kelly, this morning, when I was talking to her, she said, man, that knocked you out. She said, it's like you had OG Covid. So that is exactly. I laughed so hard, I said, that's exactly how I felt. Like there was. There was a moment on Saturday where I thought, is this going to claim me? Like, I really felt like 2020. When people, when you hear you have Covid, you think, am I going to survive? That's how I felt like this was not like a simple, do, do, do, do, do. I have Covid. Like, this knocked me down for the count. And then. And then I went into really one of the busiest client weeks I've ever had. And I am dealing with such deep, level stuff, but they. But they're all the same. It doesn't matter. It does not matter. All right, so how I'm basing my answers on this so we can get to there. It's been a couple minutes on the preamble. Oh, my God. Eight minutes on the preamble. I'm looking for press. The press reverberation, positive, negative, how long it was in the press, you know, who picked it up in the press. Was it just a digital story or was NBC calling me about it? And a lot of it was personal, too. But also what I'm tracking as well, I also am looking for the chatter, the social media chatter that I. To me, that's a massive metric when I work with clients and they are in a crisis when. And I just. Okay, not to tell you too much about my world, but as I was prepping and everything and putting this list together, I was running back and forth interference with a client and, oh my gosh, the playbook. So yesterday I had a call and I said, let me tell you about the Playbook and what's going to happen here? Boom, boom, boom, boom. And right before I was going live here, I'm getting the text from the client going, oh, you want to know what happened? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Like, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're my client dealing with it right now or you're Lizzo. Everybody acts the same because it's human nature, which is what we learn with Dr. Abby. That's why I love having Dr. Abby on to bring it down from a psychological point of view. But also, I will say in January, I also am going to bring on Someone who's online talks about all this stuff. Correspondent for Today. I don't know if she's actually still writing for today or not. Today, the Today show. I have to ask her about that, but I'm going to have her on. So she's going to be our next guest in the vault. Okay, here we go, winners and losers. We're going to give both you. Let me know what you think. Do you agree with me? No. Let me know what you think. Okay, here we go. Number five winner, American Eagle. American Eagle. So the crisis type culture war, outrage that function like a stock market rocket ship. The American Eagle, Sydney Sweeney, Sweeney controversy. Okay, so that happened. Wait, I gotta get my notes up. Sorry you guys. This is not a matter of not being organized. It's just a matter of, of my job. Like I'm just doing so many things at once. Okay, here we go. All right, so this involved the Sydney Sweeney has great jeans campaign. Many of you heard about this because of course it popped up on social media first. I was a day or two behind this when it happened over the summer because you know, having a life and all, but I first noticed it honestly is because of a press reach out. That was the first time I went, what? What are you talking about? Then I went to social media and I saw this thing was exploding. So what? Many people heard the pun on jeans. Great jeans. J E A N S G E N E S the word play combined with Sydney Sweeney's look, blonde hair, blue eyed woman. So triggered these accusations of claims that kind of flirted with eugenetics and also white supremacist aesthetics. Some people were felt it was a little too sexually charged. It was a callback, throwback to Brooke Shields Calvin Klein campaign. But then I was looking back, even on the whole, I was reacquainting myself with Brooke Shields Calvin Klein campaign. Holy moly. Holy problematic. Wow. And we just accepted it like this was normal. Okay, so there was, there was a lot of backlash. So it's really interesting to say that someone's a winner considering all the black the backlash that was there. So right wing media, politicians, White House sees the backlash as this woke overreaction. And when you know, in the fact that that Donald Trump and his communications director were talking about it, other mega aligned voices are talking about it and they're all praising Sweeney and calling the spot like the hottest ad. It turned the ad into another like culture war flashpoint similar to Budweiser. You know, that happened. Oh my gosh. It all mushes together in my Covid brain. Was that 23, 24 when Budweiser feels like 23. Maybe it was 24 when that happened. But you know, that Bud Light kind of plotted through it, but instead American Eagle soared with it, which is the reason why I have it as a winner, because American Eagle stock spiked up to 25% in a day. Okay, that is a huge surge. Okay. And it also more than 30% at one point pre market trading as the ads went viral. So a massive win for American Eagle. And the takeaway here is outrage can be a marketing tool even when it makes your celebrity endorser collateral damage. And now American Eagle is just moving on. And I believe, because I think Manny in our community told us this, that now they are working with Martha Stewart for their next campaign. So they became a culture moment campaign. All right, next for losers. You know what, I have to add this in here because last week I missed it and I got my numbers off, which is really a, it's really bad form but also not surprising considering everything that I'm juggling at the same time. But I should have added in here as losers. And please, no hate. I, I never want hate because every time I talk about this person online and I don't like talking about them online for this very reason. But since we're, we're compiling this list and sharing it, we have to, we can't hide from it. Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and the reason why I'm putting this in there for a crisis type, it's they have a long term credibility erosion. They also suffer from identity confusion. I'm not putting them on the loser list because I'm hating on them at all. I really want to look at them as rationally, academically, if you will, even with, you know, without bias. I'm just looking at them with the numbers. So I pulled some here. So in the UK, roughly 27% reported positive opinions of Harry and only 20% of Megan. These are their lowest numbers since tracking began on the couple. So because they sit on the lower end, the problem end, and they're only slightly above Prince Andrew, that shows for a couple they're having like another bad year no matter how much they try. And in the US where I think it matters a lot to them in terms of a capital point of View, the numbers YouGov Harry's popularity in the US dropped 14 points in 2025 from roughly 50% positive to 38%, which is his lowest since 2020. That signals a failure. Megan's numbers in the US dipped sharply in the first half of 2025 and recovered somewhat. You know, I think in these last few weeks. I mean, she does have her, her company as ever. She's posting more photos about her kid, you know, with her kids shielding their faces. They're doing quite a very, very good job doing that. And I got to give them aesthetic points instead of plopping the emojis on the kids face, which is so jarring, you know, on a post they are using, they're capturing images where it's just silhouettes and they're off to the side. I think that's brilliant. Manny chiming in. What I find so interesting about Megan's polarization is that people hate her, but they will buy out her products and anything she wears. It's so weird. I don't know if we know that, Manny. Like I, I see you on that, I give you a nod on that. But I don't know if the numbers represent that. I think what the numbers represent is that people who buy from her are the people who love her. And that's what she is. Just in your words, she's polarizing. For every person who hates her or hates on her, there's people who love her. So her products sell out, Manny. Her wine sold out. Yes, as ever, products sell out. Then on the other side they say, well, well, she also carries limited numbers. I would agree that people buy what she wears. I mean, oh my gosh, like in her kind of Tig era, early area. And again, I've always said this about her. I love her style. I love her style. Kate. 100% caught between two cultures. Those two. Yes. And that's the reason why I'm putting them on this list is because they have not found their footing. And that's why almost every move that they make is charged, because they don't have footing. Prince Harry is so similar to his uncle. Oh my gosh, the Duke and Wall Simpson. They were struggling as well. Manny. Oh, I think we know that Manny is a pro. Meghan. I think we can tell this now. He's less of a royalist, which is okay. I also want to say that Kate's style changed because of Meghan. Yes. Now Megan and William, I, I toiled with them. Know, I wondered, like, where do we fit? They're not on the list because they did not have a PR crisis for 2025. They're just humming along in the royal family, which has been under the spotlight. So they don't get anything negative. But I'm. Did anybody see the royal family Christmas card? And Kate's arm. I. I saw it on Reddit because someone pointed out right away that her arm is coming way far over. I think it's Louis. And so now there's some accusations of photoshopping. You know, again, is that kind of, you know, kind of an issue? All right, so that puts us in for number six. We have. We have Megan. So then let me drop into another loser. For number five. To catch us up is Prince Andrew. So we're just kind of staying in the house, if you will. Prince Andrew. So his crisis type, that is toxic legacy scandal with even more detail and institutional distancing. So he was accused, I mean, you guys could write this story by Virginia Giuffre of sexually abusing her in 2001 when she was 7, 2, when she was 17. Of course, it's not her personal memoir, it's a biography about her that came out posthumous. And these stories, more stories coming to light, of course, Traffic by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. His 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, which I watched again. And that immediately. Yes, I'm sorry, correction, Chris, formerly known as Prince Andrew. I stand corrected on that. Thank you. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Thank you. But that Newsnight interview, which then became a series on scandal, which I had to watch again, it's fascinating. It effectively ended. It ended his strength with the White House when he's defending his friendship with Epstein, knowing what he did and the implausible details that he shared in those interviews. So it was widely seen as disastrous. We all know that. But since then, his frontline royal career has been stepping back, stepping back, stepping back, stepping back. He's been absent from a lot of family events, and now we're seeing a lot of the video footage of him. Everybody is capturing press, is capturing how distant he is. You know, it's always, oh, and off goes Andrew doing this and off. So collateral damage would be Fergie, his former wife as well. So the two of them are struggling. King Charles issued a statement, you know, back in May, Prince Andrew issued a statement again, denying that he did anything wrong, trying to clear the air. But Prince Charles, King Charles released a statement out of Buckingham palace essentially condemning it, taking away his title. And now he is no longer really effectively a part of the royal family. Huge, huge reputational dent form. So that's why he is on the list for winners and losers. Okay, I'm looking at some of the comments here about them. Okay. All right, moving on. Let's go back to the winner list. Oh, Molly, your organization. Okay, number four. I have a name, but I want to make it. Do you think Princess Eugenie and Beatrice will be affected by their dad? Wow. They're really trying to. Eugenie. Princess Eugenie and Beatrice. When you see them, they're trying to keep them there. And I think the royal family is actually doing a good job. But who do you believe or not? Like, they're saying that William wants to ax it, but probably King Charles senses a duty there because the girls didn't do anything. You know, it's their father. So it just shows reputational damage. You know, what one person's deflection can do to a reputation. All right, number four. So this is a name, but I could put it under a title as well. So there's some adjacency here. So the number four in my winner for 2025, Jimmy Kimmel. And adjacent, Stephen Colbert, who will no longer be on the air with CBS next year. Speaking of, I was speaking to a CBS producer yesterday afternoon with an interview that I'll discuss in a moment. And I was telling him, I said, I'm sick. I have so much. I have so little energy in me right now. There's no gas in this tank. I said, but I feel so sorry for you guys that I'm going to do this interview and feel free to add Erica Kirk to my sound bite if you like. And the producer went, thank you. I really, really appreciate that. So anyway, back to the list. So Jimmy Kimmel, so the crisis type for him is straight up political targeting corporate caution, ABC News and humanizing creep. So Jimmy Kimmel, his reputation bruised, not battered, not broken, I should say. So when Trump went after Jimmy Kimmel, abc, Walt Disney Company, I said, Disney, Walt Disney Company capitulated, like a lot of the media businesses out there. Corporate gave in to the White House, gave in to Trump, and the backlash was extreme. Bob Iger felt it. I mean, this is a leader who was with the company, brought it to incredible heights, left the company, came back to the company, and he's had nothing but problems ever since. Like this Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, he gets involved, says, we can do this, you know, the easy way or the hard way because of comments that Jimmy Kimmel made regarding the death of Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel, as we've seen now in reports since, a lot of people don't watch his show live, but a lot of people do watch him online. Same thing with other late night hosts, you know, the morning after. So the social media YouTube numbers are really high and that does bring in revenue. Jimmy Kimmel expressed, you know, grief, you know, and, and that, you know, that remorse that everyone feels when they see what tragedy happened on the air. And so Jimmy Kimmel was. Was weaponized. That's what happened. They. They canceled Jimmy Kimmel. But this is a case where we, the people, they made a stand and said, no, no, we are not standing for this. And what I loved about this event. And remind me, can someone remind me when I come back to the loser list that I was here about the people and attacking the public in a crisis. Will someone just chime in with me, Just table it, help me stick a pen in it to add all my cliches. This was a case where the public mobilized together to say, this is what ridiculous. And they started to cancel. Disney, Disney channel, Hulu. Over 60 actors came out on a list of names. You know what, I didn't even check, but I bet Rob Reiner was on this list. If I. And. And came out in defense of Jimmy Kimmel. And, and just the abhorrent nature of what was happening right now to the industry that he was being pulled off the air. Well, the following Monday, Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air. At the same time the announcement was made is when Donald Trump went on the air. Classic deflection. RFK Jr who was on my list last week, Dr. Oz to talk to say that acetaminophens cause autism. Classic, classic deflection. Jimmy Kimmel bust through it. Ratings all over the place. So this was, you know, so he went from on average 1.8 million viewers in early 2025, that return episode, 6.3 million viewers across platforms. That is a win. Also to add in there, he had the death of his best friend, Cleto Escape Escobedo, who's on the show. Everyone saw his emotional, emotional monologue, tribute to him. It was absolutely beautiful. And that also helped really cement Jimmy Kimmel as a decent. As just a decent person this year. So that's why I'm giving him the win for it. He's authentic, emotionally open, and he was willing to challenge Trump and that mega movement. And look at what happened with that. So Jimmy Kimmel next on my list. Oh, gosh. Covid brain. Covid brain. Covid brain. I gotta go to the losers. Losers, losers. Okay, number four, the aforementioned American Eagle crisis, which was a win for American Eagle, is a loss for Sydney Sweeney. So she is a celebrity brand who's caught up in the political interpretation. Dylan Mulvaney, though not as big of a celebrity, I would argue, but a much bigger presence, probably online, was A casualty of it. Sidney Sweeney, also a casualty of it. So the American Eagle campaign that helped the company, I think dented Sydney Sweeney's reputation definitely with liberal audiences, online audiences. It did deepen her appeal with right leaning people. But I would argue that her profile ended up bigger. But it's a damaged profile. I also understand coming in as a Gen Xer, I have kids, Gen Z, who totally understand Sydney Sweeney. I needed, I needed Rory. Yeah, I texted Rory, Kate and Quinn, my daughters, and said, give decode Sydney Sweeney for me, please. And her aloofness, the, you know, is. Is part of her brand. Being unlikable is what make people. What, what makes people like her brand. So it's somewhat. All adjacent, but just not in a good way. And how we know this, it's not just my opinion, it's the tell. And the tell is in how she cleaned it up. Late 25, she's doing interviews and she's addressing it because first she avoided it, then she's addressing it more directly, saying that she was surprised by the reaction. Like, really? I think American Eagle absolutely planned this entire campaign. They shouldn't be surprised in the least, I think, because I think it was all by design. So when Sydney Sweeney comes out and acts what and a little chuffed like that all this happened. Like, no, girl, you knew this was part of the playbook. Like, you knew this and you know, and she doesn't. And she also said that, that she's against hate and divisiveness and that she did not share any of the extremist views. Like she needed to say that. But so many people saw it as a racist ad and one that she was very complicit in. In terms of the planning. Mean, it was, it was bait. It was a bait ad. And it worked for American Eagle. It probably worked as. Since it was a collab with American, with American Eagle. So she probably made a lot of money from it. But we. This is not a business podcast and breakdown. We are reputation. So the reputation. I think the takeaway here is again, silence. It's never neutral. It's a decision that gets louder for people. What did you. So what do you guys think? What do you guys think of the Sydney Sweeney huge damage. All of her castmates are repelling her right now. I feel like Amanda Siegfried is working as her pr, trying to change her image. That's a really, really good point because I noticed those two working on something together and I thought, oh, look at Amanda coming out and helping Sidney out here. If I could be bold, I Felt she was trending towards a Marilyn Monroe archetype. And this killed it. Okay, good point. You know, the outfit, I don't know where she wore it. I don't know where it was some annual gala. But, but Sydney Sweeney in, in the, in the dress that was very Marilyn Monroe esque, a little transparent in the bosom area. She looked beautiful. In was certainly a talking point dress. But when I saw that dress, I went, oh, girl, that dress ain't doing it for you. That dress ain't doing it for you. Not at all. So that's just Sydney Sweeney. I think a lot of people might argue that Sydney Sweeney is fine. They might argue that. But I'm just again, looking at her overall, what it did for her. It's just too, too polarizing. Now, my number three winner is very, very similar to Sydney Sweeney. She is, okay, she is someone who is not a clear winner from a brand reputation point of view. However, very polarizing. But when you look at a name landing on the map and someone who's been given so many opportunities for visibility, it's incredible. So my number three is Erica Kirk. This is the moment where I'm going to pause for reflection so I can take a sip of my latte because I'm dying a little bit inside saying that. Many of you in this community know I have a fascination with Erica Kirk. Not because I enjoy her, believe in her, side with her. I am fascinated by her. My thanks to this community for sharing clips of her in summer house showing up in reality shows. So I think that encapsulates why I am putting her on my winner column. I am going to label reality show types right now. I am saying this as a person who's watched reality television, watches it, but I also work with people who appear on reality shows. I have helped a number of reality stars. A number of them go through their moments and some are huge, huge. So I've done network television, Bravo, all of them. And if I could share with you all, like, what my head again is doing some of those times. But in the case of Erica Kirk, the fact that she first appears. Well, I shouldn't say first appears. She was, she ran for, you know, she was Miss Arizona and, you know, and she won, you know, won that title. So she's done other things. I mean, she went to college, she got degrees. Okay, so we got to give her that. Okay, fine. But haven't we all gone to college, many of us, and received degrees? But the fact that she pivots, moves to New York and pivots to reality. What does, what does a reality star tell you? When someone wants to be on reality television, what do they want? They want fame, they want relevancy. They want an opportunity to monetize fame. It is a quick sugar rush high to get there. It tells us what motivates Erica Kirk and her motivation is very similar to her husband, the late Charlie Kirk. So many people praising him for the how he thinks and his views and what he said and what he tried to do, praising his character and his ethos. A lot of people from the right and then there were certainly people from the middle and in the left after he was tragically killed. You know, said some things like, oh, you know, like even Ezra Klein to this moment, I, I, I should add him on my alt list of, of, of WTF moments of 2025 like Ezra Klein. I'm sorry, you're saying that Charlie Kirk was, this is a positive thing how he, he brought public speech and public debate to the, to the, to the, to a culture like, are you kidding me? No. He's a content creator who wanted to monetize extreme views and he knew he could misogyny culture. And they turn it into trad culture and Christian and evangelical. I mean, oh my goodness. I mean that's where we are as a society. We monetize this. So Erica Kirk is no different than Charlie Kirk. No different at all. So why she's on the winners list is, is, is just due to her sudden elevation. That, that's a, it's just a sudden elevation because it was so huge. I mean, since what happened to Charlie and when you watched his funeral and her remarks, they really were incredible. I mean, she's a very good speaker. She's now leading this movement. I just feel like it's movement mythology. I don't believe any of it. I did a post when I received in the mail and campaign letter to support Turning Point. I'm like, girl, do you know who you're sending this to? But that's why I'm putting her on the win list. So she's, you know, she's very pro life, she's evangelical, she highlights faith and family. She is the new CEO. She's the mother figure of Turning Point usa. Certainly the money is rolling into Turning Point. However, where she is, it's fragile. I promise you, I promise you in 2026 when we're sitting down here doing this list, I promise you she will not be on this list as a winner. I promise you I will not do that. I'm only giving it because of her very, very quick ascension. So her appearance now that she appears to be this courageous, faith driven widow, you know, who stepped into leadership under these extreme circumstances, which from a narrative, you know, makes sense. But the liability for her that will catch up in 2026, I think. Polarizing, heavily managed, opportunistic conspiracy adjacent. This back and forth with Candace Owens, who is on the list for winner in my 6 through 10, is just going to continue to threaten her mainstream credibility. So she's rising, but fragile. That's where I'm going to put her there. Comments. Erica Kirk's facial expressions, eyes mixed with her tone are fascinating. I think she knows exactly how she comes across. Not entirely sure what she wants. Oh, come on. I think we know what she wants. I actually think she'd do better in a completely different field. I don't know. I don't know. But. Oh yes, but we have in the comments there was the narrative with JD Vance there. Is that the narrative lurking around? Certainly that is there as well. Right. So we will certainly be watching. So number three in the winners in the winner group, I have Erica Kirk. All right, continuing on with the list, number three losers. Let me pause for a sip, if you all don't mind. Comment. Totally agree. She threw her grief into work, but she's starting to do too much. Yeah, because to brand yourself as the mother, to brand yourself very trad wifey, to brand yourself under content, monetized content with your husband where staying home to be the mother. And when Charlie walks in the door on Friday, Shabbat shalom. Put your phone down. And this is nothing about family. She's now out on a book tour. No one ever sees her at home. And do you notice a lot of the content that they had was about family, family, family. Now we don't see anything about family. We don't. Which is probably smart on her point of view because she knows she'll get railed for it. Any type of videos. I think there's probably some tension in that family. I think there's just tension in Turning Point, the family. Did you know that Erica didn't invite Candace to her wedding because at the time they were all coworkers at Turning Point. No, I did not know that. But I'm not surprised by that. I'm not surprised. I think Candace Owens is not going to give up until she brings Erica Kirk to her knees. Honestly. Honestly. All right, number three, I posted this yesterday to TikTok and Instagram and Social and to Substack here in Substack and that's because yesterday I had a day of crisis like no other. I mean, I was on the phone from 8am until 5pm with clients dealing with. Oh, my gosh. Like, I just, I talked all day and my Covid brain was ready to bleed out of my head. I couldn't believe it. But everything that I was talking about with my clients, you could just transfer over into culture. Then I get a text from my. My favorite booker, Jake at NBC, about doing an interview about this topic. And then as I'm doing the interview with NBC, CBS Morning writes me about. About doing the piece for CBS Morning, which was on this morning, me talking about this topic. Number three is Astronomer adjacent. C. Kristin Cabot, who's the chief people officer, former for Astronomer, and Andy Byron, the former CEO. Now they wanted me to speak about it because Kristin Cabot worked with the New York Times, Lisa Miller, and also at the Times UK to do a little bit of an update. And I knew actually that I told the producers right away, I said, you are not going to like my take. Like, I know from a morning television point of view, from a network news point of view, you want me to reinforce the headline from the New York Times that Kristin Kabat's bad PR advice is telling her to spin public shaming and how Kristin Cabot is the victim because of you, the public. And I told them from the outset, I'm not giving you that. I am not giving you that because I don't feel that way. I know the villain, and we all know the villain in this story. And it's Astronomer, the company. As you all know, this is the stadium kiss that was heard around the world, but happened in my neighborhood. And when I found out about it from all the texts, I went, damn, Coldplay was at Foxborough. I would've loved to go to that concert. But we all know it. I don't even need to waste a second telling you because I guarantee every single person on this chat saw the video. But Manny well said Astronomer laid them out to dry. That's exactly what happened when this thing broke late Thursday into Friday? No, it was late Wednesday into Thursday. And when it started to pick up traction and it really was everywhere. I mean, was there ever another story that you talked with your friends about more than Astronomer? When you're with your girlfriends or couples or whatever, you know, texting, text groups, everybody talked about this story. It also got picked up culturally. The Phillies fanatic, you know, we. We saw spoofs. You know, Jimmy Fallon, you know, Stephen Colbert, everybody spoofs you know, everywhere about this. Then there's misinformation that the CEO's married. And now everybody's going after the CEO's wife, Megan, and her Facebook page. Meanwhile, the company astronomer is sitting on their asses doing nothing. And this is where I come in, because. And why is a huge story, too. Every media network contacted me. Every network morning show contacted me to appear on their network to discuss this story. Every producer I know, every close producer who has my cell phone number. Now, thankfully, I had dental. I had crown work, so I couldn't speak. I had Novocaine. So thank goodness, because I really didn't want to talk about this story because I didn't want to pile on with this couple. I already had an inkling, like, a feeling. I'm like, something tells me, like, the CEO is. He just kind of reeked of something to me. I could put my finger on it. But there was something about Kristin Cabot that I kind of felt. I felt for her, because I knew. I'm like, this is a woman my age, and also, they're in my neighborhood. Like, I thought, I'm going to know people who know these people. People in my community know this in real time because I was texting this and everyone I was telling them when I was finding out, like, yep, sure enough. And that couple got really close to my universe, you know, So I found inside stories there. So I certainly have empathy, you know, for her. And in this piece, you know, that's what she's talking about. It's highlighting the shame that happened to her, how the Internet turned against her. And she recounts very personally. She wanted to tell her side of the story and what she does well, and I'm glad she had the chance to do it. She recounts in the New York Times piece and in the UK piece, step by step, her thinking of why she did it. I knew he was my CEO. I knew it wasn't right. It wasn't the right thing to do. But I was crushing. I was going through my second divorce. I have two kids. I had tickets to Coldplay. I don't love them, but I had them anyway. And I was going with friends. And when the CEO told me that he was going through wife issues, when I was going through issues, and people in my vault know that I know more about this behind the scenes, that actually confirms it, honestly. Which confirms, though I will say, for the CEO, the timeline is really, really tight. Like, there isn't even an inch of space for you to say you were separated. So that's Why I put a lot on him. But she clearly was. Her soon to be ex was at the same concert, which feeds into her reaction when she was on the Jumbotron, her arms, she was interlocked with Andy Byron. She, you know, puts her face up and then she blows up. Okay. But then as it's going viral, Astronomer just lets it sit and fester because they loved the publicity. They loved it. Now, where this story went sideways for me and is around Astronomer, and even here in the chat, the death threats and impact on our kids was intense. Though any chance it was worth trying to garner some sympathy? And that's a really important part. And on my Tic Tac TikTok, there was someone who replied saying the same thing, like the doxing, the threats and the so on and the so forth. And then I looked and it was from a content creator who does PR breakdowns. But in her New York Times piece in the Times uk, she does talk about it and then it is true. But, but, but her whole framing from her PR team is to blame the Internet, to blame all of you. It's your fault because you followed the story or commented on the story and then it appeared in the press and then it became a cultural touchstone in the summer, peak time to go viral. They're. They're framing it as the public's fault. Now look where we are culturally right now. We are. This story was published on Thursday, four days earlier, five days earlier, we saw a tweet, a post from the President of the United States, commenting on Rob Reiner and his wealth and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner's death, horrific murder, and saying essentially that Rob Reiner deserved it. This is the culture that we're in right now. This is the mood of culture. It should not be surprising at all that people are going to dox her or people are going to say things to her in public. Like, we shouldn't be surprised by that at all. But that's not our fault. That's not our fault that people are like that. Okay, so when you put that in the same pot, that's where I don't buy that argument. Where I don't really buy that argument. Like, oh, but did she deserve that? No one deserves to have death threats for a viral moment. No one deserves that. But that's not our fault. That's the fault of my loser here, the company astronomer and the board and the CEO who allowed the story to fester because they loved the publicity. And how do we know they love the publicity? Because they invested how much money with is it maximum impact or Endeavor for Ryan Reynolds company to then get Gwyneth Paltrow to turn it into a bet. They invested the company funds to defend their CEO and chief people officer who were spotted having a relationship together. But still, even if it was cheating or not, doesn't matter. Those two should not be in a relationship. Senior leadership. That is a legal liability. And the company's response was to capitalize on the publicity. That's BS. So anyone who challenged me on TikTok like this, this PR takedown lady girl on TikTok about that I should be snarky. But it's true. Don't come at us. That's Astronomers fault. And then they made Gwyneth Paltrow mock her. And that's why they lose. That's why they lose. And her story. I'm not going to say that Kristin Cabot isn't telling the truth, but she was a heavy hand in that Time story where she wanted to lay out bit by bit by bit how bad it is. I'm not going to say she made up the stories. I'm not going to say that she embellished the stories. I'm not. But in my profession, I work with Kristin Kabitz all the time. All the time. And when they're at the center of a crisis and they've done something off and they're wrong and people can understand what they did, like they shouldn't be lacerated for it, but they're still wrong when it comes to the response. They want to double down on how awful people are treating them. I see it all the time. I see it all the time. So to use that as a narrative in your framing for this is a massive mistake. To wait almost six months to come out with your profile piece in December in the New York Times. Bad PR advice. Whoever Kristin Cabot hired for PR sucks. They're not good at it. Or they could be good at other things, but they bumbled this one. Kristin Cabot needed to tell this story. The humble I made a human mistake, a very human mistake. That story needed to come out months ago. So that's my take. All right. So there. Okay, Astronomer. Now I'm going to go to the winners list. And also, is it just me? Is it just me? I really felt like I was an island on there because everybody loved that Astronomer ad. Ad Age said it was one of their top astronomer, one of the ADs for the year, depending on your metric. I mean, views, impressions. Sure. But can anyone honestly tell you, can anyone here say they know what Astronomer does as a company. Is anyone here a consumer? No, they're B2B. So no, I say massive, massive fail. All right, where are we going? Oh, I got to speed up. All right, number two win. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here because we spent a lot of time here on Wednesday and it's just too obvious, right? Number two is going to be Taylor Swift, obviously. I mean, she's. I mean, she's always big, but she had such a massive year. She does get why she's in the reputation piece of it, as we all learned in the Vault on Wednesday night. And by the way, if anyone. If anyone wants to watch the video, the interview from our chat on Wednesday with Dr. Abby. It's posted now in the. In the membership. So if you want to watch it, it's fascinating, but we talked a lot about Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, the release of the news. I guess you can call it a release. Anyone else would be an engagement announcement, but with them, it's a release that happened on the podcast. She sidesteps a lot of things and she does it brilliantly with the help of Tre Pain, her publicist, her strategist. She's more than a publicist. She's a flat out just strategist and a genius at that. Taylor Swift deserves to be on this list for. For this year. She also had to sidestep a lot of. Just like mini blowups, too. Political polarization, endorsing Kamala Harris when you know that so many people on the right love her, especially with the Chiefs and Travis Kelce. She is someone who constantly has to sidestep things. So I give her a lot of credit for that. Also, the whole thing of Blake Lively, the whole thing with Blake Lively blowing up and Taylor Swift had to navigate that. So that's where I give her a lot of. I give her a lot of credit for that. Also. Life of a Showgirl took a lot of hits, a lot of dings. I loved it. I'm not a huge Taylor Swift fan. I'm a mom of daughters, so we certainly went through our eras. But when that album came out, I listened to it at 5am When I was running on the treadmill. I'm like, damn, I like this album. I like it. So she's going to be my win. She's going to be number two. Because when you are this big in. When you have to navigate big things, I think she did it very well on the chat. The Blake Lively fiasco is her team's greatest work. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I'd have to. I have to agree with you on that. All right, so let's go. Should we do. Let me do it. The win. Let me do the number one win. Oh, you still think the album stinks? You don't like it? Yeah. Fair. I could. I'll say this fair. I could see why people don't like it, but my Gen X brain. My Gen X brain really kind of liked it. I knew listening to it, I'm like, ooh, listen to Opil. It's good running beat. Let me do my number one win. You guys. Tell me in the chat, do you want the win first or the loser? Why? Take a sip. What time is it? Oh, my gosh. We have five minutes. Do you want the winner or the loser? Winner or loser? First person who tells me I'm going to do it. Okay, winner. Here we go. My number one winner of the year, as requested in the chat. Oh, we want it as a win. I got to do it right now anyway. Now. Yep, I'll do it because it's so obvious. It's Dolly Parton. It's Dolly Parton. She had a micro crisis, and she handled it with speed and warmth and just Dolly. Absolutely amazing response. If you remember, back in October, there was a scare around her health when her sister went on Facebook and said prayers for Dolly. You know, she was having health issues. She had also, right around Halloween, had stepped back from a Halloween event at Dollywood. So she just wasn't feeling well. That comment on Facebook will naturally went viral because people were very worried that there was something wrong with Dolly. I saw it, and I immediately posted something right away. And then as I made the comment, as I posted, Dolly Parton comes up with a new response to it. She has kind of a horsey voice and saying, I know many of you are, you know, worried out there. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I was like, damn, girl. Who's better than Dolly Parton? Who is better than Dolly Parton? So I'm traveling. Where was I? I was speaking somewhere. I can't remember. I was on the road. I was speaking, but I was in a hotel in Minneapolis. I can't remember, but I was on the road. Then I get an email from Dolly Parton's publicist reaches out to me and says that I had part of it wrong about the response in my. In my take. Because I. I was. I think I was kind of making some assumptions behind the scene. And he said, I got part of it. Wrong. But I actually didn't get it wrong or. No, I did get it wrong, but technically I didn't get it wrong because what he said was in my. In my. In my. In my take, I said, a representative for Dolly said, xyz. And Dolly's publicist said, that's not Dolly's publicist. I'm Dolly's publicist. And. But when someone. And I didn't say this to Dolly's publicist, but I'll tell you guys, when someone officially speaks out on your behalf, it doesn't matter about the hierarchy who has what title. That's your spokesperson. That is your spokesperson. That's how it works. That's how it works. So I was quoting. And he said, the publicist said, that's someone who works on our tour. Like, that has nothing to do with us. Like, well, I disagree, but I wasn't going to say that. So he and I have been going back and forth and even this week, because I wanted to get him, you know, for an interview. But I told him, I said, I'm just. I'm just so all over this. Like, I love it. And it was a fantastic. So she. She is my number one. And I know in the chat here, people are saying, yes, you want to go to Dollywood this year. I loved. I went to Dollywood as a kid. Who could ever outdo. It takes a lot of money to look this cheap. That is so true. Dolly is a classic. And can you imagine a life where we don't have a doll? I'm not even going to finish sentence. I not even going to finish what I was going to say. I'm not going to finish it. Okay, so now we're going to do the top PR losers for 2025. Because it's so obvious, right? You know who the losers are here? And we look at it with all the metrics. Press, social chatter, money, reputational loss. I did find out, I think. Was this supposed to be off the record from the. I don't know. But I did a People magazine interview last week. I think it's coming out this weekend. And they're definitely using my stuff in it about Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Okay, so the fact that they use it again, just like my CBS Morning interview, when I told them, you know, what's your agenda? Because I don't think I'm gonna fit your. I'm gonna fit your agenda because I know that People magazine is a mouthpiece. You know, like, that's where. That's where Blake and Ryan go to spin Their tails, they go to People magazine. But I was in a very right down the middle piece that was, you know, more of the factual piece. So my stuff was in there, you know, which was good. But we're gonna put like, Ryan Reynolds at, you know, kind of number two, Blake Lively at number one. So what it is for both of them, it's just Persona erosion under legal and PR scrutiny. Ryan Reynolds, his career right now, I call the transition zone. He still has a lot of brand equity. He's still hireable, he still has money. He's still a big A list celebrity. But they branded themselves reputationally as a cute couple. The back and forth, the banter. They were the banter. They nailed the banter, right? But now we know those two were never bantering. They weren't bantering at all. It was just marketing. It was shtick. It was Ryan Reynolds manufacturing a Persona of their brand that isn't matching up to that. Now he's labeled as a jerk. That's his label, and that's why he's taking such a massive hit, in my opinion. This legal drama with Justin Baldoni so over managed on Princess, and the reason why he's attached, obviously, is the husband, you know, a Blake Lively. But you all know, in the vault, in my community, you all know this. Ryan Reynolds, in my opinion, is the driver behind this. Dr. Abby Metcalfe saying the same thing. He is the driver. We learned from our video on Wednesday. Our live chat. Blake Lively likely is codependent. She's a pleaser. She's dependent on Ryan Reynolds. He's the money guy, big guy in the relationship. She's trying to please him. She does whatever he wants and whatever he needs. I personally think her and Justin got too close and Ryan came in and imploded it. And now they went to the point of no return. Right? They passed the Rubicon last December at this time when they filed the civil complaint against Justin Baldoni and then worked hand in hand with the New York Times on this hit piece against Justin Baldoni. And they deserve everything that they get. Now, Blake Lively is by far and away my number one reputational casualty for 2025 because the career risk litigation has spiraled for her. She is suing Justin Baldoni for over $160 million for loss, reputational loss. So we actually have a dollar figure for why she's number one on my list of losers. But those liabilities, as someone who tracks us for a living, comes from a natural place. I, I, I still dispute that it was part of a orchestrated Smear campaign. Justin Baldoni and their team doesn't have the. They don't have the operational backend to. To do all of that at that level. Blake Lively didn't have a lot of goodwill to begin with. She was already in a goodwill hole, so it crushed her. And she had spent a year and millions of dollars trying to bury Justin Baldoni. It's not like he's coming out great, but those have it. Those two get it a lot worse. Her brand now is just lawsuit energy. That's her brand. And people will stop viewing her and looking at her by her work. And they're going to evaluate her for her Persona. It's going to be less damaging for Ryan Reynolds because he is, as a man. Sorry, I'm just going to say it. Males have more opportunities. Males can use being a jerk to their benefit, but women can't. Women can't use me. Being strong doesn't help them. In the end, we always. Women always run out of Runway, which is going to happen to Blake Lively. So that's why she sits on the top of my list with her husband, Ryan Reynolds. All right, everyone, I want to thank you so much for joining me this week for our PR breakdown, our top PR winners and losers for 2025. Some people might just give you the top PR crises for the years, but not here. We have to highlight the winners as well. You could certainly watch this list again if you missed some of it. The replay will be on Substack. It will also be on the podcast next week. Six through ten is on the podcast, the PR Breakdown podcast, and it's also here on Substack. I want to thank all of you in this community for joining me. We've had a fabulous year. Talk about winners. You all are on my list for a PR win. I loved our community. It has grown a lot in the last few months. Uh, we have great things coming every month. We will have a training every month. There's going to be, like, communication, a strategic communication training. I will take a trending story and I will break it down and walk through what I would do if I were the crisis manager involved. So anyone who works in communication strategy, marketing, or if you're just curious, you can join us for those monthly sessions. Then we have our live chats where it's just us in the community. It's a private live chat. The Vault. What's set in the vault stays in the vault. Sometimes it's just with me in the community. Sometimes we bring people in, and then we also have our open chats as well that are also on substack and YouTube. I will tell you when we start up our weekly lives again in 2026, they will be multi stream, not just on Substack, but they will be streamed on YouTube and Instagram as well. So our community is great. Going to get a lot bigger in the chat. My thanks to all of you for your support for spending time with me and with your comments, your humor, your wit, and your strategic brilliance as well. I've enjoyed every minute of it. So thanks everyone. I wish you all the best during this holiday season and I can't wait to revisit revisit our connection back in 2026. We will see you Friday, the first Friday in January. Same time, same place. Bye for.