Hello Isaac with Isaac MizrahiIsaac Mizrahi chats with interior designer and TV host, Jeremiah Brent (HGTV’s “The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project,” “Nate and Jeremiah: Save My House,” “Rock the Block.”) They get into whether Nate Berkus is the mean daddy or the nice daddy, the time Jeremiah was homeless, why a throuple would be stressful and so much more.
Plus, Jeremiah shares the surprising way he feels about his obituary that throws Isaac for a loop.
Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Jeremiah Brent @jeremiahbrent.
(Recorded on February 20, 2024)
Who's the mean daddy? Are you the mean daddy? And is Nate the nice daddy? You can tell me I'm the consistent.
I'm a consistent.
Sorry. Wow, that is a really good This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and in this episode, I talked to interior designer, TV host and founder of Jeremiah Brent Design Jeremiah Brent.
Hello, Isaac, It's Jeremiah Brent. You're probably wondering how I got your number, but I'm obsessed with you and I can't wait to chat with you. Talk to you soon.
I am so excited to talk to my next guest, Jeremiah Brent. It's rare that I admire a younger person for what they do, But I've been following his work, following his career for a long time now, and I really do love everything he does, especially this incredible new book that he wrote at and I just want to talk to him for a minute to kind of demystify the whole subject of how he gets his inspiration and how he figures stuff out. So, without wasting any more time, let's dive right.
In Hi, Happy Tuesday. Where are you?
I'm in Bridgehampton, Long Island.
How is that aware?
I love it here so much. I kind of live here most of the year.
How long have you had a house there?
I bought this place around like nineteen ninety four, and I love it. It's like my sanctuary. It's like a shack, you know. It's like a complete shack. And it's not in a lot of land. It's like an acre a little bit. It wasn't, but it's on a reserve, so you really feel like it's private. So anyway, since then, I've redone it a few times.
Yeah, I was gonna say, it doesn't look like a shack anymore. We're on a nature reserve in mon Talk and we had a snake infestation last time, which I mean, you know, my husband, Nate, he's not He's the type of person that likes nature should be viewed through glass with him. He's not somebody that wants to be out amongst anything moving. And we had this fountain in our backyard and first it was like one snake and I was like, this is super cute and I love nature, so I was like, look at kids. And then like two weeks later, there was like nine ten snakes. It looked like tomb raider. It was really weird.
I got to say, that isn't exactly a snake infestation. Ten stakes.
What would you do if you walked up, I don't know.
I would freak out. And here's the really disgusting thing about me. I would probably call an exterminator because I am a disgusting human being.
Well, I'll take it a step further, and Nate is a terrible person. He had the fountain filled with concrete the next week.
Wow.
Yeah, Wow, that's the dichotomy that I live in. I would have like nurtured them. I probably started a snake farm. And by the way, he's not like a proactive type person with house duties, so the fact that he organized.
Actually took the time to take the snake thing. So here's the thing I have to say, Jemiah, I know Nate rather well.
Yeah, and I know.
You from like seeing you guys at il Cantonori every once in a while with your family, with your kids, who are actually really well behaved, like for kids at a restaurant. No, but your kids are so old. How old are you kids?
They're eight and six.
Well, so they're better now.
But yeah, but you know, there's a lot of terrible fucking kids out there, like.
Pop, Oh my god.
I have friends and their children are so terrible. I'm like, what is happening? What's going on? But our kids are very like They've got beautiful and peccable manners. There've been people of the world since they were born, and they've always been included and everything. So you know, they go to a dinner party, you have to ask three questions. It's like a rule in our house. You have to engage in the conversation. You know, there's no.
Disconnect, right, that's a good thing. And I have to say, like, when I see you guys out, you always look so different to me, Like right now, you're kind of this giving blonde, But yeah, I don't remember you as a blonde darling. The last time I saw you were a full on, like raven kind of goth brunette.
That's how I identify. Like, if I'm not dressed like a lesbian bank Robert, I'm usually uncomfortable. And when we see you were on the weekend and we're usually in like a big hat and we're creatures that.
You're usually in like come to gas On or something like, you know, some kind of like black wig or I don't know what it is. You look like Mortitia Adams.
I'm like, yeah, Poe of Design.
And I'm always like Nate, Oh, who's that babe? And then it's Nate, you know, And then who's the babe with Nate? Oh? And then it's you, you know. So it's funny. Yeah, all right, So give me a little bit of history, Like where are you from.
I'm from California, a small town though for like math and murder in the middle of yeah, gorgeous and me small gay decorator. I grew up with a single mother who worked three jobs her entire life. She never stopped. And then as soon as I turned seventeen, I left that town and went to San Francisco for college, and then I moved to LA and was there for a long time until I met my husband, and then came to New York and figured out that the whole world is right here in one city. And I moved and never looked back.
But as a kid, I have to tell you this little story. When I moved into my apartment on Twelfth Street and I redid the whole thing, and my sister came over it and she was like, Isaac, Darling, do you realize the color of your rug the in your bedroom? It's like a Spanish olive green, you know, yeautiful? And I go, yeah, what about And she's like, Darling, think back, and I screamed, it's literally the exact same color as the carpeting that was in our house when I was like a little child, you know. And I think to myself about, like you growing up in this little town in La Like, were there things that formed you? What was the period first of all that you grew up in.
It was like eighties, nineties, eighties and nineties. I mean, listen, we didn't have any money, so there weren't a lot of things. My mom when by the time I went to high school, she'd worked to kind of get us in the worst house in the best neighborhood so that I was going to end up in like a gang. So it was never really things about our home because it changed so much. But it was ceremonies that I didn't realize would make such a huge impact on me. Like my mother, you know, again, no money, but we would have flowers every Sunday and this one spot on the dining table in a window, and I remember the ceremony of that so beautifully, and like there was always Edda James playing on the weekend, and same with like coffee in the morning. I always had to take her coffee at six point thirty in the morning to her and leave at bedside, which sounds very Cinderella, but it was lovely.
Ah.
So that's what I remember most. But it's funny when you say that about your dek carpet, because when I had written my book, the first question I always ask people was like, if you look back, what's the first space that you ever really really remember that mattered to you? Do you remember that?
I mean I had like a very bad case of spidal man and Johni's when I was about six or five, and I don't remember anything before that, So everything before that is a blur. But I do remember my first bedroom and how shitty it, how much I hated it when we moved into this big, old kind of Dutch colonial house in Brooklyn, and I remember when my mother redecorated it. I mean, like she was a great decress. Why she it was like this horrible striped wallpaper and the worst like shag carpeting. I hated it so much.
You know, sounds kind of great.
I do remember there was like a cork wall with like pictures all over it, and the biggest picture on the whole wall was like a picture of Judy Garland and it was like this like horrifying, sort of chariscura portrait of Judy, like crying, remember that picture of her? Just like tears I now, right, So I do remember that. What about you? What was your first space that you remember?
My grandmother she was like three feet tall in Portuguese and so mean. She was like one of the meanest people you've ever met, But to me she was so sweet. She was a terrible mom, great grandmother, right, And in her backyard she had this massive atrium that my grandfather had built her. Was not fancy by any means. It was like plastic in two by fours. But I remember sitting in that room and looking around and everything she did was rooted and nurturing and creativity. And I remember thinking to myself, is this how my grandmother like identifies as this like a part of her she can't articulate. I remember the way the door sounded when you slid it open. I remember the way it smelled. That was the first place that I ever, like, really loved.
Was there like a color that you associate with that place.
Red. Her car was like a Bordeaux. She was always in that red. She always had red lipstick on, red nails, red wall like, which, by the way, now I have such respect for because it's very hostile. But it was everything, and it was huge hair, you know, she couldn't see over the steering wheel.
Eliza Minelli once told me that Kay Thompson, her godmother, Yeah, lacquered her guest bathroom in New York City with a specific shade of nail polish that she loved from like Charles of the Ritz. So she brought like a thousand bottles of this nail polish and she just laquered the entire bathroom with this one little tiny brush that came with the nail.
I can appreciate. I can appreciate that.
And it was this fabulous like red color. Kay Thompson, Darling Kate Toms. So, did you go to design school.
No, I went to school for marketing and advertising. I've always been obsessed with home, but at the time I didn't really realize it was a business you could actually create for yourself and be a part of. But when I moved to Los Angeles, I started building furniture and creating pieces for myself and then for people, and then it became a bigger business. And then I started working for larger furniture houses. And then randomly Rachel Zoe approached me to come work for her. And I'd always loved fashion and she's like, this income, it'll be great, you know, you know her, Yes, I.
Do, I do. I made her wedding dress, you know, I know.
And she's like, don't worry, you don't have to be on the show. And turns out I did.
Have a hash well, darling, like what is the kernel? What's the damn thing that gets you out of bed in the morning that makes you go like I'm gonna this? Like do you think it comes from your childhood? Yeah?
I think it's still the fantasy of how people can live, you know, when we are growing up again no money, but we would go every week and I'd go with my mother and we would look at all these open homes and open houses in our area because they were all like little dominos. They all look the same. But I remember every time walking through and imagining like the life that I would create for the people that were in there. There's a window that was forgotten that could be a window seat, and I'd imagine that moment that my mother loves with coffee. Even now, the part that always excites me is first and foremost the fantasy component of understanding who people are, extrapolating these parts of them, these nuances that they don't even realize, and I think, more than ever now, also trying to find a way to create these original spaces that really hold people. You know, that's my fantasy. As somebody walks in and says, I'm never leaving. I want to stay. So I think that was the kernel, right.
So can you make a scale drawing? Can you do things that designers do?
I can now. I remember when I left rachel Zo, she was like, you should not be doing You need to be doing design, that's what you love. I sold everything I had my preus, like every piece of furniture, so I could get a desk in my living room of my home and start my business. And honestly, it was all trial and error, and I was scrappy as hell. I took any job. I remember the first project I had. She's like, I've got ten thousand dollars all in and I was like, that's great. She goes for the whole house. I was like the fuck. But I still did it and I loved it. And I remember the way it felt when she walked into the house and I was completely hooked. But you know, I never stopped. I still don't really stop, which is what my husband always yells at me about. But that's why I think I have such an appreciation for books too. You know, it was travel when I couldn't afford it. It was education and information when I didn't have it. That's where I started. And I've always drawn and sketched everything. I sketch every interior, still in concepts. But once I could finally afford it, the first person I hired, her name was Beth. She was a powerhouse. She's like fully educated how to do everything I didn't know how to do. So I got very good at, you know, figuring out lanes and how to put people in the right lanes. And that's really kind of where it started.
I got to tell you, it's always so shocking to me that you know, design a s setes. So many of them come from Los Angeles because you know, I always think of Paris or I think of New York a lot, because there's so much going on, so many other things. But like, is there something about Los Angeles that you find really inspiring?
I think there's opportunity with space and the execution of creativity there. I feel like people are a little bit more confident than they have in LA is a funny place. When I was there, people were excited about young and upcoming and our industry, the design industry, I should say, is not known to be like super supportive of young, raw talent. I think things are changing now, but you know, for so long it was about that prestige and people who have been in the business and they've got their reputations. But LA for me, had nothing but support from vendors, from other furnish sellers and makers. There was a really unique time happening when I was there, and I hope still that what people connected to with me was I was always passionate. There is no ego with what I do. I love collaboration in that part of it. But I do think that LA has a lot of really creative, interesting people.
Not to mention Darling like Hollywood Regency. I mean that whole look is so inspiring, and not to mention like, you know, the adjacency, yeah, and the adjacency to Mexico. I mean, you've got that rich vein of incredible, beautiful inspiration right.
The whole California.
I mean whole California exactly, the coast top to bottom.
You can go through five different design aesthetics. That's a beautiful thing about it. You can ski in the afternoon and serve in the morning. So I think the same for design. You've got all these different design styles.
Because when I look at the stuff that you do, I feel like it reflects that more than it reflects Like what my friend Robert Couturier does is something which is a very kind of you know, Frenchy French French, or like Jeffrey Bill Hubert. You know, it's like everybody does something that's a little bit different because of where they come from, I think, and how they saw growing up, how they lived growing up, and how they express it in the way they live now.
You know, I think I'm always kind of reaching for the simplicity of how to live, you know, and I think one thing that I've worked really hard at and I'm still trying to do. I mean, the vast majority of our projects will never see the light of day because our clients are so private, but they all look very different, which is something that I work really hard. I really don't want to be known for one style, right. I definitely have my perspective and the way the lens that I look at things, but I want every home to look different because everybody is different.
But darling, so how do you get inside the head of your person, like, how do you do something that will please them?
It's all story for me, and that I think is the differentiating factor of what I've done and how I've started because I know what I know and I know what I don't and the one thing that I do know is people and how to listen. That's really my job. And you know, again, it's interesting too because my husband's a decorator. We have very different ways that we work, We have very different aesthetics. But for me, I always start with what I call the soul, and it's this exercise that's usually the first huge phase of our design process, and I dive in about where you've been from the history of you know, I have a series of questions, we talk through where you want to go, where you're at now, and then I kind of create this presentation of sorts that really kind of explains and kind of illustrates the soul of the space. And that has been really good for me because it tethers the rest of the design throughout the process. And it also is this moment where people that I'm working with look at me and go, holy shit, you get what matters to us and what this needs to feel like. And then I figure out how we make it look right right. So it's a little backwards's essential.
But no, no, Darling, it's funny because I got that. I got a lot of that from your book. Now. I got that you try to immerse yourself and get the story and get the juice of the person. Have there been like favorite clients?
Well, my favorite project to date had nothing to do with any of the prestige, But I mean I've had really fun projects for different reasons. I love working with Ryan Murphy. He always pushes me way outside my comfort zone. He really pushes his creatives and I appreciate that he's.
Such an esthete himself. I mean, he realizes exactly what he wants. Yeh.
Showing him something new is my great pleasure.
I feel like the biggest homosexual in the world. If you can please with Ryan Murphy, I.
Know, I feel so seen. The best project I ever did was Oprah had asked me to redo this homeless shelter for LGBTQ plus youth in LA and it was a big deal for me and for a lot of reasons. I was homeless at one point and the house that I had moved into after I got myself out of living in my car was across the street from the shelter, so I was back ten years later. But I remember when that whole center was done, walking people through, and it was another testament to the power of home and how it doesn't necessarily necessarily have to be yours, but then presence of home and the fact that you can come in and walk in somewhere and feel safe and seeing vitamin I've made these backpacks that had their own things that didn't sheet. Oh, that was my favorite thing, because that's what home was supposed to be about.
Of course, you know what, wait a second, you were homeless living out of a car. Yeah, what you just thought we would allied over that little tidbit of information. Tell me everything.
I had just come out, well kind of not really out. But I had a boyfriend at the time that I lived with, and I came home on a Sunday and he said to me, I love being with you, and if I wanted to be gay, this is who i'd be with. But I don't, so can you leave by tomorrow? And oh, I know which. By the way, he ended up being as gay as a fanny pack, but we wish him.
Well. How old were you at the time?
Twenty nineteen?
Oh, okay, twenty years old are yeah?
Man? And that was it. I was out on my own in a car. I lived in my car for quite a while because I just moved there and I was working and everything. But I was in my car for six months. Six months.
Wow, crazy man, you slept in a car for six months?
Yeah, my little jeep.
And where did you bathe? Like, where did you eat?
I jumped around at friends' houses and then coincidentally, I was at a bar, probably bumming a drink from somebody because I had no money to buy it. And this group of girls, there's like five of them, we were all talking and like, oh, where are you living? And I was like, Oh, I'm living in my car. But you know, I love it. I'm like, I'm wild and free.
Yeah, I love it exactly.
Oh I'm wild and free. And they said to me, that's not happening. And they actually took me in to their house. They're my dearest friends to this day, the sisters, and they got me home and they got my head right and helped me kind of refocus and realign and taught me to grow the hell up because I was such such a mess at twenty and that was it. But yeah, it was quite an interesting experience.
Why that's fascinating to me. But it's really really so interesting to me that you lived in the car for six months. Now, getting back to the whole thing about designing for people, are there clients that you just want to kill them and stranglem and what? Tell me?
No, it takes a lot to make me upset. So that's good, which is why I'm married in night. No. I think there's been one client that I had to fire that was really hard for me because I like to consider myself somebody who can get along with anybody. But this project in particular, it just wasn't going to happen. But I mean, listen, people are complicated, but what I do is really complicated, just like what I can't even imagine what you deal with. You know, it's very personal and in a lot of ways, it is kind of the articulation of a lot of things people are feeling and things that they didn't even realize they're feeling. It brings up a lot throughout the process, insecurities, good things, skeletons. You know, our homes watch us survive a lot, and to kind of take that and make sure that people understand that I'm there protect it. Our industry gets a bad wrap, so it doesn't help. But I've been really lucky. I've got great clients and most of them are repeat clients and that's my favorite.
Right But I have to say it has to hurt a little bit because I know my husband is not in the design field at all, and I do all the decorating in the house, including his bedroom. How about that? And then of course it's my fault if he hates something and I have to come up with solution when he hates something. But you know, it's like even in his bedroom, he'll like bring in something and I'll be like, darling, what is that?
You know it bothers you.
And I overlook it. No, it's totally fine. So like, what is the equivalent of that? Like you do this like pristine, pristine room, right, and somebody brings in. I don't know what do you hate the most? Like mission furniture. I'm just trying to think of like everything and everything. I know I hate everything.
I figured it out a while ago that once I set a house, a photograph it right away. I don't get it because I know when I come back, somebody's aunt is going to be and an earn on the fireplace. The art always kills me.
The art.
It's like they're like this post it note was from I'm like, you need your money back, but it's all subjective. So I photograph it and I get out. It's like I try not to go back if I don't have to to see what's happened. But you know, I've been lucky enough to where when I have gone back, especially recently, the houses look large of the same. But that's what he was supposed to do. You're supposed to put their spin on it.
I think so true. Tell me about taste, Like, how do you break it to someone that they just have to sit it out?
Well, it depends. Part of the reason around this book also is that I am so anti trend. And it's interesting because obviously my husband and I were on a network where it's like, let me flip it and twist it and sell it for you and you can move on. And so I think with taste in particular, I think what I'm trying to do is shift the narrative and the perspective around what we bring into our house. To your point, everybody's got these three things because they look online and that's what they see. But you know better than anybody, like the most important homes that stay with you in last have nothing to do with how much people spent or how rich they were, had everything to do with their perspective and their ability to tell their story through their space. But I think taste is super subjective too. I mean, when you talk about like Michael Smith, for example, you brought up, I have such a tremendous amount of respect for his taste and his style. I could never live in it. It's not for me, although maybe I could. I don't know, it depends, but I think it's interesting to see, you know, taste is at the end of the day, like it's like religion, it's a language. Whatever gets you to that piece and that serenity. I think we're all at the end of the day really looking for in our home. I just don't think that the conversation has been the right conversation for quite a while. You know, America is very young in so many ways, which is a whole nother podcast, but I think, you know, our homes are the same way. You know, everything that we see on television is very prescriptive, and I think I'm in a chapter of my life where I want to kind of swim upstream and change that.
You can, I mean, it's possible to do it like one client at a time, But then I'm going back to this thing where it's like, as a person with really good taste, who has learned a good deal, who has seen a good deal, and who can really go into a room and pact it and really do something magnificent. You know, it's like, how do you embody that without offending, without bringing shame to what was there before? You know, I've been thinking it for a very very long time, like at some point, It made me really uncomfortable that the only clients I had were these women at Bergdorff Goodman who just couldn't you know, they couldn't balance their meds, you know what I mean, That's was their daily thing. Like I got to balance it, and I got to make it to Betty Hallbruysch's office, and I got to buy the most expensive thing I can think of, you know, And after a while, I just thought, like, that's just not what I want to do, Like, those are not the people that need this stuff, you know, do you ever think about that all the time.
I think the sweet spot for me, and especially with taste and how I perceive things and how I see things with other people is the collaborative part of it. You know. I like a bit of conflict. I like conflict when it comes to design aesthetics.
I do.
That's why I married at Virgo and then I can't even talk about it.
Triple oh no, no, no, no, no no. I have a Virgo ascendant, but designer. I'm a Libra. What side do you sag?
But I love a Lee, I love us sage. We're easy.
Yeah, you're a lot of fun at parties. Darling that's the thing, Sad. I wait a minute, getting back to this thing. Do you think media is a big part of like your outreach, because I know you're like a big media star, that's a big part of what you do.
I kind of I've asually between two different worlds. You know, design television has a terrible reputation in the design industry. Everybody looks down on it, you know, it's like these frauds, like it's awful. And then design televis hates into your design industry because they're like these uptights not be unapproachable. And so what I hopefully am doing and what I have tried to do, is show like that connective tissue between both, which is the idea of translating people's stories in a really authentic way. I think it's an interesting time. You know, you can live really beautifully affordably now, which is an important moment. It's like what fashion went through, you know, fifteen years ago, and it's like, oh, wait a minute, but I don't think you have to compromise on style, Darling.
Give it a minute, Give this a minute, okay, because in about one second, they're all going to be like clamoring to have shows.
You know, I know they love a show.
Yeah, Darling. When I started making clothes for Target, I was having lunch with this client of mind, this very very rich and exclusive woman, and she was like, well that's it. I can't I can't wear your clothes anymore. I was like, oh my god. No. I was so shocked, and I was like, okay, well you know X right. And then like six months later you had car Lagerfeld doing a collection for H and M. You had Stella McCartney doing It was literally like two years later that everybody. And then this woman that worked for me called Banas Serahphore, who was becoming this her own personality, and she would being interviewed in Women's and she said, well, not all of us can have lines at Target. And I thought, oh my god, like so now I'm doing like I couldn't believe. It was like turned about three sixty and then another three sixty.
You know, can I answer you a question, because you were on that forefront of that whole movement, were you ever nervous about that? Like what made you decide to do it?
Well? You know, I wasn't on the forefront. I was the forefront. Sorry, same Darling. No, I mean it, it was like yeah, and because before me, it was like you had only examples of disaster, like you had Holston, you know, or you had like Steven Sprouse, who would do a promotion somewhere for a moment, get in and out. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't terrified because at that point I thought I wasn't going to be in business anymore anyway, So I thought like, Okay, why not try this? This is actually interesting, you know, as opposed to just doing everything that everybody else did and tried to make some kind of like success to Scandal every season, which is such bullshit. It's like, really, just because it's huge and ridiculous doesn't make it good. It has to be good, you know, it has to be just good.
And do you think you've had taste from the second you were born, like as a child, or do you think it's evolved both.
I think I was born kind of a bossy old you know bitch, you know, but and I feel like so much of it was, you know, absorbed through my childhood. It was like a rung and a rung and a rung and absorbed through my teenage and going to Europe for the first time when I was like eighteen and like freaking out, you know, and I kept going back to like Europe. I kept going back to like Paris and London and those places, and like looking at those stores with my face pressed to the window of those like auction houses like a crazy person, and those galleries. And I don't know, do you think you can teach someone to have taste?
No? I mean I don't know. Actually I should say I shouldn't say that, because, like I said, growing up no money. But my mother, I remember every time we would go somewhere, whether it was the mall, around the corner or on a hike up north, she would always ask my sister and I to look for something beautiful and to talk about it. And it was like this really interesting practice and kind of chasing beauty and how I define beauty and where I found beauty. And I will say my mother has always had exquisite taste. I mean she didn't have the money, obviously, but she had exquisite taste with everything. The way she composed things, the way she dressed herself. You know, she was always the earrings matched to this, She's always done up. You know. She was the first female police officer in California actually, and then she went into law later on. She was a tough cookie, but super elegant. And you know, it's funny because we had people in our families that had money, but my mother was always the elegant one. You could tell when she walked in her room. I think, if anything, I probably watched her embraced.
A lot of it. Is she's still with us.
Oh yeah, she's actually great. She lives in Portugal. Now she's excusing. Well, it's a long story. But we bought a farm in Portugal, and then I gave her a house on the farm, and so she retired finally. Yeah, she doesn't have to work anymore, and she's there.
Oh my god, can I have a farm?
Can I come on over?
I would love to have you around. So we talk about people and their work and their success. And I always think that failure is somehow like a big tie into that. So can you think of a failure that you came across in your life for some kind of a setback?
Oh my god, I failed all the time, and luckily I'm not nervous about it. I always say my mother has like two sides of her brain. And my sister and I are either side. I'm like the spontaneous, take any chance, any risk, and my sister's much more methodical, wildly intelligent. But everything that I have done or found myself in is in failu. I mean, when I went into fashion, I thought that that was going to be my future and that was going to be super significant and failed tremendously, and I remember leaving there thinking to myself, Jesus, what am I going to do? What is this? I'm going to take this chance with my business and go from there. And then there's was failures all the way through it, and I don't know better than anybody. It's where you learn the most and where you're confronted with the most. But my biggest realization that I had through all those failures is that I never had any regrets. You know, I'm turning forty this year.
Oh fuck you? Oh sorry? Did I say that?
Well, listen, it's the oldest I've ever been.
All right, I guess so, I guess so.
But I don't have a regret, which I think is fucking great.
Give it a minute. I'm just kidding it perfect. Oh no, I'm teasing. I'm teasing I'm teasing. That's an incredible thing to be able to admit. You know, sometimes I think people are more comfortable with failure than they are with success. I think failure is much easier to deal within success. Would you agree with that?
For whatever reason, people don't agree that they're going to get success, And I think that's the interesting dichotomy between failure and success. I have always believed that I was going to do something big and that I could get there and I would figure it out, even when I was living in a car or bouncing around with two pennies to rub together. I don't know. I've always looked forward, and I've always believed in momentum and kind of following the flow of life and seeing where it takes you and trying it all because we don't get that long to do it, so grab everything great.
So up, there's media that you do, there's this TV show and not to mention all of the work you do in the clients. But then there's your social I mean that's really important too. Does that factor into it?
It? Does? I mean, listen, I get in a lot of trouble all the time because my Instagram is like definitely a little bit more moody, and it's not as commercials. I think a lot of people would like I have like a love hate relationship with social media. Yea, you know, I think it's fascinating and that I've got nineteen year old twenty year old interns that are referencing you know, sixteenth century this and that, and it's like you can really travel the world visually now at your fingertips, which is so beautiful. But you know, for me, social media and the way that I can like wrestle with my obligations to it is it's like a stream of consciousness, and whatever I share, I wanted to just feel like it's something that I'm thinking or seeing. But yeah, I mean people are creating their entire existence on there. You know, people that aren't designers saying they're design It's just a different world.
I know, I know. Wild Do you think you ever kind of forfeit something in favor of social because a lot of times I go, Okay, I look ridiculous, I hate this, but I'm just going to post it, and then of course it's the thing that gets the most likes, you know, But do you ever do that.
All the time. I've never seen a picture of myself that I like. If I had my way, I wouldn't be on my social media at all. It would just be gorgeous images of obscure random spaces and beautiful details. But that's not going to happen right.
Now, except I got to tell you like you are gorgeous, okay, and Nate is gorgeous, So there aren't really bad pictures that you guys can take. Do you think that's a factor in your success? Do you think people just want to be around you and that's why they hire you? No?
I think I don't know about me, but my husband's great gift is that he like sees people the way they want to be seen. So when you're around him, he's fun and he's easy to love. I think when we certainly decided to do the show, the d HGTV Show, and we brought our family onto it, I was really worried about the way people are going to receive it because we were the first gay family on that network, and I think it helps it. We're digestible gay, my husband and I. You know, I'm not too queeny, I think, which drives me crazy. And what I hate about, like what's going on but people have been really good to us, and people have been really supportive, and I hate talking about myself, which is why this is.
My worst Well darling, buckle up. Okay, but here's the thing I read about how easy it is between you and Nate in terms of like the whole design thing, Like if somebody doesn't like something, it's a non starter.
Right, Yeah, Well, because I mean, I'm so jealous you don't have to like argue with your spouse about design.
No, here and there, I pretend to like something, and every time in the room with it, I go like that thing has got to go. I've got to drop something, got to burn you. Oh sorry I burned. That happened exactly. No, But I mean you do have this way that you've negotiated between the two of you in terms of stuff, right, does it ever just become like too fucking much? Like shut up? Can we talk about something else? Please? Really?
Yeah? All the time? You know, like our house, you don't move a ball without there being a conversation. It can be really fucking hardcting. But he's still my favorite person and we have such different perspectives, Like our house right now is not what it would look like if I did it on my own, Like, it's not how I would live if I lived on myself, and vice versa for him. But we found this like mutual aesthetic that works, like I see enough of myself in there. He sees enough of himself and I don't want to kill myself, you know, living there. But between working together, we did the show together. You know, we do plenty together, but we still have a good time.
Is it an open relationship asking for a friend?
No, I'm not good at sharing neither. No.
I know. Also, I think it's generational. I think like you might just be at this critical point where like maybe you don't really see the open thing is.
But a lot of people have open relationships.
I'm learning it's like, yes, I'm like, oh darling.
By the way, I'm not judging. I think it's great.
No me either, of course, not. I wish get such a good thing.
Oh no, it seems like too much work for me. I just met another friend the other day was like, yeah, we were in a thremble for a while.
I was like, what thrupple? What the hell?
Yes?
Oh no, And by the way, that that that word is in the OED. Now throuble I'm not kidding.
How do you just I'd like your part in the throttle, like just physically, Like how does it work? Like you all just have like a meeting of the minds. There's a lot of details for me that stress me.
I know exactly where there sleep, a lot of scheduling, a lot of bathroom time scheduling. Now you have to have three bathrooms.
That's just a star.
Let's talk about like your kids, but just one second, like being the kids of two esthetes, is there any way out? Like do they have any choice in this matter?
That's funny. I don't know. I mean, listen, I will tell you I never thought that we were gonna have children, and I definitely I love the way that our family loves. You know, those kids, unlike myself and even my husband, they have no obligation to us. They get to just be who they want. I don't care. As long as they're kind and they're honest. The rest is up to them. You know, our daughter is obsessed with fashion. She has always been since she was little. She'd sketch is still she'd made an outfit yesterday and showed me. You know, I noticed that a table kept getting moved a couple months ago, and I kept putting it back, and I finally said to I, go, why are you moving that table? We already talked about it, And it turns out it was our sun putting it back where it goes, because I'm so ritualistic with the way we live, you know, with the way the lights are at night and the way the candles are lit, and the morning's different than the evening that I think it's definitely had an effect on them.
Do you fear though, because when I was a kid, they warned us about materialism, like it's not about things, you know. But then if you watch like Sex and the City, right, Like she changes clothes every five minutes, right, and she does not wear the same thing. You know. When I was watching Mary Tyler We're growing up, she was Wednesday, so she would wear that red thing with the skirt and the boots, like that was her Wednesday look, right, And it recurred through the season. But in Sex and the City there is no such continuity. And so it gave birth to this kind of like culture where you get stuff, you use stuff, you sell stuff. Do you have a worry about your kids? Like in terms of the materialism in terms of like them seeing the turnaround of stuff, you know all the time.
You know, Nate and I had very different childhoods. He came from money very different than what I had, and I think we had an agreement that in our house it's not really about acquire. There's a lot more require Like, for example, if the kids want a toy or something, they have to earn it, and it's usually a week long and every time we get something, something is donated, something leaves. You have to participate in the maintenance of the house. Because the truth is, Daddy's work their asses off to get here. You're not going to get any of it. Get to work, and I want them to understand what it means to participate and to earn and to value. You know, it's hard enough in this city, and by the way, it was way harder when we lived in la You know, you go to birthday parties and there's custom Nike booths and I'm like, what is happening? Oh, But being in New York, I will say, you know, the kids are part of the world. Here it's different, but that that part of our life you have to work at because we want them to understand we work at maintaining this house. You have to maintain this house alongside, like we're all part of this rhythm and this vibration.
Who's the mean daddy? Are you the mean daddy? And is Nate the nice daddy? You can tell me I'm the consistent I'm the consistent daddy. Wow, that is a really good I guess because my husband is I guess, the consistent daddy with the dogs.
Yeah, yeah, that's me. And I used to I used to cry about it at night because I'm like, you're gonna hate me. You don't do anything, and you're just goofy. But if they fall, if something goes wrong in school, they come running to me to work through it. And the truth is I didn't have that consistency, and it was really important for me to be waiting for that.
Do you make them just keep one Christmas present and give the rest to like mean Joan Crawford Mobby.
No, but I'll tell you this. I mean, we don't buy them anything for Christmas. We get them one gift from Sanna, but the rest is like family gets them gifts. Like I'm not somebody who has like sprawling out all over the living room floor.
Christmas.
It's just not I don't like it.
And maybe you did it for the publicity, maybe just a little. I'm kidding that, all right. You know, obviously you think about young people. I think about them too, and I think about like young artists, and I think about young designers. Do you have advice for young design people?
I mean, you just get ready to work your ass off. Get a notebook. I still think a notebook is like the sexiest thing I've ever seen when like, I want somebody to write something down when you're in there rown. Nothing drives me just sweet.
Duck or just sweet Duck corp. I love a handwritten.
That's it, like, just write it down a notebook. I hand them out to everybody here.
Listen.
It's an interesting time. You have to be really responsible for the digital footprint that you're putting into the world and how you're participating in this digital landscape. But because of that, we've seen people are able to create businesses in an industry that used to be something that was so hard to crack into. I mean, when I started my firm, Nate was this big designer and I was like bank borrowing and stealing to try to get clients and it just was a repetition, repetition, repetition. But I think more than ever, people just have to prepare to work really hard.
Is there competition between you guys for real?
No. The fact that I was able to meet him when I did, which is I just started my firm. He was, you know, big and famous and just wrapped his talk show. He always treated me like an equal with not only with the way I created, but the way I saw things, with the way we worked together. He never treated me like anything other than an equal. And I think because of that, there's just a tremendous amount of respect. We've never been competitive with each other that I know of.
And perhaps it's not that he treated you like an equal. It's perhaps because you are an you know what I mean. It's not that it's not him anything particularly. Yeah, I mean, you're a very good designer. You're a good designer, all right. So now I do this every time. I do this, every single time, I ask people about their obituaries because it is the thing that I am most obsessed with in the world is my own obituary. Like literally every single day, every day, I go to the Times and I open it up and I go straight to the listings, and it's not going to do for me.
What would your obituary say?
Oh? I don't know. You know. The thing I'm so scared is that I'm going to drop dead tomorrow and it's going to be like only about fashion, because I don't want it to be about fashion. I want it to be about like the entertainment business.
Is it weird that I wouldn't want an obituary at all?
I don't know. What would you want? Like a rock, like a steak in the ground? What would you want? Tell me what you want? Really, you don't want like anybody to know anything about Jeremiah Brent.
No, No, I mean I want to answer your question, but I'm like, I don't know if I really wanted one.
Well, if there wasn't one and they came across the name Jeremiah Brent, they might think you were like, you know, some kind of like tree feller, like a lumberjack Dremiah brimmed, you know, like it does not sound it is. It's extremely butch butch butch, yes, which is how I describe Is it like a grinder? Are you like a butch top? I'm so so exciting.
It depends on my mood. I think. I think, uh, I'm so glad by the way that I missed the whole grinder era. That was not I know. Oh I would have been so bad, I thought.
But you never went on. You never went on the phone thing where you beeped to the next caller. You never did that, because that was my generation. I love the phone thing. Okay, go on.
I was convinced that everybody was going to give me an STD, so I was not made for any of that.
I was.
It's my worst nightmare.
Okay, all right, some hormones didn't rage hard enough for you to like risk maybe getting the tiniest little STD. No.
No, I remember there's one person that I met on Facebook and I ended up dating him, but I remember like feeling so scandalous and like putting him through like the most rigorous fashionaire right before we hooked up, and he's like, what is happening? But yeah, I was not meant for it. I wasn't a good single.
Oh wow, I love this.
This is fantastic. My obituary is going to be that I'm a big butch lumberjack who loved hard and created beautifully. I guess like that's it.
That's a good thing. That's a good answer. It's a really good answer. And by the way, in the hands of a really good obituarist or something, they'll do plenty with that. Darling. What do you want to promote on this podcast?
My book, which is out today February twentieth. I've been working on it for two and a half years and it's been a real labor of love. I remember when I went to the publishers, multiple publishers, saying I wanted to write a design book, not about design. Everybody looked at me like I had lost my mind. But I did it, and I'm really proud of it, and it's nice to talk about it and not feel like I'm selling something but sharing it. It's like this collection of ten different people who've never left their home. They've stayed there the whole time, and it's like a collection of love letters. So I'm excited to.
Share with it. I love it. I love it, and there are a certain store I love more than other stories, obviously, But what gave you that idea?
We moved ten times in ten years, Nate and I and I was like, what the fuck is wrong with us? Like why can't we stay anywhere? And I used to fantasize about people who've lived in the same home, like I'll never forget walking into Tony Goodman's house for the first time and you can see every dinner party, every story, every scratch on the base board, and what it represented that like for me, is like the sexiest thing in the world is a home that holds all those echoes. And I wanted it.
And that was honey, move Darling. She moved.
I know I was there her last night last night before she left.
So did Wendy. I mean Wendy was like I had it in her place too. I don't know what went on with.
Those sisters this year at the same time.
Yeah, it was some kind of crazy planetary movement in their chart or something.
I think it's good for theological drug me too.
I think it's incredibly good for people to make changes. Of course, like I am never leaving my apartment twelve.
I was just going to say, how long have you been there?
Well, I had a one bedroom there since like the late eighties, I would say since the late eighties of the early nineties, and then I got the studio down the hall, which I worked in for a little was like my private office, and then I got the two bedroom in between. Then I just put them all together. So I've been there for like like over thirty some years. It's crazy since the nineties. Yeah, next book, I mean, granted it's not on the Grand Canal in Venice like that incredible story in your book, which.
Is just it was important for me too though in that book it's like non exclusionary with I didn't want it to be a book of rich white people. You know. It's like Dora, who lives in Sicily, her home was like one of my favorite bass I've ever seen, with the pressed doilies and the polished you know what I mean. It's like it's nice to see home through different people's eyes.
Yes. So your book is called The Space that Keeps You, The Space that keeps You Right. It's a great title. It's a great book. Everybody needs to get it. That's it. I love you, Thank you, Jermiah the best.
I can't see you what you cant Yeah, probably the weird black gnome in the.
Corner, ah right, looking completely different.
Yeah this week I don't know, Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much.
Thank you. One thing that I was so happy to learn about Jeremiah Brent is how kind of skeptical he is, right, Like, I don't know why, but I think of him as this incredibly bountiful, adorable, gorgeous looking easy person. But then when you talk to him about things, he seems to be a little bit like the rest of the entire world, a little hesitant, a little skeptical, right, Like, for instance, he was talking about his kids and the way he gives them one Christmas present and they have to earn things, and I just love that. I think that, you know, it restores a kind of hope that I have for the future. And I mean that, you know, I always wanted to ask him about his kids, and so I was really really happy to talk about that on today's episode. And I'm really happy that you got a chance to hear all that, and I thank you, darlings. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff. Go on and rate and review the show on Apple podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second, so go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast and by the way, check me out on Instagram and TikTok at. I Am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac, Missrahi, thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by Me Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti vis Executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazerkarral Welker, and Nathan Cloke At Imagined Audio, production management from Katie Hodges, Sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Wiltzer. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak at I AM Entertainment
