On 30 years on-air and the secret weapon of being underestimated.
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So I am recently engaged. I did not announce my engagement. It did not feel appropriate to announce my engagement. I went through a nine year divorce to me nine years to get divorced. It was an unpleasant situation. It was completely analyzed and I sected by the media. It is their job, it is their right. I couldn't get off the ride. I wanted everyone to stop talking about it, but because it didn't end, it would keep resurfacing. And it was just pretty much a nightmare. I mean everything about it. The actuality of it was a nightmare. But then living in the media was a nightmare. And in many ways I brought this on to myself. I am a public person. I asked to be a public person. I worked to be a public person. I use the media and being a public person to my advantage when I want to promote something, sell something, launch something, do something, do relief work, and help people. The media is an incredible tool when used wisely. It is an incredible beast when used for its sheer force and power. I mean, people are elected president as a result of the media. People become billionaires as a result of the media. I mean, undeniably, Donald Trump was the president because of the media, because of the reality show he was producing in his campaign. Undeniably, the Kardashians or billionaires because of the media. Undeniably. The media, which television is a form of media, promoted my cocktail and landed me on the cover of Forbes magazine and Entrepreneur magazine and with my own show and all the amazing things that have happened to me. So the media is the ocean. When you ride the wave and there are many waves coming in good you catch that wave, it feels so good, more coming, etcetera. But I always know when I'm in the ocean that there will be a set coming that will pummel you, that you will get pulled under. You will feel like you can't get to the surface, you will lose your breath, you will not be able to breathe. It will feel really bad and you will feel helpless and you will struggle. And that's what the media is like to You can't just take the rose and take the petals and not the thorns. So in my career, I've known that things can't go great, and I always think and duringda and I talk about the wolves at the end of the bed when it's getting too good, I always feel like the wolves are at the end of the bed. Something's going to happen. I'm not willing it to happen, but it always just feels like anything too good to be true is So you have to calm down. You can't drink your own cool aid. You have to go away. You have to get quiet. You can't always be shoving your own success and everything you're doing up everyone's ass. You have to go quiet. So relationships are an interesting business when it comes to the media. Here's how it goes. Boy meet girl, or girl meets girl, or boy meets boy and is so excited about it, so excited that she needs to tell everybody about it. She needs to show pictures Corney Kardashian and and her her boyfriend. Now you can't help it. You're in such love. You need to post every thumb sucking, every ink, tatting, every present, every flower, everything going on. It's intoxicating. It's also let me show everybody else how great my life is the entire basis of social media. So I'm so happy, I'm so lucky. We're having so much sex. It's so romantic. They love me so much. Look how great my life is, and it's not that unlike the filtering of the faces and the showing the money and all of the stuff that we have, because it makes other people feel bad. So in my life I have had public relationships and people have thought that I have been in a fairy tale. And I even had a show called Bethany Getting Married and Bethany ever After. And when things were going good, everybody really, you know, it was on board and they thought I had found my fairy tale and they root for me, and you know, I've had a hard childhood, so this is her happy ending and it's really nice and it's really supportive. And that's not only the media. That's also people fans. They're connecting to it. They want to know the details. They've listened to you drone on about your Margarita's, they've watched you on your show, they've supported you, don't They deserve to know what's going on in your love life. And I understand all of that. So you tell them and everything's good. Then the problem is a lot of celebrities don't tell them when it gets bad, so you just hide it. One day, we're all blindsided because they've gotten divorced. It's obviously their own business. They don't have to tell us everything. But we were invested. We bought into this. The media showed the pictures of the roses and how great the relationship is and the wedding and the planning of the wedding and the ring and all of that. So it's like, now we're all invested, and then once it doesn't work out, the media wants to know everything and wants to spill all the tea and all the problems that were happening. There's a whole cycle, and it's very unsettling, and I've been through it, and I know many people who have issues in their relationships, but the media is not showing it, and these people are scared of everyone to know the real truth. So the whole thing I'm talking about is that I got engaged and I didn't announce it because announcing it is like showing the ring and showing how dressed up you were and showing all the romance and what the person did. And I know that people want to be part of that, and I know that that's like, so you want to know what's the ring like and what happened and how did how did he do it? But I think it also makes people feel bad about themselves. Sometimes I feel like it makes people feel like, why not me? I mean, I know I was alone and I was in a challenging relationship during the royal wedding of Megan and Harry, and I remember that morning like feeling like she was in a fairy tale and it just all looks so pure and so happy and so young, not because it was royal, just because they were getting married and we were just watching that purity. And I remember going through major challenges in a relationship that I was in and feeling sort of bad about it. Also, it's private, and while people have invested in me and you want to share your private information, the media wants everyone to share everything in their relationship and then make it such a high and how unbelievable this all is. But when things don't go great or something goes wrong, the same media trashes it two bits. So it's like they invite you into this enticing den of showing all the details and how amazing it is and what a fantasy and fairy tale it is, but then are the first ones to want to show how dreadful it is and how bad it is and what all your real secrets are. So I find it all to be a little bit unsettling, a little bit scary. I have chosen overall in my life to try to be as private as possible while being a public person, because one of the misconceptions about me is that I am not private because I've been on reality TV. I am intensely private, fiercely private. It's why I have such a small staff, That's why I have such a small infrastructure. I really do not trust many people. I just do not. It's a mistake that you may trust too many people. So that's sort of the double edged sword of the media and relationships and putting it all out there. But people are addicted to the ride. They love the high, and if the high outweighs the low, then go for it. Mention it all. What do you all think when people are very public about how incredible they're romantic, beautiful, lavish, sexual, perfect relationships are. Does it make you feel a hopeful does it make you feel be invested because you deserve to know all the details, or does it make you feel see a little bad because why isn't it happening to you? Or is it d a combination of all and after you watch this fairy tale being built and explained to you and shown to you, when the fairy tale crashes and burns, does that all make you feel badly for the people be entitled to be part of it or see a little better because it was shown as too perfect, And it makes you feel a little better that it's not all it was cracked up to be because it was so flaunted. My guest today is my good friend Kelly rippa actress, dancer, talk show host, and television producer. She is a silent dissaster. She is a powerhouse. She started out on a soap opera, All My Children. She has been the co host of the morning show Live with Kelly and Ryan in various formats since two thousand one, and today we talked about how being underestimated can actually benefit you, the value of making ballsy decisions, why time is definitely more important than money, and the importance of instilling a strong work ethic in your kids. Her energy is so infectious and I think you're really going to love my conversation with her. This is the longest I speak to anyone on this podcast, and it could have gone on forever, So that's always a great sign. She just was revealing, and it's very different than when she's doing a talk show where it's sort of like, we gotta talk about this and then we gotta do this. Hi, Hi, how are you? I'm great? How are you doing? Who's your dog? Is? Lena? I? Every time we do an adoption segment on our show, I wind up with a dog. How my old hound is somewhere around here, which is obsessed with you. She's like laying and you're like, you're like gave birth to her. She is very different than my other adopted dog. She is on me at all times, and the other one is has never been like that. Ever, that will be nice when youre an empty nest. By the way, this dog is the greatest. This dog came from a hoarder house, you know, where they were hoarding animals. Dolman adopted the brother to this dog, but I got the best one. That's so beautiful. So can you tell me about your relationship in your house, like your siblings and your parents and what the dynamic if you could describe it. It was a really interesting household growing up. Initially we lived with my grandparents, My parents my sister and me and my great grandmother all in one house. The house that my grandfather built in Jersey. Yeah, in New Jerry in South Jersey, near Philadelphia, and he was a realtor. My grandmother was um a businesswoman. She graduated high school when she was fifteen years old. She went to college. Wow, back in a day when women did not do that. She was really a brilliant woman and artist. There's a lot of artists in my family. I'm not one of them. I'm the one that did not get that gene. Everybody else is either a sculptor, a painter, graphic artist. I'm not. I'm none of that. I have no skills. My great grandmother passed away first, but then in rapid succession, I lost all of my grandparents, like back to back to back to back. My grandmother. Yeah, it was really, it was actually quite it's quite sad, and it's been very gratifying knock on wood that to watch my children's relationship with their grandparents, because they still have all of their grandparents, thank god, and I never had like that to me was just like a theoretical It was theoretical that you had grandparents and that you grew up with grandparents, even though we lived in the same house. They were by the time I was eight, they were all gone. So there's a void. Yeah, boyd I didn't even understand the power of grandparents. And your kids lives like my kids lives. They are confidants and their grandparents are you know, they're like the cool parents, no responsibility, no real responsibility, all good and no negative parents. But for many years, this is what's really interesting. I think that the dynamic between my parents and me and my in laws and me are so different that for years my kids thought that Mark's parents were my parents. Oh my god. Really, yes, so you're all that close. The whole family is that close. It's all interconnected. Yeah, we're very interconnected. But it's a very interesting if you listen to my kids back when they were little. Now they understand things, but when they were young, they really thought that Mark's parents were my parents, and that somehow Mark's parents were also his parents. But they could not they could not understand who my parents were. They thought that my parents were their cousins parents. Like they weren't connecting it. It was like they were alien, alien parents. They just didn't connect to this group. Yes, they did not, and I realized. I think it's because there is a dynamic in our household. My mother and I are very close, but in a lot of ways, I've been like the grown up. My mom is the fun young parents. My kids like still don't even associate her with being a grandparent most people. She just seems very young. She's got a very young spirit. She always seemed young, whereas my father and I are very much like we were born eighties. So now that my dad is eighty two, he seems like age appropriate. When he was forty, he seemed like he was eighty and got it. I think I'm that way. I have that she who instilled the success the work ethic. I mean, but you have to have some sort of person that you look to for this guidance or you don't. I mean I didn't, But I'm just wondering, was there somebody in your house and nobody was at motivated by money or success or work ethic or accomplishments. So my dad was a bus driver for New Jersey Transit for thirty years, then he became president of the labor union. Then he retired for two weeks and then went into public service. So now he's a county clerk. He was a county freeholder before then of Camden County. And so middle class. Your house was, yeah, middle middle class. And Marie Mark also so Mark's parents are you know he Mark? There an immigrant family. Mark moved here when he was in grade school from from Italy to America. His father's Mexican, his mother is Italian, and his father became an American citizen through the Navy, and then he became a civil servant working for the government. He was in Special Operations Command. There's no there are no actors. There are no like performers are parents. I think we're both thought that maybe there was something wrong with us. You know, when I moved to New York and was like, I'm going to move to New York and I'm going to see if I can get a job. You know, I didn't think I would get a job acting, but I thought I would get a job somehow in production. And again I had no idea really how this would happen for me. I was working for a talent manager. I was really more or less delivering headshots of actual actors, which is how things happened for me. Well, did you think you had it though, did you inside think I have something? There's something that drew you to the light and thought that I have something, And one foot had to walk in front of another, and otherwise you would have just taken a normal job because you would have known you would have upward mobility. It's a very difficult road you were on. I think I took every opportunity. I did not discriminate. So most actors would not take a job working at the toy fair, but I did because I was like, this is great money and this will buy me enough time. Because my parents were like, look, you can have a summer, but then you're gonna have to like enrolling community college or work for New Jersey trans So so you didn't go to college. Oh you said, I'm leaving. That's also very you know, that's very intentional. What was your relationship to money? Kelly and I, for everybody listening, know each other. We've definitely known each other for years, and we have this sort of secret pen pal relationship that's late at night sometimes and it just will go into these long texts. We're going to take it to the next level. This is the year we take it. I agree. I feel like I have so much to say to you, Like I want to say things to you I don't know, like I know things to be true, and then I read them and then I'm like, maybe it's not true because I don't believe anything I read anymore. But I just want to congratulate you because I'm so happy for well, thank you even and you knew. I told you immediately, I know, But then when I read it, I assumed that it wasn't Well, I was like, it's it's in a tabloid, so it's not true. So even though I know it's true, maybe it's not true. Well, so when I say these things about like if I ask Kelly, but I believe it she has a little bit of money noise because I recognize it, and noise is a good thing that Kelly could totally understand. But she's very honest about noise. So we know each other just from our own little world life. So yeah, from life. So my question to you is I feel that you have some money noise about either because you come from that humble beginning and you've made it and it's weird to have a good relationship with money because it's it going away or what am I supposed to be doing so, and you work so hard and you continue to work hard. Will also get into but what was and became and is your relationship with money. So money for me was always like top of mind. I watched my parents work very, very very hard to have not very much of it. Both of my parents are extraordinarily generous, and they literally would give you their last dollar and the shirt off of their backs. And that's how they have always been. They are altruistic, they are philanthropic, and they put themselves last. But having said that, I was very acutely aware that I was going to need to get something cracking in my life. That there was no trust fund and there were no cushions saying that was not a thing like there was no like, oh, you graduated high school, here's the money we've been saving. By the way, parents, it's good for you to know, because it's hard for people to raise kids when they have money. And so that's some of the benefit of raising kids when you don't have because it stealing. This is harder when you have not that No one's crying for us. I'm just saying that you and I have that in common, not having that safety and it makes you work that much. Our market and I were raised the same way. We always had jobs. We always had jobs. Say so, our kids have always had jobs. And having said that, I'm not going to name names, but some of my kids are more willing to have jobs. And some of my kids have acted as though they've been punished for something instead of understanding that learning to do things for yourself is the way to go and not sitting around waiting hopefully to cash in. You know, hopefully my parents leave me something. That's really not the way to work, right, It's not how our lives got me. It's very hard to instill that because they still know that they're not going to starve, and we did not know that, you know what I mean. It's been scary for me, and it's been scary for you. So I get that. So do you ever feel that the emperor has no clothes? Do you feel that you deserve to be where you are, that you've worked hard, that you have had some luck. And I want to discuss luck and work and what you believe, but do you feel that you really deserve this? Like you've earned this and this is from was yours because you made it yours. I have earned everything I have. Nobody handed me anything, and I fought really hard for everything I had, even like the little things, even the basic things that most people just get. Doesn't that feel great though? It does? No, No, it does. You find out what you're made of, you know, when you get into the public space. And one of the reasons I think acting was easier was because when you get to play a character, if people don't like you, they don't like the character, you know, But when you're yourself and people don't like you, they don't like you. And a lot of times they don't like you for reasons that may feel squishy or uncomfortable for them, because it's like I don't make choices, and I don't do things based on solely what's good for me. I do things based on what I think is good for like every woman, I work with what's good for my daughter, what's good for her daughter in the future, like what's good for the group. Because a lot of times there's a difference still in this day and age, the way women and men are judged, treated, compensated, and the battles that we have to fight. You know, what are we fighting for? And you think about that a lot. I know that you do. And what's crazy and maybe to my detriment, I, for some reason, have never thought that much about that. I grew up at the race track, which is all men, and I was a hot walker, and I entered into the liquor business. Never once, and I swear on everything, thinking about the fact that was a male business. I never thought about it. That has never occurred to me. And I don't know if I am a man and people say that. I mean, I had somebody say to me, you're basically a man. I don't know what that means. I mean, that's probably not the most feminist thing to say, but no, I think it's because we have balls. We have balls, we make balls the decisions. We put our balls on the table. But I don't know if you're allowed to say that you put your tips on the table now, I mean, we're not allowed to say anything. But yeah, I don't have any tips to lay down my balls. I laid it down, and it's not always popular when I laid me down, but they've got it. Sometimes they have to go down on the table and it can be very I always say, like, I married the only man I know that could possibly be married to me. Oh, I can imagine now, Like, as I'm even speaking to you, I'm realizing how strong you are. Like do you feel that people underestimate you because you're cute and perky, and then all of a sudden they're like, whoa this fucking bitch? Could you know can hold her own? Do you think that happens and you've been underestimated. It's been a great benefit to me that I've always been underestimated. People have never seen me coming. And that's part of is deliberate. Part of it is like, that's okay. You can say and think and do what you want, and I'll be over here making actually very thoughtful, calculated decisions. And on the other hand, so much of my career has been a complete accident. But when it comes to an accident and turning an accident into a deliberate course of action, those are two happy A happy accident even, and then maximizing on it, and then saying, this opportunity only comes along once in a lifetime. I don't know that this will ever happen for me again. I'm gonna work my hardest to carve out to get I always say, to get something cooking for myself. I'm gonna get something cooking. And my daughter always hates when I say that. She's like, why are you asking me? Because I always say did you get anything cooking today? And she's like, you sound like you're from the eighteen hundreds because she does not understand that I'm actually from the nineteen hundreds. She died to her. It's like she does not understand, like, get something cooking, get it, get it cooking. That's always get some pieces on the board. But Suzanne Summers was like that, she was underestimated, she was seen as the ditzy blonde, and she liked that they didn't see her coming. I don't think that that's the case with me, So maybe that's one of my problems. But given that, and you're on, you know, you're in a conservative space in many ways. I mean, you're on you know ABC, you have to follow certain rules, you have to play the game, and there is a corporate element to that. I don't know if i'd be good at that. And do you think that you're polarizing? I think so. I mean I don't think you can work in any field and entertainment and not be polarizing. I mean, It's one thing I learned right away. And again, I'm taking the acting off the table because I started out as an actor, right that's off the table. I'm talking about being yourself, which very few people actually are. I am myself. You may not like it, it may not be for you, but here's the good news. It's always the same. It's not like, oh, lights on, here we go. You're gonna get what you're gonna get, whether you bump into me at a restaurant or whether you're watching me on the show. Do I say everything I'm thinking? No, of course I don't, because, like you said, I'm walking a fine line. It's a corporate space. There are certain rules I have to follow. But on the opposite side of the spectrum, I will say that all of the people I've worked with and have worked with, I've been working for the same company for thirty years. So I want to but I've never left ABC. I worked at ABC before Disney bought ABC. It was since I learned my A at ABC. And so you know, the relationships I've had, I've had for a very long time. Three decades is a long time in any Job's admirable and well, I don't know, I don't know if it's admirable or if it's just a sign of me just being extraordinarily good at walking a corporate line. That's admirable, That is very admirable. I have to say, it's just and to maintain relationships for decades is that as admirable I have. There's no way, There's no other way around it. Have you ever been afraid that you didn't have job security every day? No? Really, you've really been that, and you still feel like that. You know you've been so I didn't even realize it was so long, and you're definitely still at the top of your career. So how do you know when to hold a moment to fold them? How do you how do you think about that? I've been saying that it's time to fold it for at least twenty years, Like for twenty years. I'm like, I can't do it anymore. I can't do it. I'm too old for this crap. I can't do it. I need to find another career. I need to get off camera. I've been saying that. I mean, as you know, I've been saying that forever, like forever. Being in front of the camera is not something I've ever enjoyed. I'm not very comfortable that. I always say, like I could do my job for two hundred years if it didn't happen on camera. I don't know, are you self conscious about the way you look or it's not that, it's that you don't want the attention on you all of that. I don't like the attention. I don't like I don't go to parties. I don't go to Hollywood have beends. I don't do any of that stuff. Like you and I have had this discussion. I would rather buy the blows and have to ask to borrow something, borrow any By the way, my entire show, the big shot is my own wardrobe. I want to buy it. I don't want to give it back. I don't like to borrow. I don't want to owe anybody. But more importantly, I want it. If I want it, it's mine. I'll buy it. I wanted, I write, I don't think painful like no. But it's like there are times where you know, for my show, say we've had to borrow things, like it's part of the deal, right, And I'm always like, no, no, no no, I'll buy it. I'll buy it later because where you're just like no, but I like that. Now we're in a relationship me and this item. Yeah, I know, it's very funny, the same thing with you as events and things like that. But I used to do all that stuff because I wanted to be something and get somewhere and be successful. But then you get there and you realize that the people in front of the camera don't have the power and the control because you're basically like a person who has to do the massage every day to make that living, and then you have to do the next massage. The person who hires twenty people to do the massages for them and while they're sitting home meeting bond bonds, that's the person who's really in control. Dang, dang, exactly, you know you're still We're still the puppet. You're still you know you're not the I mean, listen, you have a lot of power and control, as have I in my little microcosm, and no one's complaining. But I'm saying for people to listen, the person who has to be there, you have to get up and do it and put the makeup on and be the puppet sometimes and say the thing and the integration and do your job. It's a job. It's a job. It's a job like every other job. I mean, it's definitely a better paying job. But having said that, for women, it is a much harder road to get that big payday. It was not something like, oh, I got a job and they paid me a ton of money. It was like, I got a job thirty years ago, and little by little, incrementally I worked harder and harder and longer hours. And then I sort of left the acting space. For a while, I was doing both and it just it proved like too difficult to raise my children. I didn't have these kids to like have them raised by other people. I wanted to be present in their lives. And so, you know, little by little I was able to shift over into just doing the talk show. But you created value and for people at home, you gotta know when you are valuable and when you're not. And many people want to go in and ask for a raise at the wrong time. And I've been on Housewives from making seven thousand fifty dollars the first year, two seasons where I know that they need me. Those seasons you got to know the temperature, the and those are the times that I've asked for raises, and then when I have another show coming or there's so many people coming in, or there are many housewive shows, I sit tight. You gotta went to hold and went to fold them. You cannot pick every battle, and you gotta sit back and wait your turn and create value. And it's Kelly has created value. You don't always, you know, raise your hand every day for something I do not know. I'm the opposite of that. I mean, the biggest pay days I've gotten were there were two times in my life I was leaving the show and it wasn't like a muscle thing. I wasn't flexing. It was like, I'm leaving the show at the end of my contract just because at the time I was like, I think fifteen years is enough, frankly, and then something happened. People weren't thinking. People at the corporate level, we're not actually remembering certain conversations, certain timelines, and literally had no choice but to pay me what I was worth because they had screwed. They screwed up. That's not only leverage, but it's also you never given ultimatum because I've seen this too in negotiating, and this doesn't have to be obviously about TV that's not relatable to people listening. But you never given ultimatum. And I've seen it happened too. I've seen it happen on Housewives. Whenever I've been leaving. I've been leaving and then I've actually left twice like it's not a bluff, not bluff and other times, and you always have to be willing to back it up because you never anything can happen in a courtroom. Okay, but I've seen women who don't start filming and they think they have this value because it's an internal perceived value. They don't start filming, and then the show started without them because Bravo has always been stronger and was willing to call call their bluff. And then they have to crawl back and get paid much less than they would have anyway because now they have no power. And then two seasons later, Bravo is still going to remember that that person needed this job, and they'll always remember that. So the way you are in your real estate negotiations, if you're buying a house, and anything you do, people know, and you've got to get a reputation that you mean what you say, and you say what you. That is a very good point you make, and I have to say that that applies to every business and people don't realize that that is. That's the thing, like you cannot just wander around threatening people. It means nothing. You cannot just constantly be asking for something if there's no value there. Again, it's not that you and I are so unique. It's just that we know to strike when our iron is extremely hot, and we know not to double triple dip from the same thing all the time. It's like, this is that their marketing. You play chess, You're not playing checkers. You're sitting thinking about four moves. Now. You may have to make a different move because someone pulls a move on you, but you're thinking somehow you have some roadmap. If you have to run out of gas, you get gas somewhere else, but you think that you have the roadmap on your head. It's the thing I have been very you know, you have had to work in a space where people are it's so funny because you're you're so yourself. But I always feel like you in a lot of ways have been working over the years with certain people that are anything but themselves. It's like it's like you've been working with Like you're like, wait, why are you act? Wit? It's not a scene. This is life. This is life right now, right. And there have been times where I'm like that, like wait, why are you doing that? Why are you We're not acting, this is not a scene. What's happening right, What is happening right now? And so that's the thing is that it's really knowing the fair market value of yourself. I have never gone into a negotiation and asked for anything that was not the fair market value of me. And sometimes I have gone in and asked for things that are not money. Same you know, I've negotiated her time. Amazing that there are things that are to me more valuable. Now, what a great I'm so glad you said that. That's such a good you just that's a chapter on one in my book, Bethhany. It's not about the money. It's not always about the mone One time I wanted to know that I could carve out a future business competition show. I wanted to know that I could ever do Shark Tank when I was going back to Bravo. So doing Shark Tank was good street cred for me, and I had the mind thought that one day they'll ask me to do that. I don't like to be shackled and locked So I left the very big, high seven figure contract recently with my partners at MGM and Mark Burnett because I had a good relationship with them. But I didn't want to be locked up. I didn't want to be have no freedom in my podcast. I didn't want to not be able to do something to date other people business wise, and I was taking a shot. I don't know that I'll make that money back, but I didn't want to feel shackled. So that's not about money. I left money. I've left money to make things happen in the future. I left the housewives with no safety net monetarily that would be equal. So you're talking about time with your kids, time with your family, car vouts, you're talking about your life, right, correct? Yeah? I mean that to me was the thing. It was that you know, and again, I hate to make this like a woman man thing, but it's something that women are often asked to like sort of like, well, you can have this money or you can have the time off. You cannot have both. It's like I'll take the time off every time, but I've never seen that leveraged for a man that way. I've never I mean, I've worked with my husband, so I have, like, i have experience with what I'm talking about, and I've seen how things that are handed to him, say, I have to fight for one or the other. Interesting and time, by the way I talk about time a lup, how valuable? Were the same age? Were literally the same age as that? And when the times start to be so important to you when you work on a soap opera, which is how I started out, where I met my husband, where I had my first you know, two kids. I was working fourteen hours a day on a good day, and you realize that if I don't bring my kids to this dank studio, I'm not going to see my kids today awake. That's not the life I had envisioned for myself. I'm a hard worker, but at a certain point, I don't want to give up everything just to work all the time. It's moving so fast, it's hard to stop the rocket ship it's soaring, but your kids are not going to stop time. So it's that's a very challenging thing. Okay, So what you know, it feels like you work so hard, and you execute your goals. And sometimes I think like you're just very happy with where you are in your life. I don't think you sort of set these crazy things that you don't have, that you don't have that care. And I mean this in a good way. I don't really have it either. People think I have all these big goals. I'm gonna be a billionaire. I'm hungry. I just execute my goals. Do you have that? Do you have goals that you haven't achieved? General things like I want to do that, I want to be do on that, I want to talk on a show where I don't I can be as free as I want, curse or do any kind of goals like that that you haven't really achieved. You know, I really do want to continue. I've been writing a lot. I'm more in the writing in the scripted series space like that is my ultimate dream. That's what I've always dreamed about. I think that I have this. Part of it is because what I do is very light and effort best and and I am. I mean, you've read my text messages. I don't have very organized thought process. No, but you're very passionate about issues, So that's you're very passionate about issues more than I am. You're very passionate about women's issues about politically, You're passionate about what you care about. And sometimes you might have having a popular opinion and you can't always express it in your form. Well that is that is true. I mean a lot of times my opinion isn't popular, but I stand by it and I'm steadfast, and nobody, nobody can ever say, oh, I did not see that coming, because I am an open book, and if you don't read me fast enough, I will help you. I'll turn the pages for you. I'll highlight things that you should be mindful of. You know. But I don't love being on camera. It's never been sort of something that fed me in any sort of like egotistical way. I find my own voice grading, and so I apologize to your listeners if they're like, this is like nails on the chalkboard, I apologize for that. I feel you. I've had to listen to myself. I don't think your voice is grading at all. I really don't. I have a very shrill voice that people here in the supermarket when they can't even see my face. That's what Paul says, He's like, they can hear you. They know it's you because your fucking voice. That's good though, that means that people know your voice. People people hear me, and children just come running. But I just sound like everybody's irritating mom. They're like, some mom is calling me. But you described writing, which is creative, and your career started in creativity, so you have more desire creatively than you do business wise, Like brand wise and business wise, I understand brands. I understand branding. I know the power of that, and I get it. But I'm not the organized like you have to have a hyper organized brain for that. That's what I'm saying, Like you have. You are an expert in time management. I need a person. I always say, like, I need an adult manny at all times to drag me through my day or I am lost in time and space and you are a machine that way, right, whereas I am more in the My head is always in a script I'm writing somewhere. Oh that's amazing, Okay, yeah, No, mine is in logistics and execution and idea and checking boxes. I'm like, it's like the beautiful mind, the wall of the beautiful mind. If you and I lived in one body. We would be the president of the United States beyond and potentially of the world if they had a president of the We really have yin and yang. This isn't the longest I've done, but this is the most I've wanted. Like I've been like trying to catch it because I want to have more. But I've finally gone it down to just this. So your business partners with your life partner in ways. You have projects together, which to me sounds tricky and scary, but but you have a definitely have a formula that I don't know which one of you is the peacock in the relationship. I really don't um. It could be a secret. I'm not sure. Like it seems like it would be you, but I don't know, um. And it seems like Mark is very definitely Mark. Okay, So he's the peacock. Mark is the you and me in one person because he is an expert in time management. When I met him, he was good at complex math in his head okay, And I said to him, I've never met an actor who is good at math before. You're the only one I've ever met. And he said to me, I'm a terrible actor, and I fell in love with him because I just was like, this guy is smart, he's funny, he's hot, he knows what's going on. I've met him, and he has an intimidation factor. He's serious, he's strategic and like he has a do you she wouldn't want to funk with him type of thing, which is can feel. I can feel people because I grew up in a very abusive household, so I can just like feel something. But he's the type of person who's super charmed, like people like him, and he's good looking and he's got but you could tell like I would not want to mess with him. I can't explain. It seems like protective and just like he's not sucking around. Let me give you a story. We were out to dinner. It was a large group of friends. Um, I can't I think it was Bruce Bozzi's birthday. Okay, Lucy Lou was there, who's a great girl. And I saw a man walk by and clock her. But that we were sitting in the window and I see this man clearly he um sees her and like dials her in. Now, this was a post nine eleven, like maybe a year or two after nine eleven. He was carrying a backpack. And do you remember pre pandemic when backpacks were very alarming. When we would see people carrying backpacks, we had alarmed by that. Okay, now we just assume everything is has face masks and hand sanitizer in it, but back then it was right. And so this man came into the restaurant and he took his backpack and sort of dropped it under the table. So right away it was like, wait, what's happening. And he sits down next to her, and he like is trying to make a move on her, and I don't know where he came from. We both say it, like both Lucy and myself. Mark was seated at the other end of the table having his own separate conversation. But because he is that guy that you just described, like ninja, he came out of nowhere and grabbed the guy by the back of his neck and lifted him and his backpack away from the table and threw him out the front door of the restaurant. She goes, he unfurled his back like a cobra. It was like a cobra, Like he just came out of nowhere and just that's who he is. It's like, do not do not with these ladies. I will take you out. He's on the stick. I call that on the stick. Paul is very like alert night. That's very attractive in a man. So how many years have you been married? Years? I just want to know what is the I hate to say key to success, but I just want to know some with You know, here's the thing. I think that in in a relationship, at least in my relationship, there's been a lot of we that we both sacrificed a lot. There have been times where he has not because I've asked him, but he has passed on opportunities just because he didn't want to go to China for eight months, you know what I mean? He was like, I don't feel good about leaving you and the kids for that long. Having said that, he's been living in Vancouver for four years. We used to go back and forth before this past year, and did that feel like a sacrifice for you because your career is so grounded and is this sort of his turn because your career has probably driven and been the where the fish are in the relationship for all this time, I must be challenging hasn't your career been like the grounding, Like this is the one constantly he has a different career. The one constant was the job because it allowed us and we made this very deliberate choice. We made a very very deliberate choice. It was like, am I going to do this job or not? I wasn't really sure about it. Honestly, I was not sure about taking this talk show job. I wasn't sure if it was going to be for me. I didn't feel like I fit in there. I didn't feel like it was a place for me. I didn't feel like I had a relationship there. But what we did like about it was that it allowed him freedom in his career to sort of be choosy, and it allowed me to raise my kids with a consistent schedule that was planned five years in advance. Structure, structure, the safety of it all. And they've gone to one school all of their lives. You know, it's like they did not have that thing where, you know, because I was an actor for so long, all of my girlfriends were actors, and watching them have to pick up their kids and move to a different school system or try to get the school to give their kids like a special place where they would hold the place in the school so they could disrupt it. And you had one rootie much and you've kept that and so that's actually that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that. That's nurtured him. You made it as a group decision, a team decision, and that's allowed him to be the peacock that you said that he was and you got to be. That's interesting. And it's funny because if you ask each one of us, like he'll say, I made the sacrifice, right, He'll be like, oh, my wife made all the sacrifices. She was weathered in New York, she had the lion's share of the responsibility with the kids, blah blah blah. And I always say that he's made all the sacrifices because I know the personal cost that sometimes being away. I know what it's cost him. He is a protector. He is that guy that's on this. So having to go through all the ups and downs of you being in the spotlight, which is different than the spotlight he's been. And this is more consistent job right now, which is different than being in daytime television. That would make yourself conscious. It makes me self conscious like oppressed thing. Let's talk about this and like you try to quiet it all down, but by and large you've had a consistent you know, you've got a great run, I mean honestly. And then I do want to ask this really quickly. So your kids are tell me your kids and how old are they? So Michael's twenty three years old. He lives in Brooklyn. He graduated film school last year and you know he's working as a writer's assistant right now. And he was on March Show playing the younger version of March. Did that. It's kind of amazing because they really do resemble. It's I call it the family face. All of my kids, thank god, have the family face. They all look like Mark's family, like they all are. There's different versions of the same face, but it's the family face. So he played a very small role last year doing the same thing, and he loved it. He's not a trained actor. He didn't go to drama school. He went to school, you know, to be on the opposite side of the camera. But he worked so hard and he's again like we were talking about, he's on his own and so financially he's very mindful of exactly how many acting jobs he has to take so that he gets to be creative on the other side of the camera. And Lola's nineteen, she goes to Clive Davis at m y U. She wants to be a singer songwriter producer. So when all of her girlfriends wanted seventeen magazine and all of these Tiger Beat and all of that, she asked me for one magazine. I sent you a picture of it. At the time. We were in Tellierid, Colorado, and it was you on the cover of Forbes magazine. She said to me, Mommy, can you buy me this magazine? And I said, I said, you want you want this magazine? She goes, yeah, that's Bethany and I want that magazine of Bethany on the cover. And I was like, my kid wants Forbes. When she like made a decision to go into that, she goes, there's not enough women in producing records. She's like, there's not enough women in that industry. And I was like, that's that Forbes magazine. Goes back to being an eleven year old kid and seeing that magazine. I love that story. So then your third job, Michael, Lola and Joaquin is eighteen years old and he's going to University of Michigan in the fall, and I'm going to be an empty nester me Lena and Showey. I want to tell you, I'm really it's I hate to say this in some ways because it sounds like kind of studying, but I'm proud of you. It's an amazing story. You deserve all of the success that you have. This is the longest podcast I've done because I could not stop, and I enjoyed it so much, Like I just I could have gone on for so long. So I and your time, as we know it is so valuable. So I appreciate the side of you and the stories and the humanity. I want you to know I'm proud of you and I'm happy for you. You deserve the success and the amount of work you do for people in underserved communities. I don't think it can be stated enough. And I think that it was your early struggles in your life that has filled you with so much humanity. And I don't think it gets called out enough. I don't think it gets shouted out enough. But there are very few people in your position, and you lead by example. When there is a crisis. You are the first person on the scene. You are there and you're doing all of this other stuff that is your like brain that is a time management expert. But you have not lost your humanity and your empathy. I've never cried on this podcast ever. Once I just was crying. You know that Rihanna song Umbrella. That's who you are, and you're like, you're good for the sisterhood. You really are. Well, it's good for women to hear. Just when listening to everything you've done, and sometimes I think about what I've done. We accomplished so much. We're very strong, and I just have to say for everyone listening that I've run into Kelly years before when I was nobody and I was broken. I ran and turned the back of a restaurant and you were so sweet. And I always remember with the people that were nice to me before, because that's the whole thing, like, who's not gonna be nice to you once you're successful. You've always been a doll, and you're so sweet and such a good person, and I'm just so happy for you. Say hello to your family. I'll text you later. You're amazing and thank you for this, Thank you, appreciate it, Thank you. Bye. I mean, I just don't like to choose favorites. That was my favor writ podcast interview. I never cried before. I have never been exasperated where I'm just worried that we're forty minutes into it and I still have the questions that I wanted to ask because we're just going on and it was so real and she's so busy and so humble and so grounded and understand that's who she is where she comes from. She cares about so many issues. She makes me sometimes feel like I don't know what's going on because she knows about everything and she cares about everything, and and this is true because I text her. But again, this is, you know, talking to people that I already know. But I didn't know any of that. I didn't know if grandmother graduated high school at fifty, and I didn't really realize that Kelly didn't go to college. I mean, this is the thing. You just take from all of this and use it however however you will. If you get one little nugget about someone's life or their relationship, or their business, or their attitude or their experiences, or their humor or their vanity or their lack there of whatever it is. Just take, take whatever you like and throw away the rest. Kelly's amazed. I'm so grateful and I'm so humbled and honored when i have these amazing, successful people on here that give me the time, that give you the time, give us the time. So thank you for listening. Remember to rate, review, and subscribe, and have a wonderful day. Just Be is hosted and executive produced by me Bethany Frankel. Just Be as a production of Be Real Productions and I Heart Radio. Our Managing Producer is Fiona Smith and our producer is Stephanie Stender. Our EP is Morgan Leavoy. To catch more moments from the show, follow us on Instagram and just Be with Bethany