Justin Bieber’s Coachella, The Comeback’s Dan Bucatinsky & Alex Cooper vs. Alix Earle

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You're absolutely going to love it. I know many of you have followed me on Instagram and TikTok. And you're like, Heather, you were at Coachella. How was that? Give us the scoop.

Well, I technically did a rage-bait video, which was-- my sister, Shannon, was coming over. 'Cause we were going to record it Juicy Crimes, which by the way is every Wednesday, please subscribe.

But it's always so good in Juicy.

And as she was coming over, I looked at this little weird dress I had, and I put together a Coachella outfit. And so I greeted my sister at the door, and she's like, what the hell is this outfit?

“And then Drake was like, oh, and I think it would be really funny”

if you did a photo shoot like every other Coachella girl. And we posted it. And so we went out just outside my pool and did this thing. And I loved the comments. Now, 94% of you were like, oh my god, you're never too old

for Coachella. You look great. And then the other 6%, the rage-baiting worked. And they were furious. Like, how dare you wear this outfit?

What are you doing? I did not attend. We streamed it. We, I went out to a fundraiser with Martin Ballard, the interior designer to the stars,

who will be on Juicy Scoop as well. In Palm Springs, and when to his beautiful home, I just had a great weekend. We just said so much fun. But I did not actually go, you know,

I did not camp. I did not go to Coachella. But we did watch our boy Justin Bieber,

“where he was a headliner Saturday night.”

And not a fan of George's, never been.

The outfit was not the look that I love by Justin Bieber wearing. He basically wore the same thing that he wore every morning when he goes to vintage coffee, which is in La Quinta and everyone knows that he goes there.

And he loves to get his coffee, which is fine. But I don't think you should be mad that, you know, other people want to see you at vintage coffee. You are Justin Bieber.

You could have the coffee delivered to your house. So if you come because you want to be out in the wild, just know that now you're out in the wild and you're better be at a light with your hoodie on. But he is at the light when he goes there

and by the way, go to the local, which is next door in La Quinta and get the best food of your life. That's we love to go for brunch, lunch dinner. Anyway, so he comes out and listen, I was looking forward to,

I liked when he wore his underwear and saying about the Yukon and Tucson. Okay, I like that.

I never heard the song before this.

First time I saw it, I've watched it a bunch of times. I like a shirtless Justin. I like seeing a little more of the body. He's 32, so it's okay now to say that. Anyway, no, he never took off his shirt.

He kept this outfit on and he played a lot of new songs, all of which I know I will love. But then he got on the laptop. And this is where there was some controversy. And he was looking up himself and then he would play some songs

where he was almost harmonizing with his younger self, which that I thought was really cool. So you would get like a half of a song like baby, baby, like a hit or whatever. But there wasn't any, there was no big stage thing.

There was no big dancing. There was no shirts being removed. The shorts stayed on. I kind of was like, I don't know. Well, I could see the controversy, okay.

But a lot of people really loved it that he didn't have to do a big stage thing that it wasn't unique. And then it was kind of an artistic thing. And it was like a full circle

being that he's been in the business for 19 years. I thought that was really cool. It's reported that he made $10 million. However, YouTube was the sponsor of this event. So I wonder if this was in collaboration with YouTube

in thinking of this creative way to also utilize YouTube. But how great it is. And I love YouTube. And I hope you're subscribed to Heather McDonald's, Juicy Scoop and Juicy Crimes here on YouTube.

Please subscribe, share, like the whole thing. Leave a comment. So I watched the whole thing from my house, streamed it.

And I still love Justin. I thought it was unique and different. And I would say it's an hour and a half show. We can't play every song. He was smart to do his new stuff.

“And but it was probably, I think like 15 minutes too long,”

scrolling on the Apple computer in his bedroom for the Kichella. I thought it was a little too long. But other than that, it was still good. Then we watched the masters. And I, and just relaxed on Sunday had a great time.

So for me, it was a perfect week and I loved it. So speaking of Kichella and influencers and all that, there was kind of, there is a juicy little thing going on, with Alex Cooper of Color Daddy and Alex Earl, who's like the number one influencer.

They joined forces. Well, rather Alex Cooper kind of took Alex Earl under her wing. And it was like, oh, this is really smart. She's not threatened by this new blonde Alex. And she gave her a podcast under her network.

Something happened and they ended it. And neither of them really fuck with each other. They don't talk about each other. They don't, you know, do anything together.

But there's always like, wow, what happened with that podcast?

I have speculated that maybe the podcast, the art of podcasting, as you will, might just not have been for Alex Earl. She makes so much money as a fashion beauty influencer. That's what people are attracted to.

Seeing her get ready with her videos and stuff. Maybe talking for an hour and interviewing somebody or whatever that show was just wasn't for her. And she wasn't willing to put in the work for something that financially wasn't worth it.

That's one theory. And but it's recently Alex Earl started to repost negative videos about Alex Cooper and like comments that were negative. And it all got back to Alex Cooper.

So today she spoke of color daddy. Alex Cooper's like, bring some receipts. Tell me, stop hinting. If you really have a problem with me, put it out there because I am sick of this shit.

And I would just like, so I thought that was pretty juicy. And then of course Dave Portnoi of barstool studios of barstool sports gets involved. And he said, he's like real gossipy. He's like basically like a character in Mean Girls.

And he comes out and he's like, well, what I heard was, they are friendship broke up over the Carl's junior commercial. Alex Cooper wanted to do the Carl's junior commercial. They shared a publicist who's a female.

And in fact, Alex Earl got the Carl's junior commercial, Paracelton didn't want for you. Like hot and skinny and you're eating a big, like messy burger. Is that really Alex Cooper? She's pretty podcaster, but she's not and she's thin,

but she's not necessarily the way Alex Earl is and her sexy outfits. So who knows if we'll ever know the truth? And I am kind of surprised that Alex Cooper addressed it.

“But I think it's good that she did because I feel like”

there's a bit of a backlash towards Alex Cooper. She's the Elder Gen Zer. Alex Earl is the newer Gen Zer.

And people always want a story where they think

that an older, more successful woman fucked over a new younger one. And sometimes there just isn't that story. So who knows, but it was pretty juicy. And then I went to bed with good news. Finding out that Britney Spears voluntarily went to rehab

for substance abuse. And I think that is so great. And I hope that she finds some peace and gets healthy. And it's good for her and the family. So that is all great news. Now for our very fun juicy interview,

you're absolutely going to love it. I know it. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. Hello and welcome to juicy scoop. I am so excited to talk to my guest. First time here, you will recognize him.

He is a delight. He's funny. He's an actor. He's a producer. He does all the things. He's a dad. Dan. Boocatinsky. Well played.

Okay. So excited. Thanks for having me. Oh, I'm so excited. How do you feel? We know each other.

Yes.

And I've never gotten to sit on the couch.

I'm so glad that I just went raw doggy at DMG. Yes, you did.

“We didn't go through any of the important ways.”

And I was like, yep. I'm so excited because my audience knows that I have been obsessed. Here you are, looking real cute. Thank you. The comeback, Dan.

Boocatinsky is ready for his close up. I have been obsessed with the comeback since it started. I love that you've been a writer producer and been on it as a character this whole time. It's such a unique show in that it started in 2005. Yes.

And right from the start, when we discovered it, my husband and I, we've been married a long time like you have been married to your husband for a long time.

He's like, this is you. Now, I don't know if you know that Lisa was my teacher at the ground links. I did not know that. And I immediately had like such a thing with her because I grew from woodland hills. She grew up in...

And it's you know. Tarsana. Tarsana. Yes, she did. And that her story was, you know, she was, you know, this brilliant person, their

dad was a doctor. She's going to like go that route. She's going to be mad. And then her brother had was friends with John love it. John loves who was at the ground links.

“And she was like, I think I could do this.”

And then I always thought it was so interesting because she kind of came in every way.

And also was an engineering major. Yeah. And when I would, and I wrote white chicks with them and worked on his TV shows. And he would always in writing the things go, the math of the joke, the math of the joke. And so I was like, oh, that's really interesting.

Lisa has that part of the brain as well as being funny and creative. That is necessary in, which we'll not realize that there is an element of that that really is great. Yes. Once you kind of get the math of the joke, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She, I mean, and Lisa was pre-med, like all the way through, we overlapped in college. I went to Vastro College, I've seen, you know, she's so did she. We did not know each other in college because I was already farty and she was in the biology building.

And I was doing a dance trope off of the steps of the science building, which is this

close to, I ever got to the science building.

And she was like, oh, those are knowing dancers. And that was me.

“And then we met 10 years later on the set of my husband's movie, the opposite of sex, where”

Lisa starred. And she and I connected. And we're like, you know, we both went to school together at the same time. And we became friends right right from there. It'll be 30 years next year.

I mean, we've been friends for a very long time. And Lisa re her approach to character and comedy. And there's so much intuition inside of her. But also she's an incredibly smart, logical, rational, like both sides of Lisa's brain are operating at 100% all the time.

And it's fascinating and inspiring to watch and to be a part of. And, you know, we've been business. We were producing partners for 15 years, but we also have been friends for almost 30. And certainly as an acting partner on many things that we've done together on screen, the comeback very, very satisfying to be on camera with her.

It was what's so interesting about her, too, is like, you know, I, I just relate to her on so many levels. And I relate to this character, too. And just how she, you know, got married, married someone not in the business. My husband's not in the business.

Yeah. Eventually got into helping manage the podcast when that was like a hit. He was not an actor comedian, you know, and wasn't trying to be. It helps. Yeah.

And was just so what I also love is her husband in the show. Yeah. It's like a finance guy. Yeah. So, but also in real life that she said it in her recently, like, well, I didn't have

that going on where both people are actors in the family and how that can, you know, help

the marriage or not make a marriage or get you jobs or, you know, she was always just sort

of like, and she said, again, and the success of friends, the energy, she felt like the entertainment energy was towards the other people and not really her. Yeah. And so it's so wonderful that she continued to work in these great, unique, funny projects and it's just, and just keeps going and doing very different things.

She's very about her family and we don't have to keep talking about Lisa, but the thing that's so inspiring about her is that, you know, she's very close to her parent. She was very close to her family. Yeah. Her siblings all live in Los Angeles, her dad lives in Los Angeles.

They all get together very often.

“Her family is very important to her and it balances her out.”

Right. And in many ways, that is, that was very important to Lisa and Michael Patrick King when they created the comeback. It was important that Valerie Cherish have a husband at home, have a nice house and have a stable life that was outside of the business.

That she does not need this. She wants it. She loves it. Valerie Valerie. Valerie.

Valerie is creatively driven and driven by attention and driven by cameras and fame. Absolutely. But she doesn't need it. She comes home and she's going to be just fine. Right.

And that's a very important aspect of the comeback. Because back in 2005, people found it really difficult to watch that this woman would face so many setbacks of, call it humiliation, call it embarrassment, call it failure, call it the stumbling blocks that all of us go through in this business. And then to feel like, oh, no, she's not going to, you can't tell the story that person

who can't pay their health insurance. You want it to feel like something that they themselves have, have, have chased and not because they need it. This episode of Juicy Skip is sponsored by Bull and Branch. I've been using Bull and Branch sheets for a while now because I did move and I got that

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Just head to JonesroadBeauty.com and use Code Juicy Scoop at checkout. Make sure you purchase. They will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them Heather McDonald's sent you. So question about this is such a unique situation that it was 20 years ago and was it just the one season 20 years ago?

Yes, we were canceled. So you were canceled. Okay. So when I was watching that. This is the best cancellation story ever because when I was watching it, I really right

off the bat said this is a head of its time. This is a head of its time because the character was a sitcom star who then gets a reality shot. And as someone who has loved reality TV since like MTV, you know, real world. Real world and all that.

Always loved it. Wanted to be on one.

“And then when I was writing for Chelsea lately, I was immediately like, I remember”

where I was when I saw an ad for Orange County Real House. I was holding the orange and I got this is such a good idea. Like, you know, it's just like, oh my god, so my husband and I are watching it. We're dying laughing because he's like, this is you. And there was this one scene where they get the free.

Explore. Okay. They're linking navigators. They'll fly drive too. Two Palm Springs.

And as he's driving, he's like, well, this does handle nicely. The guy in the back pops up and he's like, can you say the link in navigator handles the road really nicely? You're going to have to say link in navigator in front of each of your senses. And then he talks back down again.

So like, how many people are in that car? Brilliant.

“And it's like, I feel like maybe I think at that time, you know, it wasn't a little too”

inside. It wasn't. It wasn't a lot of product placement back then. Yeah. And I think they were kind of like, what?

And then just other little things like go to the police for exploit. And they fall asleep. And she wakes up and she forgets to have saved her lounge chair. And she like pulls open the drapes that he's naked with his bare ass and all of these kids are swimming.

She's like, the day is rude, the day is rude. We've not done that. And I'm like, oh my god, that's everything about it is me. Like, I'm just like, and then it's just so great. It was, it was ahead of its time in the sense that there wasn't a lot of, the kind of reality

that has already, that had already been established were the competition shows, like

amazing race, like survivor.

And there was this show, to be honest with you, there was this show that Anna Nicole Smith was doing on. Yes. Characters were following this celebrity around her home and in her life. And Lisa, who had played a character in the groundlings, that was basically Valerie Cherish.

Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that. Kates to Micropatricang over lunch in 2004, what if, like the Anna Nicole show, a camera crew is following Valerie Cherish around in her life. And Lisa would improvise as Valerie Cherish.

And the two of them started to cook up this idea that we are living in a time.

time was the very notion of reality, of reality. So great. And so that was just what the theme of the story was.

“It was like you're working on a sitcom, but the only way you're allowed to work on this”

sitcom is if you're also in the reality show. And the way the writers, and particularly Pauli G, the showrunner, reacted to the fact that he's been forced to be on a reality show, is with such rage. And we were canceled after that. And then audiences found the comeback over the years, which is also so great about streaming.

We were on DVD, though. Yeah. Oh, no. They found it on DVD. It was, there was no streaming at that point.

Oh, my God. They were amazing. They were watching the comeback because they would find it, either HBO continued to play it, which they did, but also the DVD with all the DVD extras I highly recommend. Looking at them because that's the only place they exist, those DVD extras.

But then we had this opportunity to maybe come back and do a season two, 10 years later. And in 2014, it was a very different landscape in television. So suddenly the show took on this sort of time capsule feeling. We're catching up with Valerie Cherish now, 10 years later. And now the threat to broadcast television is cable.

You know, like premium cable is now going to is going to stomp out basic network television.

And then people kept asking, will there ever be a third season of the comeback?

And we were like, I don't know. We don't know. And finally, Lisa and Michael, who would have lunch every year and talk about, what do you think we could, what do you think is going on in the life of Valerie Cherish? And Lisa was like, it would be so cool if we had seen her during the strike because to see

someone like Valerie taking advantage of the opportunities of the strike. And that's so brilliant. That led them to this, what if forget about the strike? Because the strike was about AI. What if Valerie gets offered the first ever written, say, combat, written by AI?

And the two of them bled up. And they were like, this, we have to do it.

“And they pitch a THBO and they were like, if you're going to do it, you have to do it right”

this minute. And they Lisa and Michael wrote all eight episodes and we were, we wrapped in November and are on the air in March. It's amazing because I've had the show for 10 years. My audience is really great and they're a great demographic of women and men, mostly women.

And they're like, I've said, like, I've come across shows. And I'm like, I think this was written by AI, like this is so freaking bad. And so the one people are like, Heather, the new comeback is about AI, like you're good to die. And so I love it because you guys go back a couple years, so that these can do like deal

with the strike and COVID, which just, yeah, we dealt with that. The part of Roxyhart and Chicago, which I've also talked at Nazium about how it was like,

there's always, remember when they did this with RISO?

Yes. Yes. When every sick concert. It was like the revolving cast of RISO and the revival of Greece, this week, it's going to be.

So it's going to be all broke. They all did it. The same thing with Roxy and Chicago and it's still that way. But now it's kind of like the reality star. Right.

Yeah. And just the fact that she was like, how do the fuck do I get out of it? And I've had things in my life where I said yes to it. My husband being a financial person will be like, why would you do this? This makes no sense.

Yeah. And I'm like, you are not an artist. You don't understand. You can't do gigs for the money and I just want to do this. I just want to do the stand-up thing again.

And then I'm like, oh my god. So what she's like, well, why did I do this? Why am I going to do it? I can't quit. I can't quit.

I have a contract. Why can't you quit? And then the do's in the COVID excuse with the, and I love. Not just the COVID excuse. She assisted.

But the notion that she left, she left that Broadway show because she needed to stand side by side with the writers who are in LA on the picket line. That is classic Valerie. It was so funny because when Chelsea lately started, I was just a writer right from the star on it and then, you know, got on the panel and then she kind of realized, oh, we could

have a group of writers that, you know, when we have our own world around us. Yeah. Anyway, but prior to that, I think one of the reasons it was a hit is because we were not writer-skilled. And there was a strike at that time in 2007.

Yeah. Yeah, there was. And only one other writer myself were writer-skilled. And so our EP at the time walked in to my office. And she said, Heather, Ted and I have spoken.

“And we want you to know that if you need to leave and be with your comrades on the picket”

line that your job is safe when you return.

And I go, um, I haven't had a writer-skilled job in like 10 years because this is like my first

It's having good. And I go, so thank you. But I'm good.

“I'll be the story producer and whatever.”

Yeah. And, um, but it was exactly that thing, like, I'm like, no, and then it was great. Because then we were like the only game in town. And I really do think that helped because everybody else couldn't do it. And we were still doing like funny things.

Sure. And, um, and then, so I love that whole thing. That's just hilarious. Yeah. Okay.

It was her out. It was her out for sure. And then we cut, you know, this is an episode one of our new season. But we, we catch up with the present. And she, like, like, like, she would just got a podcast to search the time.

I love. And she's taking advantage of whatever opportunities are coming her way, a little indie movie, one day on an indie movie and her podcast. But thank you for, I love podcast humor. I have been, you know, been doing this for a long time.

Yes, you have. And I started it for the exact same reasons that Valerie did after Chelsea lately. And I had two different pilots at TLC that Airba didn't go further after six episodes. And I just like Valerie said, well, I guess it's time for a podcast.

“And I made $250 a month, the first year.”

I just did it to let people know I was at the Chuckle Hut wherever. And, you know, then it became a thing. And then it was like, oh, everyone could have one. Yeah. But you were doing it early.

Right. So I was doing it early. But it's, I love how, of course she would have it. And then kind of realized, like, well, it doesn't matter. This is supposed to be professional.

But then realizing, like, wow, we talked a long time and patience that a brilliant little active.

Alice, still her amazing cute, like, Jen Zyer is like, um, you're at 14 minutes.

Well, what else is on the list? Yeah. What else? Peach lipstick. It's one of my favorite lines in the whole thing.

She's like, what? Let's look at the list of the hot topics. Peach lipstick. And then she was like, you know what? We're at 42 minutes.

She's like, okay, good. Good. I can't, yeah. Yeah. Because there's so many people that have started podcast and stuff that did

it during the COVID time and there's someone convinced them, you know, I can get you this deal. She's just doing it though. And it's not really generating a lot. Right.

And it's, the reason why we set the table that way, the way Michael and Lisa set the table that way is so that when Billy walks into her condo and says, are you, you know,

are you ready to hear incredible news?

You. Which is your character?

“Really, are you ready because you have been offered the starring role?”

I mean, I don't even say that yet. You've been offered a role. And the scene, you know, the scene got cut down on the way. There was a moment there where I was showing her how much they were offering her. How much money.

Like, and she looked at it. She's like, for the whole thing. I'm like, no. Per episode. I mean, my head's going to explode because it's such good news.

Did Billy check to see if the unions are okay with it? No. Did Billy check to see AI, meaning what will it be any writers on it? He doesn't care. One of mine is Billy got an offer.

It doesn't matter. It's for a lot of money.

And it's the first window into the fact that Billy is just chasing opportunity.

This is a chance to be an executive producer on a show and who cares. And I'm sure it's legal or else they wouldn't be doing it, which is the dumbest thing he could possibly say. And there in launches the big idea that Michael and Lisa were thinking, if we're going to do another season, we better be doing one that is a big idea that feels like a big

threat right now, which it does and it's relevant and it's hilarious. It is so hilarious. And then so the husband, the finance husband comes and he is also going to quit his job to do a reality show. He's loved his job for reasons that have not come out yet, which when you watch the

rest of the season, we'll unfold, but he told the joke and he was asked to step. She's like, well, that was in 2020. In jokes for illegal then, you know, jokes that was back when jokes were illegal. And it's so true, and it's so funny and like it's just so good. And he's trying to figure out, what do I do now?

And then she's like, he's got a reality show. Finance. Bros. And he's dudes. And she's like, he's our own Marisa, like, there's just so many funny references.

Oh my god, you guys are so good. Everyone's gonna love it. Everyone's gonna love it. Okay. So what I love about your character is even though you're the manager, we all know.

We've all had someone either being our assistant or our agent or a manager or something along the way. Then I actually want to be in front of the camera. You know what? My first publicist.

I came out with a book in 2012 called "Does this baby make me a straight guy?" Oh, that's so good. I love that. Which was my kind of chronicle, comedic chronicleing of how I became a dad. How my husband and I became parents.

But when I was promoting the book, I got booked on the talk. And I had fired my publicist, but he insisted on coming anyway. And so he was in my dressing room and I was like, "This is so awkward." I mean, what are you doing here? You're not my publicist.

And before I could literally blink and turn my head, he was on stage.

And before I could literally turn or get mic'd up, this publicist was chatting with her about getting himself on the talk.

“That's what I was like, what to talk, hot topic, sir.”

Hollywood scoop. Hollywood scoop. His job as a publicist isn't-- Amazing. Hollywood PR.

Like, I could be a great guest.

He was there to pitch himself on the show on the day that I was there for the first

time on a talk show to promote my book. And I was like, "Oh, my God." Like, every turn, everyone is looking for their moment. So there is a lot of that in Billy this season. And you thought about that in creating this character and where the characters going.

Listen, it was going to be a character that Michael and Lisa created back in 2025 when Lisa needed a publicist. She was desperate for a publicist. And she says to Mickey, her gay hairdresser back in 2005, I got to get a gay. Mickey, I got to get a gay.

And so she meets Billy.

“And Billy is this kid, this young guy who's not that young, you know, who had just been”

passed over for a promotion by a very big firm and was pissed off about it. And shoves everybody in season one, you see this rage in Billy.

He's unable to deal with conflict.

And so he shoves anybody who doesn't give money wants. You don't quite get a hint that he's kind of after a certain amount of credit for himself. In season two, he's like throws the phone and throws a hissy fit because, you know, someone else is trying to do his job better than he can and so he's self hating and kind of, yeah, he's got it in her demons.

But only this season now, 20 years later, are you seeing that he's looking for opportunity for Valerie. He's been a really good manager and now he wants to be a producing partner. But what he's after for himself doesn't really come to play until like last night's episode where suddenly he's, he's literally being filmed for Variety's 50 over 50.

50 under 50. No 50 over 50. Oh, it's 50 over 50. It doesn't even exist, but one could, can you imagine that existing a hundred percent. So he's got, he's on a photo shoot, Valerie needs them.

She's in a total code read and he's like, I'm there for you as soon as I'm done with my single photo shoot and my group photo shoot for Variety's 50 over 50. And my also favorite is that he is using her social media person for himself.

“And he says the words that says everything you need to know about him and most of the”

planet, I'm suicidal for some solo press. Like if you don't get out of the frame, they're just going to run with a phone of you and it's so step away. Right. Exactly.

It's my turn. Let's go right here. It's my turn. And this is, yeah, this is in town in country, this, this just came out this piece. And it's really just, it's really about the fact that Billy is this opportunist.

And I also love that, remember when also in, in this business, we're all of a sudden managers and agents, we're like, we are going to be, you're pretty, like, we are going to produce it. DPs. Then you're like, what?

And then like, but then you don't have to pay commissions. That's right. Okay. But then when you're trying to sell shows, it would like, I mean, I've had it fuck up a deal.

And I was like, wait a minute. I didn't need this. Look, to be fair, some managers became among the best EPs and producers in town. It's fewer and far between, it became a foregone conclusion that your management company became the production company that made anonymous content.

It's made a lot of television. Yeah. There are great management companies that became great production company. Right. Absolutely.

But not every manager knows how to be a producer. And Billy is a manager who's been given the title of executive producer and is running with it. So, too, he's had hats made that say executive producer on them with the hell. Like, are you kidding?

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We're taking a picture. It's so embarrassing. The truth of the matter is, it really is a saying something much larger about society in general, which Lisa said recently in an interview, which is, and it's what our season's about a little bit, everybody, everybody has become value-chairs.

You now live in a world where you don't need a reality crew to control your narrative. You need your, you've got one of these. Yeah. Everyone's got a phone and Instagram and TikTok, and you can tell your story and be the star of your own story, and the thirst that people have for that kind of attention.

It exists in the palm of our hands.

“I also love, and I think this is really relatable to any business.”

As you go to me, she's going to do the show. She's excited. You bring her for this first meeting, and you think you're going to walk into a room of actual people, and it's just the, all of the Zoom, 30 people on the Zoom in a conference room with no one else there, and then also love that they show all the faces, and when they're

like high-value, and then you can spot like the three very effeminate gay guys that have been watching her since they were 12, and they're like, yeah. They're like, oh, I just, this is so funny, they're all those subtle things that you guys thought of.

I just am like, it was such an incredible director.

The two of them, the chemistry between Lisa Koojo and Michael Badger King, when they're writing the comeback, is just magical. Two people who just lock in and can really tell the world of a story, the problems, and the challenges of Valerie Cherish, and also make every other character in her orbit real people.

And when Michael was directing, even those background artists, to be some of the people on that Zoom, he gave every single one of them a situation, an environment, here's the person you are at work, here, think about what your office looks like, what do you, you know, he gave everybody something to actually play. So the world of that Zoom feels full, because it was, it was so relatable, and then

it ends, and then the guy was actually down the hall, which I literally had that happen. Yeah. I had, you think that they're in New York? I had a meeting, and I was like, oh, the people are in New York, and they're like, no, but they're just going to do it on Zoom, on Zoom, and I'm like, but I had to drive

“an hour and a half to get to Netflix, like, what, what?”

It's unbelievable. I know. I know, I once pitched at, I think it might have been one of the major platforms at the

joined me via Zoom, I guess from home. And also, I just think that is just so cheesy and real when they're like, how do we get in the Valerie Cherish business, like, I totally remember people saying that to me, and I'm like, I'm a business, like, just kidding. That was like, what?

Wow, blowing smoke a little bit. Yeah. And it helps. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Like, or you're like, you know, deciding between agents or whatever, and it's like,

well, Lisa got emni nominated for the first season and the second season, and it never went

her way. But for the comeback. For the comeback. No, no, Lisa's got an Emmy for friends, but for the comeback.

“This has been a, you know, this is the, I think the only show in the history of television”

that took 22 years to make three seasons. And it really allowed us to tell these very big stories, 10 years apart, kind of like a time capsule of our business. But she channels this incredibly three-dimensional character whose emotional hilarious outlandish is trying to control her narrative, but also I believe is a heroic figure.

I mean, Vowry Church has a way of flipping the switch to the positive, even when she's being kicked in the teeth. And would that we all have that ability to turn it around when it's really not good? And like the woman of a certain age, like, even when she said, when she's like, I left you a voice message or like voice message, why don't you just leave a voice now?

All right, whatever. No one. Like there's so many times where I like, you know, I remember a few years ago or something I was, I had this assistant working for me and I'm like, no, I called them and she's like, all of them.

That's like pretty much a message on the machine. She's like, that's pretty aggressive. And I'm like, oh, actually calling someone is like, see, it's like, yeah, I've been attacked. I've been attacked. But I'm like, no, I just think it's like, sometimes people misinterpret the text.

So I'm just like, and also like, you can't, now I always call because I'm like, you

see these like scandals where someone has screened grab the text. I know. And you're like, I just rather call you because you can't use it.

“But that's why people like a voice memo because they're not going to listen to a whole”

answering machine message, not answering machine, voice mail message, how old am I? But the idea that Billy's like, don't send me a text to an email. Why would I answer any of the emails? Well, maybe because you're an executive producer on the show, have you read any of the scripts? No.

So it's like, just send me a voice memo. And what he does at the end of the episode last night is so egregious. It's so egregious and so awful that it's going to have repercussions for a bit. But, you know, to literally record Valerie giving me the, the, what she thinks is going to be the ones that I should use when I talk to the network.

And he just sends her voice memo to them. It's so funny. And I love it. We could talk about forever. And I'm so excited that they're still like four episodes laugh that I can enjoy and milk

out. And I love that it's once a week. Please, please. I don't want a binge. I don't want a binge.

No. It really gives you something to look forward to. I mean, I have so few things to look forward to. And they really did. You know, Lisa and Michael really came up with an arc for every one of the characters

are in the orbit of, of our cherishing and Billy is no exception. I mean, Billy really takes this opportunity. And something starts to emerge in him that the audience can track happening for the whole season. And then there's an unbelievable transfer.

Well, there's an unbelievable thing that happens in the last two episodes. Okay. I'm so, I'm so excited. And I can talk about this forever. Okay.

Little bit about your other big roles that you had, you know, in scandal. scandal. Again, I had a good time.

It was, it was an amazing moment in time for two reasons.

“One, and I remember reading the pilot, Shonda Rhimes wrote this pilot that was this”

unbelief. I call it genre-bending because it was a soap opera, but it was took place in DC and was about politics. And yet, it was also about underground torture and the dark side of DC and this fixer, this Washington DC sort of scandal fixer that every week was also a procedural.

Like there was a case every week that would wrap itself up. Of course, the soap of the show kind of took over, but I was really lucky at that time. I had just written my book about my kid about becoming a dad and Shonda and I met. I had done an episode of Grey's Anatomy and I was meeting to be a writer on Grey's Anatomy and they hired me to play the husband of the chief of staff on scandal and who really wanted

a baby, more than anything in the world, this writer. So there was a lot about me as a person that kind of went into playing James on scandal, the writer who wanted to be a dad. Yeah, that's so interesting because I don't know if you watched that talk about this writer that was on Grey's Anatomy.

Yes, I did. That's what I did. Did you know anything about that? Well, well, when I left the writing staff of Grey's Anatomy, she came in, but I was telling you that.

There's a story in my book that I mentioned before that is about how Don and I met. And this is true story. Your husband. My husband, Don Rus, who I met years and years and years ago and when I met him, he was taking care of his assistant, who had cancer.

And so part of the circle of friends that I met when I met Don and in the first 10 months

of our dating, so much of our time was about care taking this person who was going through chemo and lost her hair and was going in for treatments and had a shunt in her chest. And was in Continent and we were buying her diapers and we were visiting her editor. It was really ugly. The first 10 months of my dating Don.

But a very similar, it had a very similar ending. And the end. Stop. And the assistant was also not being truthful about her illness. She's not being truthful about her illness.

And the discovery of that fact and what it did in the repercussions of it, I chronicled

“in a chapter of my book, but because it was so important to how I met Don.”

I mean, it was the first year of our dating and she was very threatened by my presence. So her cancer kept rearing its ugly head because it was a way of getting his attention.

So cut two years and years later, right, 15 years later, maybe more, I mean, 20 years later maybe.

And I hear this story about this woman who is lying about her own cancer and using it in the writer's room as a way of pitching herself as a writer, as a way of pitching stories for a great anatomy. Which means sense. And the way in which she was found out and it became a documentary, I think, is on Hulu

Still. It was fascinating. Because that's someone who's been a writer's room and how you do use a lot of your own stories. And you were like, yeah, let's use that.

And then also, I'm fascinated by grifters. The lying about cancer, grift, is such a huge line. Well, it's a kind of emotional abuse that is praying on the empathy and the sympathy of others. And also, in our case, I mean, she was, there was so much money being spent. That's what I'm saying.

It's spent.

And most of the times it does turn out to be a money graph because it's, you're getting

money from the church or the charity or the little of the street or your loss. A lot of this is about attention. A lot of this is about trying.

“Sometimes it does turn into money, that's what it becomes a crime.”

If there is no money, you were just a liar. Correct. Yeah, you can be the victim of that kind of emotional abuse. And there's no, there's no repercussion legally. The only way we were able to put this particular person in jail, which we did, was because

we had records of how much money we had spent on her. And we were able to turn it into a felony. And this was his assistant. This was someone who began his assistant on a movie he was doing with Michelle Feifer. And, you know, I mean, I'm also fascinated by the world of a Hollywood assistant.

Oh my God. And they, I mean, it's just, it's, the old version is all about Eve, which I've talked about this movie because my mom was like, this is such a good movie, which is more the understudy, who acts like she's a fan, you know, becomes the understudy and eventually becomes the woman.

In fact, stealing her husband every day. But the ambition, yes, the ambition, which, and it's like such a hard thing, because whether it's like, you know, one of those is like Rachel Zoe and Brad, you know, and she's tried to, you know, not say anything. And he's gone on his way and been successful.

But the audience is so fascinated by it because we watched them work together and we loved them together.

“So we're like, well, why couldn't you stay together forever?”

And it's like, well, nobody's been able to be the assistant director of it. This is tricky. If you're, you know, everyone should use their earlier experiences to help them grow. And then try to, you know, leave the nest and go to the next thing. No one can blame someone for doing that.

But when you are using and manipulating the leverage of the person you work for, in order to step over steps, or you're making up a story, or you're abusing your privilege or your access in order to get through the door for something that you're ambitious for. That's, that's when it becomes really tricky. And in show business, the lines are so blurred, your assistance, there's a great assistance

is an amazing thing. But the access they have and the proximity they have and the ability. Right. And then, and when you find out that they have them deceptive, it's truly like, it likes being cheated.

100%. It's a betrayal. That's huge. What? I think people who have tattooed.

And that I meant, everyone in your family.

And then you turn around within months and say, or film a talk about me or do this wonderful thing, like, what? I know. It's why NDAs are so important. But even then.

But even then. What are you going to do? Because it's like, right. Because then it's like, if you're really going to go after this person and spend a fortune.

And that's 30 years younger than you. Correct. So now, you look like the, you know, cramundity, you know, Gen X are going to do the job for them though. By the way, anybody out there thinking this all sounds like a good idea.

Here's the thing. At the end of the day, it doesn't pay off because they really, you want to have the good. When you get an opportunity that then helps you grow and inspires you to the next step,

“the only thing that's going to happen is a door is going to open.”

And whatever you have, whether it's a script or you're acting talent or you're singing talent or whatever it is that you're bringing to the next thing that door that opens. You have to have it. The talent needs to be there to share. Right.

Whenever, you know, when they say, oh, you were lucky. It's like, I think this is the expression. No luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Correct. This opportunity comes too soon and it's not going to work out.

No, it's luck. You know, you have to see the opportunity, but also be ready to handle it correctly. Yes. Look, plays a role in what doors happen to open when you're standing in front of them. But once you walk through the threshold, luck has nothing to do with it anymore.

Right. You better have good talent. It'd be smart. That's right. Hardworking and all that.

So you guys fall in love and how old were you? You know, we didn't, it wasn't, it took a little bit.

“I have to say, like one of the reasons I think we've been together for 33 years is because”

it wasn't fast. We met and we immediately got along and don's 10 years older than I am and I was in my 20s. So I was in a kind of a different place. He was coming out of a relationship that he had been in for a while. And I was in no really no position to want to be with someone who was as well as established

as he was. I was working in the box office of the theater in Beverly Hills. Like I was my group of friends. We were all aspiring. We were all working minimum wage.

We were all sort of actors, writers, musicians trying to get a gig. And he had just sold them, you know, movie with, he was at the top of his game as a screenwriter. And that was really off, it wasn't off-putting, but it was not really, we were not at the same place. But we got along so well and we made each other laugh.

And so we just kept landing as much as both of us, he was like, I don't want to date so when 10 years younger. I certainly don't want to date an actor.

So this is never going to work.

Nobody wants to date an actor. Yeah, I wouldn't want to date me, by the way, like I don't blame him. It was doomed from the start. I was like, yeah, this guy is way more established than I am and he's just coming out of a marriage.

This thing will be over by Christmas. Now, was he me or he was married to another man? He was in a relationship. Like a long trip. And they had just split up and I was like, this is never going to.

This won't last so Christmas. And you know, Valentine's Day the next year, we were still together and we put the time in to really get to know each other and become friends and have a foundation for our relationship.

“And I think it's one of the reasons why we've had staying power for 33 years.”

We didn't have kids for 10 years. So we had established ourselves as a couple before we even thought about adopting our kids. And as a couple, you know, at that time, a game aired wasn't legal when we first got together. No.

So there were many, there were many long-term couples and they were parents. And that was an interesting marriage. He was like, I don't even like the whole idea of marriage. It's just like, what's I don't think that we should put a bunch of, all, put everyone together in a giant room to force ourselves to commit to each other in public as a way

of coursing, he, don had a kind of more romantic view of it all. It's like every day should be a decision that you make to stay with that person for that day. And the next day is another day and the next day is another day and at any point when it's not working or you don't want to be there anymore, there should be a feeling that it could

you could move on.

And I've always loved that idea where like every, that forever isn't really something

that you can commit to on a day. You can commit to today and then you can commit to the next day. And then you look back forever, something you look back on and realize that what you've done is stayed together for years and years and years of todays. You guys did get to a place where you could get married legally.

Correct. 2008, we had already had a kid. We adopted our daughter. Okay. So you did adoption.

How did you decide on adoption versus surrogacy? Surrogacy. There was a lot of pressure to do surrogacy. Like all the gays that we knew were we're meeting with surrogates and going that route. And Don did not feel comfortable, given the number and he was right, the given the number

of children who need homes and babies that are being carried by birth moms who don't

There's such an opportunity to become a parent of an existing soul rather than create one. And Don really wanted to go the route of adoption and I just wanted to be a dad so it didn't make a difference to me.

“So did you use like a lawyer or do we had a lawyer who connected us to a birth mom?”

I tell this entire story and does this baby make me look right because we went down a path that didn't work out and then we...

So I was just going to ask, that's always really hard.

It's a real lifetime movie set. I've taught you a story life of where you fall in love with this young mother and she's chosen you and everything's great and you buy our car and you do this and you get the house ready and then either it was a scam or she can't just remind or whatever. Yes, it didn't work out with the first one and then pretty quickly after we met the birth

mom that is the birth mom of our both of our daughter and then two years later our son. Oh, okay. And as it turns and she had had twins to begin with so my kids have biological family. And have they met them? Yeah, we every other year we travel to Wisconsin and meet hang out with the with the

bio family. Oh, really? It's a very open thing. There's still a lot of complicated feelings around all of it for for every side. Yeah.

But we there's a lot of love there too and my kids snap chat with their birth mom and it's an open thing and it's I think that's been a good thing for them. And when she, you know, was choosing a family obviously she was okay with she picked us because of where I and then I became friends with the guys who created where I and I was like you know that we that were dads because of your show because our birth mom thought

“that all those guys I'll never forget it she was like she know very thick Wisconsin accent”

and she was like, you know, I think you guys would make awesome, awesome dads because of all those guys on queer eye they all seem like they'd make awesome dads. So she wanted and and there's a phenomenon a little bit when you're a birth mom and you're

you sort of always want to be the only mom, even just that's interesting.

Maybe the only mom so there is some comfort sometimes in letting a same sex couple and guys be that be the adoptive parents. Yeah, I could see that and also just the safety that you feel when you have gay friends you know, you know, gay men versus when you have a platonic friendship with a guy that's not gay.

You know, always going to be that kind of, oh, and you know, I I always was like, yeah, how having a gay best friend who's man is just the greatest because they still are men. They are still chivalrous. They're, I'm saying the word wrong, but they're still like opening the door and helping you.

They're still gentleman. But then and you can still laugh and you could still talk about guys. And have so much fun, but then unlike a girlfriend, which is also a really special relationship,

like a girlfriend, there's never like this like competition.

Yeah. The only problem. The guys are just, you know, there's a comfort in a straight woman having a gay best friend because you're not trying to get into her pants unless the pants would fit him in which case maybe he would if they'd look, it's a cute, you know.

But no, there's like there's a whole element that is removed from it that doesn't feel charged and it kind of allows there to be a kind of pureness to to the relationship. I think guys feel that way about the, their straight women friends, too.

“I mean, the only thing I've said this before, that I don't think a lot of women realize”

is that we're oftentimes not the only one. Yeah. And, but the love relationship with your gay best friend, even though they, you're not the only one, you feel you are the only one. Yeah.

There's no way that he could have the chemistry that he has with you with another woman. There is a lot of that. And I, once I like accepted that, it's fine. But there's times where I think other women might be a little too confident in that. And they're, and I'm like, in the packing order, you know, I've tried to write, I've written

pilots for, I've been a television writer in addition to, to, being an actor for so many years. And I've written so many pilots about that relationship, about the relationship between either the gay guy and his straight sister or the gay guy and his gay best friend, the gay guy and his straight best male friend.

Yes. These are dynamics that we don't always see drama ties, willing grace of course to that so beautiful, but I love to see those, the way in which those relationships foster aspects of our lives that we don't normally see on TV and it's, it's, it's, it's true. So your kids are now 18 and 20.

And so you were definitely, like, at the forefront of the gay dad, yeah.

LA movement where you could be out and about, it's not a secret. It's nothing weird, kids understand that their friend has two dads instead of a dad of mom. It's a little bit though also. Tell me, like, what were some of the challenges day when we were a, you know, Don,

“I would walk through an airport, a lot of questions of, like, where's their mom?”

People would come up to us and either places. We would be traveling somewhere and they would assume that they would try to figure out what's going on. Yeah. It wouldn't be as common place as it is now.

A lot of family had not been a TV show, but you know, there were more modern families. So the notion of two men having a baby on a plane in a restaurant, on a bus, on a boat, on a goat, in the house, in a house, all those things did not exist yet or if they did, they were unique to Los Angeles and New York and Chicago and San Francisco, the big cities. So oftentimes, and I would get really, Don would use it as an opportunity because he's

nicer than I am to just educate. And I would be annoyed. I'd be like, you know, now, you know, well, you just assume that this can't be my baby because I'm not a woman, you know, I was very defensive back in the day, because I felt confident that we're going to nurture this baby and she's going to get fed.

And I'm going to change her diapers. And why are you assuming that we're holding it for the mom who's clearly in the restroom? Right. Like, where's the mom? Well, you know, a lot of them.

“And your daughter, ever, like, how did that come as she got older?”

Do you ever feel like you needed to have a strong woman in her life or... Yeah. Well, I did. You know, we have a lot of female friends, a lot around the house that God mothers and my sister is an important, really important to me.

She lives on the East Coast, but Don's got two sisters on the West Coast. And we had a nanny and who has been in our lives since the kids were born and are still in their lives and is the closest woman to my kids in our family that in addition to all of our friends and sisters who were female figures in their lives that was really important. And guys, straight guys in their lives that could actually throw a ball.

I do a pretty good job, but not nearly what others could do. Yeah. You know, when when Jonah went, I have a clearly straight six foot three inch, 18-year-old son who has nothing like me. Nothing.

Like when did he come out, when did he come out, when did he come out, when he was born? I knew the minute in diapers, there's another chapter in my book called Bam Bam. I used to call Jonah Bam Bam because I don't know if you know the shit, like Flynn's stones. He would walk.

He would bound down the hallway and his diaper in a way that just made me feel like he was going to steal my lunch money. You know what I mean? Like I was like, this guy's going to bully me. I can just tell.

He's only two.

I loved him to death and we were he was so cuddly and so amazing.

But he was like, that kid, there's no way. You know, it was just clear. It was clear pretty early on. He was biting his toast into the shape of a revolver that I was like, this is not something I ever did.

I had a joke about act that you know, you would study this thing like, you know, introduce your kids to, you know, Barbies or whatever, and I'm like, yeah, but if you have a certain kind of boy, they will beat the shit out of each other with the Barbies and they will make a chicken, a gun, they'll make a chicken, they'll make a gun out of a chicken nugget.

“I remember sometimes there would be chicken nuggets that had a shape of a gun and they”

get so excited because they've noticed it and they've noticed it. Yes. It's in the DNA. I can't teach that. There's no way we were teaching that.

The way we were teaching that was driving, we were going out to Lequita and there was

a train going by and I go, you know, that was always so interesting.

You and your brother as little kids Thomas of the train were so into trains. I'm like, you know, my daughter, that I raised, she's not my biological daughter. She's my stout daughter. She wasn't into the trains. No.

I wasn't into the trains. Why? A train. It's nature. The nature nurture thing.

I can tell you right now because I've had an 21 year, 22 year experiment. It's nature 100% nurture zero in in the battle, maybe not zero. Yeah. Yeah. But nature is there's so much about my kids that is so that it was predetermined by

the DNA of their birth mom and by generations before them, and you know, our kids are our kids and I can't imagine anyone else being our kids, and obviously we love them. Yeah. As though I birth them out of my own loins, but I don't recognize myself in my kids. Yeah.

There's not a quality or a gesture or a look in their eye that reminds me of anything in my lineage and same with Don. They're really unique individuals, by the way, every kid is. That's probably the biggest lesson I learned. You know, the control and power we think we have over our kids when they're 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

you want them to go to school, what you want them to be interested in, all this stuff that we want for them is none of our business. And as it turns out, they are who they are and are going to emerge as that regardless. Much how much Julie Andrews we played in our house. My kid was going to eventually play, you know, whatever the video games.

Yeah. You know, what's also interesting is they get older and I've said this and then I saw like someone do a TikTok out of whatever is they're not thinking about you the way we think about them.

And they're never going to.

They're never going to. And I have to think, God, I have a good memory and I love my parents very much and wanted them to be happy and like when they fought, they have passed and everything. But like when I was in college, I remember like my they were realtors and my dad like sent me this big package of like photos and so I'm only at SC, like Van Loury and Woodland

Hills.

“And he sends me the flyer of their latest listing, like isn't this great, you know?”

I was like, and then what a bitch because the sales of the house are paying for USC. But I was kind of like, why are you sending me your real estate like, isn't that so funny? And I'm just like, oh my god, as soon as I just always have to remind myself that like they are not like going, God, I hope mom's having a really great day to take us for granted. And by the way, oddly enough, it feels like absolute shit to be taken for granted.

You so want them to want to be with you and see you and know how your day was and be proud of you when you do things that you want them to be proud of, but they really, you know that you have raised them to feel completely comfortable and safe because they take you for granted. Exactly.

That's what they say. They say like it's when your kid behaves badly with you, but then it's unbetter behavior with even grandma or somebody else. It's like because they are so comfortable with you, that if they feel like a meltdowns coming, they can have a meltdown.

Yes. That's right. That's right. I mean, believe me, my kid's treat me like absolute dirt most of the time. And I wonder why I don't have an HR office at my house so that I could file a claim almost

every day I would because the ways in which I allow them to talk to me is not really

something that would fly in the real world, but that I always have to remember healthy attachment,

healthy attachment, healthy attachment. Because I read early on that like their ability to feel like they can get angry and let you know how they feel or tell you to get out of the room or tell you that they hate you because you know that they don't, the freedom to tell you that they hate you is not something

“that you need to squeeze out of them and say, don't ever speak to me like that again.”

It's like, it's actually a sign that they feel safe, that they know, that despite how they're feeling and what they're saying to you, that they know you'll never leave them. I saw this thing that they said, imagine if you were to tell someone who's 25, hey, this person is going to pay for the rest of your, for the next 20 years are going to pay

for your room, your board, your food, all you have to do is return their call and be nice to them. What don't you do it? And everyone's like, yeah. Well, that was your parents.

100%. 100%.

Like, how do you think all this is happening?

Do you not think that this is, it just appears? Yeah. And I'm such a sucker. I mean, my, my Jonas 18, he can make his own breakfast, 100%. But I, I love for whatever reason I love making breakfast.

I love making breakfast. And I, and I had to make it for a long time. I was like, oh my God, the things I get, like I was up early, making pancakes, who asked me to make pancakes? Nobody.

Who loves making pancakes? Me. I was doing it for me. And I continue to do it for me. And there's a joy that comes out of a giant man that you raised, being fucking hungry.

I know. And eating. I totally agree with you. That's, because I don't get in other ways with him. Yeah.

Although I took him fishing this weekend and that should have been a documentary in and of itself.

“But, um, I mean, honestly, I'm so, like, literally, I didn't want to touch the bait.”

It was so disgusting, like, giant, defrosted squid, and I didn't have gloves. So I was using, we were near a park. And so, you know those dispensers that give you doggy bags out of the dispenser? Yeah. I was using two doggy bags around my hands.

Trying to manipulate this squid onto a hook. It was not a pretty picture. Do they know growing up, do they, like, care that you guys were a big deal in Hollywood? Or, um, I think that they, they're really not showbiz kids and, like, they, I think they like the perks.

Yeah. They like the perks. They love meeting Lisa. They call her Aunt Lisa. Would you take them to, like, the kid movie premieres, something like that?

I take them to some kid movie premieres along the way, they didn't, they were fine. They didn't really, my daughter doesn't love being photographed. My son, as it turns out, now, as he's older, kind of likes a little bit of the glamour.

I took him onto a red carpet for the account, the accountant, too, with Ben Affleck's

movie. And last year, and he had the time of his life. He was on that red carpet and they were yelling, "Johnna, Johnna, don't you ever smile?" And he said, "Nope."

And everyone laughed and I posted it on Instagram and he got such a kick out of it. So he's got a little bit of a showman inside of him. My daughter's not that into it. And they won't watch anything that I'm in. I mean, they watched me in one episode of Superstore 25 times.

I don't know why they thought it was so funny.

“But not an episode of scandal, not an episode of, I think they liked the baker in the”

beauty. I did a series of things. They're not watching the comeback. They came to the comeback premiere with me, which was a little bit of a fight.

But I really, it meant a lot to me, and I told them you're going to be doing this for

me. I would love her if you'd join me and they did, and the comeback's not their cup of tea. But they came for me, and I was so, here's the truth of it, I'm such a softy, everything makes me cry.

Everything makes me cry. We stepped onto the red carpet when the card arrived, and my publicist met me, and I saw my kids and my husband standing there waiting for me to join them for the photo, and I burst into tears. And I had to step away and get myself together, and I was like, "Oh my God, I can't

believe this is happening right now with all these cameras, like grabbing me." And I got my act together, I got back on there, and my daughter put her arm around me, and I felt her rubbing my back to suath me from my stress, and I almost lost it again. It was so sweet. It was so sweet.

They were so supportive. Do you feel like, in the gay community, like, that you guys being, that you're kind of like, the big brothers to maybe like younger gay couples, and are thinking about, like, having kids or whatever? Have you, do you think there's more of a shift going towards parenthood or do you think

“just like, just like, straight couples and women, a lot or choosing?”

I don't want to, I don't have to be a parent, like, it was such a positive thing, and it was, I feel like it was like pushed on them the way it was pushed on, like, like, my mom being like, "I got it, I got it, that the church you're going to be married before you're 30." Like the date.

Isn't that nice? Yes. And I was like, "Oh, I guess that is nice. I guess I will be married two weeks before I'm 30." Like, how weird now, like, the cares if I got married at 31 or not married at all?

No, good for you that you're married that long, my God. Yeah, do you think? There was a, I have noticed a shift, I'm actually noticing a little bit of a bounce back at this point, because I'm old enough now that we were a little bit ahead of the curve. Yeah.

There were a few guys ahead of us that were real role models to us. We were sort of the role models to many. Yeah. It is now part of every conversation. There are so many young gay guys in their 20s that know they want marriage.

And a baby as part of the package, right up front. There are so many more 25 to 30-year-old gay guys who are looking for partners for the purposes of marriage in children in a way that did not happen when I was 25, a hundred percent. And now there's even a little bit of a shift back a little bit where it's like, "I'm 25, but I kind of don't want to feel pressured just because I'm a gay guy who may want to

meet, find my guy. Why do I have to get married? And why do I have to have kids? You don't." Right.

“I kind of remember that the glory of the greatest thing about two gay guys is double income,”

no kids. Yes. You're smart. You're successful. You can have this great life.

It sounds dreaming. Definitely. And travel around.

You can have a third and not get them pregnant.

Something that a straight couple can't really get a third. Like a third dude, or a ghost bring someone else. Or you can have your fun. Yes. And no one's getting pregnant.

No. The big problem about heterosexual dating is that the wife could get pregnant with someone else's baby, or this guy could get a baby. So I'm like, it's kind of a beautiful thing if you know, but then you throw in kids and family.

So I'm like, "Oh, I wonder if more gay guys aren't like, "Hey, you know, this lifestyle that became like she can cool before gay marriage was legal, this is pretty good over here." You know, it's all age related, like I grew up at a time and I was coming out of the closet at a time that was just post the AIDS crisis.

And so the notion of what it means to be gay and say you're gay and even sex and promiscuity, it was very hard to be sex positive when I was coming out because we were on the tail end of a horrible, horrible plague that was blamed on sex positivity and promiscuity. And so your approach to sexuality was my approach to sexuality was completely hindered by having been 15 to 25 during that decade.

Younger people now and the last five, six years of so much sex positivity and thankfully on the shoulders of those who have made AIDS something that is treatable and is, you know,

The notion of that being something that can liberate a gay man from having to pick

“one partner or even a couple from having to not have an open relationship and have”

AIDS be the reason why they don't want to go that way or STDs. The fact that there is a move these days with young people towards sex positivity allows for people to make decisions that are more about. I want to enjoy my partner and enjoy sexuality and enjoy freedom. I don't know if I want to bring a child on to the planet, but there was a decade in there

where the fact that it was possible and that gay marriage was possible and that adopting and surrogacy and having children and all these what people call heteronormative conventions

were possible for young gay kids who always thought of it as not even a possible.

Right. Or that would be the sad thing when a child came out where the mother would be like, "I guess I'll never be a grandchild." And that's a hundred percent not to take a lot of pressure on a gay's that don't have kids and then they're like, "Well, all your friends are gay friends, so I have two, you know, two pre-pads."

Grandparents want their gay kids to give them grandkids. Yeah. 100 percent. Everybody wants to give them grandkids. Yeah.

Everybody wants to give them grandkids. Yeah. Everybody wants to give them grandkids. Yeah. Everybody wants to give them grandkids.

Yeah. Everybody wants to give them grandkids. Everybody wants to give them grandkids. Yeah. Everybody wants to give them grandkids.

Yeah. Everybody wants to give them grandkids. It's really unfair. Yeah. You know, I love my kids with everything and I love that I became a parent.

“I'm sure with all your funny stories and your book, you must have wanted to this to be,”

this could be a show. I mean, your situation. I mean, I'm sure you've gone down. I've tried to adapt. Yeah.

My book was optioned a couple of times, just like little stories within it because it's a series of stories, ways to sort of tell this story. In multiple ways for television. Yeah. I've gone down that path.

I'm visually. It's just so easy to see. Like I literally can just, I see the kids. I see the boy. I see the boy.

I see the boy. I see the boy. I've learned that got very close very recently that took three years to develop. It was really about Don and I, Don and me, raising our teenage daughter and then her relationship with the birth mom and how that gets integrated into the life of the life of the child.

I'd never seen that on television before and I wrote a pilot that I was really proud of and

it went down the path for three years, different incarnations of it. And then never happened. I had a friend who was a doctor and she kind of had a famous story story. I'm sorry. No, no.

You didn't happen. And it was painful. It's hard. When you, when you tell a story, that person all that you cared that much about it. And then it doesn't wind up a show.

I mean, and that's that, there's something interesting elements like you said that you haven't been played out to the adoptive child, the birth mother, the gay, the gay couple that the kid that's not like the gay couple, like the has his own thing. But I, years ago, I had a friend and she found that she was adopted, didn't know for a big part of her life.

I found that she was adopted found the adoptive parents who actually gave her a production and then did get married and had two more and were still together. Yeah. I found them and brought them out to LA and it was a little bit like a modern day Beverly Hillbilly type of thing with adoption and then her being in Hollywood.

And I thought it was the freshest fish out of water kind of story totally. And we went down the hole of pitching on it didn't go either. But I still think that is just, you know, we haven't seen it all that way for like the more that we see in the media or it's like this isn't a weird thing. And also talk about the trauma of it, they're, they're no matter how you slice it.

No matter how much love there is moving both ways. The love that it takes for someone to sacrifice their baby and want to find a family to raise it. And the love that that family gives to that child, the matter what, no matter what. There are feelings attached to all of it.

When you meet your birth mom and then you see that years later, maybe she got pregnant too early in her life and she wasn't settled and she couldn't possibly have had the means emotionally maturity wise financially at that time. And then 10 years later, she was able to do it. And then she had kids of her own.

But the kids who were placed in an adoption plan 10 years earlier meet them and are like, "Oh, so you could do it now, but you couldn't do it then."

Like, we're willing to just, no matter what, there are always feelings that have to

be. And I always feel like being able to dramatize that, find the humor in that. And also find the humanity in that.

“And how do we talk about it so that there's no shame involved?”

And that no one's getting their feelings hurt. Yes, it's true. All that love does exist and yes, you were loved and yes, you were wanted.

facts that you were part of an adoption plan.

“And speaking of that as a stepmother, you know, we were, had her right when she was”

born and we did share with the mother, and there's a whole Tuesday story that I've talked about that in my books, and on my podcast on Patreon, but she's 26 now and doing great. And then, you know, and then there comes a time where, you know, I'm raising her full

time, you know, as as, and she's always called me moms and she was like, you know,

could say the words, and people would always be so shocked, she's like, "Oh, yeah." You know, like, yeah, like, kids want to feel normal. And if everybody else in the house is calling me mom, she's going to call you mom too. And it doesn't take anything away from the Bible, I'm like, she's just a kid. Yeah.

Like, when people are like, we're doing up court order that the kid can't call the new girlfriend mom. I'm like, the kid is for. Yes, lucky, great. Say what they say.

Like give them a thought for me. I was afraid. I was threatened by the idea of referring to the birth mom as mom, because I'm like, oh, I don't want it to be confusing, like, we're the two parents, we're the parents raising these kids.

We're two dads, but we should refer to the birth mom as the birth mom, and because that's what she is. Just be really accurate about it. And your siblings, you know, that are your birth siblings as opposed to, I mean, my daughter is my son's birth siblings, but so were the two twins who live in Wisconsin?

Like, they, they're also birth siblings. And like, should we use the words and what words should we use so that we don't make

“it awkward as like the only thing that's awkward is this conversation.”

Yeah. There's nothing awkward about it. And when my son started referring to his birth mom as mom, and it's like, I just got a call for mom, and he loves saying mom, and he loves referring to her as mom. And he loves the fact that he has a mom, and she lives in where she lives, and he talks

to her when he talks to her, and it doesn't take away the fact that we're his dads, you know, to take no person's threat away from it, it gives them so much freedom.

And as the adult, I always say, you have to be the adult in the situation.

And your feelings come last because, so if you're the dad that, who's, who's broke up with his wife, and the teenage daughter is being a little bit, and she did miss your brunch date. You don't call her in color of color up and say you're being a little pig. I love Baldwin.

Like you say, you know, you, you go, okay, we're just going to make another plan. We're going to suck up your feelings because when she gets to be 23 24, she's going to be very proud to say I'm having brunch with my dad. Yes, she is. Because she's going to have a friend who doesn't have a dad.

Listen. Give it a minute and just be the consistent thing and it'll all work out, you know, because it's like what I was saying about stepmom, it's like, you know, there's a million videos on TikTok about a guy going to the stepfather and dad, I changed my name to you and everyone's crying.

“But the stepmother, I've Joe Truth's Mac, it's always like, who's this horror vixen?”

Yeah. I'm like, oh, really, you think as a stepmom, this was a fun time to marry, you know, some broken man that got divorced and you took on the three kids and you're like constantly looked like you made it like, the stepmom gets absolutely no credit and my goal in life is to change what Disney did to the stepmom to make it that it is, it isn't, is that

somebody who had a plan to steal a human from, you know, it's always like a like, it's like this woman chose to love your dad and he had kids and to their being, you know, I mean, great credit, there's bad stepdad, there's bad stepmom, there's a bad biologist of course. But like, just the trajectory of it, just always being like this horrible negative thing where it's a sign.

When you feel threatened, your first thought, almost always, I read this in a book,

is the child inside of you reacting, almost always, as in a grown adult, when you're feeling the rage and the threat and the need to have the words be right and to tell your kids, that first impulse is almost always the child within you who is looking for a parent who's also you to quiet them down and it's really important to be the parent to the kid inside you who's causing trouble and say, yo, you know what, take a deep breath, take a time out.

It's okay, it's okay and you parent yourself so that you can parent your kid, because otherwise the kid inside you is parenting your kid and that should be your next book, parent yourself before you, so you can parent your kid. You can parent your kid because we all do it, we're all victims of it. I always know that when I'm getting threatened in a really big way, I'm like the

the petulant kid inside of me is getting threatened and somebody's going to, who's going to parent that kid? It's me, I'm going to call my mom who's 86 and ask her to parent the child in me. It's on me to parent the kid who's reacting badly right now and take a time out and deep breath and go into this thing like the grown-up you are so you can be a parent.

I have so enjoyed talking to you and I love and I remember your book, like I forgot that you, I remember I had that book and I forgot that you were the author of does this baby make

me look straight, such a great title. And so funny. The answer is no, by the way.

And where can they follow you?

“Oh, follow me on Instagram @dampocotinsky. I think all my social is just basically my name.”

And they can still get the book.

Book is unautable. I read it. I recommend that way. It's because they're sort of written as fun

stories to be told. So you may as well have me read them to you or on Amazon. And then, of course, the comeback is every Sunday on HBO. And if you've not seen it, I'm going to go back and watch season one and two because I love it so much I can't get enough. But it's just so brilliant. And as of tomorrow, this movie I did called the highest stakes is a paramount movie that we did in

Bulgaria exactly a year ago. It's the wildest ride, Seth Green and Kevin Dillon and myself and

“it's a great cast. It's a comedy. The only way to describe it is Willy Wonka meets the shining.”

It is a dark comedic poker movie that's also a wild ride. It's a wild ride. And what's it called? It's called the highest stakes on paramount. On paramount. You can probably, you can download it from paramount as of tomorrow, the tonight's the premiere. That is so awesome. Gradually. Thank you. Thank you.

“I had the best time. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. I could talk to you forever.”

I know. I'm going to. I'm going to show up. You're going to come back. We'll do hot topics or some light gossip stuff. Now that we know your whole life story. Thank you, everyone. All right, you guys. And you know the juiciest stuff when you're like, I wonder how Heather feels about this or why is it Heather mentioning this juiciest thing about these people in her life? I do. It will be on Patreon. But only on Patreon. So you go to

Heather McDonald.net. And you can listen. If you're new, there's well over 1100 episodes,

always commercial free and all the juiciest stuff. And it's every Friday as well as bonus episodes

over there. So check it out. Thank you. Heather McDonald.net.