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Hey, you guys, we're so excited to share with you an episode of our new Exactly Right podcast,
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That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. It's hosted by SVU super fans and comedians Cara Klink and Lisa Traeger.
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Cara and Lisa have been working on this podcast for over two years, so we're so excited that we finally get to share episode one with you here in the My Favorite Murder feed.
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Episodes two through five of the podcast are out now, so after you listen, head over to That's Messed Up to subscribe and catch up.
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On each episode, Kara and Lisa will take listeners through an episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit.
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They recap not only the plot, but the classic SVU moments and tropes that occur.
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Then they'll walk you through the true crime or crimes that the SVU episode was based on.
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And then finally, they'll interview a guest who appeared on that episode. Some guest interviews that have already come out include Oscar winner Marsha Gay Harden, Kate Burton, who you may know from Grey's Anatomy and Scandal.
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and the actress Ari Grainer. They'll bounce all around the 22 seasons of SVU and every Tuesday they'll announce the following week's SVU episodes.
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You can watch along with them and catch up. But even if you don't watch, you'll get a full and detailed recap from the hosts.
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Yeah, you kind of don't have to watch. Oh, and also we should mention that even if you don't watch SVU
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or you're not really familiar, this podcast is for all true crime lovers because it's equal parts SVU, but then also true crime.
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So check it out, even if Law & Order is new to you. And it'll make you laugh, which is awesome, too.
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Yes. So enjoy the first episode right now and then head over to That's Messed Up for episodes
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two, three, four and five. And don't forget to subscribe to That's Messed Up and SVU podcast on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts,
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Spotify or wherever you listen. And if you like what you hear, please write Kara and Lisa a great review.
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That's right. And you can follow them on Twitter at Messed Up Pod and on Instagram at That's Messed Up
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Pod. Goodbye. Bye. Of the Law & Order franchises, SVU is considered especially watchable.
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We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the vicious felonies these episodes are based on.
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These are our stories. Dun-dun! Yay! Hello! Welcome to the first episode of That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast.
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We are comedians slash SVU superfans. I'm Cara Clank. I'm Lisa Traeger. And we're very excited.
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We're so excited. And obviously, this is about SVU, true crime, and we will get into all of that.
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But first, we want to introduce each other because I guess it's like a first date.
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We want you guys to know who we are. Like, who are these random women that are? Yeah, that look beautiful in our drawing and logo.
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You're like, who are these gals with such great hair? And we'll let you know. Yeah, so we're both comedians.
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I've been doing comedy for about 12 years, stand-up comedy for about 12 years. I'm married to another stand-up comedian.
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We have a 20-month-old toddler baby girl. And Rosie did start saying my name. I don't know if you don't want to tell anyone her name, but I'm saying it.
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Rosie does say Lisa's name. And also she now when I am busy, she goes, mama, podcast.
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She said that. So she'll be like, even if I'm like in the bathroom, I can hear her being like, mama,
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podcast. My favorite is when she goes nut. Anyways, I'm a I'm a comedian as well.
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I've been doing it 11 years. Oh, nine is when I started. And, you know, I dabble in some acting, but mostly mostly we do comedy.
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and I am not married. I would like to be married. My ulterior motive to my whole career is to find
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a spouse, but you can't be like too, you can't know too much about me, but you have, yeah,
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I don't know. I am looking for a wife. Um, I will settle for a husband, but I would prefer,
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I would prefer a wife. And then I, but I am child free by choice, but I'm an aunt in the
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traditional sense where I have nieces and nephews. And then I do feel like I have
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kind of babies coast to coast that I like buying presents for and hugging. Yeah. And that made me definitely have a relationship with my daughter.
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So I'll tell people a little bit about you, Lisa, so that you don't actually have to like
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brag on yourself because you do have a very impressive life slash resume. Lisa came to this country at age three from Russia. She has it's like actually very delightful
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to hear her speak in like Russian English to her parents on the phone. Um, yeah, what's even better is trying to explain to my parents what a podcast is.
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That's the most fun thing to try to explain. She's a Chicago native. She moved to New York after doing stand up in Chicago for a long time.
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And that's where we met Hannah, who is our intrepid producer. Hannah, say hi. What's up?
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If you ever hear a third voice talking on our podcast, it's usually Hannah, our amazingly
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organized producer. We both have known her for years and years through comedy. Lisa has had a half hour on Comedy Central.
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She's got a half hour special on Netflix as part of the Degenerates. Also, she says she dabbles in acting.
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She recently, I thought, was a scene stealer in the Amazon movie King of Staten Island.
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So if you want to go check that out and get a little bit more of an idea of what if you
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want to see me in a low ponytail and a tie, that's the movie. That's like your your waitress outfit in that movie is exactly like what my waitress outfit
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It was like pretty much like just so unflattering. I had a clip on tie. Like I very much identified with your character.
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And in the makeup chair, I kept being like, are you sure we just can't raise the ponytail?
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Maybe a fun, messy bun. And they're like, and I kept trying to fight. And they're like, Judd said no.
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I'm like, I just can't imagine Judd is like, give her a low ponytail or else with a side
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part and gel it down But I guess he he did do that You are also an amazing stand up And I guess I just call myself amazing But we are And I loved going to your album recording Your album
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Undefeated is so fucking good. My I love the Disney princess joke. There's a if you're
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looking for the best transitional lenses joke that there is. Undefeated is the album for
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you. And I remember sitting on the floor and it was because it was sold out and it was so
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much fun. And then you are a very skilled writer. I always love when I type how I talk into something
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and then you make it palatable for the world and grammar, which is amazing. But yeah, girl code
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younger. And then the biggest brag of all fucking time is you wrote for Drag Race, which is amazing.
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We like to say our Venn diagram of friendship is SVU Drag Race Housewives. That is us.
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Yeah, we love Housewives. In fact, today you're going to get a little taste of Housewives.
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And we didn't even plan that. That's pretty fucking cool. It just naturally are all of our passions collide.
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Now I just need Miley Cyrus to do an episode and I'll explode. There haven't been more drag queen episodes also of SVU.
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We need to facilitate that. I'll message some agents. Yeah. So, yeah, we have a lot of common interests.
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And before I met you, Kara, I like even though I was living in Chicago, I knew who you were.
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And I think you knew like all girl comics know each other, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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We're all like pretty on board with each other. And when we started, there were less.
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Now it's like so fun to have so many housewife fans as comedians everywhere. But we met at UCB East at your show.
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If you build it. Yeah, we had we had met, I think. But this was like the first time we truly connected was at my show in the green room.
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We started talking about how we both like one of us brought up SVU. We were like, oh, my God, I love that.
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And then you told me about this Twitter account. Yes. Doink, doink, which is at doink, doink.
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And it's amazing. It will it tweets anytime any law and order is on television, what episode, what channel
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and when it starts. And it influences my life. Sometimes I'm on Twitter and I'm like, oh, my God, in three minutes.
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And I'll like go to ION immediately. So, yeah, we discovered that we both love SVU.
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We both love true crime. We have a favorite forensic pathologist in common. Dr. Michael Badden I don't we love him yeah if you have another favorite let us know because he
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is the king of pathology uh Lee Dr. Lee is a good one the one who did like um I think OJ and stuff
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like that he's he's also a good friend of pathologists but Dr. Badden on his show autopsy
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great it was just so good because people would write to him and be like please help please you
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gotta switch the death certificate to be not natural so we can investigate and I just love
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that he's a superhero and travels with his little briefcase from town to town solving crimes. But
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yeah, we love SVU in the way that I'm assuming everyone does, which is you want to have sex with
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either Christopher Maloney or Mariska Hargitay or both of them at the same time. Like, is that
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now while we're watching a glimpse of Stabler shirtless and angry and, you know, contemplating
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about his divorce? That's what that's what we want. Yeah. I have like loved this show from the
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beginning. It premiered on my birthday in 1999. Really? So yeah, it's a I think it's written in
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the stars for me to be obsessed with the show. I remember one time I went to a Paley Center event
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and it was the SVU panel and I bought my ticket too late. So I didn't even get to sit in the room
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with the people. I had to sit in a side room at the event and watch it on the screen. And then
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And afterwards, me and a few like 10 women just stood outside in the rain waiting to
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see Mariska and Peter walk out. And then afterwards, we were just deflated. And if you were one of those women, please let me know if you were standing in the rain
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with me. And you can do that at that's messed up pod at gmail.com. I want to know because I did feel very I felt happy to see a glimpse of them together and
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in love, but then also sad for myself that I was willing to get wet just to look at her
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once. I don't know. she lived in my same neighborhood in New York for 11 years and I never saw her my sister did
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but I never saw her if we can see I mean it's her house I would love to see that she needs to do a
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73 questions I want for Vogue I want to see the inside of her home so bad so this podcast is two
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years in the making over two years I originally came up with this idea in like 2017 and had a
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sorry Lisa I had a different partner uh associated we recorded a bunch of episodes together and then
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just scheduling wise, it wasn't going to work out with her. She's her name is Jackie Zabrowski.
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You should all follow her and listen to her podcast. Page seven is one of her podcasts.
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And it's very popular. And she I don't think she just had time for this. So, yeah, thank you,
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Jackie. Honestly, I'm so glad you couldn't do it. This is a dream come true that now when I watch
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SVU and people are like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm working. I can't do anything with you.
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So Lisa perfectly was moving to L.A. at the same time. So it like all worked out.
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And then, you know, we ended up going to pitching exactly right. And Hannah had already been thinking of doing something like this.
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So it's like a perfect match. What I love so much is in the emails, like when our manager messaged us to say that Hannah
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also wanted to do an SVU podcast was the same day that you gave birth to Rosie. Yeah.
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So it's just so cute that I'm like, oh, this is great news. She is in labor. But then I still emailed you being like, I know you're in labor, but we have to write
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this thing for the thing. And our manager was like, leave Kara alone. I'm like, OK, OK, you're right.
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You're right. We should let her give birth to Rosie. Yeah. So a labor of love. This has been a long time coming and we're so excited that now you guys are hearing it.
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And it's called That's Messed Up. And that is a for those who know and for those who don it is a reference to iced tea I used to say that messed up all the time Apparently writers it was apparently it was a big drinking game and the writers stopped writing it in for him
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But from seasons like two to nine or ten, I think you can catch iced tea saying, oh, that's messed up about a lot of stuff.
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And it's true. Like when Lisa and I are researching these true crimes or watching these episodes, we definitely say that to each other all the time.
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Yes. Very heinous crimes. Yeah. So essentially the layout of the show, in case you're just stumbling upon it right now, is we are going to jump all over the show's 22 season history.
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We're going to pick episodes that we like and that are based on true crimes. And we're going to do a recap, little analysis of the episode.
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And then we're going to do a deep dive into the true crime that the episode is based on.
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And then our dream come true for us is we get to interview an actor from the show, from that episode.
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So every episode we get to talk to a person from the episode. Can you believe it?
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Oh, my God. And we're talking to some really awesome people. So, yeah, we're really excited.
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And we recognize that SVU is a fantasy about the legal system. And we love the show.
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We love the characters. But we do also realize this is not the reality of how cops behave.
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This is absolutely not how the justice system works. And we plan to call that out whenever we can.
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Yeah. I mean, the show is called SVU and the show is about special victims and our podcast is
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called That's Messed Up. So obviously we plan to tackle some pretty intense subject matter, whether it is fictional
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or not. And we're comedians, so our goal is to entertain. But we will also be taking a page from Olivia Benson's book and always being respectful of
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the victims and our listeners. So we're going to get into our episode. And side note, we did record
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this before the election. So if you hear us talking about 45 as present day, that's because
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we did not have our celebratory election yet. Yeah, we're so excited for you guys to hear this
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podcast and to get started. And I mean, ultimately, my goal is just to be able to afford Hulu without
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ads guys. And I want to meet those women in the rain and find a spouse. No. And we need,
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and we want to be guest stars on the show. We want this. You, we need to become so popular
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that the SVU writers room is like, well, I guess these ladies have to find a dead body.
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They just let us find a body. We're not asking to like be incorporated into the cast. We just
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want to find a body. Yeah. Pre, uh, theme song, pre theme song. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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okay let's get into bully season 12 episode 18 um this starts with like the classic disclaimer
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that's like this is a fictional story and does not depict any real person or event we don't believe
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you yeah we started a podcast about it um it also starts in an art gallery and it made me
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miss new york yeah yeah it starts mingling wine um this episode opens hot with a cameo from viva
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la diva herself luanda countess luanda can you believe that our interests just intertwine so
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hard really wild and she was wearing a silly hat too i'm actually like no she's not but i'm actually
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really surprised that more housewives have not done cameos on this like i feel like
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they get like pat ray reig no not pat reig what's his name pat um the guy from new york one
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i have no idea he's like a iconic new york guy he's always like doing little news clips
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other episodes we're watching i have tamron hall like all kinds of like new york journalist-y
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people and uh sue simmons like chuck scarborough like people that do local news in new york are
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always in these episodes and i'm like the housewives are part of that canon i just wonder
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if shockingly Luanne is the best actor of them all like I don't maybe oh you're right like Ramona
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like I don't know how to behave I don't know they don't know how to behave in their Ramona is a
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terror I mean Luanne's nuts but yeah I think Luanne has a level of professionalism that maybe the other
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queens and she just had to play she just had to play like sort of a pompous like art person and
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that kind of like works for her uh so yeah we started this gallery opening Luanne like waltzes
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in, like just yelling the name of the artist in the middle of a gallery, just Andreas, where
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are you? And like, who walks into an event like that? She brings him back, back like to like the behind the scenes of the art gallery to be
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like, I love this new piece you did. It's so beautiful. And it's just drips of red going down a wall.
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And he's like, that's not my piece of art. That's real blood. So dun dun. They, you know, they should have an all musical episode of SVU.
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Okay. I mean, that's definitely something you could pitch. I don't know how that would work.
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Daria did it. Why not? So the blood is coming from upstairs where like a body has been murdered.
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The body of Ellen Saisland. She's the CSO of a company called Luscious Grape, which is like a high end alcohol distributor.
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And she's just lying there with her blood pooling down this vent that has now gone into the art gallery.
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the cause of death is an exsanguinated from a severed carotid she also has anal trauma
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there's no DNA and there's signs of a struggle and this always reminds me of the John Mulaney joke
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and I'm mad at him so hard that he has the best SVU jokes that have ever been written
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but it is like you can't swear on TV but you can say anal trauma not even before the credits
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like what the fuck the credits are just getting started when they're talking about anal trauma
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And so, yeah, they find out that the show downstairs is called Dollars and Death, the Politics of Blood.
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So it's all just very coincidental. And the squatter initially thinks that this is just like a date gone wrong And that how we peace out of the cold open So we go to the site of Luscious Grape So you need to understand to understand this episode
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you got to meet all the characters at the Luscious Grape company. Okay. This high-end liquor distributor, wine and alcohol distributor.
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So the first person. It's just such a not fancy or sexy job. Like of all the businesses, it's just like a distributor.
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No, but when you work in wine and alcohol distribution, like you do like wine and dine big clients. Like I do think it is kind of a cool. I don't know. I know people who work at like Diageo and like big alcohol companies and you get to go to like a lot of parties and like do. And it sounds like a pretty fun job. I don't know. All right. You could sell booze like this tastes great.
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Oh, no, I did always when I waitress get excited when the beer guys would come, you know, like you want this beer sample?
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Here's some koozie. I did enjoy that. I think it's really the next natural step would be you running an international company of alcohol distribution.
00:19:01
Too many spreadsheets. Yeah. You know, working on this with you, I'm like so impressed with your organization and all the tabs and the spreadsheets.
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And so I was, uh, you know, hyping you up to a friend and she goes, yeah, we make spreadsheets.
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I work in an office. Why are you? Yeah, I have spreadsheets. And then someone else was like, yeah, tabs in a spreadsheet.
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I do that too. Like no one is shocked. They've been doing it for decades and I've been talking about it for two weeks, nonstop,
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how there's multiple tabs in a spreadsheet. Never seen it before, but Hey, I love your adoration of my, uh, a spreadsheet so you
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can keep it coming. um okay so basically on the luscious grave website there's this super fucking weird video it's like a
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cult recruitment video honestly like you first meet annette cole who is the president ceo then
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you meet ellen who is the dead woman who is the cfo and it's like they we started this in our garage
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in jersey city i'm like okay uh and then what is this whole thing with starting companies and
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garages and we all have to give a round of applause no one cares yeah it's crazy you had a garage in
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Jersey City. I lived in a one bedroom apartment in New York with two one window. So you meet all
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the different characters at this place. I'm going to just break it down for you who they all are.
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So there's kind of like a young douche named Justin. There's a young girl like a baby spice
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named Corinne. There's an old Australian dude named Donald. And then there's like a gay dude
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named Bruce. I would never just call somebody just the gay dude, but they literally do that
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in the episode like 10 times. Like it's his only identity is that he's a gay man. And his name is
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Bruce and his name is Bruce. That's the gayest name on earth. So those are the main characters
00:20:36
that we meet in this like insane recruitment video. And all they talk about is how like much
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they love working there and how it's this like amazing workplace. And I'm like, you just know
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somebody thought something's fucked. No one talks about their workplace that way. Like you can be
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like, oh, it's great to work here. But they're like, this is a family. It's just too creepy.
00:20:56
Yeah. You know, something's on the internet. If a company keeps saying we're family,
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that's not a good sign. Yeah. So their luscious grape.net is their website. I guess luscious
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grape.com was taken by like a drag queen or something there. Also, I need to point out to
00:21:11
our producer. There is a co-producer on the show named Speedweed. We need to get that person for
00:21:16
an interview. Just let's make a note. Like who is Speedweed? I always see their name in the credits
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and I'm like, are you a man? Are you a woman? I need to know more about Speedweed. So a neighbor
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approaches Benson and Sabler tells them that Andreas the artist is kind of a creep that turns
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out to be sort of a dead end he's like a douche but he's not the guy that killed Ellen he goes for
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hotter girls basically like this is another episode where they keep acting like Ellen is
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the ugliest woman on the planet but she's actually just like a perfectly lovely looking person who's
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not a supermodel and Andreas has continued to use Ellen's blood on an art piece which is creepy but
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he has an alibi. So he's not he's not like a suspect anymore. So then we get into meeting
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Annette Cole in person, who is the CEO and founder of the company. She's like, Ellen was my best
00:22:09
friend. The younger sister I never had. We had dinner the night before. Luscious Grape was our
00:22:14
life. Jersey City family, whatever. It's like red flag central, I think. I mean, just the way she's
00:22:20
talking, like no one has, I don't know, such a perfect relationship with their coworker and
00:22:25
business partner, but maybe I'm jaded. We also have to lie to the cops because if you say one
00:22:29
thing, it could be used against you. True, true, true. What if she was like, yeah, she was kind of
00:22:33
lazy. And then, yeah, they're like, it's you. Yeah. Amanda Knox, perfect example, said a couple
00:22:38
weird things and was in jail for like three years. Okay. So Bruce kind of gives us an insight into
00:22:45
elements a little bit different saying that she was a blast at parties. They call her a fruit fly.
00:22:49
I don't think we're allowed to say that anymore. It's like, there's a couple words for women that
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have a lot of gay male friends and I don't think any of them really fly anymore, including fruit
00:22:57
fly. Fruit fly is probably the nicest, but I don't think that many gay guys like being called a fruit.
00:23:03
Yeah. Yeah. This episode, they call them a fruit four times. Like it's very, I mean,
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what year is this episode from? It's, uh, I just have so many fruit tattoos that to me, I, I, I,
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it only, it only gives me joy. Yeah. I'm just like, I would love to be fruity, but I understand,
00:23:21
And, you know, yeah. So Bruce reveals that they've gone to AA. She's sober. So it appears she's been drinking the night of the murder.
00:23:29
So that's a weird thing. Like, yeah, they say that she gets drunk so she can fuck because no one wants to fuck her ugly face.
00:23:36
Yeah. They act there. She is deformed. So the cops get into Ellen's phone and then we get into like a serious tangent in this episode.
00:23:43
So I'm just going to go into it really quickly because it does waste a ton of time.
00:23:46
But there's this tangent where Ellen has been buying leather goods at a website called My Leather Fantasy, not S&M.
00:23:54
It's high end leather goods. The guy who owns it is named Juan Alvarez. He's been harassing her.
00:24:00
So they find they go to find him. He gets shot by a man in the street who says he killed my Peggy because he harassed this other man's wife, Peggy, until she had a heart attack because he thinks that harassing people will cause them to leave bad reviews online.
00:24:18
And a bad review is just as good as a good review. So this is some kind of psychotic Yelp conspiracy where like people are still going to go to your website because they have reviews that this man calls me in the middle of the night and screams at me.
00:24:31
I think I would pass on my leather fantasy. He also has a great quote, quote of this episode for me.
00:24:38
And he goes, OK, so I harassed the bitch. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. He's like, I didn't kill anyone.
00:24:45
I just called an old woman with Alzheimer's at 3 a.m. and screamed at her about paying for her leather.
00:24:50
So basically he's the like, yes, he's like, any press is good press. Yeah. Any press is good press.
00:24:56
Exactly. So once we get to the end of this tangent, he's got an alibi for Ellen's murder.
00:25:01
So even though he was harassing her, he didn't do anything. Now we get the flip.
00:25:05
The script is flipped a little bit. Warner comes in, our girl Tamara Tooney, not to me, the luggage brand.
00:25:12
And she's saying it might not be murder. She's ruling the manner of death is undetermined.
00:25:16
And we also discover, which I feel like you and I were just talking about this the other day, that Ellen has trichotillomania, which is when you pull your hair out.
00:25:24
Yeah. I have a friend who does that. Yeah. Oh, no, I was talking about it with my husband because in an episode of Pen15, one of the girls pulled out a piece of her hair.
00:25:32
I thought maybe they were going to go into a trichotillomania plot, but it was not.
00:25:35
I'm just impressed that you can say it fully. I mean, it's it's actually pretty phonetic.
00:25:40
But yeah, there's also another fun quote. Yeah. uh benson goes and got anal trauma on the way down oh yeah i don't remember but i have it in
00:25:51
all big letters right like they're basically acting like it's possible that she just fell
00:25:56
against this vase because she was so drunk and the big chunk of glass like severed her carotid
00:26:02
artery oh my god wait is the carotid artery in your butthole no it's in your neck that's where
00:26:06
the that's where the um the cut was but yeah that's why benson's saying she's like what then
00:26:12
she somehow got anal trauma like during the fall like she's like not buying that this was an
00:26:17
accident okay so everyone at luscious grape yeah you guys are such good friends that she said is
00:26:23
in your butthole and you didn't even comment on that just but no it's in the neck and we're so
00:26:27
loving towards her wait your carotid artery being in your butthole is really funny okay so everyone
00:26:34
at luscious grape is stonewalling in like a very creepy way like they're all saying the same words
00:26:38
They're all saying like her death is a major loss to our company. Like they're all it's very culty.
00:26:44
They've been told, instructed what to say. And then Benson's like, if you guys are a family, why didn't you know that your best friend and sister is ripping hair out of her head?
00:26:51
Mental illness is not a game. No. So get help. Someone breaks into Ellen's loft.
00:26:56
The cops go over. They find immediately they find the one thing that the person that broke in was looking for, which is this little panda flash drive.
00:27:03
The flash drive has tons of videos on it. Twist with Annette, the CEO, like completely terrorizing her employees, like in a way that's
00:27:13
not just like, hey, guys, we need to up productivity today. You guys messed up last week.
00:27:17
It's like, well, that's not even kind of menacing. No, I know. I'm just saying a boss.
00:27:23
Yeah, you're right. It's OK. You do yours. OK. My mean boss that's not criminal would be like, are you stupid?
00:27:30
I asked for that an hour ago. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Okay, so we're like, it's Miranda Priestly.
00:27:34
It's kind of like the level I think of. But she wouldn't even say stupid. Miranda Priestly would go.
00:27:39
I demand excellence. Bring 50 skirts to the appointment today. Yeah. Don't ask me another question.
00:27:44
Yeah, I don't have time for your bullshit. Yeah. So she's calling. She's like making homophobic slurs.
00:27:50
She's terrorizing them. She slaps Ellen across the face. Okay, so they confront Annette with the videos.
00:27:57
It's 20 films of her being a complete psycho. So the waiter from the dinner the night before says that she was also screaming at Ellen the night before she was murdered.
00:28:07
And it's just like denying, pretending to cry. It's like crazy how she almost she offers like no excuse.
00:28:14
She's like, this is out of context. It's like there's no context. We're slapping your employee across the face is like a good thing.
00:28:21
Yeah. And then I see goes the queen of means on a tear. Queen of mean. So Bruce, so as they go check in with all the different people that are in the little
00:28:32
luscious grape cast list. So Bruce, the gay guy has a $200,000 car. Corinne, the young girl is in therapy.
00:28:40
I don't know why that is considered something lavish, but I guess it's like they think
00:28:44
something's going on with her. Justin, the young douche has this really nice house with like multiple levels, which in
00:28:49
New York is a staircase in New York is weird and like very, that's a status symbol.
00:28:54
He lives with his mother and we hear his mother yelling down, Justin, mother needs her juice.
00:29:01
And it's like, really, what's going on? His mother is a disabled former opera singer.
00:29:05
OK, keep that in mind for later. So Huang tells them that tells the squad that all these people have Stockholm syndrome, like they've all bonded to this woman emotionally to prevent being abused by her, which kind of makes sense.
00:29:20
And they find out also that this company is about to be sold for five hundred million dollars.
00:29:24
We get a Morning Joe segment. OK, so the tapes get leaked to the media because Ellen sent them before she died.
00:29:33
She sent them to the media like, I can't handle this anymore. Probably right after the dinner she had with Annette where Annette was yelling at her and threw a glass at her, I think.
00:29:42
So we get to this mob scene where all these people are attacking Annette. It's like honestly iconic.
00:29:47
Like she looks amazing. She's got dark sunglasses on, like probably something with like a fur collar.
00:29:53
I don really remember like a head scarf over her head and she like and they like construction workers are yelling suck it bitch at her Look I don condone calling women a bitch in this way but it honestly like really makes me giggle in this context
00:30:06
You need to watch the episode. She's like, I'm going to sue the NYPD for emotional distress.
00:30:11
And she's just like out of my way. It's just kind of a fun scene. It reminds me of Cruella.
00:30:17
Yeah, it's Cruella. It's Sunset Boulevard. Like it's just very John Collins. Yes.
00:30:22
Very John Collins. I own 51%. Yeah. So all this press comes out. The half a billion dollar offer is rescinded. The press is completely savaging Annette. Annette calls a press conference. She's weepy. She's apologizing. She's like, I'm so sorry to everyone. And then she literally flips the switch, tells everybody, totally pulls a fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, doesn't tell anyone they're cool. Fuck you, fuck you.
00:30:49
and then kills herself in at this press conference in front of everybody. So that's like a with a gun.
00:30:56
Yeah, with a gun. Sorry. Shoots herself. Pulls out a gun and is like, boom, blows her brains out.
00:31:02
Shocking. It's very shocking. I hope no one got ideas from this episode. No, very shocking.
00:31:07
So Huang said it's like kind of classic. She like feigned contrition to draw people in, but then traumatizes them.
00:31:13
So it's like what you get when you mix a sociopath and a narcissist, a ticking time bomb.
00:31:18
That's what Huang says. So Annette leaves every penny in her will to her dog. Nothing goes to her, quote unquote, family members at Luscious Grape. And then Bruce gets nailed in a hit and run. We essentially find out that all the Luscious Grape employees are turning on one another because they were all holding on just until this five hundred million dollars sale so they could like be rich.
00:31:45
and they all thought that each other was the one that killed Ellen and like jeopardized the whole
00:31:50
thing. So baby spice is the one that hits Bruce with her grandfather's car because she thinks
00:31:56
Bruce is the one that killed Ellen. And Bruce is like, I didn't do it. She was dead when I got to
00:32:00
her house. So then they basically kind of figure out old Australian guys, the one who did the break
00:32:05
in, they all had their own little crimes. The last person left is Justin, the douche who lives with
00:32:11
his mom. So they get to his house and Warner shows up and we figure out that the reason Ellen was
00:32:18
drunk is because someone got her drunk through her butthole. See your butthole. You were right
00:32:24
about something with the butthole. Yeah. And this is why we watch SVU for a last second,
00:32:30
a last second butt chugging reference. Yeah. And the thing is, it's not like someone or the
00:32:36
The medical examiner told Benson, like, hey, by the way, something with the alcohol, she's just like the opera singer, the throat.
00:32:43
It's a butthole. Like she just like I love detective work like that. Well, she pieces together.
00:32:49
Yeah. Because what was her blood alcohol was like, how did she drink it? Because there was no alcohol in her stomach.
00:32:56
So there was no alcohol in her actual stomach. But she had a blood alcohol of one point six, which is way over the limit.
00:33:00
it. So she they basically say, oh, yeah, it's an old alcoholics trick to put alcohol like through
00:33:06
your anus or girls do it with tampons. I had heard of girls doing it with tampons. I've never
00:33:10
tried it. I like to just get drunk the old fashioned way. But so basically, Benson realizes
00:33:15
that they have to go to Justin. OK, and we kind of figure this out as we go. At the end,
00:33:20
Justin admits that he came on to Ellen. She rejected him. He tried again. She slapped him.
00:33:27
He pushed her. She fell into the vase and saw the glass and then the glass was in her neck.
00:33:31
So that actually was an accident. And he's like, there was so much blood. So then he put the alcohol up her butt to make it seem like she was drunk and had this accident.
00:33:42
Wow. And then the cops basically get it out of him that he grew up learning how to do this trick because his mother is an alcoholic opera singer who couldn't damage her vocal cords.
00:33:53
And so that's how he would help his mom get drunk is like pudding. That's why the entire episode when we've gone to Justin's house, the mom keeps going.
00:33:59
Mother needs her juice. It's like her special juice. Oh, so he's but he's been helping.
00:34:05
He's been but chugging his mom. Oh, my God. And as he's getting carried away by the cops, the cops don't even care about this old woman.
00:34:11
She's just left. Literally. And like the cops are like, bye. Yeah. And he goes, mother's very clever.
00:34:19
She taught me a lot of things. And you're like, what else? And the end is very Willie Loman where it's like they all wanted money.
00:34:25
They all try and they get nothing. Yeah. Very Willie Wonka. You get nothing. You stole fizzy lifting drinks.
00:34:31
You let your boss slap you across the face. You get nothing. How much money would you work at a,
00:34:38
like if let's say you were treated like this at a job, slapped in the face, insulted,
00:34:42
what would be the paycheck you'd need for slaps? Well, I mean millions. Okay. I don't know.
00:34:48
I can't, I don't know. I want to get into the million a year. you'd be okay with your boss pulling your hair and slapping you once a week,
00:34:53
10, 10 million, 10 million to get once a week. Oh, it's a once a week slap. Yeah.
00:35:00
Yeah. I guess you'd get used to it. That sounds terrible. All right. All right. Let's move on.
00:35:07
I love this episode though. It's got so much. It's just like a, it's, it's got twists and turns and chugs,
00:35:14
a housewife. Yeah. Leather fantasy. Who knew that we were going to start gay slurs from the past.
00:35:20
yeah a baby spice reference just from you a grandpa the name peggy our friend's mom's name
00:35:27
peggy we like that yeah it was a good episode well we're gonna take a quick break and we come
00:35:32
back we're gonna get into the actual scenario that this is based on Welcome back. Great ads.
00:35:54
So this is fun This is not even a full time Like is there there was a little tax evasion but this character is based on a New York legend Leona Hemsley
00:36:05
And I watched an I.D. channel. Barbara Investigates. Barbara Walters is one of my heroes. And so I was really happy to see their interview.
00:36:13
And this interview took place like right before she was going to jail. So she was not happy. She was pissed.
00:36:20
And she kept playing like, I'm the good person. I've done nothing wrong. So it was like really lovely while walking around her mansion.
00:36:28
So loved that. So who Leona is, she was a billionaire hotel maven. And her biggest rival was Donald Trump.
00:36:37
Which you've got me on Leona Helmsley side immediately. And you know, what's crazy who brought Leona down was Rudy Giuliani.
00:36:44
Oh, my God. Which now it's all connected. Like, were they friends even back then in the 80s?
00:36:50
were they always conniving to this evil, you know, white supremacist lunacy? I don't I just don't know what it is.
00:36:58
So that's just interesting how this is all happening. It was the 80s. Greed was good, baby.
00:37:05
She was known for lavish parties, celebrities, and she never had to pay for her parties because they were in her hotels.
00:37:11
Yeah, like Elizabeth Taylor would party. Michael Jackson, like in the 80s, the Hemsley's were the fucking party.
00:37:20
billionaires of New York. I just want to say really quick that my family has stayed at the
00:37:25
Hemsley Sandcastle in Sarasota, Florida, and it's not that nice. Yeah, but this is the 80s. I bet
00:37:31
they had that. Yeah, we stayed there in the 2000s and it was not great. Yeah, that's like most of
00:37:36
Vegas. It's like, this used to be nice. Yeah. It's just so fucking gross. The 80s were pretty
00:37:41
garish. Is that a word? Okay. So she, I'll just give you some stats though. 50,000 apartments
00:37:49
they owned her and her husband, 4,500 hotel rooms and 7 million square feet of office space.
00:37:57
Whoa. Yeah. And they lived on the top floor of their most grand hotel, the Park Lane Hotel.
00:38:02
She didn't grow up rich. She was a 1920s daughter Jew immigrants from Lithuania, poor dad made hats.
00:38:10
She dropped out of high school at 16, married and divorced twice, mother by 20. So, you know, nothing too wild.
00:38:17
But then she became a receptionist at a real estate firm. within a few months was a broker and within a few years, top realtor. She was a closer baby.
00:38:25
Wow. Yeah. Immigrants know how to work hard. And so when she met her husband, she was older and she was 40 and she was worth a million dollars. And I just feel like as a
00:38:37
single chick, single mom in New York being worth a million dollars is impressive. In the eighties.
00:38:42
Yeah, it's super impressive. And big fun thing. Harry was married. Oh, so she met this dude and she's like, we're in love.
00:38:52
And he left his Quaker wife in a second for this party, bitch, because he wanted to live
00:38:56
a fun life. And his other wife, like they didn't drink no coffee, just like very religious losers.
00:39:01
And he also started out poor. He would collect rent for tenements. And then he crushed it during the Depression because the banks needed someone to manage
00:39:10
all these buildings. And so he started managing buildings for banks during the depression.
00:39:14
Okay. And so that's how he made money. And he found investors. And yeah, so he became a real estate person.
00:39:24
I don't really know. But they're like this real estate power couple then once they get together.
00:39:28
Yeah. And he like they really did love each other. It seems like I don't think it was just for money.
00:39:34
I mean, maybe it was. But he was excited to finally live this like gold, fancy, fun lifestyle after like living with his wife for 40 years who are they're married for 34 years.
00:39:45
And Leona was more fun. Yeah. You know, was there a big age difference? No, I don't think I don't know.
00:39:51
OK, good question. But I don't know. I just feel like if he was managing buildings like the Depression, he's probably a little older than Leona.
00:39:58
Yeah. Yeah. And he died before her. Yeah. So you're right. Also, he did. Okay, so in 1961, he had his dreams come true and he bought the Empire State Building.
00:40:11
So he owned the Empire State Building. I tried to see who owns it now, and it's just a giant trust.
00:40:15
And I was like, I can't. I cannot. I can't weed through this. I can't weed through all these people who own it.
00:40:22
But the Empire, he owned the Empire State Building, but he didn't treat it like a jewel.
00:40:25
And that's the thing. Like he wanted, he grew up poor. And when you're poor, I think it fucks up your brain.
00:40:30
Because like he reduced the maintenance crew and the cleaning. Yeah, the Emirates building in the 80s, I feel like the first time I went there was in the 80s or the 90s, and it was not nice.
00:40:38
It was gross. Yeah, he just didn't let it. He just had that hold your money type vibe, and so he didn't even do anything fun, whatever.
00:40:46
So they had money. They married. And she just revolutionized his life, threw gold on everything, and bought all these luxury hotels.
00:40:54
Her and Trump are fighting. Yeah, it's weird that they're fighting because they're like twin people.
00:40:58
They're like the same. Well, that's why they don't like each other. Narcissists don't want another narcissist around.
00:41:02
Right, that's true. And then and they know their tricks. So and we talked about this before we recorded.
00:41:08
When is a woman an actual like bitch evil person or is she just like a Miranda Priestly and really good at her job and being judged unfairly and like men want a mommy to baby them and not a boss?
00:41:18
Right. So it's like, was she evil or not? You are asking. Yeah, this bitch is crazy.
00:41:22
Yeah. OK. Firing people. She would fire people on the spot. Someone would be at the elevator.
00:41:27
She would be like, oh, you're fired. Like she loved to fire people. She was a micromanager and her nickname was the queen of mean.
00:41:35
Yeah. Which they say in this episode. And so what happened was she joined with this advertising company
00:41:40
and they were like, this is what we're going to do. And no one's ever done this before.
00:41:43
They're like, you're the queen of your castle and we're going to put you in the commercials and you are the queen at the hotels.
00:41:48
And if people come to these hotels, they get to hang out with the fucking queen.
00:41:52
And then she fired the person who made the advertising campaign So that what happened But yeah she was a iron fist Like she wanted shit to be perfect And why not You know her her name on it
00:42:05
Yeah. So she loved firing people. She was suspicious of everyone, suspicious of her son.
00:42:09
Everyone's stealing stuff. And you're asking, is she evil or is she just a tough boss?
00:42:13
OK, so her son dies at 42. She turned on her daughter-in-law, gave her the bill for the funeral and to move the body
00:42:20
from New York to Florida and evicted her and her grandchild from the Hemsley property.
00:42:26
Wow. Yeah. She's like, that's despicable. And she was cheap and just fought with people like haggled constantly, even though she had
00:42:35
all this money. And this is like she could be president, except that she's a woman.
00:42:39
That is what's upsetting. I'd rather Leona be the president. At least she had a sense of humor.
00:42:43
You know, at least she had diamond like dressed well. You know what I mean? Not a boxy suit.
00:42:49
Like, it is crazy to have these two despicable lunatics from the 80s. And one is the leader of our country right now.
00:42:57
Yeah, it is. Or hopefully not. You know, we'll see when this airs. But anyway, so this is her downfall.
00:43:03
Uh-huh. And what she got in trouble for, she bought a mansion in Connecticut in 1983.
00:43:07
You're from Connecticut. She bought it for $11 million and she wanted to renovate.
00:43:11
And at the time, her renovation seemed crazy. But now I'm like, this bitch was on fire.
00:43:15
She wanted speakers in the bushes so she can listen to music and play tennis. yeah seems not out of line at all yeah who doesn't want to like hit a couple balls around with eye of
00:43:23
the tiger playing come on yeah and she wanted a marble dance floor on top of the pool again it
00:43:29
seems that's chill i it's just crazy how much house renovation standards have changed from the 80s
00:43:37
till now because i'm like this doesn't seem crazy yeah but she wanted to save money and just like
00:43:42
our 45th president she decided not to pay any of her contractors and charged everything to the
00:43:47
business, which is illegal. Yeah. So if Rudy was on her side and not his, maybe she would be in
00:43:53
charge of our country. Like they're they're the same. So she didn't pay anyone. So they got an
00:43:59
anonymous tip to a New York Post reporter. He got a call and said, Leona is a crook. And do you want
00:44:05
to win a Pulitzer Prize? Whoa. And that's all he got. So that's like spicy. I love that. Yeah.
00:44:11
So he agreed to this reporter agreed to meet someone in Manhattan. He got these files,
00:44:16
started calling people and started figuring shit out. And then the U.S. attorney Giuliani started to
00:44:22
investigate from the New York Post article. So the New York Post posted this article on all of
00:44:28
her schemings and how she's not paying people and that she's a crook. Giuliani starts investigating
00:44:32
and he says usually it's really, really hard to get witnesses to talk. He said people were
00:44:37
volunteering everywhere because they hated her so much. So they just sat back and people like
00:44:43
Dozens of people were just calling and calling, being like, she didn't pay me here.
00:44:46
She did this. She did that. She's this. She wasn't able to successfully Stockholm Syndrome them all with the promises of millions of
00:44:53
dollars like in this episode. No, no luscious grapes. No luscious grapes. She was at night to anybody.
00:44:58
So the hatred was so huge for her and she abused so many people that April 14th, 1988,
00:45:04
they announced an indictment of Leona Hemsley and 35 counts of tax evasion, false records
00:45:10
that showed personal as business expenses. I do this too, but that's because I'm unorganized.
00:45:15
So I am really scared that one day I'll get in trouble. I don't have enough money, but I definitely just put everything in my, I just.
00:45:21
Yeah. No, at the end, my account's always like, this isn't a business. What are you doing?
00:45:25
I'm like, I just am confused. But what sucks, and I am on her side here. It says she only didn't pay $4 million in taxes.
00:45:34
But she has in total paid $600 million in taxes. So it's like a small percentage of what she was avoiding.
00:45:42
So she's pissed. She's like, oh, everyone thinks I don't pay taxes. I've paid 600 million in taxes.
00:45:48
So another reason she's above Trump is that she'll show her tax returns. Yes. Yeah.
00:45:53
But so four million. She says that she brought a blank check to the government. I don't know how you do this.
00:45:59
And said, here's four million here. We'll pay it. We don't care. And they didn't.
00:46:03
They still wanted her to go to jail. Yeah. So I guess who her lawyer is? Alan Dershowitz.
00:46:09
Yeah. Alan Dershowitz is in here. And he's like, it's a misdemeanor. Chill. Relax.
00:46:15
What are you doing? Like she but I'm going to get ahead of myself because it's too funny.
00:46:20
She didn't pay him. She never paid. She never paid her. She was pissed and didn't pay him.
00:46:26
So I love that. But he was like, whatever. Like, I don't understand why he's being why this is happening.
00:46:34
It's not that big of a deal. And a housekeeper overheard Leona Hemsley saying we don't pay taxes.
00:46:40
Only little people pay taxes. Oh, yeah. That's a famous quote of hers. Yeah. Yeah. So the housekeeper heard her say that. And also her husband, Harry, was like old and sick and couldn't stand trial. So it was all it was all her. Oh, I didn't even realize he was still alone. He was still alive at this. Yeah. Yeah. Harry was old and sick and got off the ticket. So only she stood trial. And then the media just came out. And so. So, yeah. So go on. So what did she get for a sentence?
00:47:06
But the thing, so Trump called her a disgrace to humanity, which is, um, takes one to know
00:47:12
one. Yeah. And then the mayor called her a wicked witch. Well, like that's the thing.
00:47:16
So all they also said she wasn't able to get a fair trial because the press was just, not
00:47:20
in New York city when everybody's like, I mean, she was just such a, I mean, loving to
00:47:24
hate her. Yeah. She was just like, I was saying she, when I grew up, Leona Helmsley was like a punch
00:47:30
line. Like you just, I, I knew who she was and I was like eight or nine, you know what I mean?
00:47:35
Like I just knew what was up. she was some kind of like mean lady yeah and you yeah you grew up on the east coast because i also
00:47:41
was foreign i don't really remember this oh yeah yeah yeah east coast like not that far from new
00:47:46
york also i'm from connecticut so she was i don't know where she bought this house but it's probably
00:47:50
near me where i grew up um her lawyer revealed her age in court and she was pissed and she's
00:48:00
I have a temper, but I won't say it's terrible. So I love that. August 30th, day before my birthday, 89, she was found guilty of 33 counts of tax evasion
00:48:09
and sentenced to four years in prison. But Dershowitz got the state to drop their charges, just not federal charges.
00:48:18
And so she did. And that's why she refused to pay him. And Dershowitz is talking about how he's poor and he still uses tea bags three or four times.
00:48:26
But also, like, just being her lawyer probably got him so much business. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just was like a very sensational trial. I remember.
00:48:35
Yeah, I just hate when rich people are like, oh, but I still reuse my teabag. And it's like,
00:48:40
yeah, but you still hire a mate. You know what I mean? It's like you have these symbolic poor
00:48:45
behaviors, but you don't actually live like a poor person. You're trying to relate to us.
00:48:49
And it's just not working. I'm sorry. And you're not a bad person if you use a teabag once. Like,
00:48:54
what do you shut up? My Upper West Side three bedroom is filled with old teabags.
00:49:00
And she said she does community service, but I don't know. Who knows? She didn't want to go to jail because she's like, Harry needs me.
00:49:09
He can't live without me. But no one fucking cared. So she served 18 months in jail and two months house arrest.
00:49:16
18 months in jail at like a white collar, probably. Yeah. Like a Martha Stewart.
00:49:20
They said that she tried to turn the prison into the Hemsley Mansion and she hired other
00:49:24
inmates to make her bed and sort mail and do laundry. Oh, my God. From jail, she ordered a birthday cake for Harry from the Four Seasons while she was in prison.
00:49:34
So I got to love that. Ninety seven, Harry died and she started to sell off parts of the real estate empire.
00:49:41
And she went up. She went out with like younger men here and there. Yeah. But she never married again or found love again.
00:49:46
But she loved her dog. Her dog's name was Trouble. Trouble. Trouble. She learned.
00:49:53
And then Cindy Adams is in this episode of ID Investigates with Barbara Walters.
00:49:57
and Cindy Adams and her were best friends. Cindy Adams is like a gossip columnist, right?
00:50:03
Yeah. So they were really good friends. And Cindy also stopped talking to Leona because she invited Mrs. Adams to stay in her Palm
00:50:13
Beach house and then had federal marshals kick her mother and her out of the house.
00:50:18
Okay. Why? Just to do it? I don't know. I'm moving the page. Okay. So, you know, and there are some good things she wanted to push.
00:50:26
Yeah. 9-11, she walked to a firehouse, gave him $5 million. She gave $5 million to her.
00:50:31
So she still had a ton of money when she got out of jail. It wasn't like it ruined her.
00:50:35
Well, because she still owned all of the properties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like $4 million is not enough to, like, repossess things.
00:50:40
Right. So, yeah, she just sold off a bunch of stuff and had tons of money. So she got charitable at 9-11.
00:50:46
Yeah. 9-11 brought the best out on her. And, well, that's what's crazy. 9-11 happens and this evil bitch gives $5 million.
00:50:54
dollars and our president celebrated that he had the tallest building in New York now when 9-11
00:50:59
happened. So, you know, who's more evil? I mean, you're right about like maybe she is an evil
00:51:05
bitch, but like how we view evil bitches towards evil bastards is not fair. Yeah. Like he is our
00:51:12
president. He's done worse crap. Whatever. I can't even keep talking about it. 2007, she died of heart
00:51:17
failure at 87 years old and she gave most of her five billion, billion with a B dollars to a
00:51:23
charitable trust she gave her two grandkids five million each her other two grandkids got nothing
00:51:29
oh my god five million out of a billion though is like feels like nothing but i know that's nice
00:51:36
but i think bill gates is doing something like that too where you're only getting 10 million
00:51:40
and go live your life and like hopefully you can make that work i always heard she left the money
00:51:45
to her dog so she left 12 million dollars to her dog trouble okay and the news that's what it got
00:51:51
sensationalized and that's the only way i knew of her when i said i didn't really know of her as a
00:51:54
child was the woman that gave all her money to her dog yeah it wasn't it wasn't all her money
00:51:59
did she give more to the dog than both than both of her grandchildren combined yes yes yes um but
00:52:05
nobody wanted to take care of trouble because she was a bitch too uh trouble bit everyone and it
00:52:10
bit oh and it was shit it would shit wouldn't it shit i feel like i read somewhere that it would
00:52:14
like shit inside and she would just make people pick it up oh i'm sure and but it had a security
00:52:17
guard because it had too many death threats. New York is the greatest city in the world. They're
00:52:23
going to kill a dog that has too much money. Trouble died in 2011 at 12 years old. And it's
00:52:31
it wanted it. She wanted the dog to be buried with her. They didn't allow it. And then Leona
00:52:34
has a three million dollar trust to keep her mausoleum clean because she hates dust. Wow.
00:52:40
And so that's the story of Leona Hemsley. I'm glad she didn't commit suicide. I mean, I also
00:52:44
press. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, I just want to really quickly touch on that part of the episode.
00:52:49
That part of the episode, the public suicide, like on camera suicide, is based on a politician
00:52:56
from Pennsylvania named R. Bud Dwyer. Oh, I didn't know this. Yes. And he in 1987,
00:53:03
he was he was like a state senator in Pennsylvania and a state treasurer. He was accused of like,
00:53:08
you know, misappropriating funds and he was going to lose his job and his family was going to lose
00:53:14
their pension, like any rights they had to like money that they would get upon his death. So
00:53:20
he called a press conference the same way as the character in the show. But in his press conference, he gave letters out to each of his children and to his wife
00:53:31
and kept saying, like, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. It was like anyone with a brain
00:53:36
would have been like something fucked up is about to happen. And he just kept saying, I'm sorry.
00:53:40
Like, and if this is going to bother you or traumatize you, if you have a weak stomach,
00:53:44
you should leave now. Like he said stuff like that to people, like you should go and just kept sitting and people
00:53:48
just kept sitting. And then it wasn't until he pulled a gun out of a manila envelope that people were like,
00:53:53
oh, wait a minute. Well he literally in his speech said thank you to my wife I love you for making my life so happy Goodbye to all of you Please make sure the sacrifice of my life is not in vain And still no one like rushed him or did anything until he pulled out the gun
00:54:08
And then he yeah, he shot himself and his family ended up getting a one point two million
00:54:12
dollar payout, which they never would have gotten if he had lived. So I think he did it.
00:54:17
That's why he did it. That's so sad that he thought that one point two million dollars would be better for his
00:54:23
family than him. Yeah, that's really sad. And he maintained his innocence the whole time, which is also crazy.
00:54:30
No, you don't do that. You don't know. But I think he said that he was like, if I'm going to if they're going to lose everything,
00:54:35
I don't know. But he maintained his innocence and said it wasn't like. So this is what I have to say.
00:54:40
How do we know about Leona giving money to a dog? But we don't know about I don't know about this guy publicly killing himself in front
00:54:46
of press that sat there doing nothing as he handed goodbye notes to his family. Maybe it was just because it was like Pennsylvania.
00:54:52
and like it wasn't a like a glamorous location. That wasn't. I love the 80s on VH1.
00:54:57
No, I know. I've never seen it once. And in the 80s, this isn't as related because it wasn't at a press conference,
00:55:04
but in the 80s, a woman named Christine Chubbuck in Sarasota, Florida, where the Helmsley Zincastle is, she killed herself on air.
00:55:11
But that was like a depression thing. And she was I think she was kind of trying to make a statement.
00:55:15
I think we could say the senator was depressed, too. Yes. But she was trying to make a statement, I think.
00:55:19
And I saw a movie about that with Rebecca Hall. It was really interesting. Anyway, thank you for telling us all about Leona, the queen of mean.
00:55:27
Thanks for telling us about a public suicide. She is a Leona. Leona Hemsey is a iconic New York character.
00:55:34
I think I got a Pomeranian. I would name it Leona in honor of her or trouble. I love that trouble.
00:55:41
Just reminds me of that Chevy Chase. Nothing but trouble. A classic, classic, classic.
00:55:49
Our first guest today is a renowned character actress, a star of stage and screen and Hollywood royalty.
00:56:02
Honestly, if you look into her, you've seen her on Grey's Anatomy, on Scandal and on the best comedy of all time, Veep.
00:56:09
We are so pumped to talk to Annette Cole, the bully of luscious grape herself, Kate Burton.
00:56:16
So this SVU episode, Bully, is out of control. You're amazing in it. Yeah, it's iconic.
00:56:22
And we just want to know when you saw the script and read that you're going to, you know, publicly commit suicide and slap people and call them fruits.
00:56:30
Like, how did you feel? Well, here's the thing. I mean, you know, as a New York actor, as you know, SVU, Law and Order, The Mothership, and Criminal Intent.
00:56:41
I mean, honestly, that, you know, you, I mean, I can honestly tell you, and I'm, I've been doing this for almost 40 years. And those shows, those three shows are like annuities. I mean, you know, for a New York actor to be in those shows, I was in the mothership five times and playing two different characters.
00:57:04
uh and then i did criminal intent the second episode and i had never done svu so when they
00:57:10
present i mean and i was handed the script they they offered it to me and they said we want you to do svu and i was like the trifecta i've done so i will have done
00:57:21
them all uh and that is a big thing for a new york actor so um and svu i mean svu is unbelievable
00:57:29
I you know to be honest I don't watch SVU as much as I do the mothership because it's a little too
00:57:35
gritty for me sometimes although the mothership gets very gritty towards towards the end um
00:57:40
but sometimes I'm like oh god SVU has more living victims so you see well special victims unit yeah
00:57:48
well exactly it's not about murder it's about sexual assault it's about all this you know and
00:57:52
so you know and these are things we watch right before we go to sleep at night right I don't
00:57:56
generally watch SVU before I go to sleep at night. Having said that, um, yeah. So bully was, you know,
00:58:02
I, for some, I'm really nice lady. I, you know, I have two kids. I'm, you know, very happily married.
00:58:09
I play so many of these mad women. Oh, you do. I play, oh my God. Yeah. Well, I mean,
00:58:15
Ellis Gray on Grey's Anatomy, Sally Langston on Scandal, Sally Langston, particularly,
00:58:20
um you know they're crazy late i mean they're there i play crazy mega ladies those are that's
00:58:27
my thing crazy mega ladies who kill people but are they usually ones that start out sort of
00:58:32
sweet like because at the beginning yeah you're like oh this woman seems so nice woman i know
00:58:37
she's she's got a problem but listen the thing about bully that was so incredible was just you
00:58:44
know getting to you know commit suicide in front of people that's always fun you know and that's
00:58:50
the thing is that, you know, I think that what, what Law and Order, what the casting directors and
00:58:55
what Dick Wolf, you know, always did so incredibly is, you know, they mined their New York actors.
00:59:01
They had this plethora, they have still, this plethora of New York acting talent. And, you know,
00:59:09
those early years of the mothership were like, nobody had seen New York, like so gritty and true
00:59:16
and real. And, and it was so, I mean, he really did break the mold. So, you know, then, you know,
00:59:21
continues on and here's, and here's SVU. And I think SVU staying power, um, is that it's, you
00:59:29
know, ripped from the headlines, literally. Um, and I think also Mariska Hargitay. I mean, I think
00:59:37
she is so extraordinarily amazing as that, as that woman. And she, you know, to watch this great
00:59:46
female protagonist guide us through these terrible stories. Oh my God. You know, and I have a
00:59:54
tendency to say yes to everything So that sometimes not a good thing but I will tell you like I did do you know doing when you do anything to do with law and order you always know even if it the grittiest stuff in the world it still going to be classy
01:00:08
Another thing that was so great about that character. And I don't know if you had any
01:00:11
say in it or collaboration was the wardrobe, the hair and makeup was so good. Well, wardrobe on law and orders in general are all, I mean, it's, they have the best,
01:00:23
Well, you know, they have costume designers that have experience in theater, in film, because, you know, New York is a one, you know, everything happens in New York, you know, if in terms of all the different media.
01:00:34
Yeah. And so, you know, the costume, you know, I've always had costumes. My only sadness is that I haven't been able to keep any of them because they need to keep them there for other guest stars to come in and be glamorous.
01:00:50
Yeah, I'm obsessed with that point in Bully where you're trying to push through the crowd, like the mob that's coming after you, and you're wearing dark glasses and sort of a hooded scarf, and you're like, out of my way.
01:01:02
It's just, it's glass. What can I say? You know, this podcast, we sort of talk about the episode and the true situation or crime that it was based on.
01:01:11
So this episode, your character, I think, was loosely probably based on Leona Helmsley.
01:01:18
oh you know i didn't even totally know yeah okay i love that you know that you're telling me this
01:01:24
years later she was this you know incredibly mean oh please and remember those advertisements to
01:01:30
your dog your character left everything to her dog so it's like very similar please you have such memories of this episode thank you for reminding me
01:01:38
yes well you know those advertisements that you used to see in your times like the queen is in
01:01:44
her palace yes you know there she be leona helmsley i mean leona helmsley is like a character out of
01:01:51
a cartoon i mean you can't even make stuff up it also is nice to hear that you're probably
01:01:57
amazing to work with considering shonda keeps using you and the law and order world keeps using
01:02:01
you and that's like pretty amazing yeah thank you well i do love working with all those folks i mean
01:02:07
look you know the key is heart one of the hardest things about being an actor and especially of
01:02:11
my age group is that you, you know, we came from sort of one of the thrills for me, to be honest,
01:02:21
is I really thought by my mid forties, I'd be done. I mean, I really thought, you know,
01:02:26
when I was first coming out of Yale, I was 24, you know, I thought, okay, well, I kind of got
01:02:31
20 years and here we are and I'm 63. Yeah. And the reality is, thank you. And the reality is,
01:02:38
is that I'm still working. My great friends, Deborah Monk and Christine Nielsen,
01:02:42
who are even a little bit older than me, they're constantly working. And so the notion of there are interesting roles
01:02:49
for women who are older, how great is that? That's amazing. You know, and I moved to LA when I was 49.
01:02:56
And I always say what my age is because I'm like, why not? And I've had the most interesting parts.
01:03:02
You know, I came with, I arrived with Ellis Gray, Sally Langston um Senator Barbara Hallows on Veep um you know Aunt Maria I can't believe that
01:03:12
just hit me that's like our favorite I mean I can't the favorite that's our favorite show
01:03:17
I mean you know I don't show on television well she's a genius and so is Armando Iannucci so and
01:03:23
so is every single person on that show I was gonna say it's perfectly cast every and every detail of
01:03:27
every character Tony Hale funny I mean Tony Hale Tony Hale I mean even in the read-through for the
01:03:34
pilot, Tony Hale. I remember just sitting at the table, just like, hold me back. I mean,
01:03:42
and you know, but the thing is, is that I'm so, I feel so blessed that I've gotten to play all
01:03:48
these different, really interesting parts. So since you are, um, have been in all the law and
01:03:54
order worlds, we were wondering if you needed the help of detectives, which, which detectives would
01:03:59
you go to original criminal intent or svu oh i have to say well mariska hargitay is pretty hard
01:04:07
to beat yeah i would i would if i could combine them i would go to mariska hargitay and christopher
01:04:15
notes yeah i don't know if this is appropriate to ask or not but we just if you have an elizabeth
01:04:21
taylor tale or a little snippet what was it like being elizabeth taylor's stepdaughter you're asking
01:04:27
me this with two minutes to stay. She was a dream. I love her so much. I mean, I love her personally.
01:04:33
We always got along great. She was always incredibly dear and sweet and just really great.
01:04:39
I mean, incredible sense of humor. She was amazing. And I mean, you know, honestly,
01:04:44
you know, I mean, I, one of the sort of, I actually told the story a few times, but, um,
01:04:49
you know, she had these jewels that she really, really loved. And, uh, I mean, they were,
01:04:53
They were very fancy jewels. And one of them, my favorite thing that she ever had, there were a couple of things, but one of them was this pearl. It was a pearl, beautiful pearl, sort of teardrop shape, but a huge, like this size teardrop, very large.
01:05:09
And it was actually an unbelievable, had an unbelievable history because you can see this pearl in the Holbein portrait of Mary, Bloody Mary, Mary Tudor, who is the daughter of Henry VIII, who became the first of his children to sit on the throne of England.
01:05:33
You see it in the picture. It's in the portrait. Oh, my gosh. So that's how old this pearl is.
01:05:37
Anyway, so the pearl had gotten missing, couldn't find the pearl, and everybody was running around the house looking for the pearl.
01:05:45
And she had washed, she liked to wash her jewels in baby shampoo. So she'd washed the pearl, and somehow the pearl, like, I don't even know, I mean, this is the madness.
01:05:54
Sitting on the side of the sink sitting in a dish who the hell knows Somehow the dog got hold of the pearl and we running around the dog and the dog is sitting in the middle of the room like
01:06:05
just chewing on something. Somehow somebody stopped and went, wait a minute. And looked down at this
01:06:10
little fluffy dog. So cute going like chewing. And it had the pearl. Well, thank you so much
01:06:18
for taking the time out of your schedule. Cause I know you seem very busy, you know, pandemic.
01:06:23
You are so welcome. That was thrilling. Oh, my God. I'm like buzzed from talking to Kate Burton.
01:06:33
Yeah, she loves acting. She's good at it. She's been in everything you've ever watched.
01:06:38
Like, I don't think anyone can say they've never seen this woman on their screen.
01:06:42
I can't believe we forgot V. I mean, I must have just zipped over that in her IMDb or something.
01:06:48
I don't know how I missed that, but like iconic. What a career. and that she's been in all the Law and Order universes.
01:06:53
And she loves Mariska as much as we love Mariska. So it's nice to know that even if your stepmom's Elizabeth Taylor,
01:06:59
you will be blinded by Mariska Hargitay's charm, beauty, work ethic. She wants to call Mariska in the event of a problem.
01:07:06
Yes. That's her decision. And I think it's the right one. Yeah. So post-mortem. Okay.
01:07:12
Let's see. Let's break it down. I mean, what do we learn from luscious grape? Don't let your boss slap you.
01:07:20
Take him to court. Right. Have a lawsuit. Tape stuff. Actually, we learn if you're getting abused at work,
01:07:25
tape it. Yeah. Record it. Yeah. Don't end up dead. Right. But record it. Get a good lawyer.
01:07:30
Yeah. I have a friend who actually just had a very high profile lawsuit against like a creepo,
01:07:36
like billionaire boss. And she recorded stuff. And that's, I think, how she eventually brought
01:07:41
him down. Yeah. That's to record. So record before you quit and press charges. Yeah.
01:07:47
um don't i don't don't pour alcohol in your butt don't butt chug uh don't butt chug even if you're
01:07:56
trying to even if you're trying to get your opera singer mom drunk like put her in a home i think
01:08:01
there's got eat an edible you know find another addiction there's gotta be another way so yeah
01:08:07
don't butt chug also don't trust your co-worker they're gonna rat you out also there's cameras
01:08:13
everywhere. Don't steal your grandfather's car. Yeah. And try to run over one of your co-workers.
01:08:19
I think those are all the lessons. I mean, yeah, I was going to say, if you want to commit suicide,
01:08:24
do it with a crowd. But don't say that. Don't do that. Don't say that. None of that. Yeah.
01:08:31
This was a good one. This is a great episode. A great interview. I mean, the crime is just Leona.
01:08:37
Do yourself a favor and look more into Leona Helmsley. She's a true, like Kate said, like a
01:08:42
comic book character, like comic book villain. Yeah. Cartoon, I guess she said. I guess we also
01:08:47
learned don't make villains like that the president. I don't know if we learned that
01:08:51
just right episode. But I mean, I stand with her just because she was mortal enemies with Donald
01:08:56
Trump. Also, I'd like to say if there's a press conference and someone is reading a suicide notes
01:09:02
and apologizing to their family, stop. Go for that. Go for that. Grab the gun. Don't just wait
01:09:07
it out as they're fully confessing what's about to happen. So I think, you know,
01:09:13
that's, yeah, if you see someone that's on the brink, maybe help them out. Don't just watch for a
01:09:19
story. Yeah. And is Luscious Grape a thing? I don't know. Don't work somewhere where people think that
01:09:25
like, they say that you're family. Yeah. Don't let, pay your taxes, babies. Pay your taxes. And don't
01:09:33
leave all your money to your dog. That's honestly the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.
01:09:37
Not all. She only left 12 million. All right, Lisa. More than her kids. 12 million?
01:09:43
The dog has like a 10-year life expectancy after your death probably. What then happens to the money?
01:09:48
Who does the dog bequeath the money to? The dog's eating Wagyu. Is that how you say it?
01:09:51
Yeah, Wagyu beef. Every day. No, yeah. Pay your taxes. None of that Rachel Ray dog food.
01:09:57
What's up with that? Doesn't Rachel Ray have a dog food? Yeah, which is weird. Someone has a joke about this.
01:10:02
That's why I looked at you so weird because the joke is like you're a chef and you're coming out with dog food.
01:10:06
say about you i think it was mateo if anyone uh cares about rachel ray i think it is too
01:10:12
follow mateo lane on instagram he sings opera and he actually doesn't really drink i don't
01:10:17
think he butt chugs though we got to talk to him mateo you got to come on the pod okay so
01:10:22
we are here as always inspired by marishka hargitay but she also does a lot of charity
01:10:28
work she has her joyful heart foundation and we would like to use our platform however small it
01:10:33
maybe to spread awareness on certain things. So this segment is going to be at the end of every episode.
01:10:39
It's called What Would Sister Peg Do? Shout out to the nun and savior of many runaway girls, Sister Peg, an amazing recurring character, RIP.
01:10:50
And so at the end of every episode, we're going to call out a resource or an organization where you can go to learn more about
01:10:56
or contribute to a specific issue that we touched upon in this episode. So for today's episode, if you would like more information on workplace bullying, please go to workplacebullying.org where you can get a lot of resources on how to handle that.
01:11:11
And if you'd like to watch along with us next week's episode, we're going to be covering Damaged, one of my favorites of all time, season four, episode 11.
01:11:20
All of the episodes are on Hulu. That's how I watch. And if you're more of a peacock TV type person, it's available there as well.
01:11:28
Thank you so much for listening. Tell a friend. Give us a fun review. You know, follow us on Instagram.
01:11:36
We're going to post some fun games and GIFs and SVU art. We'll see you guys next week.
01:11:50
That's Messed Up is an exactly right production. If you have compliments you'd like to give us or episodes you'd like us to cover,
01:11:56
shoot us an email at that'smesseduppod at gmail.com. Follow the podcast on Instagram at That's Messed Up Pod and on Twitter at Messed Up Pod.
01:12:04
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01:12:12
Thank you so much to our producer and fellow SVU superfan, Hannah Kyle Crichton.
01:12:17
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01:12:27
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01:12:36
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01:12:42
or wherever you get your podcasts. Dun-dun! Thank you.