Hi, I'm Danielle Robeye, host of Bookmarked The Podcasts by Reese's Book Club.
And this week on Bookmarked, we're basically hosting the Ultimate Girls Night.
Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Rita Wilson, and Gary Rice and Author Laura Dave. These are the women behind season two of the Apple TV series The Last Thing He Cold Me. We're talking about turning a book into a hit show, and what it really takes to bring
a story to life.
“The most important metric for me is do I want to share this book with somebody?”
That's what creates community, and that's the main thesis of our book club, and why we started it was just to connect people together. Listen to the bookmarked by Reese's Book Club podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on it?
Biggie. You put on biggie when you feel uncomfortable? So I want to get confident. This is DJ Heaster Prince Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist. 12 months, 12 areas of your life.
Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Heaster Prince Music is Therapy. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin.
“This season on my podcast, here's the thing.”
I talk to composer Mark Shaman, it's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with.
You know, Robin I was always a great hang, and journalist Chris Whipple.
Every White House staffer, they work in a bubble called the Westway, and it's exponentially more so in the Trump White House. Listen to the new season. Of here's the thing on the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. In this episode, we'll be talking about sexual abuse in violence, which could be triggering
for some listeners. Please listen to your own discretion. December 7th, 2018, Bate, Camilla Apple woke up feeling incredibly anxious. Oh, I almost had a heart attack, because we're doing something very, very, very courageous, very risky.
Camilla was a screenwriter on one of the most popular late-night TV shows in Brazil.
“For months that she had been spending every waking minute on a top secret show.”
One that would finally air that night.
Nobody knew what we were doing. I had come out with a nickname for this operation, which was Glauber. Glauber is a very, very famous Brazilian movie director. So thought it was a show that would be about Glauber. But actually, it was an interview with a woman who set on Facebook that she had been raped
by Brazil's most famous guru and healer, John of God. Camilla spent two and a half months investigating those allegations and discovered many other women with similar stories. Finally, the months of waiting and digging and convincing executives to air the story would be over.
It was a show that her, woman saying they were raped and abused by a very, very influential and important man without loin forcement. We risked a lot. They hadn't gone to the police because John of God had friends in the highest of places. Any slip-up could lead to a bigger cover-up, or worse, it could put these women's lives
in danger. Camilla had credible testimonies from over a dozen women. So she and her boss, a veteran TV journalist named Pedro Bial, felt confident they had enough to go to air. They recorded the show then, in the days before they aired the episode, they contacted
John of God. We came to John and said, "Look, we are doing this, we need you to say whatever you want to say, how do you defend yourself? Do you want to be interviewed? We would love to interview you now."
At first, John of God made it seem like he might talk to them on the record. But in the end, it became clear he was just making time for another move. He got a judge and he was trying with the judge to stop the show of being aired saying that we were damaging his image. Camilla started to get scared.
I talk to a lot of people, guides, husbands, victims, I talk to a lot of people, so I was very secure of the story I had on my hand. I didn't doubt that. My fear was that me as a lot of journalists that came before me would not be able to put it forward to wear it.
If it didn't air, Camilla worried about what would happen to the women who talked to her.
At the time, they decided to talk to me and say, "Okay, we are going to give ...
interview.
“They were in danger because John of God already knew that I was doing that.”
So they were in danger and then if the story didn't come out, they might be really in danger." As the network deliberated on whether to move forward with the episode, Camilla also thought about everything she sacrificed for this story. Two months and a half, 24 hours a day, I even have a small kid at the time, and I have a lot of audios that she's crying at the back.
I know because I've listened to them afterwards, and my kids are trying to talk to me, and I'm like, "No, no, no, because I was very obsessed with taking this story public. We have an expression in Portuguese, which say, "Mohenaprayans, die at the beach." You know, you swim, you swim, you swim together to farm land, and then when you get there, you die at the beach.
And said, "No, I'm swimming, I'm swimming, I don't want to stop here, I need this to come out." From exactly right media and at on the media, this is too fast, John of God. I'm your host, Martina Castro. Episode 4, Breaking the Silence. It was a big deal when Camila landed the writer job for one of the most popular shows on Global.
Global is a huge television network in Latin America.
We reach out to around 100 million people a day, so it's a lot of people that we connect to.
And I also write a talk show television program, which is hosted by Pedro Bial,
“and that's how everything started actually.”
This was an early 2018 Pedro Bial, a veteran journalist, and the host of the show, where Camila worked, told her that he was interested in interviewing the celebrated healer, John of God. So Camila started researching him, just like she would have done for any other guest. And the first person I decided to talk to was a very good friend of mine
that actually lived in Abadiana for a while. Camila calls her up to get a sense of what Abadiana and the whole community there was like. But the woman starts off by telling Camila something totally unexpected. The first thing that she told me was that he rapes woman, he's a serial abuser.
That really shocked me because I had never heard anything about it before.
And then I said, how do you know that? Despite the secrecy and risk around revealing something like this, she tells Camila that three women on separate occasions had confided in her that they were abused by him. Given how close this woman felt to Camila, she thought it was important to share this information with her.
“I said, could you please ask them if they would talk to me?”
And they were very, very reluctant, very afraid because, John of God, he used to be surrounded by men that hold guns, so she was very afraid that something could happen to her. But one of the women ultimately agreed to talk to Camila. Her friend assured her that Camila was trustworthy and would keep her identity secret. This woman had also kept a diary where she had written about the abuse.
When I met her, she was with the diary on her hands and she was shaking a lot. And she said, I don't remember much. I think I decided for my own safety, mental health, to erase everything. But here's the diary and then I read it and it was very, very shocking. I said, whoa, this is someone completely different from the person we know.
This is a monster and she said, yes, and he wasn't doing that only to me. Camila ended up talking to two more women and they shared very similar stories that had taken place many years apart.
I mean, the first one was 20 years ago, the other one was 25 years ago and then the third one was
a month before and the story was very similar. I said, whoa, he is a serial abuser. Camila took all of this back to her boss, Pedro Bial. I said, look, this is what I found and then he said, go for it. Keep digging. You are in the right track. So Camila kept looking for other potential survivors who may want to tell their stories.
And that's when a woman mentioned an allegation of rape she had recently seen online. One of them said, there is a post on Facebook from a Dutch woman called Zahida.
The Facebook post.
who had been to the Gasa in Abadiania several times. In her post, she describes in detail how
“John of God had raped her twice. It wasn't the first time someone had shared story like this online,”
but this time, people were paying attention. It was May 2018, so it was all the mutual movement after Havel Weinstein's story and New York Times and everything had happened. So we had like a feel a moment going on and she said, yeah, me too. That's Christina Phoebe, the journalist we heard from an episode two. She was working at O Globo at the time, a newspaper owned by the same media company that owned the TV network where Camila worked.
When Christina came across Zahida's Facebook post, she had no idea that at TV Globo,
Camila Apell was also digging into the story. So I was part of a very small group, a feminist
group on Facebook. They shared Zahida's post sailing in English, everything that happened to her. And I was like, what? I was shocked. I hadn't had any tips about it, nothing, and there were comments like, see what I told you and look, look at this. And so I read it and I was like, whoa, maybe it wasn't only her. So Christina called one of the investigative reporters she worked with, Elena Bordes.
Christina asked Elena if she'd be willing to talk to Zahida about her allegations. It just so happens that Elena had already been to Aberdeenia, a couple of months earlier, to do a magazine story about John of God. She tells Christina that she felt very unwelcome while she was there. She felt observed and she came back and said, it's kind of weird. They want to control what kind of story is going to get out, what I'm telling, who I'm talking to, it's kind of strange.
“So that was like the only info we had. And I said, Elena, maybe that's why. Let's look into this.”
And in like 48 hours of doing that, she had six women. These six women all said they had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of John of God. And just like the women who separately spoke with Kamida Ape, they told similar stories of abuse, even though they didn't know each other. And their stories were from different time periods. We call it models of danger. I think that's an expression that we all say, it had a very clear
way of doing things, very, very crystal clear models of danger in the way he abused women. Christina says this revealed something that months later would be key to the whole case against John of God. Robert, host of bookmarked at the podcast by Reese's book club. And this week on bookmarked, we're basically hosting the ultimate girls night. Reese with her spoon, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Rita Wilson, and Gary Rice, and author Laura Dave. These are the women behind season two
of the Apple TV series The Last Thing He Cold Me. We're talking about turning a book into a hit show,
and what it really takes to bring a story to life. The most important metric for me is
“do I want to share this book with somebody? That's what creates community, and that's the main”
thesis of our book club and why we started it was just to connect people together. Listen to the bookmarked by Reese's book club podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Ever feel like you're being chased by the marriage police? Welcome to Boys and Girls. The podcast by dating isn't dating.
A ranged marriage is basically a reality show, except the contestants are strangers, and your entire family is judging. Your sipping coffee with one maybe, grabbing dinner with another, and praying your carmy can or Barbie appears before your shelf life runs out. Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition. I jumped in hoping to find love the right way, and instead I found chaos, cringe, and comedy.
And now I'm looking for healing. Boys and girls dives into every twist and turn of the arranged marriage carousel. The meat awkward, the neomisses, the heartbreak, and let's not forget all the jokes. Listen to Boys and Girls on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on?
Biggie.
This is DJ Hesterprint's Music Is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist
“that asks one simple question, "Who do you want to be and what's the song that can take you there?"”
Music changes what you feel, and what you feel changes what you do, right? That moment we're a song shift something inside you, that's where transformation starts. This year, I'm talking to experts across every area of life, like personal finance icon Jean Chatsy, New York Times journalist David Gellis, relationship legend, dance savage, human connection teacher Mark Brogues, and the man who shaped my ear more than anyone,
Questlove. They'll bring the strategies, I'll pair them with the right records, and we'll teach you how to use the music to make a change stick. This isn't just a podcast.
“It's unconventional therapy for your entire ear. Listen to DJ Hesterprint's Music Is Therapy,”
on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The women who spoke with Cristina and Camila, described situations that occurred over the span of decades, stories that followed a very similar pattern. Imagine being at the gasa, in the long line of people waiting to meet Jean of God. There are hundreds of people around you, some meditating and praying, volunteers and guides are translating or treating people in the
infirmary. Cristina explains how it would all go down in the middle of this very public setting.
So he always chose them when they were in line, and then when they got to him, like they had
20 seconds to say what they wanted, that was like in front of everybody, and he told them the girls he chose to see him after the main line alone in his office. Before they even said foot in the office, they were already feeling special, chosen to be one of the few people who would get a long time with Jean of God. And then, once they were in the office, you know, it was half office and half bedroom. It had like a big chair and books and saints and
pictures of him and famous people and powerful people. So you know, you felt intimidated because
how am I going to tell people that his bed, look at all those powerful people who come here and
who are friends with him. Cristina and Camilla separately started to see a strategy behind what seemed to be a system of abuse, a system that targeted a very specific kind of person. It's mainly white women, blonde, he loves blonde women and young women in general. A few old women as well, but mainly on their 20s or 30s. A few of them, he also chose like to hold his instruments to be beside him while he was like curing other people, so they felt
even more chosen and special. And this was all by design. A few of them were not trying to queue themselves, but trying to get pregnant or they had like a crisis in their marriage that they felt that there was like a spiritual crisis. So he also was like smart enough if I can't say that, but anyway, he was smart enough to see the vulnerability of those women. But what enabled the system to operate was everything surrounding it. The journalists began to uncover
a mafia-like network of influence and control that John of God had in Abadhania. This network served to keep everyone, including his victims from speaking out. Abadhania was like a very, very small town that just had John of God at the center of everything. So half of town was just there to serve him. He had to give authorization for a start to open or for a cab driver to drive and get passengers or for a hotel to function. He had, you know, control of everything. People who didn't do
what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. Disappeared as in run out of town,
“threatened or even rumored to have died. That's why Christina and Camila understood why it was so”
hard for the women to come forward. They both took extra care and time to earn their trust. Here's Camila again. I think it's very fair at least I thought at the time to really connect
With them in a very genuine relationship because what I was asking for them w...
horrible story to relieve a trauma caused by a very violent and dangerous man that wasn't in
prison that was leaving as a king in a city having his home house and a very rich man surrounded by bodyguards so they were very afraid. Camila says an added difficulty was that the women thought John of God was capable of punishing them for speaking out even from afar. They called it "Espiritual retaliation" because once you say okay I want to do this treatment it's been said that John of God would visit you spiritually and we would start the cure. So if he's able to come
here and the other side of the world and start curing me maybe he's able to come here and harm me so they were very afraid to talk to me even to tell me what happened to them I actually had one woman her car got stolen and then she message me saying I cannot talk to you he made my car
“being stolen. During one of our interviews we faced the same fear. You might remember in episode”
three when we were talking to Anapala the recording suddenly went out and she immediately thought it was John of God so there were a lot of challenges involving this this kind of investigation. But their challenges weren't only external internally these journalists had to convince their bosses at their separate companies that they had enough evidence to back up with these women were saying. At the newspaper Christina confronted a lot of resistance. It was very shocking for me because
it was not a priority at all. I was talking about like the main Brazilian guru he was so
powerful. It was like a huge figure. I was not trying to publish a small story about the guy at
my corner that was like abusing that would be hard but it was like we are talking about you know numbers audience if they don't mind the victims they would mind the audience right but he just didn't care. Or Christina started to think they just didn't understand the nature of these crimes.
“She remembers her editors three women asking questions like "Did they say no? Did they like fight?”
Why did they went back there?" So it was very basic and so I felt both on comprehension about the mechanisms of abuse and the difficult of a victim to speak and on the other hand, a lack of worry like they just don't care. It was also a tough time news-wise. The country was going through a tumultuous presidential election which was taking up a lot of space and energy in the newsroom. Christina thinks it probably got even harder after they reached out to
John of God to comment on the allegations. The first response by John of God was "Well it's all
alive. They're lying. They're trying to create facts about me and I'm going to sue whoever publishes that and probably it scared the newspaper because he did have French, French, lawyer, friends and everything. So it was like they started off a battle so we could publish the story. The longer the battle went on, the longer John of God continued to see people at the casa and it was very anguishing because as we noticed that there was like a modest upper range
going on and he was raping women. So each day we didn't publish for me was a data he could be raping someone and Elena was like the interface to the victim so she had to explain every day to the victims what was going on that the story wasn't running. What are they not believing in us which is
“like the worst thing for a victim? Meanwhile at TV Global Camila had an advantage over other”
journalists chasing down this story. Conversa Compial, the show where she worked, was considered entertainment meaning they could skirt some of the rules that the news side had to contend with. If I was from the journalists show like the national news for instance they would say no no you cannot come out with this story if you don't have the police enforcement or if you don't have
Someone that is really prosecuted to him and actually had won at least.
talk show and the entertainment side of it I think we this was not a impediment was not up obstacle.
But even for Camila it was going to be an uphill battle to get this segment on the air. Her determination to help these women speak out would be tested by everyone, especially by John of God himself. Hi I'm Danielle Robe, host of Bookmark to the podcast by Reese's Book Club and this week on Bookmark were basically hosting the ultimate girls night. Reese with her spoon Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer,
Rita Wilson and Gary Rice and author Laura Dave. These are the women behind season two of the Apple TV series The Last Thing He Cold Me. We're talking about turning a book into a hit show
and what it really takes to bring a story to life. The most important metric for me is do I want
“to share this book with somebody. That's what creates community and that's the main thesis of”
our book club and why we started it was just to connect people together. Listen to the bookmark by Reese's Book Club podcast on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Ever feel like you're being chased by the marriage police. Welcome to Boys and Girls. The podcast by dating is in dating. A ranged marriage is basically a reality show. Except the contestants are strangers and your entire family is judging.
You're sitting coffee with one maybe, grabbing dinner with another and praying your army can or barbecue peers before your shelf life runs out. Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition. I jumped in hoping to find love the right way and instead I found chaos, cringe and comedy and now I'm looking for healing. Boys and girls dives into every twist and turn of the arranged marriage carousel. The meat talk world, the neumases, the heartbreak
and let's not forget all the jokes. Listen to Boys and Girls on the iHeart Radio app, Apple
“podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on?”
Biggie. You put on biggie when you feel uncomfortable? So I want to get confident. This is DJ Hesterprin's music is therapy. A new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist that asks one simple question, "Who do you want to be and what's the song that can take you there?" Music changes what you feel and what you feel changes what you do, right? That moment we're a song shift something inside you, that's where transformation starts. This year,
I'm talking to experts across every area of life, like personal finance, icon, jean chats me. New York Times journalist David Gellis, relationship legend, dance savage, human connection teacher, Mark Brogues, and the man who shaped my ear more than anyone, Questlove. They'll bring the strategies, I'll pair them with the right records, and we'll teach you how to use the music to make a change stick. This isn't just a podcast.
It's unconventional therapy for your entire ear. Listen to DJ Hesterprin's music is therapy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. To make the strongest show possible, Kameela and her bosses had to showcase the credibility of the allegations. Of the 13 women who spoke with Kameela on the record. Three were willing to go on the air, but they weren't willing to show their faces. So Kameela was afraid it wouldn't be enough
to convince the public. Then Kameela got a lucky break. After weeks of deliberation, Zahida Mouse,
the woman who had posted her experience of abuse on Facebook, came to a crucial decision.
“Zahida decided to come forward showing her face. I think this was very important for people to”
really look at her speaking and coming forward with everything that she had. Kameela then got her second lucky break. She found a tour guide. We used to take people from the U.S. to see John of God. And when I talked to her, she said she entered his office and he was raping someone from her group. I actually heard one of my tourists yelling for help inside his office and went in. That's the tour guide, Amy B. Egg. What she's describing happened on her last
visit to Abadiania in 2008. So I saw her on her knees with Joao exposed and him pushing her head towards him. And instead of complying, she yelled and I busted in and then he told me to close my eyes and sit down and I did. I can't believe I did that because you're so indoctrinated.
You know, but it only lasted about 30 seconds and I got up and I said, put yo...
get up. We're going. Because I was not confused anymore. I was mad.
“And I knew that that was it for me. Amy stopped taking people to the gasa after that,”
but she wanted to warn potential visitors without drawing too much attention to herself. So she posted a message on a blog for people interested in going to Abadiania. In it she said, if you go, be careful and use your brains. This post was found months later by Camila and it was enough to make her think Amy must have known something was going on. So Camila called her. And this woman, it took a look. Two months for her to really say,
okay, I'm going to Brazil. I'm going to your talk show. So Amy would appear next to Zahida on Pedro Bial's prime time TV show, conversa con Bial. Both showing their faces as they told their stories to the people of Brazil.
“This is what the show needed to make the biggest impact.”
Because they didn't know each other. They weren't from the same group. They were not from Brazil because the Brazilians weren't feeling safe enough to show their faces. So we had two women coming from abroad, one from Holland, another one from the United States for us to be able to really put this man down. Things seemed to be on the right path, but they still needed to reach out to John of God
and give him a chance to respond to the allegations. They contacted him and at first,
he was leading us on forever, forever. Of course, I will talk to you but wait. Who did you interview? Oh, ah, we can't tell. Of course, we can't tell.
“But what have you got on me over? We can't tell. We just, we have days, days, and that.”
And then we just cried the crimes we had. And then he didn't give us an interview. Instead, in the days before the show was set to air, John of God and his lawyers petitioned a judge to keep the show from being released. After some deliberation, the judge denied the petition. According to Camila, he said, "No, this is a freedom of speech and so he just allowed us to air the show." Meanwhile, over the newspaper, oh global, Christina and Elena were still waiting to hear
if their investigation would be published. And it was decided that it would come out first at the
TV and then on the day after at the newspaper. This was of course disappointing for Christina and Elena. But the network decided the story would make the biggest splash if it came out first on the Pedro Bialcio. So we went out on the 7th of December in 2019. And then on the next day, we had the newspaper global on it. We had the national news that we had everything on it. So because we didn't want it to scratch it, we wanted to really make an impact. Until the segment went out,
I was scared, until then. João Teixera de Faría is a mage, a Brazilian, who has been in the world like João de Deus. After the show was aired, all of that came out on the next day. It was, it was, it was a hurricane. It was really spectacular. The way, the way everything developed after that. Miracle worker or monster. He's known as John of God.
El curandero brasileño de Deus hacusado de agressiones sexuales. All of the journalists hard work pays off. The country is gripped by news that John of God is potentially a serial rapist. And the legal system is forced to respond by creating a task force to investigate them. I do think this story opened up the myth to move my name, Brazil. Many, many women didn't even understand they had been abused.
They don't see the buzzard until the press brought up the case. Celevado, Brasil de Palípress. I had lived years and years and years of my life. Thinking that I had been the one person. I squalid the private phase chosen to live through this. No, for soil. No, for soil. It wasn't. Just me.
Listen to two-faced, John of God.
There you can also find this show in a Spanion. Just look for those goddess Juanedios.
“Two-faced, John of God is a production of exactly right media and adorned media.”
Hosted and written by myself, Martina Castro. Our senior producer is Mariano Pashela, reporting and fact checking by Eloisat Rayano. Production assistance and research by Giovanna Romano Sanchez. Sound designed by Mauricio Mendoza and our Mastering Engineer is Maritim Grus. Original music was composed by Mariana Romano. The artwork is by Vanessa lilac.
“Luciano Miranda was interpreted by Andres Cabasheto and Camila R by Laura Oate.”
For exactly right media, the executive producers are Karen Kilgarif, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Cramer, with consulting producer Lily Ladowig, and associate producer Jay Elias. Hi, I'm Danielle Robe, host of Bookmarked at the podcast by Reese's Book Club. And this week on Bookmarked, we're basically hosting the ultimate girls night.
Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Rita Wilson, and Gary Rice and author Laura Dave. These are the women behind season two of the Apple TV series The Last Thing He Cold Me. We're talking about turning a book into a hit show and what it really takes to bring a story to life.
The most important metric for me is do I want to share this book with somebody.
“That's what creates community and that's the main thesis of our book club and why we started”
it, was just to connect people together. Listen to the bookmarked by Reese's Book Club podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie. You put on a biggie when you feel uncomfortable? So I want to get confident. This is DJ Hester Prince, music is therapy. A new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist.
12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prince, music is therapy. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And journalist Chris Whipple. Every White House staffer, they work in a bubble called the West
Way. And it's exponentially more so in the Trump White House. Listen to the new season.
Of here's the thing on the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
